Monster Tamer Build

[prufock]

The title of this thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=301100) (thread content not really related) got me thinking: how would you build a character who, instead of killing monsters, defeats and captures them, and trains them to be his traveling menagerie? The monsters he captures would be low-Int, not humanoid, generally nothing that has a level adjustment (ie not suitable for player characters). As you progress in level, you build up your stable into a monstrous army.

I'm thinking druid would be the right place to start: animal companion, handle animal, wild empathy, all the right spells. Beastmaster for more animals. Wild Cohort can give you another animal pet. However I don't want just animals, I want this to apply to monsters of all types.

Leadership can let you take some monsters as cohorts (not really clear on if this can be used for monster followers as well).

Ideas?

[Segev]

You're largely restricted to animals and magical beasts, anyway, when you try to stick to "low-int" creatures, so Handle Animal goes a long, long way. There are a few Dragon Type creatures that would fit, and you'd need Diplomacy for them, but you could probably find or home-brew a feat that would let you expand Handle Animal to any 1-2 int creature.

I'd actually advocate for the psionic power Telempathic Projection; it explicitly shifts their attitude one stage positive for you, so you can immediately turn something Hostile into something merely Unfriendly, which is probably enough to begin making Handle Animal checks to tame it.

Psionic Charm, by level 3, will Charm animals and magical beasts (as well as fey and giants and monstrous humanoids); by level 5, it expands to include dragons (and aberrations, elementals, and outsiders).

The key to using Charm of any sort is to make your Handle Animal and Diplomacy checks while they're in a Friendly mood. Push them as high as you can in the "likes you" categories so that, when the Charm wears off, they don't have reason to wonder why they don't like you quite so much anymore.

These are your tools for handling playing an actual "Monster Tamer," because the class features, while you can fluff them as picking up things you encounter, are things you get just for mechanically picking them up. You neither have to go out and find them, nor can add to your menagerie with them if you don't have another mechanical slot to fill.

That said, Leadership still can help. Nothing says your Followers have to be PC-able things. Go for them by HD or by CR, since they're so low, and the DM will probably be okay with it.

[Greenish]

Nobody Wild Empathizes animals and magical beasts like a totemist. They don't have much anything else relevant, though.

[Diovid]

You could play a bard with the Soothe the Beast, Music of Growth and Song of the Heart feats (all from Eberron Campaign Setting) or with the Savage (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#bardVariantSavageBard) and Fey (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#bard) variants. In the later case you could get the Theurgic Empathy feat (Dragon Magazine #325), but that might be a bit too cheesy for your taste.


Also, you should have a look at the Beast Heart Adept (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20070209a&page=4).


You could try boosting Handle Animal through:

1 level of Marshal (Miniatures Handbook)
1 level of the Animal Lord prc (Complete Adventurer)
1 level of the Exemplar prc (Complete Adventurer)
The Vandalis Beastkeeper prc (Dragonmarked)

The Animal Affinity feat (Player's Handbook)
The Skill Focus feat (Player's Handbook)
The Animal Friend feat (Book of Exalted Deeds)
The Nymph's Kiss feat (Book of Exalted Deeds)
The Shifter Magnetism feat* (Player's Guide to Eberron)
The Mentor (Woodsman) feat (Dungeon Master's Guide II)
The Dragon's Insight feat (Player's Guide to Eberron)


And finally there are a few ways of expanding your wild empathy options:

The Child of Winter feat (Eberron Campaign Setting)
The Savage Empathy feat (Dragon Magazine #326)

[prufock]

That's all great stuff. It looks like a fey bard build going into beast heart adept would be a lot of fun!

[Person_Man]

By coincidence, I actually just finished a mini-handbook (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=15970347) on this exact topic.

[prufock]

That's beautiful, Person_Man. I guess for extra cheese a bunch of Wild Empathy and Animal Companion dipping classes combined with Bloodline levels would allow multi-stacking.

[Person_Man]

That's beautiful, Person_Man. I guess for extra cheese a bunch of Wild Empathy and Animal Companion dipping classes combined with Bloodline levels would allow multi-stacking.

I'm terrible with Bloodlines. How does it interact with Wild Empathy?

[prufock]

I'm terrible with Bloodlines. How does it interact with Wild Empathy?

I'm not 100% on this, but from what I understand, a bloodline level is added to each class for the purpose of level-based calculations. So when an ability with a level-based calculation stacks from multiple classes, each of those classes independently gets the bloodline level added. It's the basis for all sorts of caster level and other shenanigans.

So, for instance, if you have levels in druid, beastmaster, animal lord, beast heart adept, totemist, vadalis beastkeeper, and ranger (with the Combined Empathy feat), they all advance Wild Empathy. Bloodline 1 would contribute +1 to each of those classes, so you get a net of +6 WE total from one level of bloodline, +12 from two, and +18 from three. This goes on top of your normal WE bonus. I believe this should work for Animal Companion as well, since effective druid level is also a level-based calculation.

Someone can correct me if I'm wrong.