House Rules and Rulings

[thirdkingdom]

I offer a 5% XP bonus -- in addition to any bonus from high primary Ability scores -- for players that keep maps. Please note that XP will not be awarded for maps that are started and not completed, or for encounters/adventures that do not require mapping.

I also offer a 5% XP bonus, as above, to players who do a substantial amount of the busy work -- keeping a current calendar or index, figuring out treasure distribution, etc. Refer to the following link viewtopic.php?f=70&t=1285 for an example of this.

[thirdkingdom]

From the Autarch forums, on the subject of henchpets:

1) Like any henchman, an animal henchman can level up through adventuring. Leveling would increase its HD. You can use the rules under Reincarnation spell or Transformations on pg252. It's 3,000xp + 500xp per special ability for a 1HD monster to advance to 2HD, doubling with each HD. For instance, a Panther (4HD) would require (3000x2x2x2) 24,000xp to get to 5HD. HD would be limited by the adventurer's own Level in most cases.
This allows the PC to develop legendary pets/sidekicks over time. If that is too fantastical for your particular campaign, of course, you can rule that animals can't advance in HD, or put a limit on their advancement in some manner.
2) A wardog, not being a henchman, would not be entitled to a share of XP and would not level up. Also, its morale would not benefit from the character's CHA bonus, if any.
3) There's no hard and fast rule on how many wardogs a character can lead around. As a rule of thumb, you could say that a character with Animal Training or related proficiency can handle the same number of animals as he can have Henchman (e.g. 4+CHA modifier). For each additional rank of Animal Training add 1 animal. If the character doesn't have Animal Training, he can only handle 1 animal, and it has to have been trained already.