Improving animal companions and familiars?

[tedcahill2]

Is there a feat that increases your level for the purpose of determining the power of your animal companion and familiar?

Like if you were to multiclass but wanted to keep your companion/familiar's abilities equal to your character level, instead of class level, is there a feat like that?

Similar to how practiced caster can add caster levels.

[RFLS]

Yes! There is actually a feat that does exactly what you want. It's called Natural Bond, and is found in Complete Adventurer, page 111. It does limit you to an effective animal companion of your level, though. Unfortunately, it can only be taken once.

As a side note, Beastmaster from Complete Adventurer gives you +3 effective animal companion levels for a 1 level dip.

[gorfnab]

You may want to look into the feat Theurgic Bond (Drg #325) and the prestige class Arcane Hierophant (RotW).

[tedcahill2]

Yes! There is actually a feat that does exactly what you want. It's called Natural Bond, and is found in Complete Adventurer, page 111. It does limit you to an effective animal companion of your level, though.

Perfect, how about for familiars?

[Uncle Pine]

Perfect, how about for familiars?

The only one I am aware of is Familiarity from Dragon Magazine #325 p49.


Familiarity [Bloodline]

Your innate magical blood gives you a greater tie to your familiar.
Prerequisite: Any bloodline feat, ability to summon a familiar, ability to cast 3rd-level arcane spells.
Benefit: Your familiar gains abilities as if your class level in the arcane spellcasting class that granted you access to feat were 2 levels higher.

[PrismCat21]

As a side note, Beastmaster from Complete Adventurer gives you +3 effective animal companion levels for a 1 level dip.

It's actually a +4 effective level for a 1 level dip.
+1 for the class level itself, additional +3 from a class feature at level 1.

[Hellpyre]

It's actually a +4 effective level for a 1 level dip.
+1 for the class level itself, additional +3 from a class feature at level 1.

You forget that the +1 for class is the same as the +1 for class you would get anyways for not dipping. It stacks with your other levels, and also give you an effective 3 extra levrls.

[Thurbane]

If you clan to multiclass or prestige, Obtain Familiar can give you a higher effective level, since it looks at total arcane caster levels, not just levels in the class that gave the familiar. The usual route is to trade away your familiar for an ACF, then pick up the feat.

[Falontani]

If you clan to multiclass or prestige, Obtain Familiar can give you a higher effective level, since it looks at total arcane caster levels, not just levels in the class that gave the familiar. The usual route is to trade away your familiar for an ACF, then pick up the feat.

Slight nitpick here,
For the purpose of determining familiar abilities that
depend on your arcane caster class level, your levels in all classes that allow you to cast arcane spells stack.
That means that completely different caster levels would stack as well, so if you were doing an Ultimate Magus build then by raw you would be getting a 2:1 bump on your familiar, which still caps out relatively low
By RAW..

[Thurbane]

Slight nitpick here,
That means that completely different caster levels would stack as well, so if you were doing an Ultimate Magus build then by raw you would be getting a 2:1 bump on your familiar, which still caps out relatively low
By RAW..

Well, that is essentially what I was trying to say, but my wording could have been clearer.

Not too sure I agree on the reading of Ultimate Magus. It's giving CL boosts to two classes, but it's still just the one class.

[PrismCat21]

You forget that the +1 for class is the same as the +1 for class you would get anyways for not dipping. It stacks with your other levels, and also give you an effective 3 extra levrls.

I forgot nothing.

Advancing 1 level into Beastmaster increases your Effective Druid Level by 4.
If you did not have any classes that granted an Animal Companion before taking Beastmaster, your Effective Druid Level goes from 0 to 4.
If you already had an Animal Companion from another class, your Effective Druid Level is equal to what it was before taking that level in Beastmaster, plus 4 (thanks to the level in Beastmaster) :smallsigh:

Exactly what class are you dipping out of anyway? The only two even mentioned before your post is Beastmaster and Arcane Hierophant.
How could I have forgotten something that was never brought up?

[Matrota]

You could play as the sorcerer ACF that trades familiar for ranger animal companion, then taking obtain familiar and theurgic bond for a very powerful animal companion. Your effective druid level for Your animal companion is 1/2 level from the acf, familiar level is full CL from obtain familiar, and theurgic bond combines both of them to become 1.5. So at 10th level, you have the companion of a 15th level druid. If you can manage to sneak in Natural Bond, that strengthens it even more, but may not work due to the wording that the benefit cannot excess your level.