Awesome animal comanion ideas

[Brendanicus]

Hey playgrounds, I need help. One of my players , a druid, had her dire weasel animal companion brutally murdered by a fiendish chimera last session, and I need a really good idea for a new one.

The player is level 5 but is the weakest member of the party by far. She's a first time player who has a poor understanding of the rules, even after months of play. This is due to her unfortunately being legally blind and can't read character sheets very well. Unlike the rest of the party, whose builds have been designed with clear niches in mind, her spell-casting is a bit all over the place.

Foreseeing that her animal companion was doomed the moment she got it, I gave her a homebrewed "ritual bag of sequoia dust" as loot a few sessions back. This one-time-use item allows her to perform any ritual as if she was in nature. Seeing as she just lost an animal companion and is trapped in The World's Largest Dungeon, she needs that desperately.

With all of that out of the way, I need a badass animal companion, preferably strong for her level. Rules-legal is not an issue. She expressed interest in Dire Weasels before the game started, so maybe I could homebrew she managed to call her previous animal companion back from he afterlife as a Celestial Dire Weasel with an extra hit die or two? Any other cool ideas?

[Ellowryn]

Fleshraker? From MM3, super melee face tearer, give it the warmount template and maybe give her the option to substitute natural bond for another feat (or just give it to her as a bonus feat). that way she can play a caster with useful melee character on the side or a melee character with a useful caster on the side.

[sleepyphoenixx]

Dire weasels are pretty wimpy as far as animal companions go, mainly because of their low Con score. Almost any other companion is a better choice for combat.
Compare the Dire Badger which is almost twice as tough even before it starts to rage and also offers a burrow speed which can be useful depending on the campaign.

The Fleshraker is indeed head and shoulders above any other 4th level companion. And most of the higher level ones as well, which is why they're often banned. They make fighters cry.:smallbiggrin:
It has great ability scores, high armor thanks to decent dex and +6 NA, 4HD compared to the 3HD of most of the others at that level and a whole array of powerful abilities.

The only bad thing to be said about them is that they're medium, which restricts their combat abilities a little at later levels.
But you get Venomfire in exchange which more than makes up for it.


Another thing to beef up your animal companion is to give it proper combat feats. Most of them get things like Alertness and Toughness by default which really doesn't help much.
A pouncing cat becomes a lot scarier when it gets Power Attack and Leap Attack instead. The Mage Slayer line is also popular.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

A Fleshraker dinosaur in MM3 is probably the strongest animal companion available. She can take the feat Natural Bond in Complete Adventurer and still count her full Druid level toward its benefits. She can use Handle Animal to give it the Warbeast template in MM2. Animal companions gain skill points and feats as they gain HD, so it can get a few cross-class ranks in Spellcraft to take Mage Slayer from Complete Arcane.

[Geddy2112]

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?410023-non-rpgers-responses-to-rpg-concepts

Somebody just raised the bar on this.

[Theodred theOld]

If you want to keep it simple consider the humble riding dog. INA and power attack plus a few buffs and the war mount template turn mans best friend into the bad guys worst nightmare. I even convinced my dm to let mine have a spiked helmet that does extra damage on a charge.

[macdaddy]

Fleshraker +1

IT's so vastly overpower for the level in which you get it that I banned the Druid in my party from using it.... of course, the party is already 8 PC's. If it was 5 or fewer, I would allow it.

[Bronk]

Rules-legal is not an issue.

Well, the sky's the limit then, right? Still, I'd imagine you wouldn't want to overshadow the other players too much by giving her a T-Rex or something. Besides, I have no idea how big the rooms are in that dungeon.

I think the easiest way to do this is to just do away with the level adjustment. I think the fleshraker is a great idea too, especially if you let it advance a bit and let her know about the venomfire spell (which she gets as a third level spell at level 5).

Since she's level five, maybe you can help her stat up a few good wildshape forms... at least one melee fighter and one flyer. An eagle and a bear? Druids are strong, and there's no reason she couldn't be a tougher player.

With her vision problems, though... maybe you can help her out, even keep her character sheet with you, or at least keep track of what she can do and what her modifiers are. Maybe take the most pertinent parts of her character and put them in really big font on a separate page? Just throwing ideas out.

Oh, also, I like the sound of that sequoia dust. Sounds like a cool, refluffed acorn of far travel... I don't think druids actually need a particular natural setting for their ceremonies, but it sure sounds flavorful.

[Vizzerdrix]

If the sky is the limit and she likes weasel like critters, what about giving her a mustival guardinal from BoED? Little ferret dude that can do a bit of healing in a pinch.