Help me build an animu monster tamer

[Ellrin]

This is for use with Pathfinder rules, but all first party Pathfinder and D&D 3e content is kosher. There's a chance that 3rd party Pathfinder content will be acceptable if it's available through d20pfsrd, though that's at my DM's discretion.

Specifically, I'm looking for builds that will function similarly to a pokemon trainer or a digimon partner—in both cases, I'm looking for something functionally similar to the anime variants.

In essence, what I'm looking for here are builds where the PC himself can't (or at least doesn't) really do much in the way of fighting, and leaves combat to his partner or controlled monster. I'd also like the monster(s) to be able to grow and evolve as the PC levels up.

Summoner or maybe spiritualist seem like the best options for the digimon build—in general, digimon features a single partner monster per human, one that can transform into more powerful versions of itself if needed. I suppose there's also the possibility of using Leadership with a monster of some sort with class levels, and just leaving the cohort (who would actually be fluffed as the PC) as an NPC class or with some other non-combat oriented build.

For the pokemon build, I'm a bit more at a loss—I'd like the build to reflect a pokemon trainer's ability to carry multiple pokemon with him, but it seems like most pet classes/archetypes that give access to multiple pets make those pets cripplingly weak. There's also the possibility of using summon spells and just flavoring it so that each casting calls one of a small pool of creatures forth. The other idea I had was a caster with a smaller construct familiar (essentially representing a pokeball) that uses share spells to "summon" a monster "through" his familiar by polymorphing his familiar into one of a variety of forms—though it'd need some pretty good base stats to work with for the standard polymorph spells to make it combat-worthy, and even then the half-HP is concerning. In any case, however the effect of having access to multiple combat-worthy monsters on the fly is achieved, it's fine if the tradeoff is only being able to use one of them at a time—in fact, that might even be preferable, since it would reflect the one on one dynamic of Pokemon battles a bit more directly.

The other sticking point with the pokemon build is achieving all of that, while also having your controlled monsters grow in strength and even evolve into new, stronger forms. The evolution thing is probably easiest to simulate with summon spells, but simulating the growth in power of a single form may be more difficult.

Anyway, that's about as far as I've gotten so far. Any feats, class features, archetypes, etc., or even completely different ideas you could point me to in order to achieve either of these concepts would be really helpful. Thanks.

[ellindsey]

The Pathfinder Preservationist Alchemist has the flavor of carrying little animals around in bottles to release to fight for you, but it's lacking the mechanic for having to capture them, or the idea of having specific fighting companions that grow more powerful over time. That might be the closest you can get for a Pokemon Trainer build.

[eldskald]

Ok, that will be silly... Alchemist, promethean disciple (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/alchemist/archetypes/paizo-alchemist-archetypes/promethean-alchemist-alchemist-archetype/) and preservationist (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/alchemist/archetypes/paizo-alchemist-archetypes/preservationist/). Nothing stops you from taking the tumor familiar (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/alchemist/discoveries/paizo-alchemist-discoveries/tumor-familiar-ex/) discovery and the Improved Familiar feat for another smaller homunculus (or whatever you fancy). Take the infusion (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/alchemist/discoveries/paizo-alchemist-discoveries/infusion/) discovery to use it with a pair of poisoner's gloves (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/wondrous-items/wondrous-items/e-g/gloves-poisoner-s/) and TWF, so in one round you can buff your monster twice. At later levels, more gloves and vestigial arms (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/alchemist/discoveries/paizo-alchemist-discoveries/vestigial-arm-ex/) can make things go crazy. Add in some vials of admixture (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/wondrous-items/wondrous-items/a-b/admixture-vial/) and the combine extracts (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/alchemist/discoveries/paizo-alchemist-discoveries/combine-extracts) discovery to make action economy go through the roof. You can infuse your homunculi with channel vigor (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/c/channel-vigor/), beast shape and other stuff all in one turn using vestigial arms, combined extracts and gloves! The trick is that since your beasts are willing to get your boons, there is no necessity to do any of the touch attacks, just like using cure spells on willing targets. Preservationist's role is kinda obvious. All of your monsters will scale in level with you and you have no bombs or mutagens (though you can grab the mutagen through this (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/alchemist/discoveries/paizo-alchemist-discoveries/mutagen-su/) discovery), so most of your actions will be spent buffing your little monsters and freeing the bottled ones. You can focus on Con on this build, no need to have intelligence greater than 16. You can also craft constructs from the start, but unhappily they won't scale with your levels.

EDIT: Got ninja'ed.

[SimonMoon6]

It's third party but:

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/3rd-party-classes/northwinter-press/monster-trainer/

[SangoProduction]

Spheres of Power's Conjuration Sphere (http://spheresofpower.wikidot.com/conjuration). This is exactly Pokemon.

[AnimeTheCat]

In a different light, you could be a class that grants wild empathy and an animal companion like the 3.5 druid and take proficiency and focuses in a net to capture and tame wild Pokemon *cough* I mean monsters then max out the handle animal skill equivalent to train them and you are a Pokemon master. 3.5 has at least one template that can be applied to each monster with one month of training that profoundly boosts combat capability.

Benefits are that you aren't limited to any number of animals and if you can find a way to get them into a sustained pocket dimension, they'll always be right where you need them.

[Waker]

Obviously the Preservationist archetype has been mentioned, but to compliment it there exists Planar Preservationist (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/planar-preservationist/). That adds Summon Monster to your extract list.

[Sagetim]

Well, the summoner can work for either of those concepts, actually. The Eidolon is generally what people jump on and focus on, but the summoner also has uses per day summon monsters that last for like, a minute per level instead of rounds, right?

So, one of the summoner archetypes focuses on that class ability to the detriment of your eidolon. You trade off having a big strong beasty, for being able to summon from the summon monster list more often. Picking out monsters you want your pokemon trainer to have from the summon monster list then nets you at least the theme of 'has a team of monsters that they use often'. When it comes to roleplaying the character, you can even name particular monsters you summon to designate them as 'I keep summoning the same celestial dog, his name is bippo'. And then when celestial dogs are kind of meh, and you need a little more oomph from your summon, summon Bippo and his amazing friends, or only use bippo out of combat because he's kind of crap now as a fighting companion.

There's also another archetype worth looking at for Summoner, that swaps you from arcane to divine. Set your source of divine power as your faith in your fighting monsters to overcome all obstacles, and you are now Ash. Proceed to wearing a red hat, yelling at your portable monsters to get back up when the chips are down (cast healing spells on them, possibly at range with some kind of shenanigan) and play up the whole 'what? I don't have powers, I just have faith in my friends (and my friends are monsters I carry around in balls on my belt)' angle.

If 3.5 is fair game, I would be remiss not to mention that psionics has your back, all in the one power of Astral Construct. Since it looks like what you imagine, and you can customize each and every astral construct you make when you manifest it, you can take some time to prep a few different astral constructs as your monsters, and then proceed to have them fight on your behalf and so on. With powers like Psionic Repair, ecto protection, and the Constructor prestige class, you can get a lot of mileage out of astral constructs. And if you don't mind the repeated kicks to your manifest level's knees, you might also grab the 5 level ecotopic adept prestige class. But you won't be some nerdy mcbaldguy. You'll be playing a charismatic animu bishounen who throws monsters at his problems and doesn't afraid of anything. You might need to weigh your options for baseline manifester though, as technically anyone can pick up astral construct by use of feat at level 3. A Psion (Shaper) will have native access to most/all of the best astral construct shenanigans as soon as they become available, but they are int based so that might not mesh with your animu protagonist theme. Wilder's are charisma based, but would need to feat their way into Astral Construct, and also get a really terrible number of powers known total. But if you're playing a hot blooded monster master, it might be the way to go. Finally, the Ardent is wisdom based, and if I recall right one of their Mantles has Astral Construct stapled onto it, the flavoring of that class makes them a bit more philosophy prone, even though real life philosophy is more along the lines of int based logic, pedantic rules lawyering, and creating the rules of the game so that you cannot lose*. Anyway, Ardents are wisdom based, so if you want your character to have the animu flavor of going with his gut, trustiing his instincts, and coming out ahead by doing so, Ardent might get you where you want to go.

Of course, that's also ignoring that Dreamscarred Press did some really good work in bringing Psionics into Pathfinder, and that work is up on the pathfinder srd, but it counts as third party and you called that out as a 'maybe, if it can be on srd' so I focused on the whole 'and all of 3e is open'.



*This is not meant to be a dig against philosophy in general, just a joke.

[Mehangel]

If Spheres of Might was released, i would've recommended just grabbing the Beastmastery sphere, which is even more "pokemon" than Spheres of Power's Conjuration sphere.

Beastmastery lets you tame and train creatures of animal intelligence or lower (including vermin/plant creatures with the right talents).