Multiple Animal Companions/Familliar's?

[Gwazi Magnum]

What are uses you can find for having multiple animal companions and familliars?

What are builds that can accomplish this rather easily?

Are there ways to do this without pro-longing your turns to the point it becomes far more your game than a game for the other players as well.

[Snowbluff]

I had a double song Bard with DFI and inspire courage +10. I had a bunch of Coure Eladrin with bows shooting for tons of damage each round. The extra familiar feat is D. Mag stuff, though.

[Coidzor]

What are uses you can find for having multiple animal companions and familliars?

Well, an extra meatshield is always nice, especially if they're built so that they can charge in and tear enemies apart after the enemies are separated by Battlefield Control or are armed with magical items to make them into mobile artillery. Having a bunch of familiars on a skillful character can lead to much higher checks due to aid another and the improved aid another rules from Complete Adventurer(IIRC), or if many of the same or similar skill checks need to be made in successions they might just be able to do it simultaneously.

Bards increase in usefulness with Inspire Courage the more creatures are benefitting from and using that bonus to hit and to damage or the extra damage dice from Dragonfire Inspiration, or even better, both.


What are builds that can accomplish this rather easily?

Multiple Animal Companions doesn't really work very well, due to Beastmaster being the only non-homebrew* PrC that gives animal companions and the secondary animal companions are just too weak and can't even be bumped up unless Natural Bond is taken specifically for them(Though most recommend disregarding that part, which I believe is errata, IIRC), and you can only take Natural Bond once. You can have, basically, one animal companion and one wild cohort (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/re/20031118a) though, and that can be quite nice.

Multiple familiars means you *probably* want to either get a number of ravens(for command word items) or take Improved Familiar too, so that you can either have A. a variety of familiars of varying uses or B. several good familiars rather than several standard familiars. I can't think of any specific builds for this sort of thing though, but gishes and familiars have some fun synergy together, as does putting familiars on a character with good UMD.

*I have been working (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=16297673&postcount=2)with this idea though, considering the potency of share soulmeld for Totemists allowing them to double their attacks with the addition of a familiar, especially with a distance of greater than 5' for the sharing of said soulmelds so that flanking is an option.


Are there ways to do this without pro-longing your turns to the point it becomes far more your game than a game for the other players as well.

Without foregoing rolls to streamline the process or giving control of your minions to other players? Probably not.

[Gwazi Magnum]

Well, an extra meatshield is always nice, especially if they're built so that they can charge in and tear enemies apart after the enemies are separated by Battlefield Control or are armed with magical items to make them into mobile artillery. Having a bunch of familiars on a skillful character can lead to much higher checks due to aid another and the improved aid another rules from Complete Adventurer(IIRC), or if many of the same or similar skill checks need to be made in successions they might just be able to do it simultaneously.

Bards increase in usefulness with Inspire Courage the more creatures are benefitting from and using that bonus to hit and to damage or the extra damage dice from Dragonfire Inspiration, or even better, both.

So mainly meat shields and skill checks?


Multiple Animal Companions doesn't really work very well, due to Beastmaster being the only non-homebrew* PrC that gives animal companions and the secondary animal companions are just too weak and can't even be bumped up unless Natural Bond is taken specifically for them(Though most recommend disregarding that part, which I believe is errata, IIRC), and you can only take Natural Bond once. You can have, basically, one animal companion and one wild cohort (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/re/20031118a) though, and that can be quite nice.

Multiple familiars means you *probably* want to either get a number of ravens(for command word items) or take Improved Familiar too, so that you can either have A. a variety of familiars of varying uses or B. several good familiars rather than several standard familiars. I can't think of any specific builds for this sort of thing though, but gishes and familiars have some fun synergy together, as does putting familiars on a character with good UMD.

*I have been working (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=16297673&postcount=2)with this idea though, considering the potency of share soulmeld for Totemists allowing them to double their attacks with the addition of a familiar, especially with a distance of greater than 5' for the sharing of said soulmelds so that flanking is an option.

So basically only two animal companions then? And the Improved Familiar so they help in combat.

Also this may sound like a dumb question, but how do you get multiple familiars?


Without foregoing rolls to streamline the process or giving control of your minions to other players? Probably not.

I figured as much.

[Coidzor]

So mainly meat shields and skill checks?

Animal Companions can basically either be a pet Fighter or scouts that are only really all that useful at lower levels. Familiars' main ability is half the HP of the master, master's BAB, and master's skill ranks, though their loyalty as an always there minion is also a factor. If they're a raven then they can speak and say command words for certain magical items. If they're something like an imp/quasit/elemental/mephit, then they can do a whole lot more. But you only really need one mirror mephit to start the simulacrum army trick, and I don't believe they're a valid option for an improved familiar mephit anyway.


So basically only two animal companions then? And the Improved Familiar so they help in combat.

Also this may sound like a dumb question, but how do you get multiple familiars?

IIRC Beastmaster gives you one extra-strength animal companion(or makes one's existing animal companion extra strength), one sub-par animal companion, one joke animal companion, and one worthless animal companion. However! If you can take the Urban Companion ACF (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20070228a) for the later animal companions from Beastmaster, then they become more useful due to being familiars with 3/4 master's HP and without repercussions if they die.

Improved Familiar greatly increases the usefulness of familiars in combat and for utility purposes, due to abilities such as earthglide and ability to use a broader range of magic items or weapons.

The feat Extra Familiar from Dragon #280/Kobold Press (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/3rd-party-feats/kobold-press/general-feats---3rd-party---kobold-press/extra-familiar)/D&Dwiki (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Extra_Familiar_%283.5e_Feat%29) is the only method I recall.


I figured as much.

If you could get enough you could try to use the mob template (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=143.0), I suppose, but that's not all that beneficial for familiars, even improved ones.

[Fax Celestis]

Beast. Heart. Adept.

[Coidzor]

Beast. Heart. Adept.

...Whoops. :smallredface:

Didn't think it was all that great though, between not hijacking animal companion progression and thus being a bit too self-contained and the actual strength of the monstrous companions. :smallconfused:

[Fax Celestis]

BHA isn't bad. You can do some really neat things with it (like couple it with leadership to have a platoon of skyknights).

[Spore]

I suppose 1/week Commune (for free!) from improved familiars (imps, quasits and the sort) is quite powerful. Don't underestimate the SLAs and SNAs of familiars.