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The Druid in our group really wants to focus on improving his Animal Companion as a strong participant in combat, especially through his (the Druid's) feat selection.
After checking the rulebooks, it appears that there is almost no feat with which you can improve your AC (only Improved Shared Spell).
The best feats I could find were mounted feats, teamwork feats and some teamwork-like feats which also need you to be adjacent to your AC. However, the Druid himself is rather squishy and he does not want to ride his AC, so I am rather stuck here.
There are a few feats out there that you can take to improve your familiar. Did I miss feats that can improve your AC ?
when it gets to a 3Int have it take armor prof feats.
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when it gets to a 3Int have it take armor prof feats.
They don't need Int 3 for that. There are some other ways to increase the AC of your AC like Improved Natural Armor or Dodge, but they have to be taken by the animal companion, not the druid.
I'd say, animal companions are strong enough. If you want a stronger minion, play a summoner.
Got whose feats mixed up. For the druid extend spell for stuff like barkskin helps but yeah no much the druid can do.
What the others have already said, also mithril chain shirt is a good choice for an animal companion since it doesn't require you to have the light armor prof. feat, also i am 99% sure that the big cat animal companion is the best animal companion one can get, also at mid to high levels a permanent magic fang from a very high level druid is a very good and cheap idea, or the druid could just cast it at the companion every day (after some level it would be on all day long).
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...also mithril chain shirt is a good choice for an animal companion since it doesn't require you to have the light armor prof. feat...
That may have been the case in older editions, but not now.
Mithral armor improves the weight, max dex, armor check and arcane failure rate, but doesn't change the weight category of the armor.It's the same reason barbarians aren't running round in mithril full plate these days.
Think he means from the non prof stand point.
@leo plz dont encourage more chedder pounce magic fang battle cats. My dragons want something different to eat.
...also mithril chain shirt is a good choice for an animal companion since it doesn't require you to have the light armor prof. feat...That may have been the case in older editions, but not now.
Mithral armor improves the weight, max dex, armor check and arcane failure rate, but doesn't change the weight category of the armor.It's the same reason barbarians aren't running round in mithril full plate these days.
Mithral Chain shirt has an ACP of -0, which means there's no problem wearing it without proficiency. That's the trick my Ranger's companion uses anyway.
The others ninja'd me on the mithral chain shirt thing, so what Chugga said.
@Talonhawke
Are you serious about that or are you joking? If it's the second ok, if it's the first what animal companion you have to offer that is a better combatant?
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Mithral Chain shirt has an ACP of -0, which means there's no problem wearing it without proficiency. That's the trick my Ranger's companion uses anyway.
OK, I see your point there.
I just thought I'd better clarify the current rule, for those who want to wear heavier stuff in mithral, since it's a change that's usually missed by a lot of folk.I.e. you would still need medium prof, if you wanted to wear mithril chainmail.
Snake in full plate ;).
In all serious I was joking though my resident druid has fed at least 4 cats to the dragons they have been fighting. I personally aim for things better at keeping the bad guys away from me while i cast like bears.
There is nothing that the druid can do to improve his animal companion aside from the teamwork feats, but the familiar itself gets feats and can take improved natural armor and dodge. Also if you don't want to shell out for the mithral armor you could always buddy up to an arcane caster for a nice mage armor or shield spell. If nothing else you could always buy a wand of these spells and I am sure the caster would be happy to use them on your familiar
shield spellShield is personal, so it can't be cast on your Animal Companion by the party Arcanist.
Unless the druid somehow finds a way to cast shield, because the share spells ability of an animal companion allows you to cast personal spells to your companion.
