The Wildest Empathyest

[AnimeTheCat]

So, I was doing some research for an idea that I think would be interesting. Previously, I tried to tie it to ranger and now that i'm older, boy was that dumb.

My idea is to get the higest possible wild empathy to be able to capture, tame, and train the widest possible number of animals and magical beasts and use them as my combat tools basically, each animal trained to it's strengths. Ultimately, with enough animals and enough time, you could do just about anything you could want.

Magic of Incarnum is wonderful for this. I think I found the highest possible combination you can achieve at level 1.

Azurin Totemist 1
Con (as high as possible)
Cha (Second Highest)

Because this isn't a big deal, the actual numbers don't matter. You could even feasibly say charisma is your highest and con second highest for all I care.

Feats:
Azurin Feat: Expanded Soulmeld Capacity
1st Lvl Feat: Some Incarnum Feat that grants +1 Essentia (because you can't take the Bonus Essentia Feat at level 1)

Soulmelds (Totemst 1 gets 2)
Unicorn Horn - 1 essentia invested
Beast Tamer Circlet - 2 essential invested

The soulmelds alone get you +10 (split up as 4 competence from the unicorn horn and 6 insight from the circlet) before adding class level and charisma modifier which ideally would get you another 3 or 4 points.

+13 at level 1 is pretty stellar and you should be able to easily improve the mood of most animals quickly, trying once per day an animal could get to friendly status in short order, becoming valid for training with your super high Handle Animal check (which you can boost specifically using Riding bracers to get +8 to the check, sadly both beast tamer and riding bracers get insight bonuses).

Am i missing anything else to further bolster Wild Empathy at level 1 (I know about the +2 synergy bonus for 5 ranks in Handle Animal) or does that about cover it?

[Dimers]

Am i missing anything else to further bolster Wild Empathy at level 1 (I know about the +2 synergy bonus for 5 ranks in Handle Animal) or does that about cover it?

The "uncivilized" Trait (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/buildingCharacters/characterTraits.htm) adds a point. Quite a few things grant bonuses to all Charisma checks, though few could be taken at 1st level. One that springs to mind is the exalted feat Nymph's Kiss (+2 circumstance bonus). If your DM allows Traits and Flaws, there's +3 for ya.

[Avigor]

If you want to add Vermin to your Wild Empathy range, there are a few options: Child of Winter feat (ECS, Druid-only, also allows Vermins from Summon Nature's Ally), Mark of Vermin feat (Dragonmarked, requires an aberrant dragonmark), Cavestalker PrC (DotU, requires natural darkvision), Scorpion Wraith PrC (SoX, Eberron-specific, specifies you treat Vermin as Magical Beasts), Vermin Keeper PrC (Underdark, Druid-only), and of course the Dungeonscape Druid ACF but that specifically replaces Wild Empathy with Vermin Empathy instead of adding Vermin to WE so some DM's might not allow them to stack.

Beast Heart Adept PrC (Dungeonscape) to remove the penalty from Magical Beasts and add, with a -4 penalty, Aberrations. This is only with a dip; further levels allow more and better class-based companions.

Planar Ranger allows Wild Empathy on Celestial and Fiendish animals at no penalty, but gives a penalty to normal animals.

Only mentioning for the sake of completeness: The Blessed of Vulkoor (SoX, Drow only, Eberron-specific) feat allows Wild Empathy for scorpions only. The Vermin Trainer feat (DotU, Drow only) allows Animal Handling on Vermin but not Wild Empathy. The Beastmaster PrC (CA) gives more animal companions and improves your senses. The Vedalis Beastkeeper PrC (Dragonmarked, Eberron-specific) first reduces then eliminates the Magical Beast penalty, while also improving summons and companions. There are also feats for Spider Companion (DotU, requires Vermin Trainer) and Vermin Companion (ECS, requires Child of Winter) if desired. The Urban Savant PrC (CS) gives an "Urban Empathy" ability which doesn't stack with Wild Empathy but does allow a similar effect towards animals, humanoids, and monstrous humanoids, even allowing you to sub Knowledge (Local or Nature) for the check. Half-Orc Druid 4 ACF allows you to swap CHA for STR for Wild Empathy checks, and Shifter Ranger 1 ACF allows you to swap CHA for WIS for Wild Empathy checks.

EDIT: Came back to add some more (Planar Ranger, Urban Savant, Blessed of Vulkoor, ability swaps) above, plus the below straight bonuses: (note I skipped some limited time per day +2 to an ability boosters)

Animal Lord PrC (CA, Druidic alignment restrictions) adds +4 to a specific animal group.

Swanmay PrC (BoED) gives up to +6.

Animal Friend feat (BoED) gives +4 to animals and good-aligned magical beasts, specifying the +4 negates the normal penalty to magical beasts without allowing for what happens when you have the feat and also take say BHA (albeit that didn't exist yet when that came out) or Planar Ranger (not sure if that was out yet or not).

Burrow Friend feat (RoS, Gnome only) gives +2 to burrowing mammals.

Dinosaur Wrangler feat (RoE, Halfling only, Eberron-specific) gives +4 to dinosaurs.

Ethran feat (PGtF, female human only, Faerun-specific) gives a +2 to Handle Animal + Survival and all Charisma-based skill and ability checks towards Rashemis, but doesn't specify Wild Empathy so it might not work.

Karmic Twin feat (OA, 3.0, Ancestor) gives +2 to all Charisma-based skill checks and Charisma checks.

Moradin's Smile feat (RoS, Dwarf-only) gives a +2 to Charisma-based skill checks, but not general Charisma checks so Wild Empathy probably won't benefit.

Shifter Magnetism feat (PGtE, Shifter only) gives a bonus equal to the number of Shifter feats you have.

Thunder Twin (FRCS, Dwarf-only, Faerun-specific) gives +2 to all Charisma-based checks.

[ShurikVch]

Half-Orc Druid 4 ACF allows you to swap CHA for STR for Wild Empathy checksAnd, since the Str is the easiest ability score to boost, Half-Orc Druid is probably the best thing in sense of highest check numbers



Shifter Ranger 1 ACF allows you to swap CHA for WIS for Wild Empathy checks.And since the bonus from the Owl's Insight spell is uncapped, Shifter Ranger is also very attractive in terms of check results
Also, Shifter Ranger will qualify for Shifter Magnetism
And for Weretouched Master - for extra +4 with "lycanthrope ancestor"
Also, Dreamsight Shifter - while shifted, +2 on Wild Empathy checks, and +1 more - because of +2 Wis


Dragon #326 have Savage Empathy feat - it removes -4 penalty against Magical Beasts, and allow to select one new creature type which will be affected by your Wild Empathy (other than Animals, Construct, Humanoids, or Undead); feat may be taken multiple times - thus you will be able to use WE on pretty much everything but Undead...

Oh, wait... Undead Empathy feat (Eberron Campaign Setting)!..

[jmax]

Worth noting: The Initiate of Nature feat from Player's Guide to Faerun lets you rebuke and command animals the same way an evil cleric rebukes and commands undead. It's not infinite like Wild Empathy, but you get a lot more control. Even though it's only your level worth of hit dice, that still gets you one perfectly controllable severe beatstick - better even than an animal companion.

If you can somehow find a way to get polymorph any object on a build with Initiate of Nature (probably Arcane Hierophant is your best bet), you can arguably turn a number of bats or squirrels equal to 4x your level (assuming the squirrels are 1/4 HD - bats are explicitly marked with that) into grizzly mastodons or dire elephants and keep controlling them until something breaks your Command Animal effect. Super cheesy, but indisputably fun!

Hmm... I think it'd be reasonable to say that sparrows have 1/4 HD. Turn them into rocs for your very own air force!

[Zaq]

The other cool thing about using Totemist for this is that you can still be reasonably effective when there aren’t animals around to commune with.

Two melds shapes is a noticeable cost, but after the very lowest levels, you can afford to have both your WE-boosting melds and a few “normal” Totemist melds (read: something that gives you natural weapons and makes them extra-pointy) ready. The whole point of essentia is that it’s super flexible, so you don’t have to have any essentia in your WE melds if you aren’t actively using WE, and since the WE melds mostly don’t need binds, the only real cost is the shape. Which is workable.

This helps make you less of a one-trick pony. Obviously you won’t eat faces quite as well as a Totemist who devoted all of their resources to eating faces instead of to WE, but you also aren’t just a Commoner if you can’t use WE for some reason.

That said, if you want to go full “social Totemist” for some reason, you can also shape the Intimidate-boosting melds. So depending on your essentia load round by round, you’re either supernaturally good at communing with beasts or you’re surprisingly good at scaring things, which might be amusing to roleplay now and again.

Zooming out a bit, if you’re starting at a high enough level to not need the azurin bonus feat and bonus essentia, illumians with the CHA-based sigil (Vaul, I think? AFB) get a +2 bonus on all CHA-based checks, including WE. Azurin gets off the ground faster, though, so no argument there.