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Kelb_Panthera
2010-11-30, 12:57 PM
I'm teaching a new player in D&D 3.5 and I encourage my players to plan their character's progression ahead. She's starting as a 5th level Aasimar wildshape ranger and wants to focus on her eagle animal companion. Anyone got any suggestions on what feats/PrC's she could take to ramp-up the power of her eagle? Beastmaster is obvious, as are companion spellbond and natural bond; but past those I'm drawing a blank.

BooNL
2010-11-30, 01:04 PM
Remember to only take 1 level of Beastmaster, more isn't worth it.

If she's looking to invest in a bigger eagle along the way or wildshape into something smaller so she can ride her companion, you could look at the standard Supermount builds and power down from there.

Personally I like Wild Plains Outrider and Cavalier. They add nice bonusses to mounts while progressing martial abilities. Though I'm not sure if Cavalier progresses animal companions as well...

Sir Swindle89
2010-11-30, 01:05 PM
If he's riding it theres the mounted combat thing to negate a hit. Otherwise you want to get good buff spells, and pick up some feats that help with flanking and such.

You could also have him cross class to get those feats that combine animal conpanion and pally mount, but i don't know how much that would help.

Yora
2010-11-30, 01:15 PM
When learning a new game, it's strongly adviced to play something simple. Nobody will benefit from it when a player is given a character to play, which she doesn not understand.

Kelb_Panthera
2010-11-30, 02:16 PM
She's got the basics down, now we're getting into multiclassing, LA, and PrC's. New is relative after all.

Yora
2010-11-30, 02:26 PM
Depends all on what you consider "familiar". I recommend my players to start at level 1 with LA +0 and stay single-class for their entire first campaign. :D

randomhero00
2010-11-30, 02:33 PM
IIRC there is a feat in BoEDs that lets you have a celestial templated animal companion.

Kelb_Panthera
2010-11-30, 03:41 PM
IIRC there is a feat in BoEDs that lets you have a celestial templated animal companion.

That sounds good. She's almost sickeningly NG. Leans a little toward CG. She hasn't picked her alignment yet, but I know she'll go with one or the other.

WeLoveFireballs
2010-11-30, 04:21 PM
I'm fairly certain that natural bond only increases your effective druid level to your HD. Magic items are always a good way to boost anything.

Kylarra
2010-11-30, 04:30 PM
If she really just wants to focus on her companion, then druid would probably be a better chassis to work from since she'd advance it at 1:1 instead of 1:2 ratio. It also has the advantage of not needing to worry about PrCing if you don't want to.

Greenish
2010-11-30, 04:58 PM
That sounds good. She's almost sickeningly NG. Leans a little toward CG. She hasn't picked her alignment yet, but I know she'll go with one or the other.Lion of Talisid (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20031004b) gets full AC advancement.