[3.5] Favourite "Other" Companions

[Thurbane]

So, aside from (Improved) Familiars, Animal Companions, Special Mounts, Cohorts/Leadership feat, and Wild Cohorts...what other companion types, gained through classes or feats, do you like?

I'll share two of my favourites:

• Raven Harrier (Knight of the Raven): kind of like a familiar, but if it is slain, you get a new one at dawn.

• Skeletal Minion (Necromancer ACF): a scaling skeleton, that again, if slain, is easily replaced.

I'm interested to know about what else is out there.

Cheers - T

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Any character with a decent Cha score, BAB, and HD who can use an Eternal Wand of Hound of Doom (CW) can have a powerful signature minion not unlike Drizzt's figurine of wondrous power. This one is my absolute favorite on the right character.

Minions gained from the Rebuke/Command abilities of domains or ACFs can be some of the best ones, but they're not easily replaced. The Slime domain's ability to have you begin play with some custom Living Spells if starting at higher level than 1st is particularly versatile. The Drow Cleric ACF Master of Spiders in DotU is particularly powerful in the early levels.

Craft Construct allows you to craft golems and various other minions, namely Effigy creatures from CA. The Effigy template doesn't care how many templates your base creature has, creating a dire wolverine that's had half-dragon applied once for each different color of dragon is the same cost (and knowledge DC) as an untemplated one.

The Dread Necromancer's Ghostly Visage familiar deserves a special mention. It can always possess your character to give you immunity to all mind-affecting abilities from a decently low level. In combat it can manifest over your face to inflict its paralyzing gaze on your enemies, and with all gaze attacks it can take a standard action to focus the gaze on a target forcing them to save against its effect again even if they're not looking.

Psicrystals are fantastic. You can keep Share Pain on it so you take half damage from all sources, and its Hardness 8 applies to every instance of damage it takes from that. Keep it in a compartment on your person so your still have line of effect to each other and it has line of sight to you, but opponents don't so they can't attack it directly or hit it with area effects. Give it a Healing Belt and it can use its actions in combat to use that on you as needed. You can even share powers you manifest on yourself with it, like Vigor and Body Adjustment/Psionic Repair Damage (if you're a Warforged).

[Venger]

• Guys who come knock on your door and ask you to cast "mineralize warrior" on them who you can get to do your laundry for a year and a day.
• dedicated wright
• eternal charm/thrall from mindbender
• elemental archons' mephit underlings
• thrallherd's cultists

[rel]

unseen servant gives you a minionesque follower and for a wizard is useful enough to justify the spell slot on a semi permanent basis from about level 5

the cheapest bag of tricks grants access to a random small animal that can be used to set off traps, retrieve suspect objects and generally help you out.

the dragon rider PRC nets you a powerful yet needy dragon follower.

[Falontani]

• elemental archons' mephit underlings

Tie them to a chariot and have fun with a fun charioteer.

I love playing the minionmancer.

High Elemental Binder gives you not one, not two, not three, but four huge elemental pets.

Beast heart adept gives some aberration/magical beast companions, I just wish you could get a rust monster there.

But I have to mention the Fiendbinder from Tome of Magic. You get yourself some minions that hate you, would kill you if they could, but are forced to obey you. There is technically no limit, but you'll be lucky if you could get more than eight of them. Talk with your dm to see if you can bind/call more than the listed variety.

The complete warrior crafted familiars are pretty great as well.

[Thurbane]

There's always the "other" leadership feats:

• Dragon Cohort
• Undead Leadership

And other classes:

• Aglarondan Griffonrider gets a griffon, oddly enough. Pretty similar to a Special Mount.
• Arcane Hierophant combines their Animal Comapnion and Familiar into one being.
• Beloved of Valarian gets a unicorn companion, which can be upgraded to a celestial charger.
• Blackguard gets both a fiendish servant and an undead companion (if they are a fallen Paladin of high enough level).
• Bonded Summoner gets an elemental companion, that replaces your familiar.
• Cancer Mage get a tumorous growth called a cancerous companion, which can use spells and SLAs independently.
• Dread Necromancer gets access to a vargouille or ghostly visage as a familiar, which I don't think other classes get access to.
• Healer gets a celestial unicorn companion, which can be upgraded to other creatures at higher levels. Similar to a Paladin's Special Mount.
• High Elemental Binder gets an elemental companion, which are summoned like Paladin Mounts. You eventually end up with 4 of these companions.
• Holy Liberator gets a celestial companion.
• Moonsea Skysentinel gets a scaling dire hawk steed.
• Shadowdancer can summon a scaling shadow companion. Can cost XP if destroyed, but can be replaced in 30 days.

[Telonius]

Would the Nymph's Kiss feat count? (There's a perennial argument over whether the "intimate relationship" is a prereq or a benefit).

[Saintheart]

I like the Sha'ir's Gen. It's an immediate opportunity for any DM to bust out his fourth wall breaking Robin Williams chops and do song numbers from Aladdin.

[mabriss lethe]

I'm fond of the Master of Shadow's Shadow Servant. Semi disposable since you can call a new one after 24 hours (or 10 minutes at level ten.) customizable, and gives a shadowcaster a little bit more meat while only losing one CL. I'm also a fan of Eberron's symbiotes and the Hexblade Dark Companion ACF.

[Thurbane]

Just stumbled on another I'd forgotten about:

• Zhentarim Skymage gets a flying mount, from a list of flying creatures. Wonder if it could be combined with Silverwood Arcanist if you used a Dire bat Wild Cohort?

[sreservoir]

Ashworm Dragoon (Sandstorm 66) gets an ashworm mount.

Summon Elemental (CM 47) isn't exactly a companion either but it's an easily replaceable minion.

unseen servant gives you a minionesque follower and for a wizard is useful enough to justify the spell slot on a semi permanent basis from about level 5

Close range and 15 ft. movement can be problematic if you ever need to move faster it, since it'll wink out when you leave its range. If you can get around that issue (perhaps a ruling that you can drag it along, or carry it in a box while traveling), unseen crafter (RoE 191) lasts 1 day/level at one spell level higher (and is also on the artificer and cleric(!) lists). Not very helpful if yours often winks out or gets dispelled/killed by AoE before its duration is up anyway, but if you'd otherwise be able to keep your unseen servant out all day, then unseen crafter can save you from needing to recast it for days at a time. Otherwise, collar of perpetual attendance.

Would the Nymph's Kiss feat count? (There's a perennial argument over whether the "intimate relationship" is a prereq or a benefit).

It's, ah, flavour text. It becomes retroactively true and never comes up again, obviously, right?

[WhamBamSam]

The Death Master's Undead Minion is pretty fun. The level 9 ability to have it come back every hour is pretty great if you can stomach not trading up to a better base creature (or trading back down to a worse one).

Beast Heart Adept's Monstrous Companions are neat and they give you nice things like better flanking and AoOs via other class features.

[PrismCat21]

Incarnum's Soulspark creatures. They grow more powerful depending on which chakra you have the soulmeld bound to.
Binder Vestige Malphas: Summons a Raven that you can take complete control of, remotely see and hear anything it does, and use it to perform certain skill checks. You can summon it as often as you like but limited to 1 at a time. No penalties to it being killed or hurt in any way.

[sreservoir]

Skylord (BoED 71) gets a flying mount.
Moonsea Sentinel (CoV 117) gets a dire hawk.