Companions & NPCs

GM Reference

There are several ways for a PC to gain the assistance of a companion — an animal companion, a cohort, an eidolon, a familiar, or a hired associate. The combat advantages of controlling a second creature are obvious, but having a companion also has drawbacks and requires an understanding of both the player's role and the GM's in determining the creature's actions. This section addresses common issues for companions and the characters who use them.

Controlling Companions

How a companion works depends on the campaign as well as the companion's nature, intelligence, and abilities. In some cases the rules do not specify whether the player or the GM controls the companion. If the player is entirely in control, the companion acts like a subsidiary PC. If the GM is in control, the player can make suggestions or attempt to influence the companion, but the GM determines whether the creature is willing or able to comply.

Aspects of Control

Whether the player or the GM controls a companion depends largely on the creature's intelligence and level of independence.

Nonsentient Companions GM-controlled

Animal-level intelligence — loyal like a well-trained dog but limited by their intelligence. They cannot make altruistic moral decisions. Animal companions, cavalier mounts, and purchased creatures (horses, guard dogs) fall here. Directed using Handle Animal; specific behaviour is up to the GM.

Sentient Companions Player-controlled

Intelligence 3+ and able to understand language — considered an ally. Won't blindly follow a suicidal order but has the PC's interests at heart. Paladin bonded mounts, familiars, and cohorts fall here.

Eidolons Player-controlled

Intelligent entities magically bound to the summoner. Inclined to obey unless commanded out of spite or to suffer needlessly. The GM can have an eidolon refuse extreme orders; it would save a child from a burning building but would not stand in a bonfire just because the summoner said to.

Magical Control Varies

Charm person, dominate person, and similar effects. Charmed targets treat the PC as a friend but still judge requests as reasonable or not — Diplomacy or Intimidate may be needed. Dominated targets are more puppet-like; treat as player-controlled with the GM adjudicating saves against inappropriate commands.

Common Exceptions

Some companions sit outside these categories: a hired guard who lacks exceptional loyalty, a called outsider (planar ally) who agrees to a specific service but retains self-preservation, or a weaker minion with limited adventuring ability. Use Bluff, Diplomacy, and Intimidate to influence these companions; the GM is the final arbiter of their actions.

Before a character is created with a companion, the GM should clarify to everyone how much influence the player and the GM each have over the creature's actions. Campaign tone matters: a gritty campaign may restrict animal companions to realistic behaviour, while a high-fantasy game may treat familiars as near-PCs.

Issues of Control

Several factors affect how companion control is balanced at the table.

GM-controlled companions are one more complex thing for the GM to manage in combat — tracking tactics, motivations, and knowledge separation (the cohort shouldn't benefit from the GM's monster knowledge). Giving players control with a GM veto alleviates this burden.

Conversely, full player control over two characters can cause choice paralysis and slow the game. If this is a problem, the GM can suggest another player co-runs the companion, or the player replaces the companion with an equivalent solo benefit (different feat in place of Leadership, domain instead of a druid animal companion, etc.).

Allowing direct player control has mechanical ripple effects. A druid with full control over an animal companion has no reason to invest ranks in Handle Animal, freeing skill points for Perception. A wizard whose guard dog attacks without a Handle Animal check has a free-action minion every round.

With intelligent companions such as cohorts, full player control means effectively taking two turns per round. The GM can create middle ground — requiring Handle Animal ranks without requiring checks, or reducing the action cost to command an animal — but these decisions should be settled before play begins.

Most companions are limited to what they can observe with their own senses. A wizard using see invisibility cannot simply direct his guard dog to attack an invisible rogue — the dog must use the seek command in the general area, and cannot use the attack command against a target it cannot perceive as an apparent enemy.

Allowing companions to act on the PC's knowledge devalues special abilities like a familiar's empathic link or an eidolon's bond senses. Intelligent companions using speech can bypass some of these limitations — telling a cohort "there's an invisible rogue in the corner" is entirely legitimate.

Advancing Companions

Animal companions, eidolons, and cohorts all advance much like PCs — making choices about feats, skills, special abilities, and (for cohorts) class levels. Whoever controls the companion's actions generally also makes advancement decisions, though the GM retains a say on appropriateness.

Advancement choices include feats, skills, ability score increases, and tricks.

Feats: With Intelligence 2 or lower the animal is limited to the Animal Feats list — you choose which feats it learns, subject to GM approval. At Intelligence 3+ it can select any feat it qualifies for, though it may have its own ideas about what it wants to learn.

Skills: You choose skills from the Animal Skills list, subject to GM approval. At Intelligence 3+ any skill is available, though physical limitations still apply (a dog cannot create disguises; an elephant cannot use Ride).

Ability Scores: Physical score increases (Strength, Dexterity, Constitution) are straightforward to justify. Mental score increases are less intuitive but acceptable in a world where magic and animal speech exist.

Tricks: You are responsible for using Handle Animal to teach tricks, so you decide what the animal learns. You can hire an expert trainer or use the downtime system if you lack the ranks or time.

Advancement choices include feats, skills, ability score increases, and class levels. A cohort is generally player-controlled, so you make advancement decisions — but the GM steps in if choices are inappropriate, exploit the rules, or treat the cohort unfairly.

A cohort is a loyal ally and expects fair, generous treatment without aloofness, cruelty, or neglect in favour of other minions. His attitude is generally helpful and he complies with most requests without a skill check, except those against his nature or that put him in serious peril.

Leadership score risk: Exploiting your cohort shrinks your Leadership score. The cohort's level stays fixed, but he cannot gain further levels until your Leadership score would allow it. In extreme cases he may abandon you.

Examples of inappropriate advancement:

Good-aligned companion selecting morally questionable feats
Clumsy cohort suddenly maxing Disable Device to take all trap risk
Spellcaster cohort stacking item creation feats for cheap magic items
Fighter cohort multiclassing into wizard with no prior interest in magic

Before taking the Leadership feat, discuss the cohort's background, personality, and campaign role with the GM. Use the random background generator from Chapter 1 to fill in details, then write a biography and personality profile as a shared reference.

The eidolon is a unique companion — intelligent and loyal, but also entirely subject to your will. You can reshape its body with transmogrify, and though the eidolon technically gets a saving throw (Will negates, harmless) it is assumed to comply.

The eidolon cannot actually be killed while summoned; at worst, damage sends it back to its home plane. This means it is usually willing to take great risks — it would swim through acid to save you, knowing it will recover. Its very nature depends on your will.

You decide all advancement choices: feats, skill points, ability score increases, and evolutions.

Because a follower is much lower level than the PC, it is generally not worth tracking exact feats and skill ranks — they would be ineffective against opponents appropriate for the PC's level. Knowing name, gender, race, class, level, and profession is usually sufficient (e.g. "Lars, male human expert 1, sailor").

Since followers lack full stat blocks, advancement is normally irrelevant. If Leadership score improves, add new followers rather than advancing existing ones. If events require advancing a follower (such as replacing a dead cohort), use the cohort advancement guidelines.

Hirelings do not normally gain levels. In a kingdom-building campaign with heavily involved hireling NPCs, you may suggest advancement paths, but the final decision is always the GM's.

If you want control over a hireling's feats, skills, and class levels, select that hireling as a follower using the Leadership feat instead.

Common mounts purchased from a merchant (rather than class-feature mounts) do not normally advance.

If extraordinary circumstances merit a mount gaining Hit Dice, and you have Handle Animal ranks and take an active interest in its training, use the animal companion advancement guidelines.

Remembering Companions

Often a companion is forgotten when it's not actively needed — a familiar hiding in a backpack, an animal companion trailing silently, an eidolon used as a mount and otherwise ignored. Both the player and the GM need to remember that a companion is a creature, not a tool, and cannot simply be ignored.

Tips for Remembering Companions

Props. A miniature, token, stuffed animal, action figure, cardboard stand-up, or even a simple illustrated character sheet on the tabletop gives the companion a physical presence. When all the adventurers move forward and a lone miniature is left behind, it's impossible to ignore.

Another Player. If you regularly forget the companion and the GM is busy managing the rest of the game, another player — ideally one with an introverted or tactically efficient character — can take over playing the companion. Roll initiative separately for the companion so its turn is never skipped. This also creates natural roleplaying opportunities: dialogues between your character and a companion played by someone else feel more genuine than talking to yourself, and keep the companion from blindly doing whatever you say.

Companion Plot Hooks

A companion is an incredible opportunity for the GM to introduce plot elements beyond the obvious "the companion has been kidnapped!" The players know their characters' histories, but a companion is a mystery: What did it do before meeting the PC? What is its motivation? What are its goals? What does it do when the PC isn't around?

Animal Companion

Unless the druid raised the animal from birth, it has its own history and secrets. A wolf companion might have been saved by a famous ranger, fought in an orc tribe's arena, or escaped a wizard's experimental lab. Possibilities:

The animal recognizes an important NPC — a former owner, captor, or tormentor — and reacts visibly.
Behaviour quirks: the wolf refuses to let anyone touch the sleeping druid, even allies trying to wake her.
The companion was once a humanoid, cursed or polymorphed into animal form with its memory lost.
Another druid previously cast awaken on it, and it has been feigning ordinary animal intelligence to observe or protect the PC.

Animal companions also create social friction: most villages object to wolves, bears, lions, giant snakes, or dinosaurs in the town square; innkeepers refuse large animals in guest rooms; stables may refuse exotic creatures or lack appropriate feed. If livestock attacks are occurring, a carnivorous companion is an easy scapegoat. Conversely, children often have a circus-like fascination with exotic animals and can help break the ice between adventurers and suspicious locals.

Other Companion Types: The same approach applies to cohorts, eidolons, and familiars. Every companion has a history before meeting the PC — unresolved goals, old grudges, or hidden loyalties that the GM can use to drive side plots and personal adventures.

Reviving and Replacing Companions

Adventuring is dangerous, and companions sometimes die or are lost. A change in alignment or religion might drive away a cohort; an extended voyage in a hostile environment might prompt a druid to free a companion that would otherwise suffer (a polar bear in the desert); a ranger might discover a rare specimen and claim it to protect it from poachers. Whatever the cause, replacing a companion is an opportunity for roleplaying.

Reviving a Dead Companion

Lost companions can be restored with raise dead, resurrection, or true resurrection. For cohorts and followers with character levels, these spells impose negative levels — a worthwhile price compared to permanent death. Creatures without character levels (animal companions, familiars) count as 1st level for these spells and suffer Constitution drain instead of negative levels.

A nonsentient companion is assumed willing to return to life unless the PC was cruel to it or directly responsible for its death. In most cases the companion remembers its final moments and understands who brought it back — for a lower-level cohort or non-adventuring follower, that debt is profound and earns lasting respect. The GM can grant the "fairness and generosity" reputation bonus to Leadership as a result.

Reincarnate is an alternative but produces similar loyalty effects. For animal companions, the GM should create a random table of related creature types — a lion might return as a leopard, cheetah, or tiger.

Replacing rather than reviving a companion also creates story opportunities — finding a new animal in the wild, recruiting a new cohort, or negotiating a new outsider contract each provide natural adventure hooks and a chance for the PC to reflect on the bond that was lost.

Intelligent Animals

Raising an animal's Intelligence to 3 or higher means it is smart enough to understand a language — but unless an awaken spell is used, it does not automatically learn one. The animal must be taught over months, developing an understanding of words and sentences beyond its trained command responses.

Even if taught to understand a language, most animals lack the anatomy to speak. Dogs, elephants, and gorillas cannot produce humanoid speech, though they can develop a limited "vocabulary" of sounds to articulate concepts if working with a person who learns their meanings.

An intelligent animal is smart enough to use tools but may lack the ability to manipulate them. A crow could use simple lockpicks; a dog cannot. Even physically capable animals often prefer their natural body — an intelligent gorilla could wield a sword but its instinct is to slam. No feat training fully overrides that inclination.

Handle Animal still applies. Even at Intelligence 3+, you must still use Handle Animal to direct the animal — it is a smart animal, not a low-intelligence person. (Awaken is the exception: an awakened animal takes orders like a person.) The GM should use the animal's Intelligence to inform its responses — an intelligent wolf companion can select the weakest-looking target if directed; the same wolf trapped in a burning building might push open a door without being told.