3.5 Beast-Master somehow viable?

[TheCreatorT]

First of all guys hi, first post. Second, I have always loved the idea of the using minions to do your bidding. The beast-master is suppose to accomplish this task without magic, but..... every thing I searched about it basically says only the first level is useful, and sometimes not even that. Has anyone discovered a way to make it work, or recreate its effect in a legit way (as in not dump feats into Animal Cohort)?

[Flickerdart]

The first feat you want is Natural Bond. This increases the effective druid level of your dudes by 3. Since you should qualify for beastmaster at level 5, this means your best animal companion is equal to the druid's. Your next one is only 2 levels behind, and still useful. You should spend a good amount of cash on equipping them with barding and magic items so that they have the numbers they need. They will be relatively fragile compared to a full PC though, so make sure they either stick together or flank with the party fighter. See if you can get them to be magebred, warbeasts, whatever. The feat Feral Animal Companion makes them tougher, too.

The other two companions (-5 and -8 respectively, compared to a straight druid's) are going to be tricky. These are not going to be combatants, so look for utility animals. An eagle can scout for you (though you can speak with animals only thrice a day). Large enough animals with flight can serve as mounts for you and your party. Anything that burrows and leaves a tunnel behind gives you a valuable tactical tool. Animals with exotic senses such as blindsense can help you detect enemies in the dark, foiling would-be assassins.

The real problem is when you reach [class] 5/beastmaster 10/[class] 1. Your best companion is now that of a 16th level druid's, and the others are 3, 6, and 9 levels behind...and that's the best they're ever going to get. At level 20, your guys are still 16, 13, 10, and 7. If you were going to take druid levels, you should have just done that instead of this class. Don't play beastmaster in campaigns that go to 20.

If you like minions, consider the beast heart adept (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20070209a&page=4). He only gets three companions, but they are magical beasts, which can have neat abilities that make them useful longer than pure combat capability would.

[sleepyphoenixx]

Natural Bond only applies to your first companion, not all of them. There's also the problem that your extra companions won't advance at all once you're finished with the class.
Beast Heart Adept has the same problem, except that the companions are already pretty weak when you get them and they improve with nothing except BHA levels.

You can get a similar effect with the Dragonmark of Handling. One of its abilities is Dominate Animal, and there's an item (in MoE or ECS iirc) called Collar of the Wild Bond that makes the effect permanent.
So you can have as many animal companions as you can afford collars, and if one of them dies or becomes obsolete you can just look for a new one.
They won't get animal companion abilities, but the biggest of those is Share Spells anyway which you won't have any use for if you want to be a non-caster.

The other option is playing (or dipping) a Totemist. The Unicorn Horn and Beast Tamer Circlet both boost Wild Empathy significantly (and they stack), and the Circlet also lets you speak with animals. Optimize your charisma and charisma-checks and that's already enough to befriend any animal you're likely to meet, and most magical beasts too.

Another thing to consider is that a big part of animal companion strength comes from the fact that it has druid buffs by default. There's a reason rangers trade their companions away beside the half progression.
Even with full progression an unbuffed animal companion isn't all that impressive, so trying to use several weaker ones as a non-caster is pretty much doomed to fail unless your table plays at a low optimization level.