tenieldjo's page

Going through all of those, I feel like it's natural to have a few that you latch onto. My favorite was Springheart, whoever made it just know that it made me feel feelings! Kudos. Anyone else have one that stuck out to you?

Running this felt like Kyle Baird was the bad guy from Seven and I was the guy that was forced to wear the knife strap-on. I was told he would be pleased to hear this, so I'm passing it on.

Sheila "Wielder-of-the-Ebon-Branch" - boomerang sap master. Tier 10-11.

Totally hit a runelord with a boomerang, and didn't even die.

My contribution: Dealt upwards of 250 nonlethal damage to his poor wizardy noggin over 3 throws.

tenieldjo wrote:

You have a few options: if you are a ranged characters and you are adjacent to the corner of your cover, you can make an attack around the corner

Ok, but then shouldn't the first character in line see you standing there and then not be surprised? Or at least get to roll against your stealth without the -40 modifier.

The way that ranged line of sight works, you can have cover from being around the corner and still attack. It's weird, but you wouldn't necessarily need to move before the attack, just lean around the corner. Now, as soon as you take your shot, you've just taken your surprise action and your stealth is broken. If you're sniping, you can duck immediately back into cover and attempt a stealth check with a -20 penalty; at that point they're aware of your presence so it's all regular initiative rounds from then on, regardless.

tenieldjo wrote:

Taking 20 on perception is totally kosher, but it doesn't work in every situation and you shouldn't expect it to. If you had plenty of time to set up an ambush, and you knew someone would be coming through in the next few minutes, I would absolutely allow PCs to take 20 on stealth. Once you break stealth, you get your single action during the surprise round, then regular initiative begins.

And what do you do with a surprise round when you have a wall in between you and your target?

You have a few options: if you are a ranged characters and you are adjacent to the corner of your cover, you can make an attack around the corner; if you are a melee character and you are adjacent to the corner of your cover and so is your target, you make your attack from around the corner (giving the PC a +2 bonus to AC) or ready to attack them when they enter the room; or, if you can't do either of those, you move into a position where you can attack when your regular turn comes up. All of these actions will break your stealth, and put you into regular initiative once you have completed them.

tenieldjo wrote:

et's say a creature expected you to come, and had time to situate itself in a nice hiding spot, effectively taking 20 on stealth.

There's no rule for doing this, and i doubt you would let the players do the same thing. If you think taking 20 perception isn't kosher, then why would you allow it for stealth?

Having a perception score beat a stealth check is no cheesier than having a hit beat somethings armor. You have a perception score precisely to screw up the monsters desire to ambush you.

If the monster is hiding behind a wall that renders it invisible (ie, a solid wall) it cannot pop out and move towards the party to attack on the same round. If it wants to charge the party it needs to wait until there is line of effect between himself and the party. At that point the pcs do get perception checks, and can also be poking their heads around corners, using mirrors and the like.

Taking 20 on perception is totally kosher, but it doesn't work in every situation and you shouldn't expect it to. If you had plenty of time to set up an ambush, and you knew someone would be coming through in the next few minutes, I would absolutely allow PCs to take 20 on stealth. Once you break stealth, you get your single action during the surprise round, then regular initiative begins.

So, let's say a monster is 30 ft away (+5 to the DC from distance), hiding behind a wall or half-wall. It has total concealment, total cover, some stone between you and it. An invisible creature gets +40 to its stealth if it is immobile, which the creature effectively is because you can't see it. Let's say a creature expected you to come, and had time to situate itself in a nice hiding spot, effectively taking 20 on stealth. If a GM were to be very harsh with the rules for stealth, there is no way anyone could fail to be ambushed. The point is, just because you got a 50 on your perception doesn't mean you're going to perceive monsters that are actively hiding.

Also, I very seldom see groups attempting to be stealthy. If you are a group tromping around, causing combat, I feel like it's not unreasonable to expect that at some point someone has heard you. Particularly for higher level scenarios or combats where the tactics rely heavily on the monsters getting the jump on people, I prefer GMs not to softball it and hand the players an easy victory just because they cheesed their perception score.

Also also, when someone is "taking 20" while perceiving a room, I've always pictured that as going through with a fine-tooth comb, feeling the walls, etc, not standing in the doorway, concentrating really hard on the room for a minute. For traps, you're looking for tiles that don't quite match, feeling for seams, etc, it's not just looking and listening. I can't point to a rule that says that actively perceiving requires you to be... well... active, but it's not really in the spirit. Also, it is sort of awkward to handle in game if you get attacked while taking 20. Are you flat-footed? You hadn't finished perceiving, so I guess so. Kind of defeats the purpose of taking 20.

Extra Gnome Magic is a little... inconsistent. In searching, I saw one or two other posts on this, one with no comments and another with two that did not give any solid answers. While it is unlikely that I'll get any Paizo staff to weigh in on this (it's hardly game-breaking) I thought I'd at least put it out there in case anyone had some insight into the feat's intent.

The feat says:
"Benefit: You gain an additional three uses per day of your gnome spell-like abilities (dancing lights, ghost sound, prestidigitation). You can use these in any combination; for example, you can use dancing lights four times in one day (taking all three additional uses for the same spell), or you can cast ghost sound twice, prestidigitation twice, speak with animals twice, and dancing lights once. If you have a feat, trait, or other ability that changes your racial 0-level spell-like abilities to other 0-level spells, this feat applies to them instead."

So, first it specifically excludes speak with animals, then goes on to create an example in which this feat grants an additional use of speak with animals. Then, it once again implies that this feat is meant to work just with the 0-level spells.

There are three interpretations, as I see:

1: The feat was meant to apply only to the 0-level spell-like abilities, and the example was a typo.
2: The feat was meant to apply to all the spell-like abilities, regardless of level, feats, or traits, and the last sentence is just awkwardly worded.
3: The feat was meant to apply to all the spell-like abilities, unless you change them, in which case it only applies to the 0-level ones.

The third was is how I read this, RAW. I think it was probably intended to work as either the first or second, but I have no idea which one. Given that the trait Naturally Gifted is unrestricted by whether the spell is 1-level or 0-level, I am inclined toward the second. However, that trait makes no provisions for any alternate spell-like abilities, so I am at a bit of a loss. Any thoughts?

Thanks for the advice so far! My party is currently a sylvan bloodline sorcerer, an archon/crane master of many styles monk, a barbarian/monk/cleric of Gorem, a gnome scroll-master-going-cyphermage, and myself. I was thinking of rolling something that's a bit more appropriate to the campaign, since a Milani cleric is rather out of place. I was considering a language/memory cleric of Irori, or a magic/rune cleric of Nethys. Still not very actiony, but more flavorful, and a mindset I would have an easier time getting into perhaps.

So, I'm in a Shattered Star game and my party needed a healer, as parties do. I've never played a healer before, but I figured it was a good time to learn. So, I rolled up an Aasimar cleric of Milani, with the liberation and restoration domains. We're only just now finishing the first book so I'm still pretty low level, but I'm finding myself terminally bored by this character. I'm having a lot of difficulty injecting personality into her, I feel like I have very little to contribute outside of combat because they get so few skill points, and I feel like much of what I do IN combat is so reactive that my turns are mostly comprised of me doing my best to give people flanks and such. I've talked to some friends and they've given me some good advice on what to do about this, but I'm still completely uninspired by my character.

I might try to re-roll into a different type of cleric, because they very adamantly want someone who channels. None of the variant channels really seem like they'd reliably contribute enough to the party to justify the loss of healing dice. None of the domains really jump out at me as being very fun. I have few enough spell slots that I don't have much to do in combat when people don't need to be fixed up in some capacity or another. So, to the clerics out there, what do you do to make your cleric fun to play? Or is this just what it's like to be a cleric?

An initial look through the Golden Legionnaire class left me really liking the idea of a class that focused on heavy strategy and support. Then I noticed the distinct lack of synergy between a lot of the things the class gives you. Swift Aid, In Harm's Way, and United Aid seem like they'd work together really well until you realize that they're all swift or immediate actions, and using one means you can't use the others that round.

Also, I feel like Swift Aid could use some clarification. There are a lot of abilities that change the Aid Another action in some way. How do those interact with Swift Aid? Order of the Dragon, for example, gets an ability that says that when you use an Aid Another action, you get +3 instead of +2. It could be read any number of ways, and I truly have no idea how they intended that to interact. :\

*whiiiiine*

I'm going to play this so hard. I'm really hoping for a very authentic Pathfinder experience, and I like how this sounds so far :) Can't wait for the tech demo!

Only thing I would like to add Brett...

I don't understand how knowing what you are GMing and what will be run ahead of time would change any of that.

They can sign up or not sign up, you can still set up a good spread of level games so there will always be something to play and even if players don't sign up it does not mean they can't play.

I am not going to tell you how to run your events but I will tell you my opinion is that the experience of a fully prepared GM compared to the partial compared GM you describe far out weighs as an experience in a good game, with none of the negatives your group thinks it will have if scheduled correctly.

If you don't mind me jumping in here, I'm one of the players (and occasional GMs) at the STL events in question. It changes a lot; even if we broke it down week by week and said these are the scenarios we're running, there's no guarantee that would happen based on the fact that we run a ton of tables and who is and is not coming is often in flux.

There is also a lot of player overlap in what scenarios are even available to be played. It's often better to just see who's there and what can be played rather than trying to plan it all out in advance. It works out very well the majority of the time. Ultimately, it's a matter of whether it's really very feasible to expect planning in advance to work out every week, and with our particular group it isn't particularly. And, to reiterate what Brett is saying, the players seem largely happy with how it's run!

master arminas wrote:

Big wall-O-monk gripes... apparently raging at the world in general...

Sorry, I don't do the wall-o-text thing maybe if you want to emphasize a point you should be more concise.

Quote:

You play mostly low level games, right? Once you start getting into the Large, Huge, and larger critters, especially those with 4+ legs, combat maneuvers are very much questionable as tactics. Sure, the monk can get the basic combat maneuver feats without pre-reqs . . . but he cannot get the greater.

What do you consider 'low level'? I'll be willing to accept that monks get less awesome at 14th level+

Quote:

And when you are standing or sitting around and your character cannot contribute in a meaningful way . . . quite frankly that isn't fun.

The entire reason I posted on this thread is because I've seen exactly the opposite the times I've had monks at my table. Yes, there are combats where the monks are less than awesome, but there are also combats where the monks shine as well. The people I see playing monks love the class and they are effective at ending situations where other classes choke. What I see in game with more than one player in multiple groups is totally out of alignment with your suggestion that monks are unable to 'make a difference'.

Why is it that your observations and mine are totally opposite? Do you play high level more often? I'd buy that, the rapidly increasing expense of monk items is pretty prohibitive (though there are a gob of items in Ultimate Equipment that are monk friendly that 'stack' with the amulet of mighty fists to mitigate that also).

I don't feel like tl;dr is a good reason to dismiss someone's assertions. That aside, and as someone with a monk who is interested in these items of which you speak, what items are you talking about?

I'd like to see monks get something like clustered shot for their flurry, personally. That'd be cool.

I actually made an underfoot monk/halfling opportunist, which has a surprising amount of synergy. I'll never be dealing copious amounts of damage, but I'll be pesky! This character was just built to be a goofy but interesting combination of class features. And this item... well, it's pretty lacking for a character built around opportunity attacks :\ or for flurry of blows, or for most things. They really gave the unarmed fighter a lot of love, or maybe the monk a lot of spite.

But in general, yea, the monk is a bit underwhelming even WHEN it's being optimized for damage. To be honest, though, I've never sat at a table that's wanted for meat-headed damage dealer, though I definitely wish that monks had more ways they could contribute to a party. As is, they're like a 3.5 bard, without spells; at its core, decent at several things, but not really stellar at any.

So, I don't really have my ear to the ground so much so maybe I've missed it, but has Paizo mentioned that they have any changes to the monk planned? This is the first I've heard it mentioned, wasn't sure if it was speculation or it's something that's happening. Thanks for all the responses so far!

I get that monks aren't powerhouses and were never meant to be, but they're also meant to fight. Their abilities revolve around fighting, and staying alive in combat. With the exception of the zen archer, they're melee combatants, martial characters. So, yea, I think they should be good at it, because they don't have much else they are even capable of doing. It's really rather sad that they are so utterly outclassed in everything they try to do by everyone else, unless that thing is "have a good touch AC." The fact is, monks need all the help they can get.

For monks, ultimate equipment was like waking up Christmas morning, excitedly running downstairs, and finding that your parents had given your brothers and sisters all the presents you wanted and forgot to get you anything. Poor, sad monks...

The thing that bothers me is that for so long an unarmed fighter had to rely on amulet of mighty fists, which is stupid expensive, for its various unarmed enhancement needs. Now, Ultimate Equipment comes out and there's the brawling armor and the bodywrap, and both of them look like a godsend until you realize that one only works on light armor, and the other only applies to one attack per iterative, which means lolflurrynope. It's a bit of a slap in the face. It's like, the monk's robes look neat until you realize that for 13,000gp, you get 1 use of stunning fist, probably just 1 more point of average damage, and probably just 1 point of AC. It's not terrible, but it's not really as amazing as it looks on the tin.

Honestly, monk's have some good defensive abilities, and their saves are lovely, but unless paizo's plan for monks was "hey, let's have a fighter that's not nearly as good at fighting, and they don't have to worry as much about getting dominated, not that a dominated monk is that scary since they don't do much damage." A neat, flavorful class, and I'm not even saying I don't like it, but sometimes I get frustrated by how hard they get the shaft on this kind of stuff.

So, the bodywrap of might strikes is pretty clearly a compromise between the poor monks out there who get the shaft because an amulet of mighty fists costs buckets of money and people who are worried about the power level of something that adds to every natural attack a creature has by making it applicable for each iterative attack you make. It still costs more than a weapon does, which I sort of protest given how the restrictions make it arguably less powerful than a magic weapon already, but it's more acceptably only 3000 x bonus^2 instead of 5000 x bonus^2. I'll take it what I can get.

My question is, how does this interact with an amulet of mighty fists? That might explain why this is still more expensive than a magic weapon. If one were to have an amulet of mighty fists with something like flaming or agile on it, something that didn't grant an enhancement bonus, would it still work if you applied the bonuses and abilities from a +1 bodywrap of mighty strikes?

From a cost standpoint, it makes sense that it would. A +1 flaming longsword would be 8000 gp; a flaming amulet of mighty fists and a +1 bodywrap of mighty strikes would cost 8000 gp, and the latter bonus would (for a character with a bab lower than 6) only apply to one attack, plus you'd be spreading the bonuses across two items which takes up a lot of your equipment economy.

Additionally, and I'm guessing I already know the answer to this because it would be just too easy to be true that an item that's good for monks be good for monks, since your BAB is your monk level when you flurry, would this allow you to treat your BAB as your monk level (while flurrying) when it comes to determining how many times you can apply the bonuses from the bodywrap of mighty strikes? I could see that going either way.

As an aside, if you are wondering what on EARTH I'm talking about, check out "Bodywrap of Mighty Strikes" in the body slot wondrous item section of Ultimate Equipment! Thanks for any light anyone can shed on this. :)

That's what I thought, but I figured I'd make sure I wasn't missing something. Thanks again!

So, pretty simple question: I'm making a changeling character, and she has claws, as changelings do. The nice thing about natural attacks is of course that it can give you multiple attacks at lower levels (at full bab, at that), but what about later in the game when you get your iteratives?

Thanks!

Dang! Well thanks for letting me know :) I was just planning on putting it in a bag of holding.

So, as everyone knows, without the +3 wild enhancement bonus to their armor, druids lose their armor bonus when they wild shape. If you don't want to drop the money for the +3 bonus, then your other option is to group with a benevolent arcane caster who doesn't mind dropping mage armor on you.

I have a society druid. I would love to get some rhino hide armor, but the rules of society explicitly prohibit you from upgrading named items, so I can't get wild put on it. I tend to turn into a huge allosaurus, so I thought that perhaps I could just get a set of rhino hide armor made for a huge unusual creature, using the rules from the "Armor for Unusual Creatures" table. It states that the cost of such an item would be x8 what it says on the Armor and Shields table. The base cost for Hide Armor (rhino hide says it is is hide armor in the description) is 15 gp, x8 would be 120 gp. Rhino Hide is normally 5165 gp; assuming it already includes the cost of regular hide armor in the price, that would mean it would cost 5270 for Huge Rhino Hide armor for an unusual creature. Correct me if I've made any errors.

I could, hypothetically, pull out the armor, ask that my party help equip me with it once I've wild shaped, and then don the armor afterward.

It's fairly restrictive, since I could probably really only use it for that one form, and I would have to turn into the allosaurus in advance rather than being able to do it on the spot. I think that fact keeps this from being terribly broken, but I'd like to get people's takes on both the viability of this and whether it is legitimate. Thanks!

Thanks for your replies! I had noticed that it didn't mention sunder, which I thought was strange, and so I'd hoped that it would've been addressed at some point and I couldn't find an official ruling. I think that's a good rule of thumb to go by; I guess ultimately it relies on whether the GM rules in my favor. :) And yea, two enchants named "dueling?" What were they thinking?

I'm not sure why this was moved to advice. I was asking if the rules allowed for the dueling weapon quality to be applied to the class feature exploitive maneuver.

I'm building a halfling opportunist, and I've been seeing if there are any ways to make the Exploitive Maneuver more likely to hit; at higher levels, there are some nasty CMDs, and it's a fun and flavorful class feature that I'd like to see working in action. One option I was looking into was the Field Guide's dueling quality.

Exploitive Maneuver:
A halfling opportunist can use an enemy’s actions in combat for her own gain, as if the opponent were using aid another to assist the opportunist, giving her a bonus on her next skill check, attack roll, or to AC against the next attack. The enemy must be able to reach the opportunist, and the opportunist must activate this ability as an immediate action and succeed at a combat maneuver check against the enemy’s CMD; at the GM’s discretion, the opportunist can substitute another ability score modifier for her Strength modifier when making her combat maneuver check (such as using Dexterity for an agility-related action or Charisma for a social-related action). If the halfling succeeds at this combat maneuver check, she adds the aid another bonus to her action on her next turn and subtracts that bonus from the enemy’s roll for that action. Note that if the combat maneuver check is successful, the outcome of the enemy’s roll is irrelevant to this ability—a halfling opportunist can use a giant’s swinging club to jump farther whether the giant hits or misses with its attack roll.

Dueling:
A dueling weapon bears magical enhancements that makes it particularly effective at performing certain combat maneuvers. When a dueling weapon is used to perform a combat maneuver that utilizes the weapon only (see below), it grants a luck bonus equal to twice its enhancement bonus on the CMB check made to carry out the maneuver. The dueling weapon also grants this same luck bonus to the wielder’s CMD score against these types of combat maneuvers. These combat maneuvers include disarm and trip maneuvers, but not bull rush, grapple, or overrun maneuvers. If you’re using the additional combat maneuvers in the Advanced Player’s Guide, this also includes any dirty trick maneuvers that utilize the weapon, as well as reposition combat maneuvers, but not drag or steal combat maneuvers. Note that this luck bonus stacks with the weapon’s enhancement bonus, which in and of itself adds to CMB checks normally. (emphasis mine)

The wording of dueling doesn't preclude the use of the bonus for things other than the ones listed. So, if I justify the use of my weapon in the exploitative maneuver, I think it's not a stretch to make a case for it applying. Any thoughts?

I agree with the general sentiment that these should be released in packs alongside the AP it accompanies instead of at the very end of it. That way, people who plan on running the AP as it comes out can enjoy these as well! I know I'd pay a bit extra each month to have these thrown in with my sub.

Have you seen the recent comments/ threads about flurrying being treated as two weapon fighting and requiring you use at least two different weapons as part of the flurry? If not, you might want to take a look around the forums, there are some lengthy debates on it and it seems likely there will be some flurry related errata before too long.

Quote from FAQ:

I guess I should have specified, but the build is already decided on. I only have one natural attack, a bite, so I'm not giving up flurry of blows. I'm going quinggon/weapon adept. I'm pretty much looking for feats, items and spells that augment unarmed attacks. The style feats were the first thing I looked at, but aside from dragon and boar none fit in terrible well with my build, and later dragon style feats require stunning fist which weapon adept gives up. The bleed attacks from boar are solid, but I'm not sure I want to go that route.

Also, Jelani, flurry of blows specifies that your attacks with flurry of blows always do full strength, never .5 or 1.5. I think the only way to bypass that is dragon style. It's still a really solid build, though.

Feral Combat training reads thusly:
"Choose one of your natural weapons. While using the selected natural weapon, you can apply the effects of feats that have Improved Unarmed Strike as a prerequisite, as well as effects that augment an unarmed strike."

I've never looked extensively into feats and effects that augment unarmed attacks, and I'm combing the books for them, but I thought I'd see if the community knew of any awesome unarmed attack feats/spells/effects that I should definitely have off the top of its collective head.

Thoughts? Thanks folks! :)

Not identically, sure, but it's also a bit of a stretch to say that the creation process would harden the robes to behave as regular armor instead of creating a magical barrier around the wearer like the spell used in creating the item. I'm more thinking in terms of RAI; as I said, I THINK this is what they had in mind, but it's ambiguous. It's hard to argue RAW since the write up for the Robe of the Archmagi doesn't clarify. This is just the conclusion that my logic has lead me to.

Also, since the bracers of armor function in this regard more closely to the robes than any other item, it makes sense to refer to them in terms of how it interacts with magic vestments.

Ultimately, I'd say if this is for society play, I'd play it safe and assume "no." If it's a home game, I'd ask my gm and make my case, and go with whatever they decide.

Ok, so let's say you have +1 breastplate. You have a +6 armor bonus, with a +1 enhancement bonus to your armor bonus, for a total of +7 armor bonus.

Let's say you get mage armor cast on you for some reason, like i dunno, you're fighting wraiths or something.

If you follow the same logic you're applying now, you would get the +4 armor bonus to AC from mage armor, and the +1 enhancement bonus to your regular armor, because the armor bonus from mage armor and the enhancement to armor bonus are the different bonuses and so stack. This is not the case, because the enhancement bonus is to the armor and not the mage armor, and certainly not directly to you. (I know it's already been corrected, but I can't help reiterating that there is no such thing as an enhancement bonus to AC, just to other things that factor into AC, i.e. shield, armor, nat. armor etc)

Assuming that, because mage armor is cited in the creation of the robe, the robe essentially has mage armor permanently affixed to it, it functions like mage armor. This is to say, it's a spell and not a piece of armor, so an enhancement bonus could not be applied to it. You could apply an enhancement bonus to the robe, but not to the magical field surrounding it.

To restate: if you had a permanent mage armor on you, you could not cast magic vestments on it, and I'm thinking that's how the robes function, especially since it's how bracers of armor work (not just because they're not clothing, but because the magical barrier and not the bracers themselves is what is imparting the armor bonus.)

Found in the Pathfinder society FAQ:
"As a paladin, your divine bond mount must be at least one size category larger than you starting at 1st level. If you’re a Medium PC, your mount must be Large. If you’re a Small PC, your mount must be at least Medium. You may only select a mount from the listed mounts on page 63 of the Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook unless another source grants access to additional creature choices. As a cavalier, you may select a mount from those listed on page 33 of the Advanced Player's Guide. No additional mounts are legal in Pathfinder Society Organized Play except when granted from another legal source."

A druid's animal companion certainly counts as another legal source. I would say this settles it then!

Starglim: the roc entry does state that it can be used as a mount.

Shar: every other class, excepting one ranger archetype, has a limited animal companion list. This being the case, why would they blanketly state that animal companion levels stack between classes rather than putting the stipulation that their lists must match?

As I see it (or at least, would prefer it work) you gain a companion from your initial list, and anytime another class has an animal companion, it's treated as more levels in whatever class you originally got your companion. That's how this rule reads to me. The problem lies in ambiguous wording; no class has a class feature called "animal companion." It's hunter's bond and mount, and the latter says that it functions like an animal companion, not that it is one. Moreover, the beast rider entry says that when picking your mount, it has to have four legs and no fly speed. It doesn't say that in the main mount entry, of course.

So, RAW, since it functions like an animal companion, and the rule on animal companions says that they stack with other classes that give animal companions, it makes sense that they'd stack. Nowhere in any rule does it mention the companion needing to be in both lists, and nowhere does it ever say you would get more than one companion. Given that the lists are different between pretty much all the classes, that seems like a massive oversight if that was what they intended.

So, I would love to have a little airborne brigade halfling, and initially I was thinking I'd have to put a level in druid, then the rest in something like crusader or dragoon or both etc, which kinda sucks cuz then my roc won't progress. My logic was, well, crusaders DO have the animal companion class feature, but rocs aren't on their list so the levels won't apply to my existing animal companion. But wait! The animal companion entry on level is phrased thusly:

"Class Level

The character’s druid level. The druid’s class levels stack with levels of any other classes that are entitled to an animal companion for the purpose of determining the companion’s statistics."

It says nothing about that animal companion having to be on the list of the class you're taking, only that animal companion needs to be a class feature it possesses. RAW, it sounds like my roc would treat my cavalier (or paladin or ranger) levels like druid levels (with the appropriate modifiers, like ranger level -3) for determining levels, especially since pretty much every class other than druid and beast master ranger has a very limited list to choose from! Is this correct?