PoW: Making a Martially Trained... animal companion?

[Ilorin Lorati]

I'm in the process of building a Hunter, and one of the amusing little details that popped into my head is that I could make a broken blade Stegosaurus. With its naturally high Dexterity, I wouldn't miss the single +1 to Intelligence that would allow the companion to take Martial Training, and its progression lines up fairly well - the main issue is that there's no way to get the prerequisites for martial training VI as far as I remember.

Then there's also the matter of the fairly low BAB anyways, meaning I don't know if it'll really be worth it to try and focus in on a discipline that's so heavily focused on actually hitting. At least the Stegosaurus natural attack has a high base damage (2d8 at level 7).

So, what does GiantITP think? Is an initiator companion worthwhile? Which disciplines should I look into? What Animal Companions would work best here?

[Greenish]

Martial Training now requires BAB or Skill ranks, not both. You'd have to pick up Open Minded (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/psionics-unleashed/feats/open-minded) to get Martial Training VI, but it should be doable.

[Novawurmson]

Sounds pretty groovy to me - even just low-hanging fruit like Bronze Knuckle+Flurry Strike could be a pretty decent standard+swift when moving.

If you got all the way to Pit Fighter's Stance, that'd be hilarious. A stegosaurus that pokes people in the eye or pulls down their pants once a round? Beautiful.

[Ilorin Lorati]

Aye, talk about a well trained dinosaur!

I originally looked into it to make a tanky build for my pet and since Iron Tortoise needs a shield, Broken Blade was the next best thing because of its shield AC stance. Simply being Large gives an incredible amount of map control, and combine that with certain feats like Combat Reflexes and Martial Power and the natural AC and trip ability of its natural attack combine to make up for its relative lack of staying power (stegosaurus only gets up to 14 Con without ability score bonuses).

Unfortunately, continuing to look it seems like unless retraining is allowed for pets in a given game, I can't fit more than 5 of the Martial Training feats - since the first feat after 4 HD will need to be Open Minded, and there's only 5 after that. If it ends up being allowed, I'll be able to fit the whole kit and caboodle in there with MT I-VI, Combat Reflexes, and Martial Power if I take Human and use the favored class bonus from it for Hunter to train my companion.