Wolfmaster Help

[LoyalPaladin]

Hello playground! I'm looking to build a Druid/Ranger/Beastmaster that specializes in various types of wolves. I've got the class progression figured out for the most part, but I'd like some help finding some neat wolf pack tactics. I'd also like help building some fairly competent wolves of various types.

Class Progression:
Barbarian 1 > Ranger 4 > Beastmaster 10 > Barbarian 1 > Ranger 4

Ability Scores:
Str: 16
Dex: 14
Con: 16
Int: 12
Wis: 12
Cha: 10

Feats:
Flaw (Wild): Natural Bond
Racial (Human): Dodge
1st Level: Skill Focus (Handle Animal)
3rd Level: Mobility
6th Level: Beast Totem
9th Level: Totem Companion
12th Level: Spring Attack
15th Level: Wolfpack
18th Level: Wolf Berserker

Wolves:
I'd like to build a skilled team of companions that can fill each other's gaps using different types of wolves. (Examples being the standard wolf, winter wolf, and dire wolf.)


Cohort from Wild Cohort, obtained at level 1.

Base Creature:



Animal Companion from Ranger, obtained at level 4.

Base Creature: Wolf



Animal Companion from Beastmaster, obtained at level 6.

Base Creature:



Animal Companion from Beastmaster, obtained at level 9.

Base Creature:



Animal Companion from Beastmaster, obtained at level 12.

Base Creature:



Animal Companion from Beastmaster, obtained at level 15.

Base Creature:

[Snowbluff]

Quick, everyone take improved trip and Martial Stance: tactics of the wolf and wolfpack!

Wolves have good tripping so that's good and you have lots of wolves so the other helps.

If you want to get really good, Exalt Companion will give the AnC wolves an int score. Then they can take Vow of Poverty for better stats.

ALso, Winter Wolves aren't a valid choice; they are intelligent creatures and therefore magical beasts.

[LoyalPaladin]

Quick, everyone take improved trip and Martial Stance: tactics of the wolf and wolfpack!
Heh. Tome of Battle got the ban hammer. I was totally thinking of that, though.


Wolves have good tripping so that's good and you have lots of wolves so the other helps.
Oh, I suppose that's true.


If you want to get really good, Exalt Companion will give the AnC wolves an int score. Then they can take Vow of Poverty for better stats.
Awesome, I'll grab at too.


ALso, Winter Wolves aren't a valid choice; they are intelligent creatures and therefore magical beasts.
What! I could swear you could take them... is it seriously exclusive to Beast Heart Adept?

[torrasque666]

What! I could swear you could take them... is it seriously exclusive to Beast Heart Adept?You can take them as an animal companion, but you need Totem Companion from ECS. its a 10th level companion though.

[Snowbluff]

Heh. Tome of Battle got the ban hammer. I was totally thinking of that, though.
Take Wolfpack for it anyway?


Oh, I suppose that's true. Improved Tripped! Mouthpick Spiked Chain!



Awesome, I'll grab at too. Exalted Companion will also let you take Blink Dogs, if you count that as a wolf.



What! I could swear you could take them... is it seriously exclusive to Beast Heart Adept?

Lame. Totem companion seems like the way to go. I'd say drop the ranger levels.

[ShurikVch]

How about... something different? :smallamused:

Complete Warrior give Worg and Winter Wolf as options for Improved Familiar (Neutral Evil alignment)

To qualify for Obtain Familiar, purchase spellcasting services: ask for Imbue with Spell Ability (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/imbueWithSpellAbility.htm) as arcane spell and with at least one spell from Abjuration school

Class Progression:
Wolf Totem Barbarian 5 > Abjurant Champion 5 > Windrider 10

Feats:
Flaw (Wild): Mounted Combat
Racial (Human): Wild Cohort
1st Level: Combat Casting
3rd Level: Obtain Familiar
6th Level: Improved Familiar (Worg)
9th Level: Extra Familiar (Winter Wolf)
12th Level: Extra Familiar (Winter Wolf)
15th Level: Extra Familiar (Winter Wolf)
18th Level: Extra Familiar (Winter Wolf)

As a Windrider's mount, try to purchase Warbeast Magebred Horrid Dire Wolf

[Deadline]

How about... something different? :smallamused:

If ToB is banned, it's possible that Dragon Magazine (and therefore the Extra Familiar feat) is also.

Also, if any of his familiars die, that's pretty bad, and they are hard to replace. :smalltongue:

Kudos for the off the wall idea though. :smallbiggrin:

[Snowbluff]

If ToB is banned, it's possible that Dragon Magazine (and therefore the Extra Familiar feat) is also.

Also, if any of his familiars die, that's pretty bad, and they are hard to replace. :smalltongue:

Kudos for the off the wall idea though. :smallbiggrin:

I was going to suggest it (I have a bard build made with a Coure Eladrin familiars with teeny bows and Inspire Courage BS), but I think he wanted AnC. :smalltongue:

[LoyalPaladin]

You can take them as an animal companion, but you need Totem Companion from ECS. its a 10th level companion though.
That works! I'll totally fit that in.


Take Wolfpack for it anyway?
Hm. I could fit that in... maybe?


Improved Tripped! Mouthpick Spiked Chain!
What the. Snow! Too far!


Exalted Companion will also let you take Blink Dogs, if you count that as a wolf.
That's no wolf. That's a doge.


Lame. Totem companion seems like the way to go. I'd say drop the ranger levels.
I'd lose a companion and gain more spellcasting, which I'm actively avoiding.


How about... something different? :smallamused:

Complete Warrior give Worg and Winter Wolf as options for Improved Familiar (Neutral Evil alignment)

To qualify for Obtain Familiar, purchase spellcasting services: ask for Imbue with Spell Ability (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/imbueWithSpellAbility.htm) as arcane spell and with at least one spell from Abjuration school

Class Progression:
Wolf Totem Barbarian 5 > Abjurant Champion 5 > Windrider 10

Feats:
Flaw (Wild): Mounted Combat
Racial (Human): Wild Cohort
1st Level: Combat Casting
3rd Level: Obtain Familiar
6th Level: Improved Familiar (Worg)
9th Level: Extra Familiar (Winter Wolf)
12th Level: Extra Familiar (Winter Wolf)
15th Level: Extra Familiar (Winter Wolf)
18th Level: Extra Familiar (Winter Wolf)

As a Windrider's mount, try to purchase Warbeast Magebred Horrid Dire Wolf
Oooo. Good ideas. The imbue with special ability is going to get me shot down, though. It's a fairly low magic campaign.


If ToB is banned, it's possible that Dragon Magazine (and therefore the Extra Familiar feat) is also.

Also, if any of his familiars die, that's pretty bad, and they are hard to replace. :smalltongue:

Kudos for the off the wall idea though. :smallbiggrin:
Dragon Mag is mostly available.

[Snowbluff]

What the. Snow! Too far! What?! You love it when I use my mouth!
https://67.media.tumblr.com/5e1a8f308a8d782c3b909bde6135fc04/tumblr_n6gt4oju2j1sfuh80o1_500.gif


That's no wolf. That's a doge.
All doge are wolv scientifically speaking.


I'd lose a companion and gain more spellcasting, which I'm actively avoiding.
It's barely an animal companion. ;p

[ShurikVch]

Oooo. Good ideas.:smallsmile:
The imbue with special ability is going to get me shot down, though. It's a fairly low magic campaign.Pity.
How about the dip in Duskblade?

Note: to qualify for aforementioned Improved Familiars at said levels, you should be either go
Duskblade 3 > Wolf Totem Barbarian 2 > Abjurant Champion 5 > Windrider 10or stock on CL boosters

Abjurant Champion's capstone make your CL = BAB, but you get 2 "first" Familiars earlier than that

[Ruethgar]

You can get a 5HD awakened wolf animal companion with the Animal Friends feat, granted you have to be a Gnome for that though. Or, grab 8 rats with 2.25HD each and then just persist Share Spells Aspect of the Wolf on them all. Also don't forget the handle animal rules of course, and the special dog-like only trick that lets them herd animals(defend a 100ft circle and attack any that try to enter or leave it).

[daremetoidareyo]

Barbarian dip? Shared fury Then wolf berserker gives +4 to trip when you rage. I think there is a wild feat that also grants rage (wolverine something or other).

Shape soulmeld and share soulmeld.

Shifter ranger acf allows you to share shifting feats with your wolves...(maybe not your wild cohort); shifter savagery mayhaps.

[daremetoidareyo]

You can get a 5HD awakened wolf animal companion with the Animal Friends feat, granted you have to be a Gnome for that though. Or, grab 8 rats with 2.25HD each and then just persist Share Spells Aspect of the Wolf on them all. Also don't forget the handle animal rules of course, and the special dog-like only trick that lets them herd animals(defend a 100ft circle and attack any that try to enter or leave it).
Source for this trick?

[LoyalPaladin]

Okay, so apparently I have to drop Druid, because there are none in this setting...

What are my options for wolves? Wolf > Worg > Dire Wolf > Winter Wolf > Legendary Wolf > Horrid Dire Wolf?

[Snowbluff]

Okay, so apparently I have to drop Druid, because there are none in this setting...

What are my options for wolves? Wolf > Worg > Dire Wolf > Winter Wolf > Legendary Wolf > Horrid Dire Wolf?

youve ingnored my gif are you cheatin on meh
http://66.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ltwg94IMqd1qbvovho1_500.gif

Can you do wildshape ranger and still have AnC? Then you can transform into a wolf (including a legendary one, if it there is one) and have lot of wolves. Also, we need another PrC that progresses AnC.

[ShurikVch]

How about to cast Mineralize Warrior on your wolves?

[LoyalPaladin]

youve ingnored my gif are you cheatin on meh
http://66.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ltwg94IMqd1qbvovho1_500.gif
I couldn't find a gif to describe the despair the statement/gif instilled in me. So I thought it better to be silent...


Can you do wildshape ranger and still have AnC? Then you can transform into a wolf (including a legendary one, if it there is one) and have lot of wolves. Also, we need another PrC that progresses AnC.
I very much doubt it. I switched to barbarian/ranger/Beastmaster. Gives me a good berserker motif.


How about to cast Mineralize Warrior on your wolves?
That'll get shot down ASAP...

[ShurikVch]

Can you do wildshape ranger and still have AnC? Then you can transform into a wolf (including a legendary one, if it there is one) and have lot of wolves. Also, we need another PrC that progresses AnC.If we speaking about Wildshape there, then 3.0 Animal Lord deserved honorary mention:
Lesser Wildshape
at will
and you can share it with your party
(and that PrC should progress AnC too!)

[Snowbluff]

I couldn't find a gif to describe the despair the statement/gif instilled in me. So I thought it better to be silent... Lame. You're losing it.


I very much doubt it. I switched to barbarian/ranger/Beastmaster. Gives me a good berserker motif.
Barbarian sounds off mark. If your wolves are missing AnC levels your wolv will not haz teh feets. We need to get you more AnC sources. I will say that Animal Lord is good because it will stack for all of your pets. It's super easy for a Ranger to enter it as a Wolflord, as it only requires BAB, Track, and a few skill points in class skills. With 5 levels you get the ability o summon a bunch of Dire Wolves, too.


If we speaking about Wildshape there, then 3.0 Animal Lord deserved honorary mention:
Lesser Wildshape
at will
and you can share it with your party
(and that PrC should progress AnC too!)Well I was thinking Wildshape Ranger but okay.

[Ruethgar]

Source for this trick?

Masters of the Wild has the rules for getting random rolled animal companions(instead of peasant array) as well as the rules governing Awakening your companions(you can go over but not get more companions until your HD limit is higher than the current). This is a 3.0 book so subject to DM updates. Races of Faerun has the Animal Friends feat which grants you 2HD of 3.0 style animal companions and is the only way to get it in 3.5 baring DM update. The herding trick was from some dragon magazine, I found it a while back with a google search for D&D animal tricks. Because they are all explicitly animal companions they technically could benifit from your animal companion class feature, if not the HD due to limits and the only exception to breaking them being Awaken, but the share spells and evasion would be nice.

[torrasque666]

Masters of the Wild has the rules for getting random rolled animal companions(instead of peasant array) as well as the rules governing Awakening your companions(you can go over but not get more companions until your HD limit is higher than the current). This is a 3.0 book so subject to DM updates. Races of Faerun has the Animal Friends feat which grants you 2HD of 3.0 style animal companions and is the only way to get it in 3.5 baring DM update. The herding trick was from some dragon magazine, I found it a while back with a google search for D&D animal tricks. Because they are all explicitly animal companions they technically could benifit from your animal companion class feature, if not the HD due to limits and the only exception to breaking them being Awaken, but the share spells and evasion would be nice.
Err... where do you see them being companions?
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.Even the 3.0 version of Animal Friendship didn't call them Animal Companions.

[Flickerdart]

Dutiful Guardian is a great way to protect your weaker wolves. Someone attacks it, but they hit you instead.

[Troacctid]

If druids are off the table, be a bard. Their animal companion is just as good as a druid's, and they can also get a familiar on top of it, including a worg or winter wolf via Improved Familiar.


Err... where do you see them being companions?Even the 3.0 version of Animal Friendship didn't call them Animal Companions.
3.0 Animal Friendship was updated into the animal companion class feature. The feat requires adaptation in order to be used in a 3.5 game—presumably this would involve rewriting it to give you a non-scaling animal companion as a 1st level druid. That's how I'd rewrite it, anyway.

[Snowbluff]

If druids are off the table, be a bard. Their animal companion is just as good as a druid's, and they can also get a familiar on top of it, including a worg or winter wolf via Improved Familiar. Oh they get an AnC, too? I never tried to play a bard with an AnC. The familiar thing is right, though. Bard's BAB makes them good for combat familiars.

[Troacctid]

I have played an animal companion bard. It's great. You lose inspire courage, but you gain a big action economy advantage and a ton of combat power at low levels. If it scaled with prestige classes, I'd take it on all my bards all the time.

I mean, it's obviously weaker than a druid, but that's only because druids are the most overpowered class in the entire game. Compared against a normal bard, it's totally fine.

[Snowbluff]

Oh... you lose inspire courage... the main reason why that interaction would interesting... :l

Still, it's a good idea for this build.

[Fuzzy McCoy]

Become a werewolf?

[sleepyphoenixx]

Sorry to rain on your parade, but Beastmasters extra companions do not scale with anything but Beastmaster levels.
That means every companion beside your first will suck, especially the last one.

Other class levels in classes that offer an animal companion don't stack for the purpose of determining the power of a beastmaster's additional animal companions, nor do they allow her to choose additional animal companions from the alternative lists.
So at level 15 (Beastmaster 10) that's a 7th level companion, a 4th level companion and a 1st level companion that you can't improve, in addition to your normal, level 15 one.
If your DM is nice and rules that Natural Bond applies to all of them that's a slightly more respectable 18/10/7/4, but the three extra companions will still be useless in combat (and not get any stronger as you go up in levels).

The first level of Beastmaster also won't grant you another companion, it stacks with your ranger companion.

If a beastmaster already has an animal companion from another class, her beastmaster class levels stack with class levels from all other classes that grant an animal companion.

Natural Bond is a little more questionable. It could be ruled to only apply to the first companion or to all of them, but in either case it's not enough to make the extra companions survivable in level-appriate combat.

You could maybe apply your normal companion progression to extra companions by taking Theurgic Bond (once for each), but that's also not quite RAW and needs a lenient DM.
In either case it'll eat a lot of feats. It also won't help much considering rangers half-progression and the 2 barbarian levels.

Frankly you could achieve more just by boosting Wild Empathy and taming your wolves the hard way, without wasting 10 levels on Beastmaster.

[Troacctid]

Natural Bond is a little more questionable. It could be ruled to only apply to the first companion or to all of them, but in either case it's not enough to make the extra companions survivable in level-appriate combat.
Natural Bond explicitly applies to only one companion if you have more than one.

[sleepyphoenixx]

Natural Bond explicitly applies to only one companion if you have more than one.

Add three to your effective druid level for the purpose of determining the bonus Hit Dice, extra tricks, special abilities, and other bonuses that your animal companion receives (see page 36 of the Player's Handbook). This bonus can never make your effective druid level exceed your character level.
There's nothing explicit about it. It's written with the assumption that there's only one, but that's hardly the same thing.
Yes, by a very strict reading it says "companion" and not "companions", but honestly? Beastmaster is already pathetic enough, even with a favorable reading.
And there are no other ways to get more than one AC, so it's not a balance issue either.

[Troacctid]

See the errata for Complete Adventurer.

Page 111: Natural Bond
If a character has multiple animal companions, the bonus granted by this feat applies to one of them.

[sleepyphoenixx]

See the errata for Complete Adventurer.

Ah okay, didn't know about that one.
Is it just me or does that seem kind of mean spirited? Like someone was thinking "huh, that Beastmaster can take Natural Bond to not be entirely useless for a few levels. Can't have that.", cue nerfbat.

Because afaik that's the only way to get more than one. All other options simply stack.

[ekarney]

I'm glad someone made this thread because I wanted to use an enemy like this against my players at one point whenever I need a filler fight but never bothered to look into it, so thank you.

If possible, an idea I was throwing around would be to try and turn one of your weaker wolves into an ubermount but I know that requires fairly heavy investment (not that I'd know, I've never even played alongside a mounted character, let alone played one)

[Blackhawk748]

Ah okay, didn't know about that one.
Is it just me or does that seem kind of mean spirited? Like someone was thinking "huh, that Beastmaster can take Natural Bond to not be entirely useless for a few levels. Can't have that.", cue nerfbat.

Because afaik that's the only way to get more than one. All other options simply stack.

Theres Beastheart Adept, but thats kinda its own thing. Also he could just take Natural Bond multiple times, its how i made my 10 level companion not crap.

[torrasque666]

Theres Beastheart Adept, but thats kinda its own thing. Also he could just take Natural Bond multiple times, its how i made my 10 level companion not crap.
Natural Bond does not contain language allowing its effects to stack with other instances of itself. Or even language allowing it to be taken multiple times.

[sleepyphoenixx]

Theres Beastheart Adept, but thats kinda its own thing. Also he could just take Natural Bond multiple times, its how i made my 10 level companion not crap.

3 more levels don't exactly help turn a level 1 companion at ECL 15 into not-crap.
Especially when you can just take a level of Totemist, shape Beast Tamer Circlet and Unicorn Horn and go tame yourself a couple dire tigers with Wild Empathy.