How to build Blink Dog animal companion?

[Snowbluff]

Thread title. I have a blink dog as my AnC, and I don't know what to do with it. Should I build it for damage or a maneuver or what?

[eggynack]

Damage seems bad, to start with. You have one attack, so you can't spread effects out over multiple hits, and that attack is a pile o' crap, so augmenting that attack for damage will only get you so far. Tossing vow of poverty on it seems like an obviously great starting point, pumping up a lot of the blink dog's qualities. As for what the blink dog should actually be doing, I'd be inclined to say tripping, because that way he can pop around and knock folks prone, but it's frigging tiny with no strength, and the type means that boosting the size is non-trivial.

I'm actually vaguely inclined to say that disarm is a good choice, backed by weapon finesse to make hitting with it plausible. It'd just teleport all over the place, running action denial through the magic of tossing weapons away. It's obviously narrow, but I don't think you're going to do much better than narrow here. Blink dog is just not the best companion choice, so the impact you wind up with will inevitably be somewhat sub par. There could also be something involving ToB, but I'm not familiar enough with the intricacies of the system to know what the best way to use that would be.

[Troacctid]

Step 1: Get that Blink Dog a Vow of Poverty ASAP. Psychic Reformation if you have to.

As far as using its actions in combat, you could always have it focus on flanking and aiding.

[Snowbluff]

Well, I'll start with VoP, then. Maybe I get get it Insightful Strike at it's bonus feat from VoP.

[Troacctid]

You could probably do a lot of damage by teleporting up into the air and using the Roof-Jumper feat to make a falling charge. +1d6 damage for every 10 feet after the first 10, so potentially up to +71d6 if you don't mind the blink dog taking the full 20d6 falling damage.

[Snowbluff]

You could probably do a lot of damage by teleporting up into the air and using the Roof-Jumper feat to make a falling charge. +1d6 damage for every 10 feet after the first 10, so potentially up to +71d6 if you don't mind the blink dog taking the full 20d6 falling damage.

That's nothing short of brilliant. : o

[gorfnab]

You could do some Mounted Combat stuff with a Ring of Blinking per A&EG (pg 81-82).

[KoDT69]

Wow, I asked a couple weeks ago if there was a RAW way to let a player get a Blink Dog as a companion and the only responses I got were that it wasn't possible. :smallyuk:

To answer your question though, I would build it up to flank and/or bull rush things in order for you to get extra bonuses to attack, attacks of opportunity, or maybe find a way to give it speech and some low-level spellcasting :smallwink:

[eggynack]

Wow, I asked a couple weeks ago if there was a RAW way to let a player get a Blink Dog as a companion and the only responses I got were that it wasn't possible. :smallyuk:

Well, to be fair, you did ask about ranger animal companions, where either a direct blink dog question or something about druid animal companions would have likely brought about an answer, from me at least. If it's any consolation, you wouldn't have been able to pick up a blink dog at 6th anyway. Using exalted companion for a blink dog puts you at a -3, and a ranger can only get one of those at 8th.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

I played a Battle Sorcerer (low-op game) with Improved Familiar for a Blink Dog, and (ab)used Benign Transposition to great effect. It also helped that we were using spell points (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/magic/spellPoints.htm), I had about sixty spell points at that level and it only cost one to cast that. The first time I used it a Yuan-Ti miniboss was escaping and ran around a corner down the hallway, dog blinked next to it, swapped him spots with the Fighter/Cleric (equal levels of both, low-op), and he got to full attack and then his AoO killed it as it tried to continue its retreat. Otherwise, the dog blinks to a difficult to reach spot, Benign Transposition it with a party member, repeat until the whole party is across/through.

As an animal companion, it's extremely lacking. Only one natural attack, laughable physical stats, and almost no options for making it able to contribute in combat in a meaningful way. It's useful as a familiar for utility, but even among utility familiars it's lacking since most of those are Outsiders (Imp/Quasit) and can be Polymorphed into other Outsider forms (Kelvezu). Maybe if you give it a Monk's Belt, Weapon Finesse, and share Produce Flame so it delivers the touch spell on every melee attack, it could be viable, but that would exclude it from being able to take VoP.

My advice would be to pick a different companion, such as a Celestial (Level -1) Dire Eagle (RoS, Level -3), which can also take VoP, gets superb physical stats with three attacks/round, and it can fly and even carry one or more medium and smaller riders. Plan on making your next character someone who could benefit from a Blink Dog familiar, because it's ill suited to be an animal companion.

[eggynack]

I dunno. I was kinda in on the whole thing where blink dog is a terrible choice for a companion, but I'm a bit sold on the teleporting up to roof-jump down onto opponents plan. Doesn't necessarily seem like an effective plan, because of the low to-hit and the repeated companion death, but it does seem like a really sweet plan.

[KoDT69]

Well, to be fair, you did ask about ranger animal companions, where either a direct blink dog question or something about druid animal companions would have likely brought about an answer, from me at least. If it's any consolation, you wouldn't have been able to pick up a blink dog at 6th anyway. Using exalted companion for a blink dog puts you at a -3, and a ranger can only get one of those at 8th.

Thanks. I actually keep forgetting that WotC like, hates classes other than the full casters. All that "half a Druid's level" stuff for Rangers is kinda whack. I have ignored that ruling so long that I just forgot it was there. I don't make them have half caster level either! Like a 5th level character casting a buff that lasts 2 rounds makes any sense...

For the falling damage thing, what if the Blink Dog hold's his action of blinking, then uses it in response to the falling damage like how timing in Magic: The Gathering works :smallbiggrin:

[Bronk]

I'm not sure what level your druid is, but you could (with or without vow of poverty) give it the rapidstrike and improved rapidstrike feats, and follow it up with 'touch of golden ice' for additional dex damage.

[eggynack]

I'm not sure what level your druid is, but you could (with or without vow of poverty) give it the rapidstrike and improved rapidstrike feats, and follow it up with 'touch of golden ice' for additional dex damage.
Nah, rapidstrike requires paired attacks, and the blink dog just has the one bite. Improved also seems implausible in the general sense, as it requires a BAB of +15, which is only acquirable off of the 18th-20th level slot, which would take natural bond applied to an 18th level druid. Touch of golden ice is always reasonable though, at least if VoP is involved.

Edit: Also, yet another reason that natural bond and exalted companion is a good combo, in addition to the increased gain from VoP, and the bigger HD, you also get more bonus BAB than you would ordinarily. It's a thing worth picking up if you want to go deep on the animal companion path, though investing two feats into the ability is a lot.

[Bronk]

Nah, rapidstrike requires paired attacks, and the blink dog just has the one bite.

Good catch!

[Snowbluff]

I dunno. I was kinda in on the whole thing where blink dog is a terrible choice for a companion, but I'm a bit sold on the teleporting up to roof-jump down onto opponents plan. Doesn't necessarily seem like an effective plan, because of the low to-hit and the repeated companion death, but it does seem like a really sweet plan.
Yeah, I can't use the combo at my level, so I went with a celestial magebred tiger.

Touch of golden ice is always reasonable though, at least if VoP is involved. Yeah, I'm planning on taking it.


Edit: Also, yet another reason that natural bond and exalted companion is a good combo, in addition to the increased gain from VoP, and the bigger HD, you also get more bonus BAB than you would ordinarily.

Could you elaborate? You don't mean to say the HD and BAB change, right?

[eggynack]

Could you elaborate? You don't mean to say the HD and BAB change, right?
No, just that the marginal benefit from extra HD is greater on the superior magical beast HD. The extra VoP advancement aspect is still relevant for the celestial tiger, at least.

[Snowbluff]

No, just that the marginal benefit from extra HD is greater on the superior magical beast HD. The extra VoP advancement aspect is still relevant for the celestial tiger, at least.

Yeah, I gave her Stigmata and Strongheart Vest. My AnC is the partie's HP healer. :smalltongue:

[eggynack]

Yeah, I gave her Stigmata and Strongheart Vest. My AnC is the partie's HP healer. :smalltongue:
I don't think this plan works, unfortunately. Stigmata heals based on the amount of constitution damage you actually take, rather than the amount you initially choose to take, so reducing the amount of constitution damage taken would serve only to reduce the amount of HP healed. Stigmata provides a surprisingly hard setup to find a workaround for. Really do have to do some research into MoI stuff, personally. As it turns out, knowing all things druid secretly means knowing all things that are a part of the game.

Edit: This will become especially true if my quest to determine what sort of ability meldshaping is yields the ability for druids to wild shape into an incarnum dragon to do incarnum stuff. That'd change stuff.

[Snowbluff]

I don't think this plan works, unfortunately. Stigmata heals based on the amount of constitution damage you actually take, rather than the amount you initially choose to take, so reducing the amount of constitution damage taken would serve only to reduce the amount of HP healed.

Both of those phrases have qualifiers. :smalltongue:

[eggynack]

Both of those phrases have qualifiers. :smalltongue:
What's what thing now?

[Taveena]

Improved Unarmed Strike would give it at least one extra attack per round. Vow of Poverty into Touch of Golden Ice
with IUS gives it some debuff potential. Blink Dog subtracts three from your effective druid level, so it reaches Large size at EDL 9 (6 if you can swing Natural Bond to offset the penalty from a more powerful Animal Companion). So that has a fair bit of use (if you're not using half druid level, as mentioned). So at that point it's pretty monstrous, really.

The IDEAL thing to do - though not strictly allowed with an AC - is to take levels in a class that grants Shadowpounce, which lets it use its free-action 1/round Dimension Door to make a full attack, then use its full-round action to full attack again.

[eggynack]

Blink Dog subtracts three from your effective druid level, so it reaches Large size at EDL 9 (6 if you can swing Natural Bond to offset the penalty from a more powerful Animal Companion).
If you're referring to creature advancement rules, then I'm pretty sure the bonus HD from companion advancement don't give access to those. A medium blink dog you get, and a medium blink dog it shall remain.

[Taveena]

If you're referring to creature advancement rules, then I'm pretty sure the bonus HD from companion advancement don't give access to those. A medium blink dog you get, and a medium blink dog it shall remain.

Could be the case, but given it's gaining animal HD, sure seems like it would advance a size category. Source?

[eggynack]

Could be the case, but given it's gaining animal HD, sure seems like it would advance a size category. Source?
Just that that's not how advancement works. You gain a pile of bonus HD, which confers its own set of explicitly laid out benefits. Monster advancement operates under an entirely different system that's not explicitly touched by companion HD.