Crazy Cat Lady build?

[Oko and Qailee]

So, this is mostly for fun. I was thinking of doing a build that is:
Druid 1/ Ranger 4/ Beast master 10. With all my animal companions selected to be.... housecats. Beast master levels stack with both my ranger and druid companions and I can take natural bond to increase them all more. A friend recommended natural spellbond as well and animal cohort, this gives me 7 cats.

My big question is, excluding cheese, how can I get more cats? Is there another base class that gives an animal companion? I don't care too much for strength at this point, it's just funny to have so many kitties.

Edit: I can do leadership for cats maybe? but I'd rather not resort to leadership

[Arc_knight25]

You could just buy and train the cats. Not to hard to do with Handle Animal. Also once you get enough cats, they just make more cats, if ya know what I mean.

But of course your Druid and Ranger companions will be the heads of the litter.

[Sylthia]

You need to get the feat that lets you have proficiency with improvised weapons, I forget what it's called. House cats are tiny creatures, s being a thrown weapon isn't out of the question. In an urban environment, stray cats are an abundant resource, so you'll never run out of ammunition, and you can keep them in you handy haversack when you travel, just don't forget to leave it open, so they don't suffocate. House cats as a thrown weapon also have the returning property.

[Oko and Qailee]

House cats are tiny creatures, s being a thrown weapon isn't out of the question. .

Omg, I can't stop laughing at this. I'm at work too, I probably seem like an idiot.

[Fouredged Sword]

Handle animal can train normal cats.

A cat wouldn't be a horrid idea for a summon nature's ally 1 substitution (replace dire rat).

[Oko and Qailee]

You could just buy and train the cats. Not to hard to do with Handle Animal. Also once you get enough cats, they just make more cats, if ya know what I mean.

But of course your Druid and Ranger companions will be the heads of the litter.

Wont they die easy? I guess I could just have them fill my house and my animal companion ones be in charge and adventure with me

[Zubrowka74]

Do they get to make a charge attack when you throw them ? The bane of non-chicken-infested commoners.

[Oko and Qailee]

Do they get to make a charge attack when you throw them ? The bane of non-chicken-infested commoners.

I don't think it quite works that way, but they can full attack after I presume

[Zubrowka74]

I guess it all depends on what feat you can tack to them, if any.

[Oko and Qailee]

Maybe I should do Animal Lord - Catlord for the last 5 levels

[AWiz_Abroad]

You could also do some leadership stacking with Tibbits :)

[Oko and Qailee]

You could also do some leadership stacking with Tibbits :)

Or I can be a tibbit also :)

[Sponson]

Tibbit with a level in something that grants a cat familiar. And because Tibbits grant you feline as a language, you can actually speak with all your cats and look even crazier.

[Oko and Qailee]

Friend suggested:
1 lvl in Sorcerer for cat familiar
4 lvls in Paladin for some Cat mount.

I am a cat with an army of cats with a cat mount who throws cats.

[Zubrowka74]

This what a potential victim would look like :

http://i.cdn.turner.com/dr/teg/tsg/release/sites/default/files/imagecache/750x970/documents/chriskemp1.jpg

[sleepyphoenixx]

Initiate of Nature lets you command up to your HD in animals. That's an additional 2 cats per level.

[Sylthia]

This what a potential victim would look like :

http://i.cdn.turner.com/dr/teg/tsg/release/sites/default/files/imagecache/750x970/documents/chriskemp1.jpg

Is that photoshopped? It might just be the hair, but it makes him looks like he's got a huge forehead.

[Andvare]

Wont they die easy? I guess I could just have them fill my house and my animal companion ones be in charge and adventure with me

Cats breed fairly quickly, so just have some way to get them from your home/breeding pasture, and some kind of automatic feeder there. You also might want to have some kind of magic item with x uses per day of Zone of Sweet Air, kitty urine is not the best smell in the world.

I love the idea, and will probably steal it in the future.

[Drachasor]

Hmm, adjust the Animal Companion rules so that you have a Cat Swarm as your Companion.

You'd need to adjust the swarm rules a bit too, I think.

[Fouredged Sword]

Actually, you could train a cat swarm using handle animal. It wouldn't be weak ether.

[Drachasor]

It would be weak for an animal companion, I believe.

[Gerrtt]

You could tack on Wild Cohort and get another more than usually strong cat.

[Zubrowka74]

Is that photoshopped? It might just be the hair, but it makes him looks like he's got a huge forehead.

It's from "The Smoking Gun", a website dedicated to publishing mugshots since it's public in the US. I doubt this would be tricked out as it's an official police document but you never know.

[Fouredged Sword]

That, my friends, is the adult face of fetal alcohol syndrome.

It is not a nice disorder, and it is very real, very crippling disorder that sets may people down a path of metal impairment that commonly ends up in jail for minor crimes.

Do not drink while pregnant. Seriously, you will cripple your child's mental and emotional health for the rest of it's life.

[Zubrowka74]

And keep getting attacked by the Crazy Cat Lady.

[The Viscount]

If you go Thrallherd as a Tibbit, that adds a large number of cats.

[Oko and Qailee]

I love you guys so much. Me and my friends are laughing so hard. With leadership and spending all wealth I'm pretty sure it's on the order of millions of cats.

[Oko and Qailee]

It would be weak for an animal companion, I believe.

I mean, with just the ranger 4/druid 1/beastmaster 10 with natural bond your weakest cat is 15HD (the ranger one)

[Socratov]

ehm...

this thread leaves me in a near cat-atonic state. I'm not lion!

[ArqArturo]

The lady does not own the cats. It's the other way around.

See, these cats have a hivemind, and, they have gained levels in psion. And they're pretty evil, too.

[Gildedragon]

A cat alienist = crazy summoner of pseudonatural cats
"For I have seen beyond the gods and time, peered into the heart of the Far Realms and have seen its visage, and known its caustic radiance. It is a cat. A blind idiot cat, its claws rend at the tangled yarn we call cosmos, and, fickle, it plays with our all too mortal souls before discarding them, mauled, in the litter-box of the primeval chaos. Ia ia cat-hulhu!" Halgara the Mad Cat-Priestess of Greyhawk

[TheSunKing]

I mean, with just the ranger 4/druid 1/beastmaster 10 with natural bond your weakest cat is 15HD (the ranger one)

Sooo, I cannot figure out how the ranger cat ends up at 15HD.
Ranger AC levels =2, + 3 from the feat = 5, which grants +2 HD.
The beastmaster class doesn't say the levels stack for each instance of the ability, only the beastmaster's AC gets level stackage.

[zilonox]

The way I read it, all three classes stack to determine the HD of the animal companion, but with ranger at 1/2 level, druid at level, and beastmaster at level +3. Adding the feat would give:

(ranger 4)/2 + druid 1 + (beastmaster 10 + 3) + feat 3 = 19. Looking that up on the druid chart gives 12 bonus HD.


[...snip...]
Treat the beastmaster as a druid whose level is equal to the beastmaster's class level + 3.
[...snip...]
If a beastmaster already has an animal companion from another class, her beastmaster class levels stack with class levels from all other classes that grant an animal companion. For example, a 5th-level druid/2nd-level beastmaster would be treated as a 10th-level druid for the purpose of improving the statistics of her animal companion (and which alternative animal companions she could select).


The druid’s class levels stack with levels of any other classes that are entitled to an animal companion (such as the ranger) such for the purpose of determining the companion’s abilities and the alternative lists available to the character.


This ability functions like the druid ability of the same name (see page 35), except that the ranger's effective druid level is one-half his ranger level.


Add three to your effective druid level [...snip...] can never make your effective druid level exceed your character level.

[TheSunKing]

The druid’s class levels stack with levels of any other classes that are entitled to an animal companion (such as the ranger) such for the purpose of determining the companion’s abilities and the alternative lists available to the character.


Ah, see, I had gone to read the ranger rules but didn't think to read the Druid rules. You are correct as to the stackage.


The way I read it, all three classes stack to determine the HD of the animal companion, but with ranger at 1/2 level, druid at level, and beastmaster at level +3. Adding the feat would give:

(ranger 4)/2 + druid 1 + (beastmaster 10 + 3) + feat 3 = 19. Looking that up on the druid chart gives 12 bonus HD.



The feat does explicitly say it can't make the effective level go above the characters actual level, so you'd be level 16 for the ranger pet.

Then I have another question: why wouldn't they all be at the lvl 16 mark? Since the ranger is treated as half level, it would grant only +2 to the other class's pets?

Thank you for answering my first question. My girlfriend will be ecstatic the levels stack favorably :P

[zilonox]

The feat does explicitly say it can't make the effective level go above the characters actual level, so you'd be level 16 for the ranger pet.

Oops, you're right. I saw that but somehow read it as applying only to the druid class levels (and 1 + 3 would definitely be less than 16).

Again, the way I read things that character would only have one companion (from the Ranger class levels), maaaaaaybe two (another from the Druid levels). But to me, it seems the Beastmaster levels would only improve the pre-existing companions rather than granting another. I admit I could be completely wrong about this, however.

[Oko and Qailee]

Sooo, I cannot figure out how the ranger cat ends up at 15HD.
Ranger AC levels =2, + 3 from the feat = 5, which grants +2 HD.
The beastmaster class doesn't say the levels stack for each instance of the ability, only the beastmaster's AC gets level stackage.

Haha I'm horribly wrong.

Ranger is treated as a lvl 2 druid, lvl 5 druid with feat, beastmaster works with all animal companions, so you get lvl 15. Thats +10 HD.

I'm silly.

[Oko and Qailee]

Then I have another question: why wouldn't they all be at the lvl 16 mark? Since the ranger is treated as half level, it would grant only +2 to the other class's pets?


IMO it works like this:

Druid and Ranger don't stack because they don't say they do as well as the additional AC's gained via beastmaster.

Beastmaster states it improves already existing companions, so the Beastmasters levels get added to druid and Ranger.

The feat applies to all animal companions.

SO you have:
Ranger ACompanion = Ranger + feat + BM
Druid ACompanion = Druid + feat + BM
BM Companions = BM + feat

[morkendi]

When I read the tittle, I got the idea of a wiz or sorcerer who would polymorph enemies into cats and keep them as trophies. Once they are cats, handle animal would do.

[TheSunKing]

IMO it works like this:

Druid and Ranger don't stack because they don't say they do as well as the additional AC's gained via beastmaster.

Beastmaster states it improves already existing companions, so the Beastmasters levels get added to druid and Ranger.

The feat applies to all animal companions.

SO you have:
Ranger ACompanion = Ranger + feat + BM
Druid ACompanion = Druid + feat + BM
BM Companions = BM + feat

As zilonox pointed out earlier:

From the Druid's text: "The druid’s class levels stack with levels of any other classes that are entitled to an animal companion (such as the ranger) such for the purpose of determining the companion’s abilities and the alternative lists available to the character."

Druid and ranger do stack. BM also specifically says count all other levels for the companion it grants.

Therefor, all animals you have should be at "Druid" level 16 (Druid1 + Ranger2 + BM10+3)

I doubt the feat could be used in your example for the ranger anyway, since Ranger2+BM(10+3)=15, and the feat doesn't increase your "Druid" level higher than your actual level (something that the BM ability will do).

[lunar2]

but you always apply bonuses in the most beneficial order. you apply the feat before the PRC, so you can go above your actual level, because it's not the feat taking you over.

[Vaz]

Become a Necromancer with corpsecrafting feats, then proceed to reanimate the dead ones then have them run/thrown at the enemy which then explode.

[Talderas]

A cat alienist = crazy summoner of pseudonatural cats
"For I have seen beyond the gods and time, peered into the heart of the Far Realms and have seen its visage, and known its caustic radiance. It is a cat. A blind idiot cat, its claws rend at the tangled yarn we call cosmos, and, fickle, it plays with our all too mortal souls before discarding them, mauled, in the litter-box of the primeval chaos. Ia ia cat-hulhu!" Halgara the Mad Cat-Priestess of Greyhawk

Burlew told you the identity of the Snarl from the OotS comic too?

[TheSunKing]

So this is both something that may help the Cat build, and is a question I have:

Lets say you are Druid 1/ Wilderness Companion Sorcerer 1 / Wilderness Companion Wizard 1 / Ranger 4 / Beastmaster 10 / Prestige Ranger 4

(Wilderness Companion variant trades the familiar for an animal companion at half of the level the class that grants it.)

I want to know what the effective "druid" level is for each of the pets you would get. I believe one of the following to be correct, so please tell me which is:

Method 1:

Druid/PRanger Pets:
Druid states that its pet stacks levels with other classes that grant Animal companion, so Druid1+Sorcerer1+Wizard1+Ranger4+Beastmaster10+PRa nger4=20.

Ranger Pet:
Ranger is halved, so total 18.

Sorcerer/Wizard Pets:
While these are at half for their respective classes, they start as being level 1, so both are 20.

Beastmaster Pets:
The primary one stacks all levels +3, so 23.
Secondary does not get the +3, but instead gets -3, so 17.
(etc for the Beastmaster Pets)


Method 2:
-Druid grants 1 level
-Sorcerer and Wizard grant 1 level each (even though they are halved, since when taking 1 level in that class you have to be at least at 1st level for animal companionship)
-Ranger grants 2 levels (since it is halved)
-PRanger grants 4 levels
-Beastmaster grants 13 levels (except for it's extra pets)
=This would be a total of 6 level 22 pets, with the secondary BM pet being 16, then lowering from there.

The primary difference in how I calculated each is as follows:
Method 1: "stack with levels of any other classes that are entitled to an animal companion" is king here. If a class grants something odd (like ranger's levels being halved or the +3 from Beastmaster) that is specific to that class's pet.
Method 2: Each class grants total levels equal to what it is naturally. So Ranger only grants +2, beastmaster grants +13, except on it's extra pets which have a special clause to them.

I'm interested in which one is correct, and an explanation as to why you say that one is correct.




Unrelated note:
The Animal Friends feat grants animals of 2 HD as friends (but for some reason is only for Gnomes)

[drack]

If you can use 3.0:
http://dndtools.eu/feats/masters-of-the-wild-a-guidebook-to-barbarians-druids-and-rangers--44/animal-control--74/

[The Ravensong]

Become a Necromancer with corpsecrafting feats, then proceed to reanimate the dead ones then have them run/thrown at the enemy which then explode.
Huzzah exploding zombie cat swarms!

[Emmerask]

Handle animal can train normal cats.

A cat wouldn't be a horrid idea for a summon nature's ally 1 substitution (replace dire rat).

In general cats have a much higher handle human skill then humans handle animal :smallwink: (ie cats train you not the other way round ^^)

[DementedFellow]

I've never played a ranger or a druid. Is it typical to choose an animal companion outside what is outlined in the SRD? Does it require a feat to do so?

[ArqArturo]

Kitten swarm with hivemind rules (BoVD) with levels of druid and planar shepherd?.

[The Viscount]

I've never played a ranger or a druid. Is it typical to choose an animal companion outside what is outlined in the SRD? Does it require a feat to do so?

Not usually, no. Several books have introduced alternative animal companions. I'm sure there's a master list somewhere. As for getting a cat, the cityscape web enhancement (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20070228a) has urban companion so you can get a cat.

[EvilJames]

The druid ranger and first BM companion all stack but later BM companions don't stack with ranger or druid and sadly Natural bond can only be applied to one companion if you have more than one.:smallfrown:

[Bonzai]

If you can, take a two level dip into Totemist, and get the share soulmeld feat. Then bind something like Sphinx or Kruthic claws to you totem chakra (They all get 1d8 claw attacks with an enhancement to attack and damage rolls equal to essentia invested, or bonuses to hide and move silently and 1d6 claw attacks with 1d4 acid damage). I had an NPC do a similar build, and he flew around with all his bird animal companions, and would pepper the party with a hail of Manticore spines from the manticore belt. I had 5 familiars (didn't think about taking ranger), with 7 essential invested into the manticore belt (4 base, improved totem chakra +1, expanded soulmeld capacity, incarnum focus item). That was a potential 42d6 damage a round.

I may steal this idea, lol. A vow of poverty (donates all money to cat related charities and shelters), vow of chastity (she is a scary cat lady after all), vow of obedience (to her cats of course), intuitive attack feet (just because). A friend of mine had an insane cat animal companion way back when. I'll have to get that from him.

[Gildedragon]

Burlew told you the identity of the Snarl from the OotS comic too?

I read the texts and saw abominable truth scribed within. The secrets of the dread Nekonomicon have rent the curtain, as a KITTEN climbing up it. Apocalypse and revelation. Seen between cerulean containers of Atun fish it asks for Tchiz Bu Rgha. The million fuzzy whiskers! Their blind gaze is upon us! Hear the purr of the last days!
-Halgara the Mad Cat-Priestess of Greyhawk

[Oko and Qailee]

I've never played a ranger or a druid. Is it typical to choose an animal companion outside what is outlined in the SRD? Does it require a feat to do so?

TBH normally a cat isn't on the Druid companion list, though it is on the Urban Druid list (if I'm not mistaken), but I really doubt any DM will object you having a cat animal companion, as they're significantly weaker than other companion alternatives.