Need Moar Animals

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So I'm trying to be a one-man wolf pack through the druid shapeshift variant (applied to the ranger), and I was wondering if you guys could look through my build and give me advice on any options I might have. I'm starting at level 3, and I'm trying to get the build so that my animal companions don't fall off in power as I level up

The current set-up is Druid 1/ Bard 1 (animal companion ACF from UA) / Ranger 1 (wild shape/shape shift variant) / [Something Tanky] 3.

Druid nets me an animal companion, and bard gets me another. Feats are:

1. Wild Cohort
3. Natural Bond (bread and butter)
6. [Something Else]

As you can see, there's a lot of space to add things. My current problem is that when I take a class that isn't Druid or Bard, the respective animal companions will remain crappy while my wild cohort actually becomes better. My current solution for this is begging the DM to let me take Natural Bond over and over, but that's less than an ideal solution.

My alternative is getting an animal companion and giving it wild cohort, and having that animal companion get a wild cohort, etc in a leadership loop, but that rings alarm bells and also stops me from giving all my wolves awesome feats like Wolfpack or Gloom Razor.

Suggestions?

[Diovid]

One easy suggestion is going something like Ranger 9 / Beastmaster 1 / Animal Lord 10. Beastmaster and Animal Lord are both from Complete Adventurer. They do not advance spellcasting nor shapeshifting but this build does end up with an Effective Druid Level (for the purpose of the Animal Companion) of 4 (Ranger) + 4 (Beastmaster) + 3 (Natural Bond) + 10 (Animal Lord) = 21. Not only that but Animal Lord fits the flavor of a pack leader pretty well, they can become more wolf-like and summon wolves. If you go Ranger 6 / Beastmaster 4 / Animal Lord 10 instead, your Effective Druid Level would become 23 and you could get another wolf with an Effective Druid Level of 1.

[eggs]

Are Wild Empathy/Charm Animal too easy?

You can grab some companions that advance in level with your HD via familiars or urban companions (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20070228a). Tressym snakes from Serpent Kingdoms or various Improved Familiar options can advance very well. Certain PrCs like Holy Liberator and Blackguard also have companions that develop based on your character level rather than class levels (unless you can access advanced paladin mount options, these tend to be pretty bad, but they're dippable and they're there).

[Diovid]

Are Wild Empathy/Charm Animal too easy?

You can grab some companions that advance in level with your HD via familiars or urban companions (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20070228a). Tressym snakes from Serpent Kingdoms or various Improved Familiar options can advance very well. Certain PrCs like Holy Liberator and Blackguard also have companions that develop based on your character level rather than class levels (unless you can access advanced paladin mount options, these tend to be pretty bad, but they're dippable and they're there).
He's specifically looking for a one-man wolf pack though.

[eggs]

He's specifically looking for a one-man wolf pack though.
Literally?

I guess I wouldn't change many of those suggestions though, except to pick canines (eg. Winter Wolf improved familiar, Dire Wolf wild cohort, Wolf holy companion - or Dire Wolf if Paladin mount options are also fair game - and I think dog was made a valid Urban Companion by one of the early 3e Dragon magazines... #286?).

[nedz]

Doesn't Handle Animal allow you to raise three animals ?
You would need some downtime to do this however.

Also, can you not just buy some ?

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Doesn't Handle Animal allow you to raise three animals ?
You would need some downtime to do this however.

Also, can you not just buy some ?Using handle animal to train an animal is possible, but it's a very low-level tactic because the animals don't advance as I level up. I could be level 6 with three CR 2 wolves, but the only thing those would do is get underfoot.

Same problem with buying animals. I'm looking for builds that let me advance animal companions like crazy.

Diovid, thank you for the Beastmaster suggestion. That's kind of awesome.

[eggs]

On the Wild Empathy/Charm/Handle Animal/buying animals approach, Dire Wolves advance up to 18 HD, and Legendary Wolves go up to 30. You just have to find the tough ones. (And I doubt a GM would go out of the way to swat the idea down; there aren't a lot of quicker ways to say "easy plot hook.")

This might be a stupid question, but why not more Druid? Your build seems to be jumping through hoops to match the Druid's companion advancement, but without the animal buffs that make the Druid's companion really good. A Druid with the Initiate of Nature feat comes with a built-in wolf, the ability to command more wolves, to turn into a wolf, to summon more wolves, and the buffs to make all those wolves legitimately frightening.

[Just to Browse]

This might be a stupid question, but why not more Druid? Your build seems to be jumping through hoops to match the Druid's companion advancement, but without the animal buffs that make the Druid's companion really good. A Druid with the Initiate of Nature feat comes with a built-in wolf, the ability to command more wolves, to turn into a wolf, to summon more wolves, and the buffs to make all those wolves legitimately frightening.My goal wasn't just to match druid companions but to get multiple companions that matched the druid, and to do so in a way that didn't rely on me asking the DM for a plot hook.

That improved familiar thing actually looks really tempting.

[nedz]

Using handle animal to train an animal is possible, but it's a very low-level tactic because the animals don't advance as I level up. I could be level 6 with three CR 2 wolves, but the only thing those would do is get underfoot.

Not necessarily, check out this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=7097263&postcount=38) courtesy of sonofzeal.

[Slipperychicken]

Using handle animal to train an animal is possible, but it's a very low-level tactic because the animals don't advance as I level up. I could be level 6 with three CR 2 wolves, but the only thing those would do is get underfoot.


Just buy/train better animals as you level. Use a skill-pumping build like Bubs to rear nasty creatures very quickly, make the "Push" DC on a 1. Make your DM afraid to throw animal encounters at you, for fear of you hijacking them with Handle Animal. There are listed DCs for training non-animals (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/skills.htm#handleAnimal).

[Coidzor]

Last I checked that bard ACF and druid stacked for animal companion rather than having separate animal companions. You get that cleared with the DM?