Improving Animal Companion

[.Zero]

I'd like to know how a druid can magic-less and equipment-less improve his animal companion. I'm talking about a druid that applies templates to his companion and/or to any other permanently charmed, rebuked (initiate of nature), bought, wild empathy-ed, diplomacy-ed animal or magical beast.
You know, I'm trying to build an animal/magical beast army.

ASAP, i can freely apply the Warbeast template to any animal or dinosaur, but does it work with magical beasts? And what about the controversial magebred? Just screw Braland fluff, now. Is it possible to apply it to any animal or magical beast? Or does it exist only in the form of ghost tiger and dire bears?

I'll resume with this question: take the simplest aimal companion and a random magical beast. Which templates can a druid PC apply to them? Also, can animal companions get vow of poverty?

Thanks ^^

[eggynack]

I'm not sure on the magebred/warbeast thing, but the way to get VoP on your animal companion is to take exalted companion (BoED, 42). That lets your companion hit both the intelligence required for a creature to make such a decision, 3, as well as the alignment required to take the feat at all, good. That also gets you the celestial template, which is mediocre, but adds to your list. Another notable way to grant your animal companion a template is to take a pair of levels in talontar blightlord (UE, 34), which adds the blightspawned template. This is, unfortunately, mutually exclusive with exalted companion. Finally, you have the ability to apply the horrid template (ECS, 287) to a dire animal companion, though you take a hit to your effective druid level.

[Coidzor]

Magebred is a template that may be applied to any Animal, much as Horrid is a template that may be applied to any Dire Animal. The only way for a Magical Beast to have it is either A. Houserule/Homebrew/Narrativium or B. They were an Animal but had their Type change.

Warbeast is applicable to any Animal, Beast, or Vermin. I can't recall if the update/conversion packet for MM2 even really touched upon whether it can be applied to Magical Beasts, though. It's up to your DM if it's applicable to a Magical Beast if they're updating it for use with 3.5. I can see cases for and against, and I am well aware of the case against being able to apply the template to a creature that already exists, though I tend to disagree with holding with it even if it is RAW for ease of use in the game and that I believe it's more enjoyable without seriously damaging things to allow it, though that's separate from allowing it for Druids which I'm much more play by ear by, but I digress.

So assuming you already had a Magebred Warbeast Wolf and were able to have Exalted Companion just apply the celestial template to your existing animal companion rather than replacing it, then a Celestial Magebred Warbeast Wolf would work.

Animal Companions can get Vow of Poverty, especially if they're already above Animal Int, such as through having an Exalted Companion.

[Grams]

Cast Awaken on your animal companion... If it's already a magical beast from exalted companion feat you can still use Awaken on it to boost its mental Stats even more... as your spells treat your companion as if it were an animal, even though it's a magical beast (as stated in the exalted companion feat).

This makes your companion smarter than most average humans and opens the door to all that could come with it... Anything open to a PC should be able to be applied to your A.C.

[eggynack]

Cast Awaken on your animal companion... If it's already a magical beast from exalted companion feat you can still use Awaken on it to boost its mental Stats even more... as your spells treat your companion as if it were an animal, even though it's a magical beast (as stated in the exalted companion feat).

This makes your companion smarter than most average humans and opens the door to all that could come with it... Anything open to a PC should be able to be applied to your A.C.
Doesn't work. You're moving from intelligent magical beast to intelligent magical beast, so it sounds good, but the thing about an awakened animal not having the ability to serve as an animal companion is a function of the spell, so you lose the animal companion when you cast awaken, regardless of exalted status.

[.Zero]

So... awakening an animal companion seemed great to me but then i'll lose it... and this is not great. Though i think i could take another companion to replace it as stated in the class feature's text.

However, my dm will let me take only a maximum of two permanently loyal companions, so one is granted by druid's class feature and the other one is the one I'm going to buy.
I'm not taking Exalted Companion, 'cause I'm goin true neutral. Which are my options now?

I'll definitely apply Warbeast to every single companion or hired animal, but i dont'know how can i apply Magebred or Horrid templates.

What scares me is that a hired animal will be stronger than an animal companion: buy a magebred dire polar bear. Apply warbeast and horrid. Cast Awakening on it and diplomance your way into permanently transforming it into a willing and forever loyal npc. It is awakened now and is trated as a standard character. It will share experience point with the party and take Barbarian levels, becoming an unstoppable blood machine. On the other side i can have "only" a warbeast magebred ghost tiger, which surely i can buff through the death, but will never stand a chance against its big brother.

Am i incorrect?

Also, can Animal Growth affect magical beasts?

[Coidzor]

That largely depends upon whether diplomancy is kosher and if non-Cohort NPCs can gain XP.

Animal Growth (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/animalGrowth.htm)specifically targets animals though, so that'd be a no-go unless they had some kind of exception that allowed them to be targeted for one reason or another.