Core Only The Big Guy's With Me

[LordOfCain]

I wanna play a druid using his ape animal companion as an 'avatar' to pretend to be. In full plate with a greatsword his ape will pretend to be a big dumb fighter while the permenant reduced person gnome druid hides in the backpack. What feats should the ape take? Assume the druid is level 5.

[A.A.King]

First you'll have to convince your DM that you can add the Warbeast template to your Ape (which is usually already a problematic thing to add to an Animal Companion, but made extra difficult because it isn't Core but form MMII), otherwise it won't be proficient with Heavy Armor (which outside of this template would take 3 feats total). Then you'll have to convince your DM to let you replace the two feats a standard Ape gets with feat chosen by you, otherwise a LV5 Druid's Ape only has Alertness and Toughness as feats (both useless). If you can, then replace your third level feat with Weapon Proficiency (Greatsword) (otherwise you won't be able to wield it) and replace the first level bonus feat with Power Attack.

I can't imagine this getting to be a very good fighter though, seeing as in Core Only there are no ways to increase the Ape's Hit Die outside of the standard Druid increase (which means very few feats for the Ape)

[ComaVision]

The usual. Power Attack and who cares what else because Core doesn't have good martial feats.

[Extra Anchovies]

Well, an Ape is a -3 companion, so you count as a second-level druid. That means the Ape has its base of 4 HD and thus two feats. I don't *think* there's a restriction on the feats animals can take other than having to qualify normally, so Martial or Exotic Weapon Proficiency is in the clear.

Given that druids are themselves prohibited from wearing primarily-metal armor, I feel like making your companion do so would violate their code at most tables even if it doesn't do so by RAW. Light Armor Proficiency for studded leather would still be useful, though.

Note that unless you raised the ape from an infant you'll probably have to help it retrain - I don't know if it's possible by RAW for animals to retrain but there might not be an Int requirement.