Building "King Kong"

[SSGT Tank]

Hi guys in this particular campaign I'm playing a Druid in I've become particularly interested in the idea of creating a new "defender of nature" that will outlast my character after he is long gone. Basically I'm trying to figure out rules to as a character take an ape, or dire ape, legendary ape, whatever works best really and go about advancing his hit dice/size or both to be as big and strong as is possible. Now I have come to a few ideas of how to do this but nothing seems to be hardcore enough. Between an artificer buddy and I we can pretty much build anything the guy needs item wise. We have access to being able to use any book published by WOTC. So I'm looking to make "King Kong" using an ape (my character and apes are kinda all a out my fluff I know there's way more powerful options). Any suggestions on how to make this, any particular rules I should be looking at that help me as a player make this possible? Or do my and my DM need to sit down and look at house ruling things? Any ideas would be great! For the record I am not able to access anything epic as the campaign isn't heading that direction for quite awhile. Thanks for any feedback

[DMVerdandi]

You need to look at the 3.5 SRD.

If I am correct at what you are saying, this ape is a druid, so in all honesty, it would be smarter to make Mr.Kong a regular ape. If he were not going to be a spell caster, then I would say it's all good, but in taking the class to be optimal, having the least amount of lost caster levels is best, and even moreso with druid as it's class levels alone are valuable as hell.

What is going to need to happen is you taking the anthropomorphic template from savage species.
You are going to end up with 16 levels of druid, which all in all isn't bad at all. The real stinker comes from the essentially wasted hit dice that you get from becoming large.

Honestly, I would have played a baboon instead and then used druid to become an even bigger ape when the time called for it. Flavor wise, you could just wild shape ONLY into simian forms. Even though it would kill some of the variety you had, it would RP out BRILLIANTLY, and instead of being able to turn into every animal ever, you could be given power by the spirit of the ape to protect all creatures that live in harmony with nature.

It be cool if there was a tell as well that Mr.Kong has. Perhaps a distinguishing tattoo pattern, or certain color eyes that give him a continuity of self, rather than just poofing into whatever.

If you play as a baboon, you can play out all 20 levels of druid.
Secondly, As you are an animal, it would be weird to have an animal companion (Yet possibly cool, but since you are a talking monkey, then you probably don't speak animal language.)

You could then have a dire ape as an animal companion, as to which both of you have an unspoken connection. Let's call him Mr. Sandwich for now.
You can be the brains, and he can be the brawn.

[Fouredged Sword]

Really, I am going to suggest a Psychic Warrior. Stormwrack has a LA 0 ape race. Psi war gets you expansion and all kinds of other goodies, like claws of the beast and such. Focus on being a big natural weapon tank, with a massive reach and powerful attacks.

[Undertucker]

If it were I, I'd make the druid the young woman and focus the animal companion to beef it up into Kong. When violence happens she just hides behind the big angry ape.

[SSGT Tank]

Sorry I've been up for quite awhile I probably didn't explain myself clear(and I'm probably still not). So I am just a Human druid that does enjoy running around as part of the ape kingdom. But I'm wanting to in character go about the business of creating a defender for jungle a "king Kong" size ape.
This ape wouldn't be my animal companion or anything, but I'm hoping theres some kind of spells or rituals, item combination, way to make his HD bigger. Perhaps there is a way to grow an animal bigger, something along those lines. Mr Kong here wouldn't be a hero but more of a guardian I could leave behind ideally to defend my jungle home, much like how wizards can leave iron golems to protect their towers.
I'm hoping that perhaps there are some rules somewhere that I may not know about that can possibly help facilitate this kinda pet project without the DM and I having to wade into custom rules.

[DMVerdandi]

Sorry I've been up for quite awhile I probably didn't explain myself clear(and I'm probably still not). So I am just a Human druid that does enjoy running around as part of the ape kingdom. But I'm wanting to in character go about the business of creating a defender for jungle a "king Kong" size ape.
This ape wouldn't be my animal companion or anything, but I'm hoping theres some kind of spells or rituals, item combination, way to make his HD bigger. Perhaps there is a way to grow an animal bigger, something along those lines. Mr Kong here wouldn't be a hero but more of a guardian I could leave behind ideally to defend my jungle home, much like how wizards can leave iron golems to protect their towers.
I'm hoping that perhaps there are some rules somewhere that I may not know about that can possibly help facilitate this kinda pet project without the DM and I having to wade into custom rules.

Oh.
Well, in that case, you just use the awakening spell on a dire ape.
The size/HD increasing rules are in the SRD, Monster Manual.

[SSGT Tank]

Ok, awaken on Dire ape, I dig that. Now increasing the HD and size is where I get confused, it says advancement 6-15HD Large. Now at what point does he grow bigger than large? And as a character what would I do to make him grow bigger? I like where this is going, I'm just unsure as to how to do this.

[Fouredged Sword]

That makes things easier. You want to use divine insight and guidance of the avatar from your local cleric to max out your wild empathy roll, granting you high enough to push the ape to fanatical. Animal growth on a dire ape means you are looking at a Gargantuan monkey with a grudge. It won't grow with more HD, so awaken it and give it class levels in something like barbarian. Raise it as a cohort.

[SSGT Tank]

Ok, I certainly see the potential with that. Thats wicked clever, and I think I will use that at some point in the future. At the moment though I have a cohort who is my artificer, and I damn near had to break the DM's timeline and story just to get the bugger, and by all the nature gods is he freaking useful. Is there a different way to go about it that wouldnt require him to be a cohort, or is there a way to have multiple cohorts(Im guessing no but that would be slick)?

[Fouredged Sword]

Well, technically, you just need to get him fanatical, but most DM's will throw the book at you for trying. Your artificer can keep you in divine insight and guidance of the avatar, and lend you + skill tools as needed to grant you the ability to hit that DC 50 wild empathy check.

If you are having a hard time getting the DM to let you boss him around, Get him fanatical and apply Dominate Animal. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/dominateAnimal.htm) He is a fanatical servant afterall, so what you want to bend his mind into your service. Go light on the commands and you should stay in the neutral side of evil. Note, the dominate has a VERY short duration. Apply persist and slap in on each morning.

[SSGT Tank]

Thanks mate, I'll see what the DM and me are good with, I'll try the fanatic thing. Thanks very much guys.