Beastlord?

[Kantolin]

Are there any comments about the beastlord class from the Complete Adventurer?

It seems... interesting, at least. I'd like to make a beast-focused character, and the multiple-animal-companion purpose of the class seems like it's good for that.

The trouble I'm seeing is that the animal companions you get get progressively less useful as you progress through the class. So you begin with a fairly beefy animal companion at +3, then at level 4 you get an acceptable animal companion at +0, then you get a notably less useful one at level 7, and hten you get two more animal companions that are laughable in combat.

I wouldn't mind it so much if you could get at the noncombat ones earlier; a strict scouter and the like would be more useful at lower levels.

Anyway, that's just what it seems like at a glance. Anyone ever played as/with one? Any additional suggestions/ideas about them?

[Flawless]

Take natural bond to boost your first animal companion even further. If you enter beastmaster via ranger, your AnCom will 3 levels higher in comparison to that of druid.

[its_all_ogre]

really depends on what you want them for.
for pure combat purposes then yes. but there are other thngs they can do, depending on your dm
scouting is easier for a bat in the dark than a rogue, just because it should be ignored by most other beings.
and far more other options.

[Person_Man]

I assume you mean the Beastmaster PrC from Comp Adv. There's no such thing as a Beastlord. [/nitpick]

It's useful for a few builds. There's a supermount build that uses Paladin/Beastmaster/Halfling Outrider with Devoted Tracker. But for the most part, it really doesn't have a lot to offer. Animal Companions are generally weak at mid-high levels. And as you observed, having more even weaker animal companions is even less useful.

For ECL 5-15, the Beast Heart Adept is a similar but superior class. But even then, not so great.

[TheSteelRat]

Beastmaster is also good for Arcane Hierophant's, in which you're basically playing your animal companion as your main character (it's intelligent), and your "character" buffs them up (or rides them, for mobile spellcasting fun).

[Kantolin]

Er, yes, Beastmaster.

Either way, that seems to be pretty much what it sounded like. Thank you for your suggestions/comments.