Monster Tactician

[gaming monke]

So I'm playing as a summoner Monster Tactician, with Animal Domain for a Pet Companion on top of the summons. The thing is, for a Monster Tactician everything past level 17 isn't really that great, so I wanted to dip into another class for those last three levels.

Here is what I thought of doing, respecing and levelling Monster Tactician to level 17 as normal, but instead of taking Animal Domain, I'd take the Protection Domain for the active resistance buff, and for the last three levels of Monster Tactician I'd go into Druid or Mad Dog or whatever other class that has an animal companion (within three levels). Would this be viable? Or would it be better to just take the Animal Domain, and just use the last three levels for something else like Fighter?

I don't really understand how Pets level exactly, so would I by doing this my Pet Companion would be severely under-levelled?

[dwarfpcfan]

Go vivisectionist for the mutagen and sneak attack. Inq 17/Visisectionist 3. No downside and plenty of added utility for a few levels (shield spell, mutagen being the big ones)

[nshawmc]

if you use boon companion feat you can dip into up to 4 levels of a class without a pet and your pet will stay your level.

Some classes don't get pet right away, like hunters or anyone with pet domain to get their pet, so they need boon companion feat to make pet their level.

Mad Dog is a really good dip class and two levels gives you +2 flank attack. You don't get rage though until higher level. You may consider another barbarian for rage and get boon companion. 1 level fighter is often good for feat, heavy armor, martial weapons and dueling sword weapon focus feat if you go aldori defender. 2-3 levels rogue is good. thug gives you ability to sicken enemies or if you're using TWF knife master increases damage of daggers d6 to d8. Rogue is especially good if you need weapon finesse (level 1 rogue) or +dex to damage for a weapon (level 3 rogue) but if you are not dex based then alchemist vivisectionist is similar with sneak attack with extra self buffs.

Druids are casters so dip isn't so great. casters are best left at 19-20 levels. Sylvan Sorcerer wold be the same.

Monster tactician is one of the more OP classes in the game at this time i believe.

[Notabot187]

Pets are leveled based on the level of the class that gives them. Animal domain is a penalty, -3. If you take 3 levels of druid without animal domain on your 17 MonTac you will have the same pet as a level 3 druid. Boon Companion as a feat adds 4 levels to your pet so you would have a 7th level pet. Which is still worthless at level 20.

You can keep the animal domain, take boon companion, and add whatever 3 levels you want and your pet will be equal to a level 19 druid's.

[dwarner]

Originally posted by nshawmc:

if you use boon companion feat you can dip into up to 4 levels of a class without a pet and your pet will stay your level.

Some classes don't get pet right away, like hunters or anyone with pet domain to get their pet, so they need boon companion feat to make pet their level.

Mad Dog is a really good dip class and two levels gives you +2 flank attack. You don't get rage though until higher level. You may consider another barbarian for rage and get boon companion. 1 level fighter is often good for feat, heavy armor, martial weapons and dueling sword weapon focus feat if you go aldori defender. 2-3 levels rogue is good. thug gives you ability to sicken enemies or if you're using TWF knife master increases damage of daggers d6 to d8. Rogue is especially good if you need weapon finesse (level 1 rogue) or +dex to damage for a weapon (level 3 rogue) but if you are not dex based then alchemist vivisectionist is similar with sneak attack with extra self buffs.

Druids are casters so dip isn't so great. casters are best left at 19-20 levels. Sylvan Sorcerer wold be the same.

Monster tactician is one of the more OP classes in the game at this time i believe.

Pets only level 3 levels per four player levels. Don’t give advice if you don’t know what you’re talking about.

[GrandMajora]

I would not recommend getting another pet class at level 17, because the pet would be scaled to your Druid level, not your character level.

Boon Companion only increases the pet's level by 4, up to a maximum of your character level. So if you put 3 levels into Druid, and took Boon Companion, it would only be a level 7 pet, and would get absolutely decimated by anything you're fighting at level 17!

[Babbles]

Note that in the last 2 chapters your pets spend most of their time running away from spooky looking fey.

[jsaving]

It is not true that you don't get much from monster tactician after level 17. The extra caster levels and 6th level spells alone are probably more useful than any splash you could do at 18th level. But if you want to do a splash anyway, mad dog would probably be the best choice since you'd keep advancing your animal companion.