A familiar/animal companion/special mount build

[j_spencer93]

A player changed his build again, and now wants to play as a mage who uses his familiar above all else. As a DM with absolutely no experience in familiars, i am asking for build ideas, feat suggestions, and spells that aid in powering up his familiar

Base Classes:Druid 3, High-One Warrior Wizard 5
Prestige Class: Ranger Knight of Furondy 1, Arcane Hierophant 10
Feats: Theurgic Mount, Theurgic Bond, Holy Mount, Celestial Mount, Winter's Mount, dragon steed, devoted tracker, wedded to the light, natural bond, Precocious Apprentice
Race: Human (maybe celestial or half celestial, aiming for saint in game)
spells: enhance, fortify, and augment familiar.

Familiar Feat: He wants his familiar/animal companion/special mount to possess vow of poverty

Feats are given every odd level.

[Renen]

Is his heart isnt set on wizard, point him to the "Big guy is with me" psion build

[j_spencer93]

his heart is set on wizard. was thinking maybe of that build that mixes a familiar and animal companion though. not entirely sure at moment what to do.

[Flickerdart]

Wizard isn't a great plan here, both because it has a garbage chassis and because it's too tempting to win the game with amazing wizard spells. What you want is high HD and BAB. Battle/Stalwart Sorcerer is okay but you'll want Obtain Familiar so you can take PrCs anyway, so Bard and Duskblade are actually very good choices. Improved Familiar (and the like - Exalted Familiar, Dragon familiar, etc) is an obvious choice; I like Beguiler and Coure Eladrin.

Consider that you can actually have more than one familiar. The restriction on just one only exists in the class ability; Obtain Familiar and Shadow Familiar (and Extra Familiar but that's Dragon content) have no such restrictions. Shadowcasters (with better BAB and HD than wizards) actually make pretty sweet familiar masters. Since both Obtain Familiar and Shadow Familiar take total CL, something like Wizard 1/Shadowcaster 3/Mystic Theurge 10/whatever PrC 6 will give you two full familiar progressions. Improved Familiar boosts both of them, which makes both of them get the dark template from Shadow Familiar.

One strategy I've employed with this setup is sharing that one 3rd level slowing mystery (I forget the name but it's 5d6 damage plus save VS slow). Between me and my familiars' attacks, it's quite a scary thing to behold. Share Bolster to boost your HP.

[j_spencer93]

thanks for the tips. ill get ahold of the player and see if he is willing to change classes.

[j_spencer93]

he is interested in arcane hierophant

[Flickerdart]

Unfortunately, an Arcane Hierophant's companion familiar is not a familiar - it's merely an animal companion that gets a familiar's abilities. This means you can't do all the really cool stuff like cast familiar-only spells on it or take feats that improve a familiar.

[j_spencer93]

ah i see. ill run that by him. im kinda multitasking (running a game right now) so im not checking ideas with books

[Troacctid]

Soulcaster, from Magic of Incarnum, lets you use the Share Soulmeld feat to give a huge pile of buffs to your familiar as long as it's within five feet of you.

[j_spencer93]

ok ill make note of that. This player been interested in Incarnum anyways so that might be right up his alley

[Troacctid]

Also, take the alternate class feature that gives you an animal companion instead of a familiar, then get a familiar with Obtain Familiar. Share Soulmeld gives all your buffs to both of them at once, basically doubling everything.

[j_spencer93]

ok that is a good idea.

[j_spencer93]

Any 3rd party books that have familiar info?
Also is there a way to get a animal that counts as an animal companion/familiar/paladin special mount? OR just a special mount/familiar?

[dextercorvia]

Dragon Magazine has the Extra Familiar feat. If you take something like Improved Familiar, you can apply it to all your familiars.

[j_spencer93]

Ah. that is a nice one. lol how would a High-One Warrior Wizard, Paladin, with devoted tracker work? Would anything that applies to a familiar, special mount, and animal companion apply to that single "animal"?

[Jeff the Green]

Changeling Wizard 5 should be the base of the build. The familiar can then change into any form that would normally be available for the Wizard to summon. If you add in Racial Emulation you can also take the elf Wizard 3 substitution level to make the normal familiar forms double their beneifts. A floating +4 to saves or +6 to various skills is nice when you're not having the familiar actually do something, and it carries little cost.

Add on Improved Familiar and Spell Sovereign from Dragon and you have every normal familiar, every Improved Familiar, and any living spell (up to a certain level) available by your familiar spending a full-round action.

[j_spencer93]

wow. but that will be for another build. he just trying to boost this one creature up. seriously though, i am making a note of that lol another player of mine always wanted a pokemon build lmao

[WeaselGuy]

Also, if I remember correctly about Shadowcaster, I'm pretty sure there's a PrC that specifically requires you to have a shadow familiar, but I can not attest as to it's viability or it's overall strength.

edit: Master of Shadow is the PrC I was thinking about... requires Shadow Familiar as a feat, CL 5th of either mysteries or spells, Knowledge Arcane - 5 ranks and Knowledge Planes - 8 ranks, and gives 9/10 spellcasting to existing casting class, along with making your familiar into a shadow elemental and stripping it of it's familiar traits.

Overall, it's a pretty nifty looking class, but don't know if it's quite what you're looking for, since it's not really focused on a "familiar" anymore.

[j_spencer93]

right now the build we are looking at involved totem druid 3, high-one warrior wizard 5, paladin or paladin prestige ?. with vandalis beast keeper ? or beast master ?.
theurgic mount, theurgic bond, holy mount, winter's mount, celestial mount, dragon steed, and devoted tracker as feats also.
human as race with two allowed flaws.
a feat every odd level.

spells: enhance, fortify, and augment familiar.


could you help make something out of this build? this is what we are really looking into. he wants to have a powerful dragon that really does almost everything for him, without being focused on riding it (he will ride it just no the focus of build).

if possible he would like his mount to have the vow of poverty feat.

[WeaselGuy]

right now the build we are looking at involved totem druid, high-one warrior wizard, paladin or paladin prestige. with vandalis beast keeper.
theurgic mount, theurgic bond, holy mount, winter's mount, celestial mount, dragon steed, and devoted tracker as feats also.
human as race with two allowed flaws.
a feat every odd level.

could you help make something out of this build? this is what we are really looking into. he wants to have a powerful dragon that really does almost everything for him, without being focused on riding it (he will ride it just no the focus of build).

if possible he would like his mount to have the vow of poverty feat.

Looks like someone read the ubermount guide... throw in order of rekkenmark while your at it, make the beast magebred and get your own aide-de-camp and 4 camp followers.

[j_spencer93]

actually this build is my fault (i found that build and mentioned it). Now he wanting to make a similar build. Oh well. Shouldnt be to much of a problem in our game. Anyways. No, no followers.
And to be honest, i found most of this before finding the Ubermount (i havent even read it all the way lol). I try to find ideas, not steal them completely. Plus after i pitch them my players make their own changes (although not always good).

[j_spencer93]

Actually thinking of dropping the animal companion part and just using familiar/special mount. I am not good at these kinds of builds honestly.

[Flickerdart]

Add on Improved Familiar and Spell Sovereign from Dragon and you have every normal familiar, every Improved Familiar, and any living spell (up to a certain level) available by your familiar spending a full-round action.
Oh Dragon Magazine, you so silly.

[Twurps]

Any 3rd party books that have familiar info?
Also is there a way to get a animal that counts as an animal companion/familiar/paladin special mount? OR just a special mount/familiar?

There is, if dragon mag. is available to you, but it takes a bit of work.

something like: Human, NG
Wizard 2 with precotious apprentice (And animal companion as ACF)
Druid 4 (for trackless step)
Cleric 1 (for smite)
RangerKnight of Furondy 1 (For a mount at +6 paladin levels)
Arcane Hierophant 10
2 spare levels.

Devoted tracker feat lets you stack companion and mount progression. Arcane Hierophant lets you add some familiar bonusses to your mount/companion (note that you dont actually need a familiar to do this)
Holy mount and theurgic mount let you add other divine casting levels and levels in Arcane caster classes to your paladin mount levels
Druid and Arcane Hierophant count toward your Animal companion levels (maybe add natural bond for another +3).

Done correctly, this should be able to get you a mount with paladin level over 30, 18 levels in animal companion and over 10 levels familiar boosting with some feats to spare. Not nearly the Ubermount, but still provides a pretty powerfull mount.

[Seerow]

Source for Theurgic and Holy mount? I have never heard of either of those, and google is turning up blanks for me.

[j_spencer93]

think dragon magazine. and sweet. but another question, make that wizard into High one warrior-wizard (champions of valor web enhancement) and what would the effective levels of familiar/animal companion/special mount be?
Wouldnt paladin be better then cleric in this build?

[j_spencer93]

seerow- i found them typing them into google on forgotten realms help or something like that. just typed in holy mount feat and theurgic mount feat. and yes they are dragon magazine feats

[sleepyphoenixx]

You can't get paladin and druid in the same build because of alignment restrictions. The only neutral-compatible way to get a special mount afaik is Ranger Knight (Dr#317). Which eats 4 otherwise useless (or near-useless) feats, so you'll need flaws to get anywhere with it. You'll also want something for early entry into Arcane Hierophant, but if you're lucky you can retrain that one later.
The Holy Mount, Theurgic Bond, etc. feats are from Dr#325 btw.

Keep in mind animal companion progression is worth more than special mount progression (2HD/3 levels vs 2HD/5 levels), so you should focus on that with your feat selection (Natural Bond, Theurgic Bond to add familar levels to AC progression, as much AC & familiar progression as possible).

The special mount is really just a matter of getting one, qualifying for Devoted Tracker and applying Holy Mount so you get your divine CL added to it. Investing feats beyond that should wait until you have all the AC progression you can get your hands on.

[j_spencer93]

Alignment....somehow that slipped my mind. Thanks for the advice. Any other feat suggestions? And we use flaws to allow two extra starting feats (however they are ranked lesser, and greater. 2 lesser =1 while it takes a single greater).

[sleepyphoenixx]

Well you want Natural Bond, Theurgic Bond, Holy Mount, Theurgic Mount and Devoted Tracker for the best mount.
To qualify for Devoted Tracker you need Smite Evil, which is probably easiest to get with Planar Touchstone:Catalogues of Enlightenment for the Elysium domain power.
Then to qualify for Ranger Knight you need Track, Two Weapon Fighting, Mounted Combat and Trample.

That's all the feats for a human with 2 flaws taken. You can save some by taking the Swift Tracker druid ACF for Track as a bonus feat. With a lenient DM you may be able to get TWF from Gloves of the Balanced Hand and Mounted Combat from the Battle Bridle.

One of those saved feats should go towards Dragon Steed, because they're probably the best mounts. Ask your DM if bonus HD advance a dragons age categories.
Other spare feats you could take would be Shape/Share Soulmeld if you have a particular one you like, some metamagic like extend/sculpt, Exalted Companion, Winter's Mount or some other feat to taste.
You could also take Endurance and throw in a level of Prestige Ranger. It advances animal companion and some of those spells are pretty useful, but overall it doesn't add that much to the build.

[j_spencer93]

ok starting to get a build idea solidified now. And i am the DM, this is for a player. now...idk about the dragon thing. i am can see the argument on both sides.
View the top post for how feats are going to be given out (Edit: didnt realize i left that out). There will be more then usual. He wanted to use High One Warrior-Wizard to be able to affect his mount with familiar boosting feats and spells. Sound reasonable?

[thethird]

If the arcane hierophant is still on the table I'm a personal fan of:

Bamboo spirit folk (to get pass without trace)

Wizard 1 (with the ACF to get an animal companion instead of a familiar; with Martial ACF to replace the scribe scroll feat)
Archivist 2
Mystic Theurge 7 (using sanctum spell to qualify)
Arcane Hierophant 10

The fun part?

Get Obtain Familiar and thus you have a companion familar and a normal familiar (that can be improved as normal)

You can sacrifice two levels of mystic theurge to get 2 levels of ranger knight (loosing wizard 9s but keeping archivist 9s), and if you do you will have a special mount and favored enemy, so you can make your companion familiar be your special mount (with devoted tracker) and you also can use theurgic mount to add 16 levels of special mount progression.

[j_spencer93]

that isnt a bad idea. i wish i could find a way to get a special mount by entering a class at 1st level, so at level 3 i could have a all three started towards the final product
Bamboo spirit folk would cut some druid levels off to allow more prestige or regular classes in...so maybe look into that

[sleepyphoenixx]

that isnt a bad idea. i wish i could find a way to get a special mount by entering a class at 1st level, so at level 3 i could have a all three started towards the final product
If you somehow managed that you'd only have a seperate animal companion, special mount and familiar, none of which would get any progression at all. That is in addition to the fact that you'd also fail to gain any spell progression, getting your first 2nd level spell at level 5 at the earliest. It would be a pain to play through.
Even with fractional BAB you're not going to get into AH before level 7, Devoted Tracker requires Smite Evil which you'll also have a feat to spend on...

You're better off getting your familiar and AC combined first (with Theurgic Bond) and then adding the special mount progression on later, when you have all the prerequisites out of the way to get it all into one creature. In the meantime you're still a full T1 caster -1 level, which is a lot more comfortable to play.


Bamboo spirit folk would cut some druid levels off to allow more prestige or regular classes in...so maybe look into that

You'd also lose 10 levels of animal companion progression, one of your already limited feats (because non-human) and take longer to get the build going at all because of BAB requirements.
Not that double 9s aren't nice, but it's missing the point of a supermount build.

[j_spencer93]

ah ok. So ill start off focusing on the familiar/animal companion thing, then when he gains his mount the wizard variant should combine that with his familiar, which counts as an animal companion, combing all three right? however that would be around 10;
love your idea btw and think he will too. is totem druid better for this? granting +2 animal companion or would that not work in this specific build thanks to how totem druid works?

[sleepyphoenixx]

High-One Warrior Wizard requires 5 levels in wizard to stack mount and familiar. That's four levels of wizard more than you want to take. Remember, AC progression is worth almost double SM progression (2HD/3 levels vs 2HD/5 levels). Getting Holy Mount and Theurgic Mount on Ranger Knight 1 is already enough to get your special mount progression into the mid-high 30s. It's not really worth losing either divine casting progression or animal companion progression for a few levels more if you lose out on final HD in the end too.

I don't know what Totem Druid gives up from the top of my head. At best you're going to get 2 extra HD. You may actually get nothing out of it, so do the calculations first before deciding.

Depending on what you lose from the standard druid chassis it may not be worth it either way.

Take a look (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?289543-Supermount-Druid-%28and-choosing-the-right-mount%29) at the build i made some time ago. It's not the final draft (i used celestial template for smite because i forgot about Catalogues of Enlightenment, for example), but the basic idea is there.

[Twurps]

...You're better off getting your familiar and AC combined first (with Theurgic Bond) and then adding the special mount progression on later, when you have all the prerequisites out of the way to get it all into one creature. ....

Seconded.
Mounts aren't that interesting at low levels (difficult to obtain at all below 5) I would try to get a level of Ranger Knight in at/before level 9, so you can get the holy mount feat at the same level and immediately qualify for a nice mount (note that the 'dragon mount' feat doesn't require you to actually have a mount, so you can get that at 6th if you want, and go for a dragon that way. Might not leave room for theurgic bond though)


...Devoted Tracker requires Smite Evil which you'll also have a feat to spend on...
Smite evil can be obtained by a 1 level cleric dip (some ACF from UA? not sure on the source) This means you can get Devoted tracker as early as 3rd level (Get Track from the Deadly hunter ACF Druid), leaving your feat slots above 9 open for all those wonderfull feats that require you to have a mount.

[j_spencer93]

im not sure what totem druid loses myself actually, all i know is its AC is treated as +2, and the player character will be celestial taking some of the ACF off that are needed. Ill wait for the mount as suggested and do the dragon steed 7th level, then ranger knight at 9th.
This is helping loads btw thanks. I really am kinda bad at familiar/any special animal thing.

[sleepyphoenixx]

Smite evil can be obtained by a 1 level cleric dip (some ACF from UA? not sure on the source) This means you can get Devoted tracker as early as 3rd level (Get Track from the Deadly hunter ACF Druid), leaving your feat slots above 9 open for all those wonderfull feats that require you to have a mount.

Going by my draft you'd lose AC, SM and Familiar progression though. And 9th level spells.
You could drop the prestige ranger for it, but you're not getting that much out of it. And the mount progression takes a while to really add to the build anyway, so getting it at low levels isn't really a priority imo.

[j_spencer93]

Ya im putting off the special mount for awhile in this build. thinking that will work best for the strength of this build.

[Snowbluff]

Pfft, this is my build from a year or so ago. Let's see if I can find it... :p

High one is redundant.

[j_spencer93]

wouldnt high one stack the benefits twice is it overlapped with something else? and really? i didnt copy anyone so sorry if this is close to your build

[Snowbluff]

Archeir makes your AnC your Familiar already.

[j_spencer93]

Archeir? arcane hierophant? true but doesnt high one make your familiar your mount?

[j_spencer93]

Familiar Mount: If a High One warrior-wizard has access to a special mount based on her paladin levels, this creature gains the characteristics of a famil- iar as well as those of a paladin mount.

Thats right...it does but must be from paladin. so somehow i do have to fit paladin in here for this. or prestige paladin (2 levels) would be alot easier.

[Snowbluff]

Archeir? arcane hierophant? true but doesnt high one make your familiar your mount?

Oh right. Devoted Tracker. Much easier and saves you some levels.

Prestige Paladin is incompatible with Druid. That's why you are using Ranger Knight.

[j_spencer93]

crap lol you are right. so since i absolutely can not get high one in here it seems it will be dropped. So lets go over this again.

Wizard/Sorcerer/whatever arcane class with familiar (trade away familiar and obtain familiar)
Totem Druid 3
Cleric 1

Ranger Knight 1
Arcane Hierophant 10

does that look right? Also he wanted his mount specifically to be effected by the familiar augment/whatever spells. are those not even worth worrying about?

[j_spencer93]

So when he gains his special mount, all the benefits of the previous familiar/animal companion will switch to it?
And would i be better to trade away wizards familiar, and take the obtain familiar at level 1? To me it seems to be smarter, i am just wondering?
I feel a arcane caster besides wizard would be better, not wizard, so maybe duskblade, hexblade or something else along those lines.
Also, is there a reason to choose cleric if he a celestial or half-celestial since they get smite?

[sleepyphoenixx]

You don't actually need a familiar for Arcane Hierophant, not to qualify and not for your companion familiar to get familiar benefits. It's a wasted feat (at least in regards to improving your supermount). You also can't take it at first level because it requires arcane CL 3 iirc, and your later feats are already taken up with more important stuff.

As for arcane classes, none of them really get anything that worthwhile at first level so spell list is the most important feature. And wizard spell list is the best.

Cleric is only really useful to get Smite Evil. A cleric dip makes sense in some builds, but here you're better off taking something that advances casting and your companion.
I'd definitely try to get 9th level spells. Arcane is probably out unless you get Trackless Step from Bamboo Spirit Folk though, but either one would progress your companion with Theurgic Bond. It may be worth it to go to the trouble for the superior wizard list, but druid casting is pretty solid too.

[j_spencer93]

oh when i read it i got the impression you did. either way would battler sorcerer + druid make good based classes before heading into ranger knight + arcane heriophant?

[Flickerdart]

Battle Sorcerer sucks if you're gonna PrC because all of its drawbacks will stay with you and none of its benefits transfer over.

[sleepyphoenixx]

Sorcerer is inferior to wizard in pretty much every way. You lose a feat, a level of arcane casting progression and can only learn a limited number of spells.
The higher amount of spells/day is negligible because you also gain druid casting, so you'll have more spells than you can reasonably use anyway.

Battle Sorcerer is even worse since you effectively gain nothing you don't already get from your druid levels except ~2hp in exchange for even less arcane casting.

[j_spencer93]

so forget sorcerer. use wizard/druid to get into the class then?
Um the druid variant that gives track. How exactly does that work? Do i gain those benefits at level 1 or at the level i would have gotten wild shape? It doesnt say...

[Twurps]

so forget sorcerer. use wizard/druid to get into the class then?
Um the druid variant that gives track. How exactly does that work? Do i gain those benefits at level 1 or at the level i would have gotten wild shape? It doesnt say...

You get track 'As a ranger', meaning at the level the ranger gets it: first level.
It works the same as the reverse: The wild shaping ranger gives up combat style (at lvl2) and gains wild shape 'as a druid': at lvl5.

[j_spencer93]

OK that is what i thought. So for this build it works good. Now i am a little confused on how to finish it. i got druid 3, wizard 1, ranger knight 1, and arcane hierophant 10. so need fiver more levels...

[Twurps]

Ranger Knight has a bunch of (feat) prereq's, as does devoted tracker. So although ideally you would want to progress caster levels (And with it: your mount.), You might need to spend some levels on those prereq's. I think my build even used levels of fighter to get extra feats :smallredface:
If prereq's are already taken care of, go mystic theurge for more dual casting and mount progression.

[j_spencer93]

feat prerequisites are all covered by level 2 as far as i can tell. and the rest of his available feats will be taken also (this adventure has several wishes in it if they are managed to be found so that could help). taking wizard 1 (precocious apprentice), druid 3, beast master 1, vadalis beast something or another 1, ranger knight 1, arcane heriophant 10. Leaves 3 levels for anything he wants to further increase build.

[atemu1234]

Dragon Magazine has the Extra Familiar feat. If you take something like Improved Familiar, you can apply it to all your familiars.

Which issue is that?

[sleepyphoenixx]

Which issue is that?

Dragon #280.

[j_spencer93]

really nice feat actually but not fitting this build