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Book call Animal Archive.
Has Extra Item slot for your Companion. Equipping them always makes them stronger. They naturally have 3 item slots and with a Int of 3 they can Ioun stones.
There is mundane items as well like Poisoned Fangs. 1 time use bite that injects a poison in the tooth.
Check the book out...its cheap in download form.
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I just learned about the Boon Companion feat. Are there any other traits, feats, or magical items that do the same or improve your companion in any way?
Thanks
There is the horse master feat, but that is only useful for cavaliers who multi class (especially good for Battle Heralds)
But in general there are a gazillion ways to improve animal companions once you buy their intelligence up to 3 and open up almost all feats
Light Armor Proficiency ... then get them enchanted special material armor. IMO the best feat for most animal companions.
Outside of Boon Companion? Nope.
You can. But if you want to give them better armor like the ones that do have an armor check penalty then you need the feat. ...unless you don't plan on them attacking. Still, it opens the door to ... wait for it ... Medium Armor Proficiency!
... I bet you know whats coming next.
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I have always wondered why people like having their Animal Companions take this feat. Can't you just give them armor without an Armor Check Penalty (mithril chain shirt, et al)?
Masterwork Studded Leather Cheap as dirty and 0 Armor check Pen.
Add a Necklace of Natural Armor
Sadly a Saddle takes up the Belt slot on most mounts (Animal archive tells you what slots each animal has naturally)
It leaves you with Ioun stones if they have a 3 Int (1st +1 ability goes in INT ALWAYS)
Other slots for different body types. I use a Giant Gecko so I have Armor, Belt (saddle), Chest (MW Studded Leather), Headband, neck. I don't get feet slot. Its ok I don't trample/overrun and I can't craft/have crafted special gecko booties of fly. So not having a Foot slot doesn't bother me. I'm just sad my saddle takes up a belt slot as putting belts on Animal companions helps with boosting the companion's stats. Most still get headslot items so a Headband of Wisdom can help their saves or A headband of Int with a non int based skill. Can give your mount a swim skill or a Escape artist in case your caught in a Black tentacle.
Now if this is for Pathfinder Society Get the Book Animal Archive It has a lot of stuff in it. Really neat stuff.
Narrow Frame - take a large pet and never worry about it fitting into dungeons again.
Don't waste a Feat on Light AP, a mithral chain shirt +5 along with its regular natural armour plus all the usual buffs will net an AC in the 40's which is enough. I'd rather take Iron Will - it'll save the pet more often than the AC ever will.
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You might check out the New Paths Compendium
I'm a huge animal companion fan, so there are plenty of animal companion improving feats and other goodies within it's pages! :)
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If your taking mounted combat you can hopefully negate an attack. So AC for mounts as Animal companions will be much lower.
If you and the mount Take teamwork feat- Escape route neither of you will provoke with movement while riding.
As for combat animal companions a AC of 40 is a bit ridiculous and I recommend not getting more then a +3 Armor and a +2 Amulet of Natural armor. If your spending more money get the Ioun stone that gives +1 Insight bonus to AC. You can actually feed them potions or cast spells on them to give them mitigation or miss chances. If you go arming your animal companion up with +5 armor, magical items plenty your actual character will start to suffer from lack of items/money.
For the typical melee Animal Companion you have to find a balance on items to get it and yourself as well as rationing some of your spells for them.
Also typically I get abilities on my Animal companion that can negate having a lower AC. Grab is a really good ability. as long as nothing is around he can grab an enemy and control it while the group takes care of the bigger threats.
Also Flying animal companions are Great....a Roc comes to mind...Fly by attack needs less AC since they won't be near the target. Archer can be a problem but Rocs have Grab....Fly over grab the archer take him 1000ft up and drop him. If he breaks the grapple anytime he takes the fall damage. Kinda mean but funny at the same time.
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Any way to affect their level?If you are an Orc/Half-Orc there's the Beast rider feat. It may stack with Boon Companion, but even if it does I don't think you can ever have your mount exceed your effective Druid level.
Thanks, I think it will stack with the Boon once I have enough other levels and my mount will be one level over the 7th level evolution.
Thanks
Human eye for talent will get you a +2 to a stat. Int is good for more tricks. Str or dex for hitting, con for hp. Replaces your human bonus feat
Aasimars can take celestial servant. Gives your critter the Celestial template, which is insanely good.
Elven or Aasimar lunar oracle can take the alternate favored class bonus to make their critter stronger.
On light armor proficiency: Its a trap. Just get masterwork studded leather barding or mithral chain barding , or even mithral kiko barding if you want to break the bank. You take the armor check penalty to a lot of things, but the armor check penalty is zero.
I picked up the Animal Archive and I love it.
Let's say you're a ranger and you want a horse. Horses are bad in dungeons, right? Well, you can take Narrow Frame and not pay penalties on attack for squeezing, meaning your horse can now fight as well as if it were a medium creature in dungeons.
Also if you're going horse, Stable Gallop is awesome, and Valiant steed.
There are also kick-butt spells in the book for any animal companion class, there are animal archetypes that modify animal companion class skills and give extra abilities. There are new tricks, too for ACs.
A lot of stuff for familiars too.
Honestly, a great player companion to own if you enjoy dinking around with animals (companion or otherwise).
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Human eye for talent will get you a +2 to a stat. Int is good for more tricks. Str or dex for hitting, con for hp. Replaces your human bonus feat
Aasimars can take celestial servant. Gives your critter the Celestial template, which is insanely good.
Elven or Aasimar lunar oracle can take the alternate favored class bonus to make their critter stronger.
On light armor proficiency: Its a trap. Just get masterwork studded leather barding or mithral chain barding , or even mithral kiko barding if you want to break the bank. You take the armor check penalty to a lot of things, but the armor check penalty is zero.
I totally forgot about Celestial Servant, that would make it really awesome.
How does the alternate favored class bonus work for the aasimar oracle? Does the animal get +1 to the effective druid level every 2 HP/Skills you forgo? That would be awesome!Thanks!
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I picked up the Animal Archive and I love it.
Let's say you're a ranger and you want a horse. Horses are bad in dungeons, right? Well, you can take Narrow Frame and not pay penalties on attack for squeezing, meaning your horse can now fight as well as if it were a medium creature in dungeons.
Also if you're going horse, Stable Gallop is awesome, and Valiant steed.
There are also kick-butt spells in the book for any animal companion class, there are animal archetypes that modify animal companion class skills and give extra abilities. There are new tricks, too for ACs.
A lot of stuff for familiars too.
Honestly, a great player companion to own if you enjoy dinking around with animals (companion or otherwise).
I was most impressed with the ability to stitch armor to a snake. Just the thought of it makes me laugh. If you can ride it too, that would be awesome! : )
Narrow Frame - take a large pet and never worry about it fitting into dungeons again.
Don't waste a Feat on Light AP, a mithral chain shirt +5 along with its regular natural armour plus all the usual buffs will net an AC in the 40's which is enough. I'd rather take Iron Will - it'll save the pet more often than the AC ever will.
mithral chain shirt is +4 not +5
/cevah
It seems a bit odd that for animal companions the bonus item slot feat is almost always better than a pure feat to do the same thing if you have a little money to spare. Let's assume you want a better will save for your AC - Iron Will can get you a +2 save bonus to Will saves, or you could just get a cloak item slot and use a cheap and cheerful Cloak of Resistance +2 for a bonus to all saves. Similarly, a belt of physical stats is far better than weapon focus, Improved natural armor or a number of other flat bonuses, and you should be able to give your animal companion the party Tank's old belt pretty cheaply.
For more specific feats like Power Attack, Improved Natural Weapon, Narrow Frame etc this doesn't hold true, but in general the bonus item slots are a huge winner.
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It seems a bit odd that for animal companions the bonus item slot feat is almost always better than a pure feat to do the same thing if you have a little money to spare. Let's assume you want a better will save for your AC - Iron Will can get you a +2 save bonus to Will saves, or you could just get a cloak item slot and use a cheap and cheerful Cloak of Resistance +2 for a bonus to all saves. Similarly, a belt of physical stats is far better than weapon focus, Improved natural armor or a number of other flat bonuses, and you should be able to give your animal companion the party Tank's old belt pretty cheaply.
For more specific feats like Power Attack, Improved Natural Weapon, Narrow Frame etc this doesn't hold true, but in general the bonus item slots are a huge winner.
This is only true if you need the specific slot. If the creature already has a shoulder slot, extra Item slot isn't gonna help Saves a lot...
Also, Items and Feats stack, which lets you have a Cloak of Resistance and Iron Will for a +4 to Will Saves.
And finally...money is an issue, especially at lower levels. Outfitting an animal companion properly is probably worth it, but it is not cheap.
Medium Armor proficiency is NOT a waste or a trap. The difference between a Mithril Chain Shirt and an Mithril Breastplate is 2 points of AC. When it is Mithril it counts as armor of one step lighter so it doesn't slow you down either.
There are many Animal Companions who aren't able to benefit from more than 2 points of Dex as well. Like the TRex, Allosaurus, Spinosaurus, Wolf, Bear and more. For some of these getting Heavy Armor Proficiency is great as well. The Ankylosaurus is a great example of when this can work well. Plus the visual of a fully armored (already naturally armored) Ankylosaurus is fairly frightening. 9 points of AC for Full Plate is nothing to sneeze at! And with it being Mithril you still get to keep 2 points of Dex bonus. The real question then becomes how many points of Dex bonus are you going to lose out on and is it going to be enough to make up for the difference between a Breastplate or worse, a Chain Shirt? Let me give you a clue, an Animal Companion doesn't get +6 Dex until level 18. Before then if you are rocking a 14 Dex or lower Full Plate is still better. After that its equal to the bonus only marginally worse as you spent feats to get there. But that is an aweful long time of reaping the rewards of the feat before it begins to equal out.
If you are really worried about the speed that armor could potentially take away then just get horseshoes of the zephyr or another item like this. Even if your animal companion doesn't have hooves wonderous items adjust to fit the wearer. They could turn into bangles or some such thing to fit whatever your animal companion has there.
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Medium Armor proficiency is NOT a waste or a trap
to take medium armor proficiency you need Light armor proficiency....is 2 feats worth +2 AC when you can wear Light armor with 0 ACP and 0 feats invested.
Your right it is a DOUBLE trap.
Keep stacking the bigger creatures Natural armor if you want armor so badly and feed him a potion of Blur/displacement/mirror image. Armor Class is useless to players and animal companions. Armor class is the worst Mitigation in game.
So Triple Trap!
If you are really worried about the speed that armor could potentially take away then just get horseshoes of the zephyr or another item like this. Even if your animal companion doesn't have hooves wonderous items adjust to fit the wearer. They could turn into bangles or some such thing to fit whatever your animal companion has there.
Please tell this to PFS, Piazo, and the rest of the community that will disagree with that statement. Most DMs would make you craft special items like Bangles of Zephyr.
Medium Armor proficiency is NOT a waste or a trap. The difference between a Mithril Chain Shirt and an Mithril Breastplate is 2 points of AC. When it is Mithril it counts as armor of one step lighter so it doesn't slow you down either.
or 1 point vs mithral kiko armor. You could take improved natural armor twice and be ahead.
A Wildblooded Sorceror with the Sylvan bloodline can take Boon Companion and then pick up a Robe of Arcane Heritage for an animal companion 4 levels higher than them which can be affected by any personal-range spell.
This gets out of hand pretty quickly.
Edit: You can also do this with Eldritch Heritage but that puts you a few feats deep and the companion is only 3 levels above you.
There's a pretty lengthy discussion about Boon Companion and Robe of Arcane Heritage interaction elsewhere on the forums, Eoxyn. The consensus seems to be that Boon Companion can bring your AC up to Character level, but doesn't stack if something else takes it over CL due to the "to a maximum effective druid level equal to your character level" wording of the feat. The Robe of Arcane Heritage only stacks with Boon Companion if your "effective druid level" before putting on the Robe is still below Character Level, in a multiclass for example.
The Robe of Arcane Heritage might be anther matter, and RAW could mean you treat your effective druid level as 1 higher than Character Level. This in isolation isn't hugely overpowered, but some GMs might not allow it.
Armor Class is useless to players and animal companions. Armor class is the worst Mitigation in game.
This is false. Not getting hit is good. Look at the number of threads on this message board alone where DMs run into problems with a player with an unhittable AC that is causing balance issues for encounters. Anyway, I do not really feel the need to defend my point. I feel like you would further need to prove yours when you make such broad statements that AC is a useless stat.
Hm... so PFSRD has info on horseshoes not fitting non-hooved animals, etc. I was incorrect on that. However, DMs that I have played with in the past have allowed for bangles of the zephyr and similar items to be created. While I suppose that technically it requires DMs to allow it as it uses the item creation rules I doubt there are many DMs who would not allow it. It follows the same pricing and abilities of the other items so I do not see why it wouldn't be allowable. If anyone has a reason why it shouldn't be then I'm all ears.
Also, I think people may have missed out on what I was saying about the amount of AC that can be gained with Heavy Armor Proficiency. I can't think of a better way to put it than what I already have. And as I said it isn't for all animal companions. But those with lower Dex that you wish to have high AC ... yeah, still good for them.
