All_That_Chaz's page

Blink Dog is best monster. With at will quickened dimension door, they can exploit Dimensional Dervish and Whirlwind Attack to hit everyone along a path of double the distance of dimension door. ...and apply sneak dice. A neat way around the no thumbs problem is to get a familiar, take the improved familiar feat, and choose one with thumbs.

A creature with a bite only who picks up Multiattack doesn't suddenly gain an extra natural attack, he just gets a second swing with the one he already had. He should still be receiving the full STR x1.5 bonus to damage.

You're right. I must have been tired last night to think that, haha.

The only drawback is that until you can get it permanency'd, you won't be able to chat in combat without using a standard action.

I retract this. It's just wrong. I was tired =/

Aside from what has already been said, there is also telepathy, if you or someone else in the party can get it. An Improved Familiar is an easy source for it, my Faerie Dragon familiar has it, for example.

The least expensive, earliest level option would simply be casting ghost sound, which as an infinite-cast 0-level spell is basically free. Some may argue if you can create normal speech with the sounds (I think you can), but something akin to Dr. Stephen Hawking's voice emulation device should at the very least be possible. Unfortunately, Ghost Sound is not a druid spell. Fortunately, it's easy to make it one. The Two World Magic trait will add it to your spell list, and can be gained post-character creation by the Additional Traits feat. Samsaran's Mystic Past Life racial feature would also let you snag it possibly, if any divine caster has it on their list.

Two World Magic with Ghost Sound definitely works.

Ghost sound allows you to create a volume of sound that rises, recedes, approaches, or remains at a fixed place. You choose what type of sound ghost sound creates when casting it and cannot thereafter change the sound's basic character.

The volume of sound created depends on your level. You can produce as much noise as four normal humans per caster level (maximum 40 humans). Thus, talking, singing, shouting, walking, marching, or running sounds can be created. The noise a ghost sound spell produces can be virtually any type of sound within the volume limit. A horde of rats running and squeaking is about the same volume as eight humans running and shouting. A roaring lion is equal to the noise from 16 humans, while a roaring dragon is equal to the noise from 32 humans. Anyone who hears a ghost sound receives a Will save to disbelieve.

Ghost sound can enhance the effectiveness of a silent image spell.

Ghost sound can be made permanent with a permanency spell.

The only drawback is that until you can get it permanency'd, you won't be able to chat in combat without using a standard action. The only thing I don't like about Two World Magic is that you can't have two magic traits and Beast of the Society (double duration of wild shape if you polymorph into a small or medium creature) is incredible.

I imagine they're trying to rework the entire feat because just giving an animal with three primary attacks a fourth primary attack is OP. I mean, I'm going to take it, but think about it. An animal a single attack is probably going to work with it getting things like cleave or vital strike. A second attack would lower the effectiveness of these feats because you'd lose the 1.5x strength because it isn't your only attack anymore. And lowering the penalty on two attacks doesn't come close to getting another attack with its own dice damage and strength damage, IMO.

@Ssalarn, from reading SKR's post, he seems to imply that bite/claw/claw is three attacks. Maybe that's just my interpretation.

EDIT: I was just looking through the companions again and found that an Iguanodon companion has a single claw attack. They do exist.

Cats don't have 3 or more Natural attacks. They have two. Claws and Bite. Claws is a single natural attack that comes in pairs.

You wouldn't take Weapon Focus once for each claw would you? Or any other feat for that matter.
Claws are always paired, like Pincers or Talons.

As a note, I'm just trying to play devil's advocate to back up SKR's clarification here. I'm not saying this is clear-cut and irrefutable.

Your Weapon Focus analogy doesn't make sense to me. That implies that a two-weapon fighter using two short swords would need to take a weapon focus feat for each short sword in order to get the benefit for both weapons. Since the claws/talons require separate attack rolls and deal their own unique instances of dice damage and strength damage, I consider them separate natural attacks. I see where you're coming from though and that would make multiattack give the cat or my roc a second bite attack, which sounds glorious. It makes me want to give my roc Improved Natural Attack. The jump from 1d8 to 2d6 is massive.

Thank you for the links, Are and Mathwei. That clears some of this up. Although it still seems ambiguous for animals that may have a secondary attack, but would prefer an additional primary.

EDIT: And if the multiattack feat actually does give my companion a fourth primary attack, I'm definitely not going for those archetypes. Four attacks, 3 at full base, is pretty delicious.

Like I said, it's just my opinion. I put more emphasis on spell-casting. An unintelligent animal with no thumbs can't change the scope of a high-level battle like a spell can. Agree to disagree.

But I think the companion is more fun, for sure. I think I'll use it to flank when our barbarian rides me into combat (that is if we can cooperate... we both have 5 charisma...)

All_That_Chaz, perhaps you should consider an Animal Companion Archetype that replaces Multiattack.

- Gauss

I actually hadn't noticed them. The bodyguard archetype looks intriguing, but I don't know if it's worth losing evasion and improved evasion.

Multiattack.

Druid Animal Companions get it at level 7, I think, and if they only have a single natural attack, it allows them to make an iterative attack with it at a -5 penalty. If they have more than a single natural attack, it just reduces the penalty on using secondary natural attacks.

Multiattack only gives an animal companion another attack if it has less than three already. I could see it being useful if you wanted to use a rhino or something else that has one powerful natural attack. However in my roc's case and in the iconic druid's small cat's case, they have three natural attacks already. All this bonus feat does when you have three natural attacks is lower the penalty for secondary attacks to -2 instead of -5. However this is useless for the roc and the cat because all of their attacks are primary. Pretty lame.

So, first, it's definitely a typo--there's no way to get a second bite like that, especially not at iterative intervals like that.

All_That_Chaz wrote:

It seems like it's a lot weaker than the domain option

Quite the opposite, actually. I don't see how a domain could ever stack up to having an extra character with you.

My friends and I thought it had to be a typo too, but I wanted to make sure. Thanks.

Hi there. I'm building a Druid for a campaign my friends are starting up, and I want to go with the animal companion option. It seems like it's a lot weaker than the domain option, but I like the flavor. I'm not asking for advice on how to build the druid. What I'm curious about is one thing I found in the NPC Codex.

The iconic druid, Lini, has an animal companion. Somehow, this cat has found a way to learn a second bite attack. I've looked through all of the material on animal companion attacks and I can't find anything that would give this attack to it. Multiattack only gives another attack if the companion doesn't have three natural attacks, which it does. Its attacks are listed as: bite +14/+9 (1d6+5 plus trip), 2 claws +15 (1d3+5). I don't see how the companion gets that +9 attack. If I can give my Roc another attack, I'd like to know how it's done.