Making a "Pokemon Trainer" Beastmaster

[Lord.Sorasen]

So, I'm about to be playing in a campaign where I am to be a paragon of evil (there's another party playing as paragons of good and we're going to meet at the end). However, this campaign will be ultra tongue and cheek, so I decided to make my character essentially Gary Oak. The dm has approved the idea, so now I need to come up with a build.

The idea is to have as many monster companions as I possibly can and use a bunch of them all the time. I want to do this without making any of my companions entirely worthless. The power level in this campaign is unknown: Most members are so new to the game that people become terribly overpowered and terribly underpowered by accident all the time. So don't worry about power level and just consider how things would work out.

My Plan:

Race: Human (I asked if I could change my size to become a child and be "small". The dm said yes but only if I take -2 str and -2 con. Way more negative than positive but he claims being a child should be weaker.)
Class: Druid 5/Beastmaster 7/Beastheart Adept 8

STATS (32 Point Buy)

Str: 6 (8 before racial mod)
Dex: 8
Con: 14 (16 before racial mod)
Int: 12
Wis: 13
Cha: 17

BUILD

Level 1 – Druid 1 (Companion Spellbound, Skill Focus : Handle Animal)
Level 3 – Druid 3 (Inspire Beast)
Level 6 – Druid 5/Beastmaster 1
Level 7 – Druid 5/Beastmaster 1/Beastheart Adept 1 (Animal Affinity)
Level 9 – Druid 5/Beastmaster 2/Beastheart Adept 2 (Initiative of Nature)
Level 12 – Druid 5/Beastmaster 4/Beastheart Adept 3 (Beast Totem : Chimera)
Level 15 – Druid 5/Beastmaster 5/Beastheart Adept 5 (Totem Companion : Chimera)
Level 18 – Druid 5/Beastmaster 7/Beastheart Adept 6 (Natural Bond)
Level 20 – Druid 5/Beastmaster 7/Beastheart Adept 8

And now the list of companions:

Level 1 –
Swindlespitter Dinosaur (Druid Level 1)
Level 6 –
Swindlespitter Dinosaur (Druid Level 9)
Level 7 –
Swindlespitter Dinosaur (Druid Level 9)
Owlbear (Beastheart Adept Level 1)
Level 12 –
Swindlespitter Dinosaur (Druid Level 12)
Owlbear (Beastheart Adept Level 3)
War Riding Dog (Druid Level 1)
Level 15 –
Chimera (Druid Level 1, LA +12)
Wyvern (Beast Heart Adept Level 1, LA +4)
Owlbear (Beast Heart Adept Level 1)
War Riding Dog (Druid Level 2)
Level 18 –
No idea what else to get by this point. I don't think I'll reach this point.


Thank you for cooperation, smell you later!

[Chess435]

Huh, I'm doing something similar using some homebrew and Pathfinder's Summoner class. Will be interested to see how this works out.

[Lord.Sorasen]

Oh! I forgot to mention: My other concern is that I will take up every square on the grid all the time and my turns will take hours. Would you absolutely hate being in a party with this character?

[SilverLeaf167]

I assume you'll only be using Wisdom to access Druid spells at all, using them for buffs and heals to represent "items" from the games? If you haven't considered that, you should. It would be fun. Another obvious thing would be literal Potions, of course...

[Hand_of_Vecna]

If you can get approval to use it the BESM d20 pet monster trainer is exactly Pokemaster genericised to avoid copyright infringement.

[Tvtyrant]

Not to be a downer but your companions are going to be fairly weak compared to the monsters they will be facing. You might be better off going Malconvoker and combining summons and Planar Binding for an army of monsters.

[CTrees]

See, for a Pokemon trainer type, I would've gone Malconvoker. "um, Gary... did your Pokemon just eat the soul of that Gnome Young Trainer ♂?"

EDIT: Darn work, getting in the way of posting my thoughts in a timely manner, leading to ultra-low speed swordsaging...

[Rickshaw]

as far as clogging the battle grid goes, don't pokemon trainers only ever have 1 pokemon out at a time? why not find some game mechanic/class that lets you capitalize on that?

[Divide by Zero]

as far as clogging the battle grid goes, don't pokemon trainers only ever have 1 pokemon out at a time? why not find some game mechanic/class that lets you capitalize on that?

Isn't there a feat or something that makes it so when you use a Summon spell for a particular creature, it summons the same individual every time? That might do it.

[TroubleBrewing]

It's actually a rules variant. UA has a lot of those, right along side the ACF's, optional rules, etc. It can get confusing.

[Zaq]

as far as clogging the battle grid goes, don't pokemon trainers only ever have 1 pokemon out at a time? why not find some game mechanic/class that lets you capitalize on that?

Technically, double battles have been around since Gen III, and nowadays there are even triple battles. (Plus rotation battles, which are bizarre and gimmicky but kinda fun.)

Either way.

[Lord.Sorasen]

Wait no. I have no intention of actually following every single pokemon trainer aspect. I simply want to envision the trope of a young child who fights primarily if not entirely through an animal friend. Digimon, Monster Rancher, Dragon Quest Monsters... I'm in no way going to have actual pokemon; I simply want to embody the idea that pokemon has made so very popular.

Malconvoker? I am definitely curious. My major problem with summoning is that I really would like a companion with me all the time, and want a companion with me right at level 1. I suppose having magic that I can use to buff my companions would be nice, but honestly I'd rather my character have very little power other than the plot armor (in the form of hp, etc) to resist being killed all the time and the bond between me and beasts incapable of speech.

Would there be any benefit to the UA variant for individual creature summon?

[riddles]

Wild cohort + druid + 1 level of beastmaster will give you 3 animal companions that will be level equivalent. Use these are your "fighty" companions. Alternately, 1 level of beast heart adept instead of beastmaster will give you a magical beast companion. I'd also advise a level of ranger in there for free track, skills and hp

Use the other animal companions for useful things like sneaking, spying, carrying etc.

[Edit] looking at beastmaster, it adds to druid level. So you could have one suped up companion and one standard companion from wild cohort. Or spend all your feats on natural bond to get all your companions comparable, which is not too efficient. Or you could take beast heart adept instead of beastmaster and use natural bond to keep your druid companion level up.

[Rei_Jin]

I'd look at using a Psion/Ectopic Adept with Astral Constructs. The Ectopic Form line of feats would be great fun to explore with a concept like this.

Agile Loper makes an Astral Construct that looks like a Centaur. It's fast, and would work well for the "Normal, speedy" sort of Pokemon.

Alabaster Aerial is your "flying" type

Amber Tunneller is your "ground" type

Anathemic Carapace constructs explode when they die. Explosion/Self Destruct anyone?

Astral Aquan is your "water" type

Ebony Stinger is your "bug" type

Emerald Gyre is your "fighter" type

Iridiscent Serpent is your "poison" type

I'm sure you could work with your DM to make more of these, if you're interested in the idea.


EDIT: On top of that, if you have the Boost Construct feat (EPH) you can give your creation more options to pick from when creating them. In essence, you'd be picking which attack or defense options you'd have from a menu, and that is incredibly pokemon-ish.

[Kittenwolf]

Just to throw more ideas into the works, why do all the work yourself? :)
http://www.scshop.com/~ritaxis/pokemaster.html

[riddles]

Fun fact about the wild cohort feat: when selecting alternative animal companions from the druid list (such as bear or dire wolf), for the purpose of access to these companions, treat yourself as a druid of 3 levels lower.

This means that you can't get a dire wolf until level 10. HOWEVER, there is no penalty to the advancement these creatures get. So at level 10, your dire wolf would get 5hd, 5na and 2 str/dex compared to the druid version which would get 2hd, 2na and 1 str/dex. Druids have natural bond and earlier access to make up for these shortfalls, but you're playing a pokemaster, not a druid.