[3.5] Good Feats for Animal Companions

[Grim Reader]

Anyone have any fun or good ideas on feats or feat lines for Animal Companions (Core + Completes) ?

I considered Complete Mages Fey Heritage feat line, but unfortunately there are class level prerequisites for the fun ones, and I don't believe advancing hit dice count.

[Particle_Man]

Well if you are into the flying stuff, you could go for flyby attack, hover and wingover from the monster manual.

[Cygnia]

Is this for a druid or a ranger?

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Give it a few cross-class ranks in Spellcraft and the Mage Slayer line of feats in Complete Arcane.

If it can fly, Improved Flight in Races of the Wild improves its maneuverability.

If it has poison or any special abilities, Ability Focus in the Monster Manual. Virulent Poison in Savage Species stacks with that.

[Eldariel]

Well, the classic is Vow of Poverty if it happens to be a Celestial Companion; that way it'll handle most of its own stuff and you can do the rest with buffs.

Other than that...play to its strengths. Is it a grappler? Improved Grapple isn't hard to qualify for. Improved Trip obviously isn't available for them (due to Combat Expertise Int requirements) but Power Attack > Shock Trooper + Leap Attack is (provided you put enough ranks into Jump), so any pouncing charger can easily pick up those. Alternatively, the Power Attack > Improved Bull Rush > Knockback [Races of Stone]-chain is another way to control enemy positioning and obviously goes well with Shock Trooper [Complete Warrior] and even Combat Brute [Complete Warrior]. I can't remember where, but there's that one feat that lets you reduce the distance you Bull Rush an enemy by 10' in exchange for knocking them prone - that would go well on top of all this.

If it has reach (Ape/Dire Ape), you can go the AoO route with Combat Reflexes, Stand Still, Mage Slayer [Complete Arcane] (this one is a bit iffy but by RAW they can qualify), etc. Hell, Apes and Dire Apes are even bipeds so they can probably wield weapons: give them EWP: Spiked Chain or whatever. Technically they can even qualify for Stunning Fist > Pharaoh's Fist [Sandstorm] & its ilk. Animal Devotion [Complete Champion] would be fairly strong and hilarious, though probably require at least Celestial Familiar for the intelligence to qualify. Aberration-feats like Inhuman Reach [Lords of MAdness] are obviously awesome. Incarnum and ToB stuff is obviously quite iffy but by RAW there are no obstacles for using them and they both offer a lot of awesome stuff.

Monster feats are of course also on the table: Flyby Attack is a gimme as mentioned and Ability Focus is a gimme if the creature has e.g. poison. Improved Natural Attack can be worth in on a sufficiently high base damage weapon (remember, it applies to a lot of stuff (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?584423-Advancing-Natural-Attacks).

EDIT: Oh yeah, Large and in Charge [Draconomicon] is pretty awesome for an AoO build too, better than Stand Still much of the time.

[Thurbane]

I considered Complete Mages Fey Heritage feat line, but unfortunately there are class level prerequisites for the fun ones, and I don't believe advancing hit dice count.

Just FYI, Fey Presence and Fey Legacy have "character level" reqs. For creatures with no class level, their character level equals their hit dice.


This number represents a creature's overall power relative to that of a character from the Player's Handbook. A creature with an effective character level (ECL) of 10 is roughly equivalent to a 10th-level character. A creature's ECL is the sum of its Hit Dice (including class levels) and level adjustment. For instance, a splinterwaif has 2 HD and a +4 level adjustment. It is the equivalent of a 6th-level character.

LA -- for animal companions does not affect this calculation, it merely means they are unavailable for use as PCs.

So by RAW, any creature that is nonlawful, and has the Fey Heritage feat, could take Fey Presence at 6HD, and Fey Legacy at 9HD.

There is precedence in many monster entries of creatures with 1 or 2 Int being able to activate SLAs...

[Uncle Pine]

As mentioned, character level = HD so if you wanted to have your animal dip into the Fey Heritage line of feats there's nothing stopping you. If your animal companion has a lot of HD, Martial Study/Stance can be a powerful option. Improved Unarmed Strike is also always fun: a dire bear full attacks with 2 claws +19 (2d4+10) and bite +13 (2d8+5), but a dire bear with IUS full attacks with unarmed strike +18/+13 (1d4+10), 2 claws +14 (2d4+5) and bite +13 (2d8+5) - it is also a bear that knows kung fu.

[DwarvenWarCorgi]

As mentioned, character level = HD so if you wanted to have your animal dip into the Fey Heritage line of feats there's nothing stopping you. If your animal companion has a lot of HD, Martial Study/Stance can be a powerful option. Improved Unarmed Strike is also always fun: a dire bear full attacks with 2 claws +19 (2d4+10) and bite +13 (2d8+5), but a dire bear with IUS full attacks with unarmed strike +18/+13 (1d4+10), 2 claws +14 (2d4+5) and bite +13 (2d8+5) - it is also a bear that knows kung fu.

Give the bear a monks belt and those 1d4s become 1d8s, also gets bonus ac whenever you owls wisdom yourself. Had this setup on a warbeast celestial tiger.

Some people throw on snap kick for an additional attack, but I usually go improved natural attack for bigger damage dice (especially if your DM lets you drop the animals base feats like alertness or toughness).

Somewhere on the forums I saw someone talking about adding the animals claw damage to unarmed strikes......maybe eggynack's handbook thread, don't recall how justified it was RAW.


Edit: just remembered Insightful Strike from BoED, lets you use WIS to hit in melee in place of STR, this could be brutal with share spells/monks belt/owls wisdom, depending on animal and caster level of course.

[Uncle Pine]

Somewhere on the forums I saw someone talking about adding the animals claw damage to unarmed strikes......maybe eggynack's handbook thread, don't recall how justified it was RAW.

Beast Strike from Dragon #355, a favorite of clawlocks and kung fu animals alike.

[Eldariel]

Edit: just remembered Insightful Strike from BoED, lets you use WIS to hit in melee in place of STR, this could be brutal with share spells/monks belt/owls wisdom, depending on animal and caster level of course.

Eh, most animals have fairly solid Str already and Animal Growth is a key buff to use with your animal, any other following animals, yourself (through the "animal form spells" from Spell Compendium) and summons, so I find it very unlikely that an animal companion on a high enough level would really want to use Wis over Str (given most animals' middling Wis scores).

[DwarvenWarCorgi]

Eh, most animals have fairly solid Str already and Animal Growth is a key buff to use with your animal, any other following animals, yourself (through the "animal form spells" from Spell Compendium) and summons, so I find it very unlikely that an animal companion on a high enough level would really want to use Wis over Str (given most animals' middling Wis scores).

Not saying it should be a go to, but depending on animal, it could be useful, and combined with monks belt, it would let you buff your casting and your animals ac and to hit with a single spell. Was just a thought.

[Anthrowhale]

If you make your Fleshraker fly with maximized empowered Venomfire then Great Flyby Attack becomes compelling.

[Eldariel]

Not saying it should be a go to, but depending on animal, it could be useful, and combined with monks belt, it would let you buff your casting and your animals ac and to hit with a single spell. Was just a thought.

Aye, it's not a bad feat but the problem is largely the same as with a Cleric going Intuitive Attack; all your best buffs already buff your (already respectable) Strength-score further (in Cleric's case, Divine Power and Righteous Might off the top) so the Wisdom score would need to be truly staggering to make it worth spending a feat on. Druids do get Owl's Insight [Spell Compendium] (not to be confused with Owl's Wisdom), which makes heavy duty Wisdom buffing a possibility though so it's not entirely out of the realm of possibility to make it work but given most interesting animals have ~15-30 Strength to start with (with the level-based bonus further adding to Strength) and their Wisdom tends to be in the 10-13 range, it's a stretch.

[Troacctid]

Draconic Aura is one of my go-tos because it lets you sneak a whole-party buff out of what would normally be an animal companion buff.

[Ramza00]

As mentioned, character level = HD so if you wanted to have your animal dip into the Fey Heritage line of feats there's nothing stopping you. If your animal companion has a lot of HD, Martial Study/Stance can be a powerful option. Improved Unarmed Strike is also always fun: a dire bear full attacks with 2 claws +19 (2d4+10) and bite +13 (2d8+5), but a dire bear with IUS full attacks with unarmed strike +18/+13 (1d4+10), 2 claws +14 (2d4+5) and bite +13 (2d8+5) - it is also a bear that knows kung fu.

Cast Blood Wind on said Animal Companion, and the Bear attacks with his natural attacks and unarmed strikes as ranged attacks. Flavor wise your bear molds its chi and then affects things at the distance with its chi.

Edit: Forgot Blood Wind does not work on Animals but it does work with Magical Beasts. So you would need the Exalted Companion feat (BoED) which allows your Bear to gain the Celestial Creature Template (Int of 3) and removes the INT limit so as soon as you get 4 HD / 8 HD / 12 and so on you can put an additional +1 to your Int, or you can use Headband of Intellect.

[DwarvenWarCorgi]

Aye, it's ......

Owls Insight. I always wanna call it owls wit. Corrected myself wrongly when I mentioned it before. That's the spell I meant. Was it owls wit in 3.0?