Dhampir Animal Companions?

[Palanan]

For a dhampir hunter, what would be some thematic creatures that could work as animal companions?

Looking for options that are creepy, half-dead, negative-energy-friendly or all of the above. Is there anything like this in first-party Paizo material?

[Rynjin]

Well, two of the obvious options would be like a horse or giant raven. Vampires are also associated with wolves, rats (dire), and bats, so those options work as well. For the cold-blooded affinity, any of the snakes might work, and I quite like crocodiles as well. The dinosaurs (like the raptor) can generally be considered stronger in that regard, however.

Maybe a giant vulture?

You can apparently get an Accursed Companion (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/Druid/animal-companions/#Accursed_Companions) if your regular one dies a horrific death? Ask GM if that can happen in backstory?

You can give any of the above (or any other choice) the Deathtouched (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/druid/animal-companions/animal-companion-archetypes/deathtouched-companion-archetype/) archetype for Negative Energy Affinity. The text specifically mentions dhampirs.

[Palanan]

A deathtouched raven nails the mood I was going for.

So, here’s a question. Can an ordinary raven be used as a companion, rather than the giant raven? What I’d like is a hunter with the packmaster archetype for a whole flock of ravens, but I’m not sure how many deathtouched ravens that would be per hunter level.

[Rynjin]

Regular ravens are actually Familiars, unfortunately.

With Packmaster that would be a max of 1 raven per Hunter level. However, I would advise against this. A single 1 HD raven is...not gonna cut it for very long. You'll start having your Animal Companions get oneshot by everything (sometimes all at once, if they catch a Fireball).

Packmaster is more meant for having like two companions, one at a lower HD for utility stuff, and one boosted by 4 levels with Boon Companion.

You could kinda do the flock aesthetic that way, actually. Eg. at level 8 you'd do one 4 HD Companion (boosted to 8 HD by Boon Companion) and four 1 HD companion ravens who are just kinda there.

But honestly you could simply have the same effect by being a normal, non-Packmaster Hunter and then buying a bunch of mundane ravens and using Handle Animal to train them. You're essentially investing class features into doing the same thing as a skill, effectively.

[Palanan]

Hmm, okay. This will be for a second-level hunter, so not a lot of room for multiple-HD companions.

Sounds like one option is for two first-level giant raven companions, then a flock of ordinary ravens that are trained up?

[ahyangyi]

Ah, there's also Totem Spiritualist (https://www.aonprd.com/ArchetypeDisplay.aspx?FixedName=Spiritualist%20Tot em%20Spiritualist) that gives you a phantom animal. A 1-level dip should be enough.

And it is one of the unclear mess. Totem Spiritualist says


A totem spiritualist treats any druid levels she has as effective spiritualist levels to determine the abilities of her phantom animals, but does not treat her spiritualist levels as effective druid levels to determine the abilities of animal companions.


And Hunter says


A hunter counts her total hunter level as both druid levels and ranger levels for the purpose of qualifying for feats, traits, and options that modify or improve an animal companion.


So apparently, Hunter level counts as Druid levels for the purpose of animal companions, and Druid levels stack to the Totem Spiritualist level for that phantom animal. But it does not work the other way around. And it seems to be implied that you get to keep both the phantom animal and the regular animal companion.

I guess a sane DM would look at this and try to limit you to just one phantom animal companion. But that might just be what you want anyways.

EDIT: but yeah, spending one level to dip when you have only two levels in total does have problems, like being stuck at BAB+0...

EDIT2: Oh, and there's also the built-in option for Dhampirs, Vampiric Companion (https://aonprd.com/FeatDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Vampiric%20Companion), which is unfortunately gated at level 10 and requires non-good alignment.

EDIT3: at low level you can probably consider giving your animal companion Spirit's Gift (https://www.aonprd.com/FeatDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Spirit%27s%20Gift), the Bone Spirit makes the companion slightly spookier, and difficult to hit. But only for a few minutes per day. Anyways it's one of the good feats to buff your companion, so it's not completely just for that spooky look.