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TheCrowing1432
2015-01-21, 01:50 AM
Alright, so the first animal companion beastmasters get at level 1 is the BM level + 3 and stacks with levels determining animal companions


the example given is


For example, a 5th-level druid/2nd-level beastmaster would be treated as a 10th-level druid for the purpose of improving the statistics of her animal companion (and which alternative animal companions she could select)

That much makes sense.

What doesnt make sense is what happens later.

It gets addtional animal companions at later levels, but their effective druid level is reduced and they dont stack other classes that add to animal companion, so it JUST looks at beastmaster levels and not ranger/druid levels.

the second animal companion is at the beastmasters level 4, which with their bonus would make their effective druid level 7.

But they treat their effective druid level as being -3.

Even with the -3 in place, their effective druid level is still 4, but it says they need to pick from the 1st level druid list.

Is there anything stopping the beastmaster from dismissing the 1st level druid companion and attracting one from the fourth level list since technically even with the -3 in place, their effective druid level is still 4?

And if they DO have to stick with the 1st level list, do their animal companions automatically get the benefits of a 4th level druid?

Which would be Evasion, Share Spells and Link.

And If I added Natural Bond into the Mix, which adds a +3 effective druid level to my animal companions would that enable me even more bonuses/selections from other animal lists?

eggynack
2015-01-21, 04:27 AM
There is no +3 bonus. That's just on the first companion ability, rather than some universal power. So, your companion gained at 4th level is just a normal first level companion, and for that matter, the one you gain as a capstone is that and will remain so forever without an external boost of some kind. As for natural bond, it only works in terms of the advancement table, rather than for the purposes of picking off of the later lists, and moreover, the errata means that it only applies to one of your animal companions rather than the whole set. Anyway, point is, the first level of beastmaster is pretty bad, but the later levels are just terrible.

Gorfnod
2015-01-21, 10:17 AM
Had this same discussion some time ago. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?230139-Beastmaster-From-a-Roar-to-a-Whimper)

Read it all if you like but the general consensus was that Beastmaster sucked and porting the PF Summoner to 3.5 was the way to go.