Troll Lord Games

Needed stats for basic animals (badger, owl etc), where can one find these?

Not finding anything in M&T.

M&T: Bird of Prey
Classic Monsters and Treasure: Badger
Monsters and Treasure of Aihrde: Camel, Eagle, Fox, Hawk, Walrus, War Dog, etc.
Book of Familiars: Lots of animals, including above, but no owls.

Great! Thanks

Owls are birds of prey - so you can use those stats and adjust up or down depending on owl type.

Also, cats. wolves, snakes and dogs are in M&T.

Nice!
OK good to know!

The upcoming Mystical Companions (now shipping from TLG) has many, many stats for basic animals.

~O

Omote wrote:The upcoming Mystical Companions (now shipping from TLG) has many, many stats for basic animals.

~O

It has all of the same stuff as the Book of Familiars (in fact, the book itself is just a reprinting of the Book of Familiars).

Giant2005 wrote:

Omote wrote:The upcoming Mystical Companions (now shipping from TLG) has many, many stats for basic animals.

~O

It has all of the same stuff as the Book of Familiars (in fact, the book itself is just a reprinting of the Book of Familiars).

While it's true that Mystical Companions is a reprint of Book of Familiars, I took a look at a copy that TLG was displaying at GaryCon -- the new revision looks so much more awesome than the original. I'm not sure how many of the mechanical issues were resolved from this printing from the last, but it looks good. In fact, I'm going to throw away the old BoF right in the trash and use this one when I get a copy! I don't know if anything was added, but Mystical Companions looks bigger than the original. I wonder if TLG added anything.

~O

It is actually 16 pages shorter.
I haven't noticed any differences. Mystical Companions even refers to itself as "The Book of Familiars" on occasion due to the issues of copy/pasting. It just has the Advantages section taken out.
But you are right in that it is much more pleasing to the eye.

Thanks for the info Giant2005. If you happen to have a copy, can you tell if the font size is smaller in the new book versus the old one? The reason I ask is that I wanted to be a huge fan of the original BoF but wasn't. Not because the content was poor, but because TLG didn't properly convert it to C&C from the original manuscript which was clearly written for v3.5. A few minutes glancing over the hardcopy, it did look like there were some modifications to more properly convert the text to C&C. I really want to love the new book, but don't want to fall into a trap with this one.

~O

The font size seems to be able the same as the old book. The trade dress is exactly the same as used in the later books (the colored ones). Although I think the font does seem to be a little bigger than it is in my 5th printing PHB.

As for it being a proper conversion to the C&C system, you are out of luck. Nothing has been fixed - it is literally a copy/paste of The Book of Familiars. All of the issues regarding the lack of conversion in the BoF and present in Mystical Companions.

Another thing, for these rules omissions, I often just go to d20srd.org and look up the d20 version, as it's the basis for a lot of the game anyway: if you omit anything that has a term that C&C doesn't have you wind up with something that mostly works. I've just gotten used to using every PDF I own to make rulings and spackle over gaps. It's not ideal, but especially for online play it's quick to look up.

Aergraith wrote:Another thing, for these rules omissions, I often just go to d20srd.org and look up the d20 version, as it's the basis for a lot of the game anyway: if you omit anything that has a term that C&C doesn't have you wind up with something that mostly works. I've just gotten used to using every PDF I own to make rulings and spackle over gaps. It's not ideal, but especially for online play it's quick to look up.

You need to do more than that - it isn't just about the terms used, the system was balanced around 3rd edition DnD which is a much higher power leveled game than C&C.
You need to go across the board and tone pretty much everything down too. For example, you can give your Familiar upwards of 60+ AC which would absolutely break C&C. The Familiars in that system are many (at least 3) times more powerful than the character they are supposed to be serving.

I used the OSRIC stats for animals and monsters if i'm in a pinch, seems to work the best vs using 3rd ed stats. Plus they're online as well.
Quick AC convert and we're off and running.