Optimize this Feat 9: Races of Faerun's Animal friends p.161

[daremetoidareyo]

I Love Feats. They are little alterations to the rules and they interface with class features in some really fun and strange ways. Sometimes their utility is circumspect and sometimes they just stink. I'm looking at you Battle Dance. However, there is just something really satisfying about the interplay of feats and rules to produce illogical and unintended effects. Also, as a team, we can collectively push the limits of our apparent intelligence. (https://www.singularityweblog.com/human-swarming-and-the-future-of-collective-intelligence/)

What is this?
So this is the "Optimize this feat" discussion, wherein we work together to plumb the clever and amazing uses for feats in ways the designers could have only dreamt of. Arbitrary credit seems to be important to sway people's incentives, so I have devised the following system to award credit to people who help explore the possibilities of how to use a feat. I'm developing this pseudo-contest on the fly, so rules are subject to change :smallannoyed:


All participants in the optimization endeavor post directly into the thread. They may post as many times as they want, just like any thread where you volunteer your ideas. After a week or so, the thread will be evaluated and participants will be assigned a score. That score represents how helpful or novel the poster was in their analysis of a feat's uses, abuses, interactions, and limitations. The rubric by which points are assigned to posters is developed below. The poster's who are most helpful will be announced after a week, and have their name highlighted in bold and in a font color other than black! I will try to remain interactive in the process, because the contest element to me is secondary to extracting the maximum amount of versatility and power out of the feat resource.


Point Allocation Rubric
The following list is not exhaustive of how points will be allocated, as I imagine that there will be weird end cases.

Suggestion of a non-overtly obvious class feature, spell, feat, skill trick, psi-power, magic/psionic item, or monster that interplays with the feat to produce an exaggerated result.

Overt Obviousness will be judged by me, but I will generally allocate points generously, What I am trying to avoid is people suggesting feat interplays that are non-exceptional and thus cluttering the thread with lame and uninteresting things. 1 point.

If the suggestion is particularly powerful or clever, an additional point may be allocated to reward the optimizerly thinking. This decision is mine, although I will be swayed by what seems like genuine "co-signing," where other posters in the thread really glom onto the idea and develop it further.

A small build stub, between 5-12 levels, that includes a small write up of how the feat interplays with a few class features, racial features, spells, powers and feats to produce an effect that is far beyond the scope of what the feat of the week is capable of providing on its own. 5 points. +/- 1 point.

A rather undeveloped stub may only receive 4 points if it is a slightly modified rehash of a previous stub. A rather ingenious stub can earn an extra point. In some cases, you may actually do both! All of these are judgement calls as adjudicated by myself.

A fully functional optimization of the feat that ramps it up to its maximum power level where there is no way to possibly make it more amazing, including a 20 level build that follows the same format as iron chef dishes, but with minimal write up, is worthy of 10-12 points.

As the Chair, I will remain interactive throughout the thread, even suggesting a few builds. Commenting on these is fine and all of the rubric points apply to those as well. This means that the thread is not a totally objective competition.

A display of relevant rules expertise that shapes the discussion is worthy of 0 or 1 point. This is the "squishiest" criteria, and will only be allocated when it corrects part of the conversation that is going too far off the rails. Particularly nasty interchanges about RAW may lead to abdication of this point. Being incorrect isn't an immoral offense, so I want an atmosphere where suggestions are flying but staying generally within the real bounds of dnd play. RAW discussions tend to get a little too personal, and hopefully this arbitrary point system can circumvent that. Plus, seeing as how extensive the rules system is, it is easy for me to get excited about how to make an idea work and get lost about the details.

Bounties. Starting with Optimize this feat #5, I am instating an additional means of accumulating bonus points: Bounties. You will find the bounties and their point values in a spoiler on the bottom of the second post, underneath the relevant rules excerpts and clarifications. A Bounty is a "winner-take-all" style miniquest for users to provide information relevant to optimizing the feat. The hope is to allow these "Optimize this Feat" contests can serve as a longform mini-handbook to the use of their namesake feats. Bounties will just be replaced with nudges towards helpful development goals.


BIAS
I am not a perfect judge. I prefer mundane to magical. I prefer Tier 3 and below to Tier 2 and up. But I do love me some dysfunction. So optimization that requires a lot of high level spells or powers (anything level 4 or up) will be less impressive to me. Go ahead and make your suggestion, I will try to police these biases in myself, but understand that these are factors that are in play.

Other information
All of that said, I have an exhibited tendency to be more forgiving/rules lax, whereas some of you are far more RAW heavy. I really do appreciate ya'll, so don't be afraid to reign in some of the theory and ground it in what is explicitly allowed. Different tables play the game differently. And this forum tends to highlight super polarized ends of this permissiveness spectrum that spans from "RAW to a fault" - "So ridiculously theoretically unbalanced beyond any DM's willingness to allow". Most play tends to be in the middle, if not a little skewed towards RAW: but not all play. With that in mind, if requested, if you are asked to assume that the theoretical DM handwaves your criticism as a special exception, please update your approach and proceed from there if you would like to continue to parse the possibilities that a feat offers. In this way, we can develop the full spectrum of what a feat can do.

This week's Feat is Races of Faerun's Animal Friends

This endeavor concludes at 11:59PM Eastern Standard Time on July 21st

Optimize this Feat 1:Wanderer's Diplomacy (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?472308-Optimize-This-Feat-1-Wanderer-s-Diplomacy): VAZ
Optimize this Feat 2: Conductivity (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?473047-Optimize-this-Feat-2-Conductivity-from-Unearthed-Arcana&highlight=Conductivity): ben-zayb
Optimize this Feat 3: Swim-by Attack (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?474225-Optimize-this-feat-3-Swim-by-attack-from-Stormwrack): WhamBamSam
Optimize this Feat 4: Contagious Paralysis (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?476019-Optimize-this-Feat-4-Contagious-Paralysis-from-Libris-Mortis) WhamBamSam
Optimize this Feat 5: Hammer and Piton (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?477681-Optimize-this-Feat-5-Hammer-and-Piton-From-Dungeonscape) Zetapup
Optimize this Feat 6: Residual Rebound (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?479041-Optimize-this-Feat-6-Residual-Rebound-from-Unearthed-Arcana&p=20493024#post20493024) ben-zayb
Optimize this Feat 7: Mark of Phlegethos (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?480323-Optimize-this-Feat-7-Mark-of-Phlegethos-from-Fiendish-Codex-2-Tot9H): Darrin
Optimize this Feat 8: Seelie Court Noble Kelir (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?492298-Optimize-this-Feat-8-Seelie-Court-Noble-Kelir-(web)): Jowgen

Upcoming Schedule:

Don't post your ideas for these on the wrong competition. Save em. Unleash your brilliance on us.
Optimize this feat #10:Primary Contact from Cityscape p.61
Optimize this feat #11: maybe Supremely Confident from Dragon #335 with guest judge ________????
Optimize this feat #12: Spirit Sense from Heroes of Horror, p. 124

[daremetoidareyo]

We are definitely gonna need some ground rules considering the nixxing of animal friendship as a spell in between editions. Let's start by looking at the text of the feat.


Your ability to speak with animals has allowed you to befriend an animal as a permanent ally.
Benefit: You gain up to 2 HD of animal friends, just as if you had cast animal friendship with a caster level of 1st. The animals befriended must be native to the area around your home. If these animal friends are lost, you may replace them after one month.
Special: You may take this feat multiple times. Each time you take it, you gain another 2 HD of animal friends. These HD do not stack with any previous times you took this feat; therefore you cannot have an animal companion with more than 2 HD.

Seeing as how the effect is based on a spell, we should look up the spell too.


Level: Druid 1, Ranger 1, Beastmaster (DF) 1,
Components: V, S, M,
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: Close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)
Target: One animal
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: Will negates
Spell Resistance: Yes

You win the loyalty of an animal, provided that your heart is true. The spell functions only if you actually wish to be the animal's friend. If you are not willing to treat the animal as a friend (for example, you intend to eat it, or to use it to set off traps), the spell fails. An animal's loyalty, once gained, is natural (not magical) and lasting.
You can teach the befriended animal three specific tricks or tasks for each point of Intelligence it possesses. Typical tasks include attacking, coming when called, guarding a place, and protecting a character. They cannot be complex (complex tricks, such as accepting a rider, require the Handle Animal skill; see page 68).
At any one time, you can have only a certain number of animals befriended to you. At most, you can have animal friends whose Hit Dice total no more than twice your caster level (though the demands of adventuring generally restrict a character to half that number). For example, a 3rd-level druid could use this spell to win the friendship of an animal of 6 HD or less, but an adventuring druid would only be able to maintain an animal of 3 HD as a friend. An adventuring 5th-level ranger would generally be able to maintain animal friends whose HD totaled 2 or less. You may dismiss animal friends to enable you to befriend new ones.
Material Component: A piece of food the animal likes.

For the purposes of this competition, we will be treating animal friends as animal companions that cannot have more than 2HD. However, you can attract numerous fractional HD creatures up to the 2HD limit. These creatures will be treated as "animal companions" and can be augmented by any class, spell, and feat features that would affect a 1st level druid's animal companions except those that increase their HD beyond 2HD; Advancing as a druid or ranger or other class that advances animal companions will not advance critters gained through this feat: thus natural bond won't work either. The only exception to these provisions is the tamer of beasts prestige class from master of the wild, which is said to have been replaced by the beastmaster in the edition update. But the names and overall feel of those two classes are still different, and with the class abilities of tamer of beasts being directly relevant to this feat, we lose the ability to really explore all of the ways animal friends can be optimized.

Parsing the following phrase, "just as if you had cast animal friendship with a caster level of 1st." I am left to assume that you gain these friends through a process that is not technically considered "magic", a process which happens to yield the same result as if you had the ability to cast a spell. So treat it like it's 1/month spell-like ability. With this reading it is assumed that offtime is spent talking to forest critters and actually turning them into true friends, just as loyal as a druid's companion, just lackluster in the HD department. The exception to this is again tamer of beasts, seeing as how the only way in 3.5 to technically be able to cast animal friendship is through the use of this feat.

Now that opens up optimization room, and remains relatively reasonable.

[Jormengand]

Because it works just as though you had cast a spell, you can treat yourself as being able to cast spells because you must have cast that spell. You're also treated as having a spell on you, which can stop other spells cast at CL 1 (or utterances, which can be uttered at CL 0) being caught in an area dispel. You can also have four cats following you around as a feat, meaning that with flaws you can get twelve of the damn things at first level.

[sleepyphoenixx]

Because it works just as though you had cast a spell, you can treat yourself as being able to cast spells because you must have cast that spell. You're also treated as having a spell on you, which can stop other spells cast at CL 1 (or utterances, which can be uttered at CL 0) being caught in an area dispel. You can also have four cats following you around as a feat, meaning that with flaws you can get twelve of the damn things at first level.

Catgnome, bane of commoners?

[Troacctid]

The Animal Friendship spell was removed from the game in the 3.5 update and replaced with the animal companion class feature. I assume that means this feat now gives you a 1st level animal companion? Either way, it certainly requires modification in order to use in a 3.5 game.


Because it works just as though you had cast a spell, you can treat yourself as being able to cast spells because you must have cast that spell. You're also treated as having a spell on you, which can stop other spells cast at CL 1 (or utterances, which can be uttered at CL 0) being caught in an area dispel.
All of that is incorrect. The feat grants you no spellcasting ability, and it is an extraordinary ability as is normal for feats. Furthermore, even if it allowed you to use Animal Friendship as a spell-like ability, you would still not be under the effect of a spell, as it is an instantaneous effect that creates an explicitly nonmagical bond. Also, it targets the animal.

For reference, here is the text of Animal Friendship as it appears in the SRD.


Enchantment (Charm) [Mind-Affecting]
Level: Drd 1, Rgr 1
Components: V, S, M
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: Close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)
Target: One animal
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: Will negates
Spell Resistance: Yes

The character wins the loyalty of an animal. The spell functions only if the character actually wishes to be the animal's friend. If the character is not willing to treat the animal as a the spell fails. An animal's loyalty is natural (not magical) and lasting.

The character can teach the befriended animal three specific tricks or tasks for each point of Intelligence it possesses. They cannot be complex (complex tricks require the Handle Animal skill).

At most, the character can have animal friends whose Hit Dice total no more than twice the character's caster level (though the demands of adventuring generally restrict a character to half that number).

The character may dismiss animal friends to enable the character to befriend new ones.

[Jormengand]

I'm going to assume that working as though you'd cast a spell means working as though you'd cast a spell, meaning that you must have been able to cast that spell. The spell not being on you is fair enough, though it may stop dispels on your numerous kitties.

[Troacctid]

I'm going to assume that working as though you'd cast a spell means working as though you'd cast a spell, meaning that you must have been able to cast that spell.
You gain up to 2 HD of animal friends as if you had cast the spell. You don't gain any other benefits of having cast the spell, nor do you count as having cast the spell for any purpose other than what the feat says. It won't interact with anything that cares about spellcasting.


The spell not being on you is fair enough, though it may stop dispels on your numerous kitties.
Animal Friendship doesn't interact with dispels. It's an instantaneous spell.

[daremetoidareyo]

updated the sticky.

Here is a list of all of the animals (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/19Xxes06ND55Jvd-cMtIAAhQze4Kb_TcABMCKe7Lb1ZQ/pubhtml) that I could find by cutting apart someone's online database. No HD field, but Most things CR3 or less will be 2HD or less:

[Troacctid]

Realistically speaking, although there are a lot of animals you could choose from, you're almost certainly going to want ones from a forest environment, because as a forest gnome, you can actually communicate with those ones.

Edit: As a DM, I would not allow splitting up the HD between multiple animals. First, because having that many minions bogs down combat and results in poor gameplay, which is why the option was intentionally removed from the animal companion class feature in 3.5; and second, because it could easily be abused with a build like this:



Level
Class
Feats
Class features
Spittle damage
# of bats
Essentia
Soulmelds
Chakra binds


1
Incarnate 1
Expanded Soulmeld Capacity, Necrocarnum Acolyte (flaw), Animal Friends (flaw)
Aura, detect opposition
2d6
8
1
2
0


2
Gnome Incarnate 2

Chakra bind (crown), detect thoughts
3d6
8
2
3
1


3
Incarnate 3
Share Soulmeld
Expanded soulmeld capacity +1, incarnum radiance 1/day
4d6
8
3
3
1


4
Incarnate 4

Chakra binds (feet, hands)
4d6
8
4
4
1


5
Incarnate 5

Rapid meldshaping 1/day
4d6
8
5
4
1


6
Incarnate 6
Animal Friends

5d6
16
6
4
2


7
Incarnate 7

Share incarnum radiance
5d6
16
7
5
2


8
Necrocarnate 1

Harvest soul (1 minute), improved meldshaper level
5d6
16
7
5
2


9
Necrocarnate 2
Animal Friends
Necrocarnum soulshield
5d6
24
7
5
2


10
Necrocarnate 3

Chakra binds (arms, brow, shoulders)
5d6
24
7
5
2


11
Necrocarnate 4


5d6
24
7
6
3


12
Necrocarnate 5
Animal Friends
Essentia trap
6d6
32
7
6
3


13
Necrocarnate 6

Necrocarnum zombie master (half damage)
6d6
32
7
6
3


14
Necrocarnate 7


6d6
32
7
7
3


15
Necrocarnate 8
Animal Friends
Chakra binds (throat, waist)
12d6
40
7
7
4


16
Necrocarnate 9

Expanded necrocarnum meld capacity
12d6
40
7
7
4


17
Necrocarnate 10

Harvest soul (full-round action)
12d6
40
7
8
4


18
Necrocarnate 11
Animal Friends
Chakra bind (heart)
14d6
48
7
8
4


19
Necrocarnate 12


14d6
48
7
8
5


20
Necrocarnate 13

Chakra bind (soul), necrocarnum zombie master (2 zombies)
14d6
48
7
9
5



Share soulmeld applies to every animal companion. Let's say you use the feat to get some bats, which have ¼ HD. That's eight bats per iteration of the feat. And thanks to your shared Dissolving Spittle, that's an extra eight attacks every round—each targeting touch AC and dealing a fistful of d6s. If every attack hits, you're dealing 36d6+9 damage at 3rd level. Opponents can kill the bats, but that just gives you more essentia, and you can get new ones later—and with evasion (thanks, Impulse Boots), it's going to be tough to kill them all even with area attacks.

[daremetoidareyo]

Realistically speaking, although there are a lot of animals you could choose from, you're almost certainly going to want ones from a forest environment, because as a forest gnome, you can actually communicate with those ones.

Edit: As a DM, I would not allow splitting up the HD between multiple animals. First, because having that many minions bogs down combat and results in poor gameplay, which is why the option was intentionally removed from the animal companion class feature in 3.5; and second, because it could easily be abused with a build like this:



Level
Class
Feats
Class features
Spittle damage
# of bats
Essentia
Soulmelds
Chakra binds


1
Incarnate 1
Expanded Soulmeld Capacity, Necrocarnum Acolyte (flaw), Animal Friends (flaw)
Aura, detect opposition
2d6
8
1
2
0


2
Gnome Incarnate 2

Chakra bind (crown), detect thoughts
3d6
8
2
3
1


3
Incarnate 3
Share Soulmeld
Expanded soulmeld capacity +1, incarnum radiance 1/day
4d6
8
3
3
1


4
Incarnate 4

Chakra binds (feet, hands)
4d6
8
4
4
1


5
Incarnate 5

Rapid meldshaping 1/day
4d6
8
5
4
1


6
Incarnate 6
Animal Friends

5d6
16
6
4
2


7
Incarnate 7

Share incarnum radiance
5d6
16
7
5
2


8
Necrocarnate 1

Harvest soul (1 minute), improved meldshaper level
5d6
16
7
5
2


9
Necrocarnate 2
Animal Friends
Necrocarnum soulshield
5d6
24
7
5
2


10
Necrocarnate 3

Chakra binds (arms, brow, shoulders)
5d6
24
7
5
2


11
Necrocarnate 4


5d6
24
7
6
3


12
Necrocarnate 5
Animal Friends
Essentia trap
6d6
32
7
6
3


13
Necrocarnate 6

Necrocarnum zombie master (half damage)
6d6
32
7
6
3


14
Necrocarnate 7


6d6
32
7
7
3


15
Necrocarnate 8
Animal Friends
Chakra binds (throat, waist)
12d6
40
7
7
4


16
Necrocarnate 9

Expanded necrocarnum meld capacity
12d6
40
7
7
4


17
Necrocarnate 10

Harvest soul (full-round action)
12d6
40
7
8
4


18
Necrocarnate 11
Animal Friends
Chakra bind (heart)
14d6
48
7
8
4


19
Necrocarnate 12


14d6
48
7
8
5


20
Necrocarnate 13

Chakra bind (soul), necrocarnum zombie master (2 zombies)
14d6
48
7
9
5



Share soulmeld applies to every animal companion. Let's say you use the feat to get some bats, which have ¼ HD. That's eight bats per iteration of the feat. And thanks to your shared Dissolving Spittle, that's an extra eight attacks every round—each targeting touch AC and dealing a fistful of d6s. If every attack hits, you're dealing 36d6+9 damage at 3rd level. Opponents can kill the bats, but that just gives you more essentia, and you can get new ones later—and with evasion (thanks, Impulse Boots), it's going to be tough to kill them all even with area attacks.

Why does killing the bats give you more essencia? Also, good job on the incarnate build :11 points. And while I agree with the idea that it is a little borked to be rocking 8 bats that can summon their own necrocarnum zombies, that is an awesome use for the feat.

[Troacctid]

Why does killing the bats give you more essencia?
Necrocarnate levels. You get to trap and harvest their souls.

There's also that one necrocarnum soulmeld that gives you and all your bats a profane bonus whenever one of them dies, but I'm not sure that's worth shaping.

[Gallowglass]

every Class level table should include "# of bats" as a metric. Right up there with BAB and saves.

[Jormengand]

Of course, truespeak DCs on the bats are ridiculously easy, allowing you to mess with all of the Word of Nurturing utterances and Spell Rebirth, all of which target a creature and then don't do anything with it. (The word of nurturing utterances perform flashy light displays on "The target" and give fast healing to "A creature"; Spell Rebirth undispels a spell but has nothing to do with the creature it targets).

There's also nothing stopping the animals being spare bodies for things like Incantations (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/magic/incantations.htm).

In fact, let's get really, really silly here, because obviously there isn't enough of that in this competition. There is nothing stopping animals taking checks such as diplomacy, perform, disguise (with the -2 penalty for trying to disguise as anything other than, say, a bat), forgery (with potentially a bonus if you forge the right kind of thing), gather information, heal (often with an actual wisdom bonus), intimidate (useful in combat), perform (which earns 1d10 sp/day a non-negligible amount of the time), search, survival, and use rope. There's nothing stopping you getting your animal to re-train their skill ranks so they have 1 in speak language common and 3 in whatever skills you want that specific bat to be able to use but can't be untrained, oh, and why not swap the feat out for something like jack of all trades or open minded? Why not get those with two hit dice to change their animal hit dice into actual class levels (by becoming level drained, and when eligible to re-gain the level, choosing a class level)? Sure, the bats can't do this, but why have eight bats per feat when you could have a hyena cleric instead?

Come to think of it, there's nothing stopping the "Nonmagical and lasting" friendship persisting even beyond death. That is, level drain. Into a wight. Or a vampire spawn, for that matter, but then they're under that vampire's control and, seriously, no-one wants that. You can then find someone who can give out positive levels and get yourself a good old-fashioned wight sorcerer, who is your friend, instead of each one of the eight bats who are your friends. Wight bards and wight rogues, even wight clerics and druids, might easily also work. Hells, wight fighters might also work. Also, they can swap out alertness and blind-fight for, uhm, pretty much anything else.

Now, just because I can, I'm going to try to put every single previous ingredient of OTF into this explanation.

Obviously, your army of wights who are your friends yes definitely friends will need wanderer's diplomacy to allow them to find items that are hard to find, then some of them should take conductivity, so that they can trap people between them and fire lightning between each other, swim-by attack for the fun extra standard actions, contagious paralysis because they themselves are immune and therefore it would be hilarious to paralyse everyone, and also hammer and piton so that they can randomly visit the moon when they feel like it. Because we needed an army of wight sorcerers who randomly take time off to visit the moon. Residual rebound would be funny because they can actually do a lot of the hacks that work on it because there are so many of them. Mark of phlegethos is nice just for the skill bonuses, honestly, and remember that the wights can just punch each other and heal as much as they deal. Seelie court noble kelir can be earned as a bonus feat (mr and mrs bat are obviously members of the seelie court) and therefore it's a free ability to mess with crowds. But of course, we all know what feat they should really take: animal friends.

Now, first off, what you're going to need to do is be a wizard, or a cleric with the trickery domain. The second thing you need to do is prepare as many copies of Polymorph and Polymorph Any Object as you can. So, actually, you oughta be a wizard for this one. The next thing you need to do is Polymorph the wight into a creature of the humanoid type, such as, say, a dwarf. Then, polymorph any object it into a svirfneblin (or just a gnome, if you're boring). Duration factor on that should be nine, wham bam, you now have a svirphnebloon who is still your friend, and keeps the wight's class levels (which, I'm just throwing it out there, should probably not be sorcerer. Maybe rogue). Now, of course, all the spherenibbler has to retrain his feats into animal friendship, allowing him to get sixteen more bats, which you can turn into sixteen more wights, and sixteen more smurfnoodles. Or, of course, you could leave all but two of them as wights, and have infinite fourth-level undead sorcerers who level drain everything they touch following you around. You're welcome.

The best build for this is probably Wizard 19/Loremaster 1 for the nice bonus feat you can get from loremaster.

Also, there's nothing stopping you from randomly having pseudonatural paragon bats following you around if you happen to live in a particularly epic bit of the far realms. Just as an aside.

[Troacctid]

In fact, let's get really, really silly here, because obviously there isn't enough of that in this competition. There is nothing stopping animals taking checks such as diplomacy, perform, disguise (with the -2 penalty for trying to disguise as anything other than, say, a bat), forgery (with potentially a bonus if you forge the right kind of thing), gather information, heal (often with an actual wisdom bonus), intimidate (useful in combat), perform (which earns 1d10 sp/day a non-negligible amount of the time), search, survival, and use rope.
Well, the main thing stopping them is that they suck at those things. In most cases, I think the better plan is to have them aid you on your check for a +2 bonus. I like stacking Perform checks in downtime, though. That's pretty sweet.

This does also assume that everything we're talking about is simple enough to communicate via the forest gnome's simple animal language. Otherwise it's an annoying DC 25 Handle Animal check as a standard action.


There's nothing stopping you getting your animal to re-train their skill ranks so they have 1 in speak language common and 3 in whatever skills you want that specific bat to be able to use but can't be untrained, oh, and why not swap the feat out for something like jack of all trades or open minded?
Draconic Aura is a personal favorite of mine.

Note though that the only way to do this AFAIK is with Psychic Reformation, which does cost you XP. So it's going to be pretty expensive if you're looking to do this for 48 bats.


Why not get those with two hit dice to change their animal hit dice into actual class levels (by becoming level drained, and when eligible to re-gain the level, choosing a class level)? Sure, the bats can't do this, but why have eight bats per feat when you could have a hyena cleric instead?
That one doesn't work—animals don't advance by class level, only by HD.


Come to think of it, there's nothing stopping the "Nonmagical and lasting" friendship persisting even beyond death. That is, level drain. Into a wight. Or a vampire spawn, for that matter, but then they're under that vampire's control and, seriously, no-one wants that.
Unless... YOU'RE the vampire!

...Wait, no, then you could just get a bunch of spawn without bothering to take the feat. Never mind.


Also, there's nothing stopping you from randomly having pseudonatural paragon bats following you around if you happen to live in a particularly epic bit of the far realms. Just as an aside.
This is the other problem with not revising the feat to simply give you an animal companion as a 1st level druid. The HD limit doesn't account for templates like the list of approved druid animal companions does.

[Jormengand]

Obviously they're gonna suck at most of the skill checks, but that doesn't always matter - if you have 24 bats using perform (Screech) to get money each day, then even though they have CHA 4, they still have a 1/10 chance to earn 1d10 SP and a 1/4 chance to earn 1d10 CP, earning between them an average of about 13 GP every day, which isn't terrible for a first-level character.


That one doesn't work—animals don't advance by class level, only by HD.

Shucks, that's right. You're going to have to turn them into snoopnobles before you can do that. Weirdly, they'll actually have undead HD as snipnuggets, even though they're not undead.

EDIT: Also, retraining should be possible as per the PHB II rules.

[Troacctid]

Shucks, that's right. You're going to have to turn them into snoopnobles before you can do that. Weirdly, they'll actually have undead HD as snipnuggets, even though they're not undead.
Level-draining them into wights won't help. Wights can't gain class levels either.


EDIT: Also, retraining should be possible as per the PHB II rules.
The animals never actually level up, so they won't be eligible for it. Psychic Reformation is the only way.

A better way to get a horde of 1st level NPCs with class levels is to take Leadership, which gives you lots of followers, some of whom might even be higher than 1st level.

[Jormengand]

Level-draining them into wights won't help. Wights can't gain class levels either.


The animals never actually level up, so they won't be eligible for it. Psychic Reformation is the only way.

I'm aware, which is why I'm PAOing them into snipnuggets first. Try to keep up with my rampant deliberate misspellings of svirfneblin. :smalltongue:

Hmm, at least it is a way. I suppose you'll have to be a cerebremancer then. Ah well.

[Troacctid]

The problem with any avenue of optimization that involves giving them class levels is that animal companions don't gain XP. They gain hit dice based on the master's effective druid level instead. For the animal companion(s) gained via this feat, you're locked at an effective druid level of 1, which means they never level up. That street is a dead end.

You could dismiss them as your companion, but that means they'd be released from their service and under no obligation to follow you. Basically, they'd become independent NPCs—albeit with a friendly attitude towards you, but friendly low-level NPCs are already a dime a dozen with just Diplomacy, let alone Leadership, so you hardly need to go around using PAO to make more of them.

[daremetoidareyo]

I love it. You folks are great.

I have a bear warrior shared fury intimidating rage mad foam rager boar totem build that I made last week that uses 8 toads. Although bats would be better.

[Jormengand]

The main thing is turning them into wights so they have four hit dice, which they can then trade out for class levels via a variety of shenanigans. Turning them into stroopwafels so they can take the feats is just the icing on the, well, stroopwafel*.

*No, no-one puts icing on stroopwafels. Whatever.

Another thing you could do is of course be a marshal and then get your strifenavels to have loads of funky morale bonuses. Or be a cleric and cast Prayer. Or make them take levels in something psionic and mess around with metaconcert. Or make them take levels in something magical and mess around with epic spells. Or circle magic. Or, to be honest, whatever you like that requires lots of random bodies about.

[Troacctid]

The main thing is turning them into wights so they have four hit dice, which they can then trade out for class levels via a variety of shenanigans.
What shenanigans? I'm not aware of any shenanigans that would allow this. Level drain doesn't work, rebuilding doesn't work, classes like Blackguard don't work. And remember, you can't have more than 2 HD of animal friends at a time, so if you increase their HD in any way, they stop being your companion.

[ATHATH]

May I suggest a feat for next round? If so, I suggest Primary Contact.

[daremetoidareyo]

May I suggest a feat for next round? If so, I suggest Primary Contact.

I'm glad that folks are interested in keeping it going. I, personally, don't see a lot of use for primary contact other than early entry shenanigans, but maybe i'm just plain wrong. Anyways, no-one else is making suggestions, so sure, why the heck not. I look forward to eating my words.


It might be cool to spotlight some feats from Dragon Magazine that don't see a lot of discussion. Some examples, maybe:

Arcane Focus (Dragon #351)
Betrayal of the Spirit Linked (Dragon #336)
Customize Domain (Dragon #325)
Dual-Plane Summons (Dragon #313)
Extra Divine Power (Dragon #343)
Footsteps of the Mage (Dragon #359)
Frenzied Hunt (Dragon #342)
Grappling Blast (Dragon #358)
Hamstring Attack (Dragon #313)
Hands of the Mage (Dragon #359)
Master of Mockery (Dragon #333)
Pressure Point Strike (Dragon #336)
Spell Graft (Dragon #337)
Supremely Confident (Dragon #335)
Trophy Hunter (Dragon #332)

Here's the rub, when we play IRL, we typically don't allow dragon mag material, and accordingly, I, personally, have less of an interest in that material.

If, however, you or anyone else desires to guest judge/prod dragon mag material, I can add dragon mag feats to the roster of suggested feats in the "upcoming" section on the first post, along with prospective guest judges. When it's a guest judge's turn, I'll PM them along with the code for the first post of the optimize this feat series, and they'll take over judgementship for that feat. I typically choose a 2-3 week span of time for the contest to run and then try to be timely in finishing it all up, but I have failed at that before. That's the best compromise solution that I can think of.

META CONVERSATION
This optimize this feat thread has like 6-7 regulars, but I get the impression that folks click on the thing, read what's going on, and then feel too intimidated to post. How do we, as a group, attract more folks into participation? Is the first post too dense to parse so people drop out from participating? Maybe the blatant honesty about bias is an issue? Or maybe the problem is that we are focusing on feats and not spells...

Is there a way to see stats for when the most people are on the 3.5 subthread (and thus we can begin the contest in periods where there is the most activity)?

[Jormengand]

What shenanigans? I'm not aware of any shenanigans that would allow this. Level drain doesn't work, rebuilding doesn't work, classes like Blackguard don't work.
Positive levels are a thing (not to mention that you can wait until they turn into snareneedles first), and I'm pretty sure there are other ways to make it work.


And remember, you can't have more than 2 HD of animal friends at a time, so if you increase their HD in any way, they stop being your companion.
The bond is specifically "Nonmagical and lasting", so no, they don't.

[daremetoidareyo]

The bond is specifically "Nonmagical and lasting", so no, they don't.

But if they aren't animal type anymore, are they still animals?

[Sagetim]

But if they aren't animal type anymore, are they still animals?

Perhaps not, but they are still Friends. And friendship doesn't always follow the kind of logic that a computer program would where losing the animal type would lose you your friendship. In that vein, and building off the idea of a multitude of bats, I propose that any character with sufficient use magic device, charisma, and a can do attitue could have the most powerful and strange assortment of animal friends through the usage of this feat. Though it would start costing a lot of money down the line...

So I'm thinking a high charisma rogue...with a build something like:

Rouge 1 Animal Friends, Animal Friends (staring feat, human bonus feat), flaws (noncombatant, bad eyes) for Animal friends and martial study Clinging Shadow Strike)
Rogue 2
Rogue 3 Animal Friends (this makes 4)
Rogue 4
Rogue 5
Rogue 6 Leadership
Rogue 7
Rogue 8
Rogue 9 pants. I dunno, insert feat here. Take a shadow hand stance if necessary to qualify for dance of the spider later?
rogue 10
rogue 11
rogue 12 Martial Stance (Dance of the Spider for spiderclimbing as a stance)

Anyway, the point is that the rogue takes disguise, bluff, use magic device (using excess skill points after this is high enough on diplomacy), open lock, search, hide, move silently, gather information, disable device, and any int bonus skills would go to, in this order: sleight of hand, tumble, balance, jump, knowledge local, climb . The main thing this rogue is going to be doing is talking to his animal friends, finding a sufficiently high level druid he can buy scrolls from, and then stealing as much as is necessary to buy his first scroll of Awaken.

Why? because he's going to try and awaken his squirrel friends into a sentient squirrel swarm. Then he's going to take them on as his cohort. And he's going to train them in his thieving ways. And he's going to get them trench coat and a hat, so that they can disguise themselves by piling up under it and pretending to be an adult human person, much like the pile of children in the coat from Bojack Horseman. Except in this case it will be a pile of squirrels that, once you follow them into an alley to see what they have for sale uner that coat, they swarm over you, sleight of hand your valuables away, and scurry off with their coat and ill gotten gains to the four corners of the city before reforming in the sewers or what have you.

Mind you, this build "works" for a certain value of that word once you hit level 6 and can take the swarm on as a cohort. But you might be asking 'why the dance of the spider? why pure rogue and not a maneuvers using class to get it sooner?' because you will need those skill points. In any case, once the squirrel swarm companion is trained up a bit (by the time you hit rogue level 12) you can start planning the greatest of heists: the royal treasury. This is where dance of the spider comes in handy: for getting in unseen. At level 12 your hide and move silently are going to be pretty up there, and the guards may well have something that lets them detect magic just by looking around (such as the vatic gaze feat on the high level look outs, being warlocks, or even just custom magic items). Those would spell doom for the regular adventurer, who is loade out with magic items by the time they would be high enough level to break this vault. But not this rogue. This Rogue has a companion squirrel swarm to support him in this endeavor, possibly by replacing various guard members by swarming into their armor, knocking them out, carrying them off, stripping them, then disguising as that guard member by filling out the armor and clanking around. If nothing else the distraction that would provide would be enough for the rogue to slip up the castle's walls with his supernatural stance spiderclimb, then ditch the powers that can be detected by detect magic and sneak/lockpick his way into the treasury. Once there, this is where throwing the loot out the nearest window comes into play, because once the swarm is done distracting the guards, the rogue and the swarm will be skeedadling and grabbing anything still on the ground as they run away.

On the part of the swarm of squirrels, necessary skills would include bluff, disguise, sleight of hand, hide, move silently, and tumble. The swarm could potentially mix in levels of sword sage (depending on hit dice and all that) to pick up dance of the spider faster, allowing both it and the rogue to shenanigan their way across the town's walls and roof tops as the greatest thieving team the city had ever been subjected to.

[daremetoidareyo]

squirrel swarm

Barbarian dip and mounted fury. You can ride on a whirlwind of raging squirrels and use ride checks to negate hits. Maybe go black blood cultist and get rend damage?

[Troacctid]

Positive levels are a thing (not to mention that you can wait until they turn into snareneedles first), and I'm pretty sure there are other ways to make it work.
Positive levels aren't class levels, and IIRC they go away after 24 hours, yeah? Also they're pretty rare and most games won't even include them.


The bond is specifically "Nonmagical and lasting", so no, they don't.
They don't stop being friendly, but they stop being your Companion. They're just an NPC with a favorable attitude towards you. Friendly low-level NPCs are a dime a dozen with Diplomacy and/or Wild Empathy, and if you have to spend 8th level spells to get yours, I'd call that a pretty inefficient use of resources.


Rouge 1 Animal Friends, Animal Friends (staring feat, human bonus feat), flaws (noncombatant, bad eyes) for Animal friends and martial study Clinging Shadow Strike)
You have to be a gnome, and you can't get Martial Study (Clinging Shadow Strike) at 1st because you don't have a high enough initiator level.

[ExLibrisMortis]

A second-level Exemplar can accept a penalty to a skill (max = class level) to grant allies within 30' a competence bonus equal to half the penalty. Your maximum effective Exemplar level pre-epic is 11 (which already requires Primary Contact to enter at 9th level, obviously bloodlines can increase this to ~16), so you can grant a +5 (or +8) bonus to each bat. The bats then use Aid Another and a whole bunch succeed. You can't take 10 on aid another, but you have an 80% chance per bat with just Exemplar 10, assuming no ranks/ability modifier. You can use Draconic Aura, a dip in Marshal, a dip in Dragon Shaman, and so on, to increase the success rate to 100%, for a nice -10+2*[number of bats] bonus to any skill.

You can also get 190% of your number of companions as bonus to-hit, if you can get companions with a 95% chance to hit AC 10 (they need to threaten the enemy you want to hit, so bats don't qualify, unless you use chained polymorph on them, which is of course eminently sensible - just make sure they still fit around the enemy's space). The Team Solar buff routine (chained shapechange into a symbiont, through Spellguard of Silverymoon) allows you to share spells that don't disappear when they leave your side, so you can get a few dozen or so buffed-to-the-eyeballs solars, although admittedly without any useful class features (they may still count as animal companions, on some level).

[daremetoidareyo]

A second-level Exemplar can accept a penalty to a skill (max = class level) to grant allies within 30' a competence bonus equal to half the penalty. Your maximum effective Exemplar level pre-epic is 11 (which already requires Primary Contact to enter at 9th level, obviously bloodlines can increase this to ~16), so you can grant a +5 (or +8) bonus to each bat. The bats then use Aid Another and a whole bunch succeed. You can't take 10 on aid another, but you have an 80% chance per bat with just Exemplar 10, assuming no ranks/ability modifier. You can use Draconic Aura, a dip in Marshal, a dip in Dragon Shaman, and so on, to increase the success rate to 100%, for a nice -10+2*[number of bats] bonus to any skill.

You can also get 190% of your number of companions as bonus to-hit, if you can get companions with a 95% chance to hit AC 10 (they need to threaten the enemy you want to hit, so bats don't qualify, unless you use chained polymorph on them, which is of course eminently sensible - just make sure they still fit around the enemy's space). The Team Solar buff routine (chained shapechange into a symbiont, through Spellguard of Silverymoon) allows you to share spells that don't disappear when they leave your side, so you can get a few dozen or so buffed-to-the-eyeballs solars, although admittedly without any useful class features (they may still count as animal companions, on some level).

Sweet! Exemplar 2 opens up the animals for teamwork benefits (uses a trick slot). Fearsome roster, massed charge, crowded charge, or ...if you hook up 8 toads or bats to a sled as dray creatures...team rush.

Clarification questions:
What counts as a gnome? Which one is the best?

Share soulmeld abuse: totemist: what's good? Basilisk mask x 8?

[Troacctid]

Sweet! Exemplar 2 opens up the animals for teamwork benefits (uses a trick slot). Fearsome roster, massed charge, crowded charge, or ...if you hook up 8 toads or bats to a sled as dray creatures...team rush.
Don't you need 4 HD to use teamwork benefits?


Clarification questions:
What counts as a gnome? Which one is the best?
Anyone with the gnome subtype counts as a gnome. The best gnomes are forest gnome (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/gnome.htm#forestGnome), whisper gnome (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20040807a&page=3), and the Dragonlance tinker gnome. For this feat, I think forest gnome makes the most sense, because it lets you speak with animals naturally. However, tinker gnome is good for a wizard or other Int-based build, and whisper gnome is good if you want to be stealthy. You could also be a changeling with the Racial Emulation feat if you want to also have access to other races' options.


Share soulmeld abuse: totemist: what's good? Basilisk mask x 8?
Basilisk mask is a good save-or-lose if you have an easy way to destroy the statue within 1 round. Manticore belt is ideal for making large amounts of attacks, and combos very well with a bard. If you don't have any mass buffs, then frost helm may be preferable, since it targets touch AC.

[Sagetim]

Positive levels aren't class levels, and IIRC they go away after 24 hours, yeah? Also they're pretty rare and most games won't even include them.


They don't stop being friendly, but they stop being your Companion. They're just an NPC with a favorable attitude towards you. Friendly low-level NPCs are a dime a dozen with Diplomacy and/or Wild Empathy, and if you have to spend 8th level spells to get yours, I'd call that a pretty inefficient use of resources.


You have to be a gnome, and you can't get Martial Study (Clinging Shadow Strike) at 1st because you don't have a high enough initiator level.

Oh, it's a prerequisite on the feat that I didn't see in the description of it for this thread. Well, that's okay, it's only one less feat at level one. It doesn't really matter what kind of gnome it is, but I hear the whisper gnomes are kind of wierd guys that tend to be given strange looks even by other gnomes. So a social pariah of a gnome makes most sense for this build.

I dunno about martial study though. It has no requirements listed on the feat. Which is odd, because in it's description it mentions having to qualify to learn the maneuver. Since the only wizards errata for tome of battle is a few sentences followed by a pasted copy of the complete mage errata (or was it complete arcane?) this would have to be house ruled to resolve. If house ruled that you need at least 1 effective initiator level to take the feat, then it's effectively a 3rd level feat minimum for non initiators. If house ruled that initiator levels have a minimum of 1, then this feat becomes something that anyone can take at level 1 to learn any level 1 maneuver they want and potentially get access to an extra class skill in time for it to actually matter (you know, when they get the x4 skill points at level 1). Either way, it's not integral to the build for it to be a level 1 feat. It doesn't actually need to be a level 1 feat, so that can be swapped with the level 3 feat with no problem. The point of the semi build I presented isn't combat supremacy anyway, it's to rob people blind with the aid of a mischievous swarm of squirrels.

...and maybe disguise it as a debutante for a local ball to see how long they can push their luck before the nobility realizes that the woman being talked up as the most beautiful young woman at the ball is actually just a pile of squirrels in a dress.

And perhaps use it to replace the mayor for a day while the whisper gnome has some of his tougher, more brute buddies with the torturer profession put pressure on him for information about where the city keeps it's nut stores for winter.

And maybe find the local druids as they are teaching new druids and tell the swarm that he hid some nuts on the druid's person, then hide and laugh at the resulting chaos. Though he might regret that one if the druid happened to prepare charm animal or something that day.

oh, and depending on the size of the plumbing involved, it might be useful for planting cherry bombs in the castle's plumbing system. Though that one might be a bit risky if the pipes are small, since the squirrel in question delivering the payload might get stuck, and no one wants to lose jimmy.

Oh, and the squirrel swarm would be a good place to hole up in the winter, because of all the warm bodies to share warmth with from the cold. Who needs a hide out when you can pile leaves on top of the squirrel swarm and pretend to be a snoring bush? Alternatively, who needs leaves when you have enough squirrels to suffocate a bear that you can then skin for it's warm warm hide and delicious(?) meats.

[Gweed]

META CONVERSATION
This optimize this feat thread has like 6-7 regulars, but I get the impression that folks click on the thing, read what's going on, and then feel too intimidated to post. How do we, as a group, attract more folks into participation? Is the first post too dense to parse so people drop out from participating? Maybe the blatant honesty about bias is an issue? Or maybe the problem is that we are focusing on feats and not spells...

Is there a way to see stats for when the most people are on the 3.5 subthread (and thus we can begin the contest in periods where there is the most activity)?

I always enjoy the Optimize this Feat thread, but I never post in them because I am not much of an optimizer. I spent over 3 hours researching a build based on this thread and had a blast dreaming about having a horde of Stirges stuck to my enemy, but couldn't get it to work because they are "beasts" not "animals"

I don't post because I really have nothing to add.

[Jormengand]

Positive levels aren't class levels, and IIRC they go away after 24 hours, yeah? Also they're pretty rare and most games won't even include them.

You can use them to burn off the wights' levels and put them back on as something else when they're healed, or you can just use negalevels the same way on the snapnapels.


They don't stop being friendly, but they stop being your Companion. They're just an NPC with a favorable attitude towards you. Friendly low-level NPCs are a dime a dozen with Diplomacy and/or Wild Empathy, and if you have to spend 8th level spells to get yours, I'd call that a pretty inefficient use of resources.

"Your ability to speak with animals has allowed you to befriend an animal as a permanent ally." "An animal's loyalty, once gained, is natural (not magical) and lasting." It's quite clear that the bond doesn't go away, not just that its attitude doesn't go away.

Even if you only can get so many hit dice of animals, you can skip the wight step, PAO them into swervenibbles with a quarter of an animal hit die, and then make the sweetnerves take the animal friendship feat.


What counts as a gnome? Which one is the best?

The types of gnome are the standard rock gnome, as well as the air gnome (UA 16), aquatic gnome (UA 7), arctic gnome (UA 9), chaos gnome (RoS 86), desert gnome (UA 12), fire gnome (PlanarHB 126), forest gnome (MM 132), ice gnome (FB 35), jungle gnome (UA 14), svirfneblin (MM 132), wavecrest gnome (SW 44) and whisper gnome (RoS 94).

Forest gnomes and whisper gnomes are quite good; I chose svirfneblins for my allies because their LA doesn't matter, but for my own gnome I would have to agree on forest gnome, with their amazing hiding skills. Aquatic for the swim speed or fire for the fire immunity and +2 CL on fire spells is quite nice too.

[Mehangel]

META CONVERSATION
This optimize this feat thread has like 6-7 regulars, but I get the impression that folks click on the thing, read what's going on, and then feel too intimidated to post. How do we, as a group, attract more folks into participation? Is the first post too dense to parse so people drop out from participating? Maybe the blatant honesty about bias is an issue? Or maybe the problem is that we are focusing on feats and not spells...

I enjoy reading the thread, but to me the feat is so poorly worded that it's RAW is cloudy. Because of this, the feat necessitates limitations or rulings which makes optimizing the feat even more difficult. In short, I thought about giving my two cents on how I would optimize it, but that also involves other cloudy rules.

For example, in 3.0, 3.5, and Pathfinder it is already possible to purchase animals and train them for combat. Do animals you use in combat gain xp? If they do, do they gain HD when they level up or do they only advance as listed in the monster manual? These are just a sample selection of rules that arent necessarily clear.

When looking at the feat, it's last sentence gives a limitation on HD. What happens when said animal increases beyond 2 HD? Does it disappear? Does it become hostile, Is it still friendly? Nothing in the spell or feat that I saw said that said creatures had to normal animals of their kind (unlike 3.5 or pathfinder) which means to me that you can slap on several templates, and just as long as their HD remain 2 or less and it is still an animal it should still be a viable choice.

[Sagetim]

Going off that template idea, you would still need to make sure you aren't picking a template that changes creature type. For example, a half celestial squirrel might by only a fractional hit die, but half celestial changes the type to outsider. That said, a Fiendish Feral Swarm of Squirrels could be quite frightening indeed, with their once per day smite and more importantly fast healing.

The main problem with using templates like that with this feat is that you would have to find a creature with those templates or somehow cause one to be. And while gnomes do have longer life spans than the average human, a bat breeding program to ensure that they all have the feral template along with some other thing might be rather time consuming.

[Ruethgar]

Remember that Animal Companions can be Awakened and still count as your companions even if they exceed the HD limit. So you can Chain or Mass Awaken all of your companions simultaneously and technically still be within your bounds. The only down side of this rule originally was that you can't take anymore HD of companions until you account for the gain, but with Animal Friends that doesn't matter. You also have the ability to Advance an Animal Companion's HD by sacrificing your own Exp, however with the limited cap this is next to useless. Add on the fact that it has an Advancement creature entry requirement and your pool of potential targets is severely diminished. You could have an ok 5d10 HD Awakened Monkey wielding wands I suppose which isn't terrible.

[Troacctid]

You can use them to burn off the wights' levels and put them back on as something else when they're healed, or you can just use negalevels the same way on the snapnapels.
So your positive level cancels out the negative level, and you're back where you started...how does that help?


"Your ability to speak with animals has allowed you to befriend an animal as a permanent ally." "An animal's loyalty, once gained, is natural (not magical) and lasting." It's quite clear that the bond doesn't go away, not just that its attitude doesn't go away.
It also says you can't have more than 2 HD per caster level without dismissing some of the old animals.

[WhamBamSam]

Share soulmeld abuse: totemist: what's good? Basilisk mask x 8?The Dragon Tail Totem bind is decent, since it automatically hits so we don't need to worry about attack rolls, and hits enemies in adjacent squares without needing to get reach for our bats from somewhere. It'll require Dragontouched, a Stonecutter Gnome, or a Racial Emulation Changeling, but it could work well in conjunction with some damage buffing (like, say, DFI which would also make use of the dragonblood subtype). Probably better than the Manticore Belt would be at high levels, unless we can get the spines to hit at least 1/7th of the time.

[Jormengand]

So your positive level cancels out the negative level, and you're back where you started...how does that help?
Burn off their levels, and then get them back as something else, by means of restoration or such.


It also says you can't have more than 2 HD per caster level without dismissing some of the old animals.

2 HD per caster level of animal friends. Not undead or humanoid friends.

[Sagetim]

Burn off their levels, and then get them back as something else, by means of restoration or such.



2 HD per caster level of animal friends. Not undead or humanoid friends.

How do you think that restoration can work that way? Because that sounds like a house rule. And I was always under the impression that if you make something undead, their racial hit dice become undead hit dice instead of remaining whatever the racial hit dice of the base creature was. So, if you could lay out the logical progression here in detail it might make more sense.

[daremetoidareyo]

Here's the stub for using shared fury as a way to abuse 8 toads.


Level
Human class
Feat


1
Boar Totem Barbarian
Mad Foam Rager, Intimidating Rage, Diehard


2
Barbarian



3
stoneblessed
Righteous Wrath or other feat


4
stoneblessed



5
stoneblessed
Never outnumbered skill trick


6
boar totem barbarian
animal Friends


7
wilderness companion sorcerer or nature bard or druid



8
Fighter
Power attack


9
barbarian 4
Shared fury


10
bear warrior



11
Ranger
Track


12
Fighter
Imperious Command, Improved Unarmed Strike


13
Black Blood Cultist 1



14
Black Blood Cultist 2



15
Black Blood Cultist 3
Blessing of the Godless


16
Black Blood Cultist 4



17
Black Blood Cultist 5



18
Black Blood Cultist 6
Feat


19
Black Blood Cultist 7



20





So the idea is to arrange the toads around yourself like this:

T T T
T X T
T T T

Mad foam rager allows your 1/4 HD toads to be able to take a hit and die later. Diehard, a free feat from Boar totem basically gives them 9 extra hit points. But that is only if you come to blows. With shared fury, you animal companions receive the benefits of your rage. You have 9 demoralization intimidate checks first round, all influenced by intimidating rage. Bear warrior allows your toads to polymorph into bears when you rage. Black blood cultist gives those bears bites and rend attacks. Righteous wrath, if you take the good route, gives you an extra intimidate check when you attack. Blessing of the godless, if you take the evil route grants your toads a bunch of extra HP. If you do go the good route, frostrager might be a better fit than black blood cultist.

Totem rager + animal friends + shared fury is a good choice if you can figure out what to do with the fact that you can grant your bats or toads or stuff 1 essencia point when you rage. There has to be a use for that, right?

[daremetoidareyo]

Just found another possible avenue: shifter rangers ACF: you share your shifting powers with your animal companions...

[Troacctid]

Just found another possible avenue: shifter rangers ACF: you share your shifting powers with your animal companions...

Problematic—the feat is gnome-only, so only a changeling could do both. Changelings don't have shifting powers to share.

Edit: Although I guess you could use Stoneblessed, but that seems inefficient. You'd have to have some pretty powerful shifting powers to give to your animal companions in order for it to be worth three levels, and shifting tends to give you fairly "meh" stuff like natural weapons.

[Ruethgar]

I would go with Tiny Vipers, the poison is a nice boon if it hits and they are quite mobile with three forms of movement even if a bit slow. Buy them a Mass Awaken so they all have 2.25d10 HD so they don't insta-die then go with any of the above suggestions. If you instead go with bats, they can hover in the nine squares above you and still be within 5ft without provoking or limiting movement.

[daremetoidareyo]

Problematic—the feat is gnome-only, so only a changeling could do both. Changelings don't have shifting powers to share.

Edit: Although I guess you could use Stoneblessed, but that seems inefficient. You'd have to have some pretty powerful shifting powers to give to your animal companions in order for it to be worth three levels, and shifting tends to give you fairly "meh" stuff like natural weapons.

This is a failure of imagination.

Shifter
ranger 1/stoneblessed 3/ranger 7/weretouched master 5

Take animal friends at level six.

If you are a dreamsight shifter, and the broad reading of the shifter ability extends gnome status to your animal friends...they can retrain their feats to get animal friends of their own, who also receive your shifter feats because the ranger class feature of sharing shifting extends to your animal friends. At weretouched master 5, your toads can...transform into flying bears if you take extra shifter trait: swift wing. I'm not sure what to do with 8 flying bears with like 3 or 4 HP that take a month to replace that takes 16 levels to get. Maybe swimming tigers is a better use of them?


Sub idea 1: or maybe weretouched 2: Wolverine — Rage. + 1 level of bear warrior dip and you can have wolverine bears with a +12 to strength, +6 dex and +12 constitution.


Sub idea 2: weretouched 2: Wolverine — Rage. with mounted fury and shared fury feats. If your animal companions are all animal companions with each other, some of them can retrain their feats to boost rage benefits. 1 can have ettercap berserker, giving all of them +6 con, another can have wolf berserker (+4 to trip) another can have blazing berserker another frostrager, and snow tiger berserker (pounce). Put them all on purchased High HD mounts, and because you can share your rage as a shifter class ability, you can share your rage feats with your animal buddies, who can make the horses they ride fire and ice type tripping pouncing fools.

or

if you want to get really weird with it. Go dreamsight Shifter ranger 1/stoneblessed 3/ranger 7/moonspeaker. The text of the share shifting says: "The animal companion gains all of the benefits of shifting (including any shifter feats.." and moonspeaker has this ability: As the primary spellcasters and magic item creators of the shifter race, moonspeakers have learned to blend this aspect of their abilities into their shifter nature. You treat item creation, metamagic, and wild feats as shifter feats for the purpose of determining the number of times per day you can use your shifting ability and the ability's duration.

Now, I'm not saying that it jives perfectly, but you might be able to turn your bats into item crafters. But if your item crafting feats count as shifting feats, and the animal companion gains all of the benefits of shifting feats...you can drop the cost of speak with animals based items through the floor.

[Ruethgar]

Oh! There was also a Yuanti Ritual briefly stated out that would maximize serpent HD and increase int to 4(while remaining animal). So you can use the alternate rules of finding animal companions in Masters of the Wild to find all 18s Tiny Vipers and have them with 34 HP each. Still dead from most mid/high lvl AoE, but a little more durable than the original 1-3 or the random 3-22 and they have 24 Dex now so they can dodge a great many an AoE much easier. Plus if you get decent casting, you can boost further as an Elder Serpent via ritual addition.

[WhamBamSam]

if you want to get really weird with it. Go dreamsight Shifter ranger 1/stoneblessed 3/ranger 7/moonspeaker. The text of the share shifting says: "The animal companion gains all of the benefits of shifting (including any shifter feats.." and moonspeaker has this ability: As the primary spellcasters and magic item creators of the shifter race, moonspeakers have learned to blend this aspect of their abilities into their shifter nature. You treat item creation, metamagic, and wild feats as shifter feats for the purpose of determining the number of times per day you can use your shifting ability and the ability's duration.

Now, I'm not saying that it jives perfectly, but you might be able to turn your bats into item crafters. But if your item crafting feats count as shifting feats, and the animal companion gains all of the benefits of shifting feats...you can drop the cost of speak with animals based items through the floor.You only treat those feats as shifter feats for the purpose of determining the number of times per day you can use your shifting ability and the ability's duration, so this doesn't work.

I like the Weretouched Master build though. Here's another thought, Warshaper features end up being benefits gained while shifting, so that's another way to leverage Share Shifting (or I guess Shared Rage/Bear Warrior). In the case of Share Shifting it gives you a means of granting reach to your Animal Friends that you wouldn't otherwise get. We might be able to leverage the fast healing somehow as well if we can do something to forestall their death when their HP gets blown away.

Something we haven't covered yet for Shared Rage is Furious Inhalation, which might be worthwhile if we can somehow get our animal friends a lot of successful bites, but that's easier said than done.

There are also a number of Epic rage feats, but they largely suck and getting them pre-epic while counting as a gnome requires something like an Old Half-Dragon Gnome, since you can't take Stoneblessed as a dragon type.

[daremetoidareyo]

You only treat those feats as shifter feats for the purpose of determining the number of times per day you can use your shifting ability and the ability's duration, so this doesn't work.

Something we haven't covered yet for Shared Rage is Furious Inhalation, which might be worthwhile if we can somehow get our animal friends a lot of successful bites, but that's easier said than done

It is a very selecttive reading that would contend that the animal gains the benefit of the feat beacause it counts as a shifter feat. The only person to whom the limitation applies is the ranger. Alternatively, both interpretations happen: they gain the benefit of the item creation turned shifter feat, and they can count it as a shifter feat only for the purposes of their own shifting purposes.

Furious inhalation. Maybe devoted tracker paladin of freedom with barbarian levels can make the animals int 3 and then you can pay 100gp and dragonborn them? Or maybe tamer of beasts is cleaner

[WhamBamSam]

They gain the benefits that you gain while shifting. That includes treating those feats as shifter feats for those specific purposes, but doesn't extend further.

I don't think they'd need their own breath weapons. Furious Inhalation is a benefit of your rage that gets passed onto them, so they'd just use the damage type from your breath weapon.

[daremetoidareyo]

I just found ghost companion from ghostwalk:
Level: Druid 2, Paladin 2, Ranger 2, Sorcerer 3, Wizard 3,
Components: V, S,
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: Touch
Target: One willing animal, beast, or magical beast
Duration: 1 day/level
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: No
The touched creature dies painlessly. Instead of passing immediately beyond the Veil of Souls, the creature's soul remains on the Ethereal Plane and attempts to enter the Material Plane as a ghost. Normally, this is used by ghost characters with a special nonhumanoid companion (such as a mage's familiar, a druid or ranger's animal companion, or a paladin's special mount) to allow the companion to travel with them in ghost form. When the spell expires, the ghost creature dies the true death and its soul passes beyond the Veil of Souls. It can be raised or resurrected before the spell duration expires, of course.

Surely there is a way to abuse this?

[Jormengand]

Yes, there is a way to abuse the ghost ally, and it's that ghosts are hilariously powerful in their own right. Able to drain any ability quickly with an incorporeal touch, or send a roomful of enemies into a flying panic, it's hard to see why you would not want some random ghosts following you about.

[daremetoidareyo]

Touch of hate from PGTF
Once per tenday, you can touch an animal and transform it into a beast of Bane (same as the Beast of Xvim entry in Monster Compendium: Monsters of Faerun).
The animal can have no more Hit Dice prior to transformation than you have cleric levels.
The target creature can resist the transformation by making a successful Will save (DC 10 + 1/2 your cleric level + your Wis modifier). If it fails the save, it instantaneously transforms into a beast of Bane and follows your commands.

[daremetoidareyo]

Because it works just as though you had cast a spell, you can treat yourself as being able to cast spells because you must have cast that spell. You're also treated as having a spell on you, which can stop other spells cast at CL 1 (or utterances, which can be uttered at CL 0) being caught in an area dispel. You can also have four cats following you around as a feat, meaning that with flaws you can get twelve of the damn things at first level.

Catgnome, bane of commoners: 1 point
Caster shenanigans on shady footing ~0 points


The Animal Friendship spell was removed from the game in the 3.5 update and replaced with the animal companion class feature. I assume that means this feat now gives you a 1st level animal companion? Either way, it certainly requires modification in order to use in a 3.5 game.

All of that is incorrect. The feat grants you no spellcasting ability, and it is an extraordinary ability as is normal for feats. Furthermore, even if it allowed you to use Animal Friendship as a spell-like ability, you would still not be under the effect of a spell, as it is an instantaneous effect that creates an explicitly nonmagical bond. Also, it targets the animal.

For reference, here is the text of Animal Friendship as it appears in the SRD.

You gain up to 2 HD of animal friends as if you had cast the spell. You don't gain any other benefits of having cast the spell, nor do you count as having cast the spell for any purpose other than what the feat says. It won't interact with anything that cares about spellcasting.

Animal Friendship doesn't interact with dispels. It's an instantaneous spell.

Correction & clarifications: 1 point


Realistically speaking, although there are a lot of animals you could choose from, you're almost certainly going to want ones from a forest environment, because as a forest gnome, you can actually communicate with those ones.

Edit: As a DM, I would not allow splitting up the HD between multiple animals. First, because having that many minions bogs down combat and results in poor gameplay, which is why the option was intentionally removed from the animal companion class feature in 3.5; and second, because it could easily be abused with a build like this:

Share soulmeld applies to every animal companion. Let's say you use the feat to get some bats, which have ¼ HD. That's eight bats per iteration of the feat. And thanks to your shared Dissolving Spittle, that's an extra eight attacks every round—each targeting touch AC and dealing a fistful of d6s. If every attack hits, you're dealing 36d6+9 damage at 3rd level. Opponents can kill the bats, but that just gives you more essentia, and you can get new ones later—and with evasion (thanks, Impulse Boots), it's going to be tough to kill them all even with area attacks.

14 point build: 11 for high powered full write up; 1 for necrocarnum abuse, 1 for share soulmeld, 1 for dissolving spittle + impulse boots. Shame we didn't see any totemist builds based on this sort of shenanigannery.


Of course, truespeak DCs on the bats are ridiculously easy, allowing you to mess with all of the Word of Nurturing utterances and Spell Rebirth, all of which target a creature and then don't do anything with it. (The word of nurturing utterances perform flashy light displays on "The target" and give fast healing to "A creature"; Spell Rebirth undispels a spell but has nothing to do with the creature it targets).

There's also nothing stopping the animals being spare bodies for things like Incantations (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/magic/incantations.htm).

In fact, let's get really, really silly here, because obviously there isn't enough of that in this competition. There is nothing stopping animals taking checks such as diplomacy, perform, disguise (with the -2 penalty for trying to disguise as anything other than, say, a bat), forgery (with potentially a bonus if you forge the right kind of thing), gather information, heal (often with an actual wisdom bonus), intimidate (useful in combat), perform (which earns 1d10 sp/day a non-negligible amount of the time), search, survival, and use rope. There's nothing stopping you getting your animal to re-train their skill ranks so they have 1 in speak language common and 3 in whatever skills you want that specific bat to be able to use but can't be untrained, oh, and why not swap the feat out for something like jack of all trades or open minded? Why not get those with two hit dice to change their animal hit dice into actual class levels (by becoming level drained, and when eligible to re-gain the level, choosing a class level)? Sure, the bats can't do this, but why have eight bats per feat when you could have a hyena cleric instead?

Come to think of it, there's nothing stopping the "Nonmagical and lasting" friendship persisting even beyond death. That is, level drain. Into a wight. Or a vampire spawn, for that matter, but then they're under that vampire's control and, seriously, no-one wants that. You can then find someone who can give out positive levels and get yourself a good old-fashioned wight sorcerer, who is your friend, instead of each one of the eight bats who are your friends. Wight bards and wight rogues, even wight clerics and druids, might easily also work. Hells, wight fighters might also work. Also, they can swap out alertness and blind-fight for, uhm, pretty much anything else.

Now, just because I can, I'm going to try to put every single previous ingredient of OTF into this explanation.

Obviously, your army of wights who are your friends yes definitely friends will need wanderer's diplomacy to allow them to find items that are hard to find, then some of them should take conductivity, so that they can trap people between them and fire lightning between each other, swim-by attack for the fun extra standard actions, contagious paralysis because they themselves are immune and therefore it would be hilarious to paralyse everyone, and also hammer and piton so that they can randomly visit the moon when they feel like it. Because we needed an army of wight sorcerers who randomly take time off to visit the moon. Residual rebound would be funny because they can actually do a lot of the hacks that work on it because there are so many of them. Mark of phlegethos is nice just for the skill bonuses, honestly, and remember that the wights can just punch each other and heal as much as they deal. Seelie court noble kelir can be earned as a bonus feat (mr and mrs bat are obviously members of the seelie court) and therefore it's a free ability to mess with crowds. But of course, we all know what feat they should really take: animal friends.

Now, first off, what you're going to need to do is be a wizard, or a cleric with the trickery domain. The second thing you need to do is prepare as many copies of Polymorph and Polymorph Any Object as you can. So, actually, you oughta be a wizard for this one. The next thing you need to do is Polymorph the wight into a creature of the humanoid type, such as, say, a dwarf. Then, polymorph any object it into a svirfneblin (or just a gnome, if you're boring). Duration factor on that should be nine, wham bam, you now have a svirphnebloon who is still your friend, and keeps the wight's class levels (which, I'm just throwing it out there, should probably not be sorcerer. Maybe rogue). Now, of course, all the spherenibbler has to retrain his feats into animal friendship, allowing him to get sixteen more bats, which you can turn into sixteen more wights, and sixteen more smurfnoodles. Or, of course, you could leave all but two of them as wights, and have infinite fourth-level undead sorcerers who level drain everything they touch following you around. You're welcome.

The best build for this is probably Wizard 19/Loremaster 1 for the nice bonus feat you can get from loremaster.

Also, there's nothing stopping you from randomly having pseudonatural paragon bats following you around if you happen to live in a particularly epic bit of the far realms. Just as an aside.

So much to unpack there...
truespeak DCs: 1 point. if you can find a real benefit from using this, say, by describing on using this trick to kill 2 kobolds, you can gain another point.

Spamming unskilled skill checks: 1 point

Incantations: 1 point. Also, you can use ritual feats to increase your bat's functionality.

Crazy OTF exercise: you would want unseelie noble kelir. + Honorable mention.

Does the animal friendship persist into undeath, thus freeing up HD of animal friends? I don't know, but it is a point worthy inclusion: 1 point

templates: pseudonatural doesn't work, changes type to outsider. Paragon template is awesome: 2 points.


Well, the main thing stopping them is that they suck at those things. In most cases, I think the better plan is to have them aid you on your check for a +2 bonus. I like stacking Perform checks in downtime, though. That's pretty sweet.


This does also assume that everything we're talking about is simple enough to communicate via the forest gnome's simple animal language. Otherwise it's an annoying DC 25 Handle Animal check as a standard action.




Draconic Aura is a personal favorite of mine.


Note though that the only way to do this AFAIK is with Psychic Reformation, which does cost you XP. So it's going to be pretty expensive if you're looking to do this for 48 bats.




That one doesn't work—animals don't advance by class level, only by HD.
Unless... YOU'RE the vampire!...Wait, no, then you could just get a bunch of spawn without bothering to take the feat. Never mind.




This is the other problem with not revising the feat to simply give you an animal companion as a 1st level druid. The HD limit doesn't account for templates like the list of approved druid animal companions does.

Aid another in skills: 1 point
psychic reformation and draconic aura assist: 1 point
Rules clarification: 1


Obviously they're gonna suck at most of the skill checks, but that doesn't always matter - if you have 24 bats using perform (Screech) to get money each day, then even though they have CHA 4, they still have a 1/10 chance to earn 1d10 SP and a 1/4 chance to earn 1d10 CP, earning between them an average of about 13 GP every day, which isn't terrible for a first-level character.


Get rich quick Math: 1 point. 646 days~ two years for a 1st level character to get a candle of evocation. Masterwork perform (shriek) items might help speed that up.


The main thing is turning them into wights so they have four hit dice, which they can then trade out for class levels via a variety of shenanigans. Turning them into stroopwafels so they can take the feats is just the icing on the, well, stroopwafel*.


*No, no-one puts icing on stroopwafels. Whatever.


Another thing you could do is of course be a marshal and then get your strifenavels to have loads of funky morale bonuses. Or be a cleric and cast Prayer. Or make them take levels in something psionic and mess around with metaconcert. Or make them take levels in something magical and mess around with epic spells. Or circle magic. Or, to be honest, whatever you like that requires lots of random bodies about.


Marshal auras for skill checks? maybe a bat based fake ID agency? Making money on the side of your shrieking chorus. 1 point


Metaconcert: 1 point. *reads text* (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/metaconcert.htm) make that 2 points instead. That is crazy powerful.


Perhaps not, but they are still Friends. And friendship doesn't always follow the kind of logic that a computer program would where losing the animal type would lose you your friendship. In that vein, and building off the idea of a multitude of bats, I propose that any character with sufficient use magic device, charisma, and a can do attitude could have the most powerful and strange assortment of animal friends through the usage of this feat. Though it would start costing a lot of money down the line...


So I'm thinking a high charisma rogue...with a build something like:


Rouge 1 Animal Friends, Animal Friends (staring feat, human bonus feat), flaws (noncombatant, bad eyes) for Animal friends and martial study Clinging Shadow Strike)
Rogue 2
Rogue 3 Animal Friends (this makes 4)
Rogue 4
Rogue 5
Rogue 6 Leadership
Rogue 7
Rogue 8
Rogue 9 pants. I dunno, insert feat here. Take a shadow hand stance if necessary to qualify for dance of the spider later?
rogue 10
rogue 11
rogue 12 Martial Stance (Dance of the Spider for spiderclimbing as a stance)


Anyway, the point is that the rogue takes disguise, bluff, use magic device (using excess skill points after this is high enough on diplomacy), open lock, search, hide, move silently, gather information, disable device, and any int bonus skills would go to, in this order: sleight of hand, tumble, balance, jump, knowledge local, climb . The main thing this rogue is going to be doing is talking to his animal friends, finding a sufficiently high level druid he can buy scrolls from, and then stealing as much as is necessary to buy his first scroll of Awaken.


Why? because he's going to try and awaken his squirrel friends into a sentient squirrel swarm. Then he's going to take them on as his cohort. And he's going to train them in his thieving ways. And he's going to get them trench coat and a hat, so that they can disguise themselves by piling up under it and pretending to be an adult human person, much like the pile of children in the coat from Bojack Horseman. Except in this case it will be a pile of squirrels that, once you follow them into an alley to see what they have for sale uner that coat, they swarm over you, sleight of hand your valuables away, and scurry off with their coat and ill gotten gains to the four corners of the city before reforming in the sewers or what have you.


Mind you, this build "works" for a certain value of that word once you hit level 6 and can take the swarm on as a cohort. But you might be asking 'why the dance of the spider? why pure rogue and not a maneuvers using class to get it sooner?' because you will need those skill points. In any case, once the squirrel swarm companion is trained up a bit (by the time you hit rogue level 12) you can start planning the greatest of heists: the royal treasury. This is where dance of the spider comes in handy: for getting in unseen. At level 12 your hide and move silently are going to be pretty up there, and the guards may well have something that lets them detect magic just by looking around (such as the vatic gaze feat on the high level look outs, being warlocks, or even just custom magic items). Those would spell doom for the regular adventurer, who is loade out with magic items by the time they would be high enough level to break this vault. But not this rogue. This Rogue has a companion squirrel swarm to support him in this endeavor, possibly by replacing various guard members by swarming into their armor, knocking them out, carrying them off, stripping them, then disguising as that guard member by filling out the armor and clanking around. If nothing else the distraction that would provide would be enough for the rogue to slip up the castle's walls with his supernatural stance spiderclimb, then ditch the powers that can be detected by detect magic and sneak/lockpick his way into the treasury. Once there, this is where throwing the loot out the nearest window comes into play, because once the swarm is done distracting the guards, the rogue and the swarm will be skeedadling and grabbing anything still on the ground as they run away.


On the part of the swarm of squirrels, necessary skills would include bluff, disguise, sleight of hand, hide, move silently, and tumble. The swarm could potentially mix in levels of sword sage (depending on hit dice and all that) to pick up dance of the spider faster, allowing both it and the rogue to shenanigan their way across the town's walls and roof tops as the greatest thieving team the city had ever been subjected to.





13 points for squirrel swarm build stub; 9 for the stub and 4 more for pure awesome


Positive levels aren't class levels, and IIRC they go away after 24 hours, yeah? Also they're pretty rare and most games won't even include them.




They don't stop being friendly, but they stop being your Companion. They're just an NPC with a favorable attitude towards you. Friendly low-level NPCs are a dime a dozen with Diplomacy and/or Wild Empathy, and if you have to spend 8th level spells to get yours, I'd call that a pretty inefficient use of resources.




You have to be a gnome, and you can't get Martial Study (Clinging Shadow Strike) at 1st because you don't have a high enough initiator level.


Clarifications: 3 points

A second-level Exemplar can accept a penalty to a skill (max = class level) to grant allies within 30' a competence bonus equal to half the penalty. Your maximum effective Exemplar level pre-epic is 11 (which already requires Primary Contact to enter at 9th level, obviously bloodlines can increase this to ~16), so you can grant a +5 (or +8) bonus to each bat. The bats then use Aid Another and a whole bunch succeed. You can't take 10 on aid another, but you have an 80% chance per bat with just Exemplar 10, assuming no ranks/ability modifier. You can use Draconic Aura, a dip in Marshal, a dip in Dragon Shaman, and so on, to increase the success rate to 100%, for a nice -10+2*[number of bats] bonus to any skill.


You can also get 190% of your number of companions as bonus to-hit, if you can get companions with a 95% chance to hit AC 10 (they need to threaten the enemy you want to hit, so bats don't qualify, unless you use chained polymorph on them, which is of course eminently sensible - just make sure they still fit around the enemy's space). The Team Solar buff routine (chained shapechange into a symbiont, through Spellguard of Silverymoon) allows you to share spells that don't disappear when they leave your side, so you can get a few dozen or so buffed-to-the-eyeballs solars, although admittedly without any useful class features (they may still count as animal companions, on some level).


exemplar bonus stacking: 2 points
bonus to hit: 1 point (they are so fragile!)

I'll finish up the tallies later.

[daremetoidareyo]

Don't you need 4 HD to use teamwork benefits?


Anyone with the gnome subtype counts as a gnome. The best gnomes are forest gnome (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/gnome.htm#forestGnome), whisper gnome (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20040807a&page=3), and the Dragonlance tinker gnome. For this feat, I think forest gnome makes the most sense, because it lets you speak with animals naturally. However, tinker gnome is good for a wizard or other Int-based build, and whisper gnome is good if you want to be stealthy. You could also be a changeling with the Racial Emulation feat if you want to also have access to other races' options.


Basilisk mask is a good save-or-lose if you have an easy way to destroy the statue within 1 round. Manticore belt is ideal for making large amounts of attacks, and combos very well with a bard. If you don't have any mass buffs, then frost helm may be preferable, since it targets touch AC.

Clarifications & gnome analytics: 2 points


Oh, it's a prerequisite on the feat that I didn't see in the description of it for this thread. Well, that's okay, it's only one less feat at level one. It doesn't really matter what kind of gnome it is, but I hear the whisper gnomes are kind of wierd guys that tend to be given strange looks even by other gnomes. So a social pariah of a gnome makes most sense for this build.

I dunno about martial study though. It has no requirements listed on the feat. Which is odd, because in it's description it mentions having to qualify to learn the maneuver. Since the only wizards errata for tome of battle is a few sentences followed by a pasted copy of the complete mage errata (or was it complete arcane?) this would have to be house ruled to resolve. If house ruled that you need at least 1 effective initiator level to take the feat, then it's effectively a 3rd level feat minimum for non initiators. If house ruled that initiator levels have a minimum of 1, then this feat becomes something that anyone can take at level 1 to learn any level 1 maneuver they want and potentially get access to an extra class skill in time for it to actually matter (you know, when they get the x4 skill points at level 1). Either way, it's not integral to the build for it to be a level 1 feat. It doesn't actually need to be a level 1 feat, so that can be swapped with the level 3 feat with no problem. The point of the semi build I presented isn't combat supremacy anyway, it's to rob people blind with the aid of a mischievous swarm of squirrels.

...and maybe disguise it as a debutante for a local ball to see how long they can push their luck before the nobility realizes that the woman being talked up as the most beautiful young woman at the ball is actually just a pile of squirrels in a dress.

And perhaps use it to replace the mayor for a day while the whisper gnome has some of his tougher, more brute buddies with the torturer profession put pressure on him for information about where the city keeps it's nut stores for winter.

And maybe find the local druids as they are teaching new druids and tell the swarm that he hid some nuts on the druid's person, then hide and laugh at the resulting chaos. Though he might regret that one if the druid happened to prepare charm animal or something that day.

oh, and depending on the size of the plumbing involved, it might be useful for planting cherry bombs in the castle's plumbing system. Though that one might be a bit risky if the pipes are small, since the squirrel in question delivering the payload might get stuck, and no one wants to lose jimmy.

Oh, and the squirrel swarm would be a good place to hole up in the winter, because of all the warm bodies to share warmth with from the cold. Who needs a hide out when you can pile leaves on top of the squirrel swarm and pretend to be a snoring bush? Alternatively, who needs leaves when you have enough squirrels to suffocate a bear that you can then skin for it's warm warm hide and delicious(?) meats.

squirrelly ideas: 3 points


You can use them to burn off the wights' levels and put them back on as something else when they're healed, or you can just use negalevels the same way on the snapnapels.



"Your ability to speak with animals has allowed you to befriend an animal as a permanent ally." "An animal's loyalty, once gained, is natural (not magical) and lasting." It's quite clear that the bond doesn't go away, not just that its attitude doesn't go away.

Even if you only can get so many hit dice of animals, you can skip the wight step, PAO them into swervenibbles with a quarter of an animal hit die, and then make the sweetnerves take the animal friendship feat.



The types of gnome are the standard rock gnome, as well as the air gnome (UA 16), aquatic gnome (UA 7), arctic gnome (UA 9), chaos gnome (RoS 86), desert gnome (UA 12), fire gnome (PlanarHB 126), forest gnome (MM 132), ice gnome (FB 35), jungle gnome (UA 14), svirfneblin (MM 132), wavecrest gnome (SW 44) and whisper gnome (RoS 94).

Forest gnomes and whisper gnomes are quite good; I chose svirfneblins for my allies because their LA doesn't matter, but for my own gnome I would have to agree on forest gnome, with their amazing hiding skills. Aquatic for the swim speed or fire for the fire immunity and +2 CL on fire spells is quite nice too.

Excellent parsing in bold: 1 point.


Remember that Animal Companions can be Awakened and still count as your companions even if they exceed the HD limit. So you can Chain or Mass Awaken all of your companions simultaneously and technically still be within your bounds. The only down side of this rule originally was that you can't take anymore HD of companions until you account for the gain, but with Animal Friends that doesn't matter. You also have the ability to Advance an Animal Companion's HD by sacrificing your own Exp, however with the limited cap this is next to useless. Add on the fact that it has an Advancement creature entry requirement and your pool of potential targets is severely diminished. You could have an ok 5d10 HD Awakened Monkey wielding wands I suppose which isn't terrible.

Maybe...1 point for pointing it out


So your positive level cancels out the negative level, and you're back where you started...how does that help?


It also says you can't have more than 2 HD per caster level without dismissing some of the old animals.

1 point for keeping us in check


The Dragon Tail Totem bind is decent, since it automatically hits so we don't need to worry about attack rolls, and hits enemies in adjacent squares without needing to get reach for our bats from somewhere. It'll require Dragontouched, a Stonecutter Gnome, or a Racial Emulation Changeling, but it could work well in conjunction with some damage buffing (like, say, DFI which would also make use of the dragonblood subtype). Probably better than the Manticore Belt would be at high levels, unless we can get the spines to hit at least 1/7th of the time.

2 points for incarnum analysis



2 HD per caster level of animal friends. Not undead or humanoid friends.

riposte: 1 pt.


Problematic—the feat is gnome-only, so only a changeling could do both. Changelings don't have shifting powers to share.

Edit: Although I guess you could use Stoneblessed, but that seems inefficient. You'd have to have some pretty powerful shifting powers to give to your animal companions in order for it to be worth three levels, and shifting tends to give you fairly "meh" stuff like natural weapons.

stoneblessed or racial emulation gnomes: 2 points


I would go with Tiny Vipers, the poison is a nice boon if it hits and they are quite mobile with three forms of movement even if a bit slow. Buy them a Mass Awaken so they all have 2.25d10 HD so they don't insta-die then go with any of the above suggestions. If you instead go with bats, they can hover in the nine squares above you and still be within 5ft without provoking or limiting movement.


Oh! There was also a Yuanti Ritual briefly stated out that would maximize serpent HD and increase int to 4(while remaining animal). So you can use the alternate rules of finding animal companions in Masters of the Wild to find all 18s Tiny Vipers and have them with 34 HP each. Still dead from most mid/high lvl AoE, but a little more durable than the original 1-3 or the random 3-22 and they have 24 Dex now so they can dodge a great many an AoE much easier. Plus if you get decent casting, you can boost further as an Elder Serpent via ritual addition.


vipers + mass awaken 1 point
yuan ti ritual 1 point another point if you can get us a source


You only treat those feats as shifter feats for the purpose of determining the number of times per day you can use your shifting ability and the ability's duration, so this doesn't work.

I like the Weretouched Master build though. Here's another thought, Warshaper features end up being benefits gained while shifting, so that's another way to leverage Share Shifting (or I guess Shared Rage/Bear Warrior). In the case of Share Shifting it gives you a means of granting reach to your Animal Friends that you wouldn't otherwise get. We might be able to leverage the fast healing somehow as well if we can do something to forestall their death when their HP gets blown away.

Something we haven't covered yet for Shared Rage is Furious Inhalation, which might be worthwhile if we can somehow get our animal friends a lot of successful bites, but that's easier said than done.

There are also a number of Epic rage feats, but they largely suck and getting them pre-epic while counting as a gnome requires something like an Old Half-Dragon Gnome, since you can't take Stoneblessed as a dragon type.

warshaper 1 point
clarification 1 point
furious inhalation 1 point


Yes, there is a way to abuse the ghost ally, and it's that ghosts are hilariously powerful in their own right. Able to drain any ability quickly with an incorporeal touch, or send a roomful of enemies into a flying panic, it's hard to see why you would not want some random ghosts following you about.

that's certainly one reading: 1 point

[daremetoidareyo]

Emboldened in Forest Green Courier New Font is the winner:


Troacctid

26


Jormengand

14


Ruethgar

3


Sagetim

16


WhamBamSam
5


ExLibrisMortis
3



Troacctid


EDIT:
I just found a spell in the adventure, the Standing stone on page 32 called create faux human. This opens a whole new backdoor into the leadership feat...kinda.

Level: Drd 5
Components: V, S, DF
Casting Time: One day
Range: Touch
Target: Tiny or Small animal touched
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: Will negates
Spell Resistance: Yes

You transform a Tiny or Small animal into a sentient humanoid resembling a halfling or human, respectively. To succeed, you must make a Will save (DC 10 + the target's HD). The newly created faux human has 3d6 Intelligence, +ld3 Charisma, and becomes a 1st-level commoner, expert, or warrior (your choice). Faux humans can speak Common but do not have the ability to communicate with other animals. Faux humans (or faux halflings) are of the humanoid type. Spells that affect animals do not affect animals transformed into faux humans. Faux humans appear identical to humans (or halflings), though they sometimes exhibit behavior reminiscent of their original form.

Note: This spell must be cast within a ring of the standing stones that surround Ossington.