Companion Pathfinder

[Toney Talbot]

By powerful I mean most druid level to increase the animal companion's row on the Animal Companion Table. This could be by adding character feats to amplify the animal companion, as well as animal companion feats that could contribute to its rank. I am hoping for a companion that is higher in rank than my druid level, in other words.

I'm not sure if you could raise your animal companion level past your Druid level, but you could always be a Pack Lord Druid and take Boon Companion twice to buff the level of each companion, and have two max level companions until level 9.

Primal Companion (Ex): You gain the service of a faithful animal of the night. You can select from a bear, boar, crocodile, shark, tiger, or wolf. This animal functions as a druid's animal companion, using your oracle level as your effective druid level.

The original version of this (before a July 2015 errata) let you have +1/2 instead of +1/6. Despite that, you can use the spells Righteous Might and Divine Power (which stack and can be cast on your animal companion via the Share Spells feature). Also look into Divine Vessel for a disgusting display of animal companion power.

The Boon Companion feat allows you to have an animal companion of up to 4 levels higher than your druid class level. However, it is limited to your character level...this means you could use this to make up for multiclassing, but wouldn't make it more powerful than your total character level. Not quite what you want, but I thought I'd mention it for completeness.

If you choose a domain for your Nature's Bond class ability, you can gain an animal companion at level-3 once you are level 4 via the feat Animal Ally. Retraining your Nature's Bond class feature from a domain to an animal companion at level 4 costs 200 gp and takes 5 days, but really you should do it at level 5 for 250 gp to avoid also needing to retrain your 3rd level feat.

Animal Ally specifies that, though you can't take it if you already have a companion, you can keep it if you later get a companion and the effective druid levels stack. This means that by retraining into having an animal companion you end up with a total effective druid level of 2*druid level-3, so you can have a 9th level companion at level 6, for example, or a 37th level companion at level 20.

You can't get a animal companion above your own active level, theres multible way for people to aquire animal companions as several others has stated, can add exotic heritage + Eldritch Heritage: Fey; Sylvan would would also get you a animal companion tho with a effective level of -5 instead of the -3 a animal ally would give, but it also has it's own benefits.. but either way you do it, you can't ever get a animal companion above it's masters max level.

The best way to get around this is to simply play a awaken animal with class levels and take the leadership feat and have a human or whatever cohort with you as a NPC, dont know if this would satisfy your idea however but thought i would atleast throw it out there!

The Sylvan Wildblooded bloodline gives you an animal companion with an effective druid level of your sorcerer level - 3. Take the Arcane Malignancies trait to boost your sorcerer level for that bloodline power by 1. Then, buy a Robe of arcane heritage to boost your sorcerer level for all bloodline powers by 4. Since Sylvan is associated with the Fey bloodline, you can use the gathlain alternate FCB to boost your sorcerer level for that bloodline power by 4 (at level 8).

Finally, there's a human feat called Huntmaster that boosts the effective druid level of your animal companion by 1. Unfortunately, your companion has to be either a bird, dog, small cat, or horse. So if you're willing to use one of those options, your companion's effective druid level can get as high as your sorcerer level + 7.

You can have an animal companion beyond level 20 and the rules for such an effort are denoted in the core rule book (which is about as RAW as RAW gets). Here is a link to a similar rules question on Paizo's forums with the necessary information you might be looking for.

I was pretty confident that animal companions could use all their primary attacks until I thought about it in the context of the Multiattack feat. Can an animal companion do so before obtaining this feat? If so could you point me to the RAW?

Note that some animals have 3+ primary attacks and no secondary attacks (e.g. the Big Cat). Because all three are primary, they get no penalty to hit on any of their three attacks, even at 1st level. At 9th level they'll gain the Multiattack feat...but it won't actually help them. While this may seem a bit odd it's clearly the way the rules work...and I wouldn't shed a tear over it because animals with 3+ primary attacks are probably already great companions.

Melee The creature's melee attacks are listed here, with its attack roll modifier listed after the attack's name followed by the damage and crit modifiers in parentheses. See example for details.

EDIT: As KRyan noted in a comment, people often forget that creatures only get all the attacks as a Full-Attack. On a standard-action Attack, they only get one attack. (This is true for Animal Companions...and any other creature with multiple attacks, unless its rules text explicitly allows it to do more on a standard-attack.)

EDIT 2: User highbandwidth asks in a comment how one knows what are Primary vs Secondary attacks. The general rules are in this table (so cats, badgers, and anthing else with claw/claw/bite have only primary attacks).

Benefit: The abilities of your animal companion or familiar are calculated as though your class were 4 levels higher, to a maximum effective druid level equal to your character level. If you have more than one animal companion or familiar, choose one to receive this benefit. If you dismiss or lose an animal companion or familiar that has received this benefit, you can apply this feat to the replacement creature.

Special: You can select this feat more than once. The effects do not stack. Each time you take the feat, it applies to a different animal companion or familiar.
The way I understand it is that if a character has several Class Features that grant animal companion(s) or familiar(s) then the feat applies to only one of those Class Features. Such as a Wizard/Ranger multiclass character, the feat would apply to either the ranger animal companion or the wizard familiar, but not both. If a character has a class feature which grants multiple animals as followers, such as with a Beastmaster Ranger, Packlord Druid, or Packmaster Hunter. Then the feat boosts the total number of HD that the group of animals can have by +4, up to a maximum of the Character Level. The way that the person I am talking to understands it, Boon Companion applies to only one of the animal companions when there are multiple animal companions. Such as with a Beastmaster Ranger, Packlord Druid, or Packmaster Hunter. He believes that the feat applies to just one of those animals that are part of the group of animals that fall under the umbrella of the class archetype's feature.

It does not apply to a class feature that grants them, but to the animal itself. AUC.register('auc_MessageboardPostRowDisplay'); AjaxBusy.register('masked', 'busy', 'auc_MessageboardPostRowDisplay', null, null) Greenwood_Cedar May 14, 2019, 05:19 pm could you give examples of this in action then?

Your friend is correct (although since the multiple companion archetypes are banned in PFS, this must be for a home game so feel free to interpret it differently if you want). But the way the rules are written, the boon does not apply to the class feature itself, but a specific animal companion/familiar/bonded mount (I think, just going off memory) that you gain as a result of the class feature. So in practice, a 2nd level Pack Lord Druid could have two 1st level ACs. If it then levels to level 7 in Fighter (so Druid 2/Fighter 5), and then takes Boon Companion, one of the ACs will HAVE to remain at level 1 and the other can be raised to level 5.

When I took boon companion at lvl 5, kitty went from lvl 1 to 5 on the animal companion chart, gaining HD, BAB, and going up a size. I do not gain any benefits granted by higher levels in Hunter since I do not have those levels.

Likewise, if I was a Shaman 4 / Hunter 1 and I applied the boon to my cat, it would be no different. My familiar gains no benefit. If I instead apply the feat to my familiar, it would get the benefit of being a lvl 5 familiar, but no more since my total level is 5.

level 5: buy BC. total HD of animal companions = 5HD.
level 20 Ranger Beastmaster: only able to purchase 1 BC feat. total HD of ACs is 20HD. which does not violate Beastmaster rules. Level 20 Beastmaster Ranger has 20HD distributed amongst several animal companions.

It increases the level of that companion to a cap of your character level, not your class feature. AUC.register('auc_MessageboardPostRowDisplay'); AjaxBusy.register('masked', 'busy', 'auc_MessageboardPostRowDisplay', null, null) Greenwood_Cedar May 14, 2019, 06:39 pm so my first example is possible?

so those 4HD are applied to the pack(Animal Companion(Ex)) or lone animal(Animal Companion(Ex)) As I said beforeQuote:It increases the level of that companion to a cap of your character level, not your class feature.Those 4HD are applied to that companion only, and only care if that companion would have more HD than your character level, not if total sum of HD by your animal companions is greater than your character level. AUC.register('auc_MessageboardPostRowDisplay'); AjaxBusy.register('masked', 'busy', 'auc_MessageboardPostRowDisplay', null, null) Julien Dien May 8, 2023, 02:11 am What about Mount class feature of Cavalier, does it count as "AC class feature" for Prerequisite of feats, such as Boon conpamion?

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