usefulness of animal companions

[Osama bin Ali]

a variety of classes have a variation that gets an animal companion. are these generally worth it?

[Jaggid Edje]

So far they've seemed to me to be one of the more OP class options to get in the game.

The smiledon I got for Amiri by going into Sacred Huntsmaster instead of continuing her as barbarian has been consistently one of the most destructive members of the party, between getting five attacks per round and the pounce ability. It is also an amazing tank, with high inate AC and all the buffs I put on it.

I imagine it totally depends on which companion you choose though, as the wolf/dog that Ekun has isn't nearly as amazing. Though it's trip attack is useful.

[jonnin]

absolutely worth it. Esp if the party can buff them to insane levels.
The same can be said for summoned monsters too... you can sacrifice some defensive buffs and let them die, since they despawn so fast, and you don't have to heal them afterwards, but the pet ones are a little stronger (in the early levels for sure, later, not so much) and buffs last a long, long time after a few levels.

[Nikanuur]

Look, I know it can be considered a borderline on cheating, but I thought my Leopard deserved some levels in the rogue tree. Because you know, prowling, and he's got a nice +4 Tiara of Inteligence, and I would be a benevolent dungeon master after all...
So... Respecialisation mod from Nexus and Ignore Class Restriction are making the pouncing, triping, outflanking, combat-reflexes, sneak-attack debilitating Leopard with the ability to run down the whole screen without even stopping at mayhems of Grease spell in one turn a totally slick killing machine. Am I proud of it? No. Am I having lots of laughs and fun when I trip and maul to death massive animals, zombie golems, cyclops etc before or when they try to stand up? Definitely

[Jaggid Edje]

Originally posted by Nikanuur:

Look, I know it can be considered a borderline on cheating, but I thought my Leopard deserves some levels in the rogue tree. :

LOL, I wasn't aware you could use respec mod on animal companions. That's funny.

I just finished playing through the Varnhold lot DLC as a Feyspeaker Druid with a Leopard companion. It was total awesome even without rogue levels so I can just imagine the havoc it wreaks on enemies with them.

[InEffect]

Pets are awesome as free meatbags and pack mules. Other than that, it depends on the difficulty and how well is the party built. The higher the difficulty the worse pets get. The more scuffed your builds are - the better the pets seem in comparison. In a way pets are like sneak attack - hard to f it up, so newer players tend to think it's op. On unfair they have a tendency of getting otk-ed even with buffs past midgame, so it's balanced enough.

[Nikanuur]

Originally posted by Jaggid Edje:

Originally posted by Nikanuur:

Look, I know it can be considered a borderline on cheating, but I thought my Leopard deserves some levels in the rogue tree. :

LOL, I wasn't aware you could use respec mod on animal companions. That's funny.

I just finished playing through the Varnhold lot DLC as a Feyspeaker Druid with a Leopard companion. It was total awesome even without rogue levels so I can just imagine the havoc it wreaks on enemies with them.

Totally, his trip alone is beyond awsome. I mean, without Leopard being buffed in the CMD / Att it may not proc as much as one would like to see. But still, very cool. And his very high dexterity was more then once a life-savior against those touch attacks with negative level (buffed defenses and used as a tank against spectres and demons).

As for the Respecialisation mod - one cannot respec the animal itself. But when it is due a new level, you just need to turn on the Ignore Class Restriction option. Then you can choose whatever you wish - not just for Leopard. But I really used it just for this specifically and nowhere else. I advise against using it more then a little. It's easy to break the game like this, and with it the feeling of fun as a whole.
----
EDIT: When you respec the character the animal is adhered to, you get to level up the animal from the 1st level up as well ofc.

[Nikanuur]

Originally posted by InEffect:

Pets are awesome as free meatbags and pack mules. Other than that, it depends on the difficulty and how well is the party built. The higher the difficulty the worse pets get. The more scuffed your builds are - the better the pets seem in comparison. In a way pets are like sneak attack - hard to f it up, so newer players tend to think it's op. On unfair they have a tendency of getting otk-ed even with buffs past midgame, so it's balanced enough.

...didn't think of that. Good to know, thanks. I play on "a bit harder normal" i.e. no weaker crits, no weaker enemies.

Btw I myself so so reach first levels of imagination here. But consider this one guy on RPG Codex who told me about something I vaguely recall as a celestial flying poisonous blinking centipede or some such. And he's been using just WoTC - so no cheating, just an expansion of the game more conforming the P'n'P ruleset. I mean, try to imagine then what the pets can be about :D

[InEffect]

In pnp everything depends on how permissive the DM is. Like in 3.5 you could demand a divine miracle from your diety(my memory is kinda foggy on the specifics tbh). It was technically a thing, but GL finding a DM who would allow you to pretty much go planar traveling into planes with unlimited time and practically ascending to godhood at like level 9. In reality, most of the technically legal shenanigans will be promptly cut short at the planning stage.

Even something as simple as divination is usually either outright banned or nerfed into oblivion at most tables. The same often happens with flight.

[Fluffykeith]

"As for the Respecialisation mod - one cannot respec the animal itself. But when it is due a new level, you just need to turn on the Ignore Class Restriction option. Then you can choose whatever you wish - not just for Leopard."

Hang on...now I could totally be misunderstanding how this works, but in that case, if you can end up picking a class for the animal companion...could you make it a Mad Dog Barbarian :D? With its own animal companion?

cos that would be nuts.....

[Nikanuur]

Originally posted by Fluffykeith:

"As for the Respecialisation mod - one cannot respec the animal itself. But when it is due a new level, you just need to turn on the Ignore Class Restriction option. Then you can choose whatever you wish - not just for Leopard."

Hang on...now I could totally be misunderstanding how this works, but in that case, if you can end up picking a class for the animal companion...could you make it a Mad Dog Barbarian :D? With its own animal companion?

cos that would be nuts.....

Tested, works :D

Here, in the gloom of the dunky Vordekai's Tomb a PC Divine Hunter is chilling out with his Heal'n'Bless Disarming Mastodon Companion Animal/Divine Hunter, and Mastodon's Silver Draconic Line Magus/Animal Companion Centipede spouting some Shields, Enlarge Persons and various melee spells such as Corrosive Touch, and its always-hissing, war-raging Monitor Lizard Divine Commander/Animal companion with its nice'n'simple Giant Centipede Animal Companion buffed to the roof with a cape, tiara, belt and bracers.

https://i.ibb.co/7JCx32K/bbb.jpg

[Njorl]

They're useful.
Most of them eventually become large, though. If you come up with a group build that uses more than one you might want to stick with panthers, otherwise you get some poorly timed traffic jams.

[Fluffykeith]

Originally posted by Nikanuur:

Originally posted by Fluffykeith:

"As for the Respecialisation mod - one cannot respec the animal itself. But when it is due a new level, you just need to turn on the Ignore Class Restriction option. Then you can choose whatever you wish - not just for Leopard."

Hang on...now I could totally be misunderstanding how this works, but in that case, if you can end up picking a class for the animal companion...could you make it a Mad Dog Barbarian :D? With its own animal companion?

cos that would be nuts.....

Tested, works :D

Here, in the gloom of the dunky Vordekai's Tomb a PC Divine Hunter is chilling out with his Heal'n'Bless Disarming Mastodon Companion Animal/Divine Hunter, and Mastodon's Silver Draconic Line Magus/Animal Companion Centipede spouting some Shields, Enlarge Persons and various melee spells such as Corrosive Touch, and its always-hissing, war-raging Monitor Lizard Divine Commander/Animal companion with its nice'n'simple Giant Centipede Animal Companion buffed to the roof with a cape, tiara, belt and bracers.

https://i.ibb.co/7JCx32K/bbb.jpg

That's insane. And kinda awesome.

[Diomedes]

They are incredibly useful.. The first thing I do is split class Amiri into a inquistor of Gorn for a bear companion when I get her.

[jonnin]

After I don't know how many builds trying to perfect the DLC depths dungeon mode, the inquisitor monster tac with a pet from domain selection is on of the top OP builds I have made. It also has tons of skills, buffs and healing, its a all in one support team member.

[bullse]

Good early game.
OK mid-game
Crap (largely because of garbage Will saves) late game/endgame.