Best Animal Companion feat

[_RAGNAR_]

dark template black panther (same as leopard for stats)

The character is all about sneaking/scouting

We have the Infiltration teamwork benefit so we can see each other when hidden.

Blindfight combined with his scent ability seems smart.

Martial study to take a maneuver could be very good.

Combat is secondary to sneaking, but not unimportant. He'd mostly be attacking anyone I was attacking giving me flanking and hopefully grappling and between us we are preventing spell casting as much as possible.

My main concern is spell casters if that helps narrow the field

Thanks

[Venger]

Shape soulmeld is also a popular choice. If you want him to do stealth, darkstalker must be in the mix.

[_RAGNAR_]

Shape soulmeld is also a popular choice. If you want him to do stealth, darkstalker must be in the mix.

I'll read about soulmelds, I dont know anything about them. Ah yes duh Darkstalker would be top of list (I have it) not sure why I didnt think of it.

[Venger]

I'll read about soulmelds, I dont know anything about them. Ah yes duh Darkstalker would be top of list (I have it) not sure why I didnt think of it.

Okay, good. Soulmelds are pretty straightforward:

You shape them on one of your 10 body slots (here called "chakras) Each meld will tell you where it goes. When more than one location is listed, you can shape it on any of those.

When you have a meld there, you can enjoy either the benefit of the meld or the item (unless you have split chakra, but if you only have one meld, don't worry about it.)

A meld will typically give a bonus to one or more skills as its shaped effect and/or a special power. If you add essentia (if you have any of it) to a meld, that will make the bonus to skills (and sometimes other things like attack and damage) go up.

If you bind a meld to a chakra, you get a new power. (Note: you can only bind a chakra where it is shaped. There is an exception for the totem chakra, which cannot have melds shaped to it, but that doesn't apply to your AC since he has no totemist levels and non-totemists cannot open this chakra.) These can also be useful, so depending on how many hd your animal companion has, you may also look at the open chakra (least/lesser/greater) feats to see if this will be useful to him.

Here (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?217064-Soulmeld-List-by-Class-and-Slot) is a list of most of the soulmelds. There are a couple more in dragon magic.

Let us know if you have any further questions.

[sleepyphoenixx]

Sorry to rain on your parade, but teamwork benefits require an int score of at least 3.
And animal companions can't take templates either, though you can bypass that one with a Collar of Umbral Metamorphosis.

[Venger]

He can use a headband of intellect or similar.

[liquidformat]

Sorry to rain on your parade, but teamwork benefits require an int score of at least 3.
And animal companions can't take templates either, though you can bypass that one with a Collar of Umbral Metamorphosis.

Warbeast and mage bred are both explicitly for animal companions and beyond that it is up to what your dm allows.

Anyways since you are focused on magic users anyways Mage Slayer, Pierce Magical Concealment, and Pierce Magical Protection are all good choices though taking 2 ranks of spellcraft does require some handwaving from your dm... VoP is a great choice if your DM lets you take it, it is hands down the best choice. Fire and Earth Heritage are both amusing choices though not particularly powerful. Power Attack plus leap attack might be a decent choice as well.

[Darg]

If you don't like spellcasters, you can give your companion the mageslayer feat. Bonus to will saves and prevents casters from casting defensively when you threaten them. Considering getting a large size companion isn't hard, it can shut down casters fairly reliably.

[sleepyphoenixx]

It's not a very big bonus, but i'd suggest getting some Shadowsilk barding (ToM). On the upside it's rather cheap and boosts both hide and move silently.
You can also add a camouflage pattern (FR Underdark) if you find yourself in one type of terrain a lot and Muffling from the same book for another +2 to move silently, both at 300gp a piece.

As for feats it's always worth asking the DM if your AC can take 2 ranks of spellcraft to qualify for Mage Slayer and its followup Pierce Magical Protection, especially if you're worried about casters.
Since you're considering Blindfight it'll also qualify you for Pierce Magical Concealment, which is great on an animal companion intended to kill casters.


Warbeast and mage bred are both explicitly for animal companions and beyond that it is up to what your dm allows.

Warbeast and Magebred are for animals, not animal companions specifically.
There's a very specific exception (as in "be a druid from this specific Eberron region) for druids to take Magebred tigers or bears as companions in Five Nations.
Without that book ECS explicitly forbids magebred animals from being druid or ranger companions.

Otherwise the rule for animal companions is that

A 1st-level druid’s companion is completely typical for its kind except as noted below.

Sure, your DM may allow any kind of template at his whim, but he can do that to any restriction.

It's not like i'm pointing these out to ruin OPs fun.
But OP didn't mention any houserules and some DMs are pretty strict about keeping to RAW, especially if they think you're trying to munchkin your way into more power.
It's usually better to catch that kind of thing before you try to get it into the game.

[daremetoidareyo]

Sorry to rain on your parade, but teamwork benefits require an int score of at least 3.
And animal companions can't take templates either, though you can bypass that one with a Collar of Umbral Metamorphosis.

There's an an animal trick that allows team work benefits

[Morty_Jhones]

There's an an animal trick that allows team work benefits



IS there ? ?

Name and book pls...

I am running a group with several pets and if theres a trick we can teach them that lets them us teamwork feats that would be even more awsome.

[_RAGNAR_]

There's an an animal trick that allows team work benefits

correct. It overrides the Int requirement

[_RAGNAR_]

Sorry to rain on your parade, but teamwork benefits require an int score of at least 3.
And animal companions can't take templates either, though you can bypass that one with a Collar of Umbral Metamorphosis.


"Creatures and Teamwork (From DMG2)
Creatures with an Intelligence score of 1 or 2 can be included on a team only if they learn the teamwork trick. Creatures that don't have in Intelligence score can never be part of a team.

Teaching an animal the teamwork trick requires a DC 20 Handle Animal check made as part of teamwork training. This trick allows the animal to be part of a team and thus benefit from any teamwork benefits enjoyed by the team. The animal must still meet any team member prerequisite required by the benefit."

https://www.realmshelps.net/charbuild/skills/skilltricks.shtml#team

[Morty_Jhones]

Well i suppose you could teach them a Teamwork feat as a trick but meeting some of the member requrments for other than the straght forward serching and defencive fighting feats would be a problem, don't see an animal geting ranks in Spellcraft or knolage war for example, since they only get 1 per HD..

Als Tbh teaching an animal a teamwork feat as a trick is a bit of a waste, they already have to use one of more just learning to attack on command and if your pets only got 3, using 2 for afectivly the same thing is a bit silly.

[_RAGNAR_]

We aren’t taking pets

Animal companions start with 6 tricks and get 2 skill pts. So the 1 pt required by most team skills can be met cross class with those 2 pts

[_RAGNAR_]

Besides the fact only getting to be a team at one trick per four levels.

Easy to meet the requirements as a member of a very few tricks

[_RAGNAR_]

The infiltration and scouting team benefit are pretty powerful (to me) and most all animals will qualify

[weckar]

When you have a meld there, you can enjoy either the benefit of the meld or the item (unless you have split chakra, but if you only have one meld, don't worry about it.)
Wait, I thought item exclusivity only applied when the meld was bound to a chakra?

EDIT: Yeah, p. 51 says as much.

[Venger]

"When you have a meld bound there" I meant to say. Accidentally a word. You are correct.

[sleepyphoenixx]

There's an an animal trick that allows team work benefits

I didn't know that one. Source please?

[daremetoidareyo]

I didn't know that one. Source please?

DMG2 p.189

[sleepyphoenixx]

Well i suppose you could teach them a Teamwork feat as a trick but meeting some of the member requrments for other than the straght forward serching and defencive fighting feats would be a problem, don't see an animal geting ranks in Spellcraft or knolage war for example, since they only get 1 per HD..

Als Tbh teaching an animal a teamwork feat as a trick is a bit of a waste, they already have to use one of more just learning to attack on command and if your pets only got 3, using 2 for afectivly the same thing is a bit silly.
There aren't many teamwork benefits that are worth it for animal companions, but there are a few and you can't take that many anyway.
Snap Out of It and Spellcaster Guardian for example could be very nice. And at least Snap Out of It is worth it for the entire group regardless of composition.


DMG2 p.189

How did i never notice that sidebar?
Anyway, thank you.