I kind of want to make a flavourful but useful PC

[Kurondo]

Just gonna make a list of things I want to do with said character.

-Survive in close combat.
-Uses a staff to fight.
-Have an animal companion that I can talk with.
-Charismatic.
-Can survive in power dungeons.
-Can maybe use magic, would be nice.

Thank you in advance for any help that is posted here. ^_^

[eggynack]

Apart from charismatic, that all sounds like druid, and you can always just use charisma as a tertiary stat. Maybe use voice of the city from the cityscape web enhancement (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20070228a) for some of that talking to folk edge. Talking to the companion isn't possible without spells/other things, and in this case, I feel like other things makes sense as exalted companion from the book of exalted deeds, maybe or maybe not backed up by vow of poverty on the companion. Also, if you toss VoP on yourself as well, you can benefit from high charisma by picking up words of creation. You can technically pick up words without VoP, but it's not really worth it. Finally, you want staffery, and for that it makes sense to pick up fangshields druid substitution levels from champions of valor, which grants hands in a wild shape. You need to have a non-humanoid race for that, but anthropomorphic bat from savage species is pretty universally excellent, and you can apply dragonborn to it for bonus survivability.

[Red Fel]

Just gonna make a list of things I want to do with said character.

-Survive in close combat.
-Uses a staff to fight.
-Have an animal companion that I can talk with.
-Charismatic.
-Can survive in power dungeons.
-Can maybe use magic, would be nice.

Thank you in advance for any help that is posted here. ^_^

"Kind of want?" No, you should always want to make a flavorful but useful PC!

So, let's see... Survives in close combat and dungeons, uses a staff and spells, charismatic, has a communicative animal companion.

So... Sorcerer? The right spell selection gives you great survivability, even in close combat. The class gives you simple weapon proficiency, which includes the quarterstaff. You can also use Runestaves (here are some samples (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ps/20070216a)). Sorcerers are charismatic, literally - Charisma is their casting stat. Lastly, they get a Familiar, with whom they have an empathic connection. At level 5, this gets upgraded to speech.

[Troacctid]

I'll add Urban Druid (from Dragon Compendium) to the suggestion pot--it's a lot like a regular Druid, except it casts off of Charisma rather than Wisdom and wildshapes into humanoid and inanimate object forms as well as animals.

Staves are interesting weapons because you can enchant each end separately. So you can use one end for attacking, with offensive enchantments, and use the other end for defense, with enchantments like Warning and Defending.

[Void Bovine]

Why not just go ranger paladin and take devoted tracker? You can use two weapon fighting with a staff anyway

[lytokk]

Sorceror was mentioned, but battle sorceror could help you out at lower levels with a better hit die, light armor casting and a higher BAB. You'll lose some spells but there's always a trade off.

[Darrin]

-Have an animal companion that I can talk with.


Gnomes can talk with burrowing mammals 1/day, so any gnome druid/ranger would work. Some other options... Spiritual Connection ACF for Rangers (Complete Champion) gets speak with animals/plants 3/day. Planar Ranger (Unearthed Arcana version) gets a celestial animal companion, which bumps up the Int to 3 and thus they can understand Common (but not necessarily speak). You can add a Pearl of Speech (600 GP, MIC) to fix that... might even work on a non-celestial animal. Druids can use Exalted Companion to get a celestial animal, and some other things like blink dogs, but it involves being [exalted].

The Urban Companion ACF (Cityscape Web Enhancement) switches the normal animal companion for something closer to a familiar. For Druids, "speaks with master" is available at 5th level, while Rangers would have to wait until 10th level... unless they took a Raven, which can already speak common as a familiar. Since a familiar also has the same skill ranks as its master, you could also put a couple skill points into Speak Language: Whatever, and your familiar could then speak that language.

Knight of the Raven (Expedition to Castle Ravenloft) also gives you a familiar-ish raven, along with the ability to speak to any raven.

Here's another odd choice... according to Sandstorm, 1st level druids (and presumably 4th level rangers) can pick a tressym as an animal companion... but this is a magical beast with an Int of 12, which means it can speak 2 languages. The description says they don't speak human languages, but if you both took something like Auran or Draconic, you could speak to each other that way.

If Druid/Ranger doesn't quite float your boat, Unearthed Arcana has ACFs to add an animal companion to Bard, Sorcerer, or Wizard.

[fishyfishyfishy]

Sound like a Sorcerer to me. Go Sorcerer 6 / Fighter 1 / Eldritch Knight 8 / Abjurant Champion 5. Trade the Sorcerer familiar away for an alternate class feature of your choice and take Obtain Familiar as your third level feat. This way you can get the Familiar abilities based on arcane caster level and prestige into those classes for the BAB and HP you'd want for close quarters fighting.

Edit: a note on spells, Greater Mighty Wallop and Greater Magic Weapon will be your friends.

[eggynack]

Here's another odd choice... according to Sandstorm, 1st level druids (and presumably 4th level rangers) can pick a tressym as an animal companion... but this is a magical beast with an Int of 12, which means it can speak 2 languages. The description says they don't speak human languages, but if you both took something like Auran or Draconic, you could speak to each other that way.

It's actually an animal, so my suspicion is that the intelligence is a typo. Not sure whether it's supposed to have an int of 1 or 2 though.

[Psyren]

Eldritch Scion (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/magus/archetypes/paizo---magus-archetypes/eldritch-scion) Staff Magus (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/magus/archetypes/paizo---magus-archetypes/staff-magus) with Familiar (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/magus/magus-arcana/paizo---magus-arcana/familiar-ex) arcana.

[Darrin]

It's actually an animal, so my suspicion is that the intelligence is a typo. Not sure whether it's supposed to have an int of 1 or 2 though.

Not a typo. PGtF and LEoF both updated the tressym to 3.5, and it's now a magical beast with Int 12. So whoever wrote up that sidebar in Sandstorm wasn't aware of this, or didn't consider the implications of having an "animal companion" that was smarter than an average human.

[eggynack]

Not a typo. PGtF and LEoF both updated the tressym to 3.5, and it's now a magical beast with Int 12. So whoever wrote up that sidebar in Sandstorm wasn't aware of this, or didn't consider the implications of having an "animal companion" that was smarter than an average human.
Huh. That's a weird one.

[Darrin]

Huh. That's a weird one.

As the druid levels up, the tressym gains HD. Presumably these are magical beast HD, but... could the tressym take class levels instead? PHB says:

"An animal companion gains additional skill points and feats for bonus HD as normal for advancing a monster’s Hit Dice (see the Monster Manual)."

Over in the MM under Chapter 4 "Improving Monsters", adding class levels is listed as an option "most commonly" used by intelligent humanoids, but there are enough weasel words in there that it's not explicitly forbidden to intelligent non-humanoids.

So... I'm thinking... Warlock or Dragonfire Adept levels. I mean, what else would you add to an intelligent flying cat other than Laser-Beam Eyes or Fire Breath?

[Urpriest]

As the druid levels up, the tressym gains HD. Presumably these are magical beast HD, but... could the tressym take class levels instead? PHB says:

"An animal companion gains additional skill points and feats for bonus HD as normal for advancing a monster’s Hit Dice (see the Monster Manual)."

Over in the MM under Chapter 4 "Improving Monsters", adding class levels is listed as an option "most commonly" used by intelligent humanoids, but there are enough weasel words in there that it's not explicitly forbidden to intelligent non-humanoids.

So... I'm thinking... Warlock or Dragonfire Adept levels. I mean, what else would you add to an intelligent flying cat other than Laser-Beam Eyes or Fire Breath?

It just gains skill points and feats as normal for advancing HD. It's not actually advancing HD, which is why it also doesn't increase in size. Also, precedent would imply that it would gain animal HD, since that's what Dragons do when they're Special Mounts, but in that case the RAW is more ambiguous. (For one, is it clear what the bonus HD are for Exalted Companions?)

Anyway, since nobody's mentioned it yet, Spirit Shamans have some Cha dependence and can make great Shilileagh (sp?) users.

[nedz]

Seconding Spirit Shaman
— No AC, but you do get an animal spirit guide
— Druid spells
— Double statted Wis/Cha

Talking to Animal Companions is hard, but a 1 level dip in Warlock for the Call of the Beast invocation (CMage p123) gets you Speak with Animals almost all of the time, and Wild empathy too FWIW

[Prime32]

Just gonna make a list of things I want to do with said character.

-Survive in close combat.
-Uses a staff to fight.
-Have an animal companion that I can talk with.
-Charismatic.
-Can survive in power dungeons.
-Can maybe use magic, would be nice.

Thank you in advance for any help that is posted here. ^_^See if you can get Fey Druids (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=10546562) approved. Alternately, the bard variant from UA that gets an animal companion (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#bard).