Making the animal companion the real hero?

[Swaoeaeieu]

tl;dr: How do i make a druids animal companion a complete ownedge factory?

So i had this idea for an NPC, a friendly druid who does not care much for the PC's, but is just there to translate for his Animal companion. This would be beacuse the animal companion is the real hero. Inspiration for this was someone suggesting Vow of Poverty for animal companions.

Things i found/ideas i had
- Sacred Vow, vow of poverty through celestial companion
- Magebred bear animal companion (five nations says it could happen)
- War beast training
- Arcane hierophant can give it familliar traits too
- Beastmaster for extra AC progression
- Natural bond could help too

So those are some of the puzzle pieces i have put together. But i don't really know how to fit them all in a character, or how you even train your animal companion to make a sacred vow.

Does the collective might of the playground have some advice for this idea?
Thanks in advance

[geekintheground]

exalted companion can give your companion 3 int, enough to be able to choose your alignment and take the vow.

[Urpriest]

Could try for something Supermount-esque with Halfling Outrider.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

What level do you want this guy to be?

Due to an official ruling that bloodline levels don't improve your animal companion, since each increase is a level-threshold and not per-class-level, one of the best tricks (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?301617-3-5-Most-effective-builds-for-each-archetype-in-E6&p=15970047&viewfull=1#post15970047) (second half of the post) no longer works. Yes, that's a 6th level character with an animal companion that has enough HD to take epic feats; for 12,000 xp above what a 6th level character needs, your animal companion has 40 HD and gets divine rank 0 from Epic Vow of Poverty. However, that doesn't actually work any more because bloodline levels don't improve your animal companion's benefits post-ruling.

This Supermount (http://community.wizards.com/forum/previous-editions-character-optimization/threads/967311) is a level 20 character with a 27 HD Griffon, which is intelligent enough to have a good alignment and take VoP. In contrast, a 20th level character who has 9th level spells is still more powerful than that character and his griffon combined.

It looks like you're trying to make this something like The Big Guy Is With Me (http://community.wizards.com/forum/previous-editions-character-optimization/threads/1000846), which is a psionic character who stays in the background while his psicrystal does everything.

The premise behind this animal champion has a glaring vulnerability: the Druid. Anything that causes the druid to lose his class features, such as wearing metal armor or holding a metal shield, or just killing or otherwise neutralizing the druid, will turn this animal companion back into a mundane animal. If it's a celestial animal, it will probably be returned to its home plane if no longer in his service. Suppose a would-be ally presents the druid with a magical darkwood shield as a gift, as soon as he takes it he realizes that it's a metal shield in disguise and he loses his class features, and this supposed ally springs their trap and kills him since his animal companion is no longer strong enough to defend him.

Since this is an NPC, you as the DM don't necessarily have to make it work as a single character. You could replace the Druid with a Spirit Shaman, and replace the animal companion with a Spirit Bear which has awakened in this time of need, and the Spirit Shaman happens to be able to communicate with it. You can give the Spirit Bear bonuses and stats similar to the benefits of VoP without actually giving it VoP, and even give it the Monster of Legend template in MM2. It really just depends on what CR/EL you want this to be at.

[Bronk]

The other reason that bloodline trick wouldn't have worked is that there are only three bloodline levels available in the first place.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

The other reason that bloodline trick wouldn't have worked is that there are only three bloodline levels available in the first place.

There's no limit to how many bloodlines a character can have, and each bloodline requires you to take up to three bloodline levels.

[Bronk]

I see where you're coming from, but characters are only ever referred to in that rule set as having a singular bloodline, and when they list them out, they use 'or', not 'and'.

[Brookshw]

Build advise aside the thread title didake me chuckle as I imagined a party doing everything possible to give all credit for there deeds to an animal companion. "yes townsfolk, you were really saved by lassie, the wonderdog!"

[Bronk]

Oh yeah, it would be totally awesome, more like a fully evolved pokemon or something!

[Lans]

Kenai With his imbue ability

[Swaoeaeieu]

It took me a while to respond, but only because i wanted to answer with something substantial and my mind does not work very fast.

I have put a build together, but i find it hard to keep track of the animal companion and its abilities.

The build so far:
Human wizard 2 (wilderness companion variant)/druid 4 (totem variant)/beastmaster 1/ arcane hierophant 10/ (druid +3) not sure yet.
Taking Precocious Apprentice and Exalted companion at level 1, Natural bond at level 3 and skill focus (handle animal) at 6.

This way i meet the prereq's for AH and Beastmaster and by my count have an animal companion of a level 13 druid by level 7 wich i think is not too shabby.

I can get the companion (a magebred brown bear) with celestial template at level 4 and train it for a warbeast template.

The wizard levels will still give me AC level one. And AH does not need a familiar, it just counts the levels in an arcane caster class to give the AC familiar traits.

So i am drivin to the next few questions:
1) Does this build work?
2) I recall a Druid ACF that loses wildshape but increases AC. Can't find it anymore, anyone know about this?
3) I wonder if i shouldn't take the wizard ACF and get theurgic bond instead, does it matter much?
4) An animal gains a feat at every 3 HD correct? That would take way too long to get him sacred vow/vow of poverty. Can the bear retrain his old feats?
5) i have some feats open on the character and the bear, any suggestions?

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

1) Yes, if you ignore the official WotC ruling that Precocious Apprentice doesn't count as being able to cast 2nd level spells for prerequisites.
2) This variant (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#druid) from UA, but you'll still gain wild shape thanks to your AH levels.
3) Not much.
4) Yes, it has to keep the default feats, you only get to pick what additional feats it gains. You could give it two flaws.
5) The bear can get Improved Unarmed Strike and Improved Grapple, the Mage Slayer line of feats, Combat Reflexes, etc. The Druid should have Practiced Spellcaster twice.

[ericgrau]

If you can get wizard casting and familiar traits then spell compendium has several spells that buff familiars. They're pretty darn good because familiars are usually weak, so that could push the companion over the top. Plus if you can't easily get custom barding then mage armor is really nice.

In general use your spells to buff the snot out of the companion of course. The druid might not buff the party, but it's reasonable for him to buff & heal the companion. Hour/level buffs in the morning, 10 min/level buffs at the entrance to places, and a round/level buff when a fight starts. Maybe some scrolls with min/level buffs for the rare times when danger is near, somehow it alerted you, yet you can buff spam without alerting it with all the verbal components.

[Swaoeaeieu]

1) Yes, if you ignore the official WotC ruling that Precocious Apprentice doesn't count as being able to cast 2nd level spells for prerequisites.
2) This variant (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#druid) from UA, but you'll still gain wild shape thanks to your AH levels.
.

What if i don't ignore that ruling? then what can i do?
And i actually meant Animal Companion with AC... my bad

[dextercorvia]

What if i don't ignore that ruling? then what can i do?


Sanctum Spell abuse, Improved Krau Illumian, Metamagic School Focus Heighten,....

[Prime32]

Some resources for you. (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=25)

[ArqArturo]

Build advise aside the thread title didake me chuckle as I imagined a party doing everything possible to give all credit for there deeds to an animal companion. "yes townsfolk, you were really saved by lassie, the wonderdog!"

I believe Lassie is more of a Familiar Companion, instead of a regular AC.

[Kane0]

You might also be interested in looking into the PF summoner and its archetypes, maybe you could steal something from there.

[Grayson01]

The premise behind this animal champion has a glaring vulnerability: the Druid.
There is a wonderful fix for the Oh so powerful Druid outshing his AC. The Oh so wonderful and Powerful Beastmaster PrC!!! Your AC would be Druid level + Beastmaster Level +3 and it does not improve the Druids Spell casting, Wild Shape, or anything except his AC!! So now you can take this Awesome Druid and make him the side kick of the AC!

Edit: OR make an Expert Give it Natures Bond feat and Make him a Beastmaster! Then you don't have to worry about any of those Pesky Druid class features!