So many animal

[ThatGuyOvaThere]

So I want to play as someone who has animals to do all of the things for him. I am going druid 5/ beast master 10/ something X. I have the wild cohort feat, and the exalted companion feat, but I want to know if there are ways that I can get more loyal animals. Oh, I forgot to mention that I I'm a strong heart halfling.

Thanks, ThatGuyOvaThere

[Coidzor]

Beast Heart Adept doesn't get animals, but is similar to Beastmaster for Magical Beasts.

Still, are you sure you really want to go down this route? Without something like Urban (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=203070)Companion (https://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20070228a) (and maybe the Dragon Magazine lists of alternate 1st level familiars) to shore up the weakest animal companions gained by Beastmaster, they're not going to be particularly nifty and instead are liable to just die really, really quickly and not be particularly useful as scouts or to deal damage before they get knocked off the board in combats.

If you can get Exalted Companion to apply to a Wild Cohort, then you could have a little bit of a demi-leadership chain with your Exalted Companion taking the Wild Cohort and Exalted Companion feats (+ Vow of Poverty to help make up for lack of gear and also for bonus Exalted feats like Touch of Golden Ice & Exalted Companion), though I don't believe it's possible to get it to loop infinitely, unlike Leadership(though that's mostly just just an arbitrarily long chain of level 6 followers who have the leadership feat and are able to have level 6 followers who have the leadership feat. Or, rather, 6th level NPCs with a leadership score of 21+) or Dragon Cohort.

[Dimers]

Leadership feat, naturally.

Pick up a familiar via sorcerer1, wizard1, hexblade4, or any arcane class plus Obtain Familiar feat. Then if you want to make it a bit more useful, slap on the Improved Familiar feat.

Likewise for a psicrystal -- take one level of a manifesting class and one feat.

You can get a warhorse with some paladin levels ...

Oh, and there are several domains you can use to rebuke creatures -- Cold, Air, et cetera. If you want animals in particular, one Oriental Adventures shaman domain lets you rebuke/command animals and plants. Like the paladin's warhorse, this requires a lot more investment than one level plus one feat. The psicrystal and familiar at least get half your hit points, even if they don't get better as you level up.

[ThatGuyOvaThere]

Beast Heart Adept doesn't get animals, but is similar to Beastmaster for Magical Beasts.
I thought about that and I want to have just animals and celestial animals for roleplay purposes


Still, are you sure you really want to go down this route? Without something like

Yeah I am. I play in a low op game, and my low level animal companions will be like messenger hawks.


Leadership feat, naturally.

Pick up a familiar via sorcerer1, wizard1, hexblade4, or any arcane class plus Obtain Familiar feat. Then if you want to make it a bit more useful, slap on the Improved Familiar feat.

Likewise for a psicrystal -- take one level of a manifesting class and one feat.

You can get a warhorse with some paladin levels ...

Leadership feat doesn't make sense rp wise, neither does a psycrystal, but the rest is good, except paladin isn't worth it for me.

[Thurbane]

You're probably short on feats as is, but if you take the Binding feats for non-binders in ToM, you can bind Malphas and have a permanent raven or dove, that you can replace indefinitely even if slain. Alternatively, a 1 level dip in Binder and the Improved Binding feat will get you this as well.

The nice thing about the raven is that you spy using it's senses with unlimited range, and even find traps (if you have Trapfinding) using the bird as well.

Pretty heavy investment in this kind of build though.

If you are a good aligned divine caster, Knight of the Raven gets you a raven harrier, that can also be very useful.

Also, stock up on Figurines of Wondrous Power and Bags of Tricks for more animals...

[Coidzor]

Knight of the Raven 1 (from Expedition to Castle Ravenloft) gives a Celestial Raven through its Raven Harrier class feature, that scales off of its master. So that's another companion creature for a one level dip. It does improve with more levels in the PrC though. The prereqs are pretty easy to qualify for though, and you have to be good to have Exalted feats anyway. Three levels will get Turn Undead and a Domain though, and an additional ability for the Raven Harrier.

Ranger Knight of Furyondy (from Dragon Magazine 317, I believe) gives a Paladin Special Mount in a way similar to Prestigious Paladin (or how Beastmaster gives an Animal Companion). Prerequisites are a bit more annoying, but Ranger will/can give several of them anyway. Though that's sort of hazy on whether it'd count for your purposes. With Devoted Tracker along with other dragon magazine content such as Holy Mount, it could be interesting, though the 10 levels of Beastmaster would prevent achieving actual Super Mount status.