Animal companion builds?

[Jumpem]

I know very little about this game. I read that some classes can have companions. Is there more information about this?

[papiko]

Originally posted by thainen:

By the way, your animal companion's Strength is counted when the game calculates your party's maximum encumbrance =)

nice :)

[Zautos]

what feats do they get?

do a leopard get combat reflexes?

[Edge]

I'd love to know what feats they get, too, please.

[Edge]

Okay, a couple of tests:
Level 11 character, boon companion, 8 levels of animal companion class.
All the Animal Companions tested got to level 9.
Inquisitor, Sorcerer, or Barbarian seemed to make no difference to animal stats other than shared teamwork feats. You might think druid was the obvious test, but somehow i missed it.

Smilodon, dog, mastodon, lizard: (probably in order )
Dodge, Power Attack, Toughness, Weapon Focus (claw for smilodon).

Leopard:
Dodge, Power attack (disabled), weapon finesse, toughness, weapon focus (claw)

Leopard had the best +hit at 14/15, Smilodon worst at 12/13.
Dog and Mastodon had the best CMB at 17, Leopard worst at 13

Dog had the highest single hit damage, due to a strength bonus of +19.
Dog +19
Lizard +17
Mastodon +14
Smilodon +13
Leopard +8

Inquisitor:
The ability that shares your teamwork feats, does NOT seem to give Coordinated Maneuvers.
Other teamwork feats show up in your animal companion's stats, but not Coordinated Maneuvers. At very least there is a bug in the information given.
I haven't tried tandem trip feat yet, too difficult from where i was testing, but i tried most.

Barbarian (mad dog):
Ferocious Fetch has NOT made Improved Trip show up in the lizard's feats. I only tried lizard with barbarian.

[wulfster42]

Animal companions CAN be buffed though, and get quite decent stats with buffs. Mage armor is a pure buff to their AC for instance, bulls strength boosts their strength and damage (also think it boosts their trip chance). I have in general liked the dog companion the most. It does good damage, has semi-decent base AC, and well....it's a doggo!!!

I generally like the champion clerics the best, but you need some arcane spell casters (so sylvian sorcs) as well. The clerics can get fully leveled animal compaions but still get level 9 cleric spells and greater weapon spec (I like to go with bows since my animal companions handle the melee just fine).

Didn't like the mad dog barbarian much at all. The Sylvian sorcs though (even with meta-magic feats etc now working right) are awesome. Wish there was a good class with trickery bonuses etc that I could take and get a companion. I guess I coudl multiclass though in some class without it and use boon companion to get the level up.

Anyway as was mentioned you can't control the feats they get, but....you can buff them to the gills!! And as a bonus, many of the classes that get spell buffs......get animal companions!!!

[wulfster42]

You can get a summon trickery bonus setup actually, I didn't notice you can snag Trickery domain and get that as a class skill. As a cleric (champion) you can't do that AND get animal domain, so you either have to go normal cleric and get both (but that drastically reduces your damage), or ditch the animal companion (which ditches your meat shields!).

The other option is to just go with an inquisitor, who can get both, and gets longbow proficiency automatically. You still get WAY less damage then a champion cleric sadly (no weapon spec/greater weapon spec) and way less spells, but you actually do get free teamwork feats, and they work for your animal companion as well. I have not tried this, but.....it might be worth having an inquisitor instead of a bard if you want the full 6 animal companions.

Then going something like:

3 Champion Clerics (animal domain) (Dex/wis Asimar) Bow specialized
2 Sylvian Sorcs (xbows, buffs and evocation specialized once the feats work)
1 Companion inquisitor (forget it's name).

Hard part in all that above is choosing which is your main. Honestly I kinda think going with a Sorc so you have a high persasion makes the most sense and he'll be your highest level out of the gate.

You could go with inqusitor though, which would give you the highest Trickery initially instead, and most of the game any companions persuasion will work (and as a trickery domain you have ALL the skills as class skills, so you can get a decent persuasion as well to start..then just don't put other points into it).

Oh well, I really think 6 of em is over kill 5 already totally fills the front line defensively, and it's alot of buffing especially early on when they don't last that long.

[Zerathule]

Originally posted by wulfster42:

You can get a summon trickery bonus setup actually, I didn't notice you can snag Trickery domain and get that as a class skill. As a cleric (champion) you can't do that AND get animal domain, so you either have to go normal cleric and get both (but that drastically reduces your damage), or ditch the animal companion (which ditches your meat shields!).

The other option is to just go with an inquisitor, who can get both, and gets longbow proficiency automatically. You still get WAY less damage then a champion cleric sadly (no weapon spec/greater weapon spec) and way less spells, but you actually do get free teamwork feats, and they work for your animal companion as well. I have not tried this, but.....it might be worth having an inquisitor instead of a bard if you want the full 6 animal companions.

Then going something like:

3 Champion Clerics (animal domain) (Dex/wis Asimar) Bow specialized
2 Sylvian Sorcs (xbows, buffs and evocation specialized once the feats work)
1 Companion inquisitor (forget it's name).

Hard part in all that above is choosing which is your main. Honestly I kinda think going with a Sorc so you have a high persasion makes the most sense and he'll be your highest level out of the gate.

You could go with inqusitor though, which would give you the highest Trickery initially instead, and most of the game any companions persuasion will work (and as a trickery domain you have ALL the skills as class skills, so you can get a decent persuasion as well to start..then just don't put other points into it).

Oh well, I really think 6 of em is over kill 5 already totally fills the front line defensively, and it's alot of buffing especially early on when they don't last that long.

You should have a bard in there with a group full of archers and ACs, this means insane amount of attacks, the bard would 1) Haste 2) Inspire courage.
Maybe choose Thundercaller, as it's imho a great archetype.

[Edge]

More testing:
Following the progression above where at level 11 your AnC is level 9, At level 20, they are 16. I don't know why this is.
They do not get any more feats. Not even weapon focus bite after already having claw.

Expanding on the above numbers:
Leopard gained an extra +9 hit between lvl 9(11) and 16(20), taking it to +23/24 and an extra +3 damage.
The Leopard's Armour Class was 34 at 9, up to 49 at lvl 16, which is really quite impressive. It had 248 hp, up from 113.

A Dog went to Armour Class 46, 264 HP, hit of +21, on an attack of d8 +27, +8 more than at lvl 9.
I added boon companion to see if it would do anything, no, it still stopped at lvl 16.



Mad Dog Barbarian would get a few nice bits, if they worked: 30' Reckless Stance Aura, Improved Trip, and shared damage reduction to 10/-. However, Improved Trip doesn't show up, and only DR 1 (tested dog and leopard). Oddly, the regular trip feat showed up briefly around level ten, and disappeared again around level 12.
You can think of the Mad Dog as just another animal companion you can put gear on.

[Torbaal]

Does anyone know if the feat of Inquisitor tactician that allows you to give teamwork feats to your allies works for animal companions too ?

[Torbaal]

A small bump to this thread as the forum is very active :)

[CrazyOdd]

Originally posted by wulfster42:

3 Champion Clerics (animal domain) (Dex/wis Asimar) Bow specialized
2 Sylvian Sorcs (xbows, buffs and evocation specialized once the feats work)
1 Companion inquisitor (forget it's name).

Can I make the companions into those classes or do I need to hire people?

[Edge]

Originally posted by CrazyOdd:

Originally posted by wulfster42:

3 Champion Clerics (animal domain) (Dex/wis Asimar) Bow specialized
2 Sylvian Sorcs (xbows, buffs and evocation specialized once the feats work)
1 Companion inquisitor (forget it's name).

Can I make the companions into those classes or do I need to hire people?

You could use decent charisma companions as Sylvan Sorcerers or Fey Druids, Wisdom companions as Druid or Inquisitor, and physical companions as a Mad Dog Barbarian. You will want the boon companion feat. They won't be as powerful as mercenaries, and may be somewhat against their stories.
Jaethal is already the wrong sort of inquisitor, and Amiri the wrong sort of Barbarian. I don't know if there's thrown weapons implemented for the MD Barbarian.

If you change a companion to Ranger, or an animal domain Cleric, even taking the boon companion feat, you will miss out on one or more pet levels.

Originally posted by Torbaal:

Does anyone know if the feat of Inquisitor tactician that allows you to give teamwork feats to your allies works for animal companions too ?

As i read how it's supposed to work, one inquisitor has an ability that gives their teamwork feats to their summons and only their summons. The other has the same for only their animal companion.
They also have an ability "Solo Tactics" that gives the inquisitor the bonus of any of their own teamwork feats, for having anyone qualify, not just someone who also has the feat. I would love it if the animal companions and summons got this too, but it doesn't show up as the animals having it.
Checking how, or if, any of this is actually working, is much harder.

Personally i'd love an (almost) all inquisitor party, especially if tandem trip worked, and pets/summons got Solo Tactics.
We would all have stealth, so no-one would expect us.

[CrazyOdd]

Originally posted by Edge:

Dog had the highest single hit damage, due to a strength bonus of +19.
Dog +19
Lizard +17
Mastodon +14
Smilodon +13
Leopard +8

Dont Leopard use DEX for dmg?

[Edge]

Originally posted by CrazyOdd:

Originally posted by Edge:

Dog had the highest single hit damage, due to a strength bonus of +19.
Dog +19
Lizard +17
Mastodon +14
Smilodon +13
Leopard +8

Dont Leopard use DEX for dmg?

Yep. That was a list of their damage bonuses, not their strength bonuses. Dog and lizard seems to get 1½ Strength on their single attack.

Enlarging a Leopard will probably not buff them, except perhaps chance to trip.

[CrazyOdd]

So dog is the best, overall?