Vermin Companions.

[Thefurmonger]

Hey all.

So I am tossing together ideas for a new PFS character and I happened to be looking at the animal companion choices and noticed the giant scorpion.

My inital thought were that it was't bad, decent stats and all. then I noticed it had an Int of -.

Long story short Vermin Companions are mindless, they get no skills or feats.

Is there some upside I am not aware of?

Or do they really suck this much?

At 4 HD I could raise the Int to 1. but..

A. Thats a few levels away and

B. I don't think feats are retroactive.

So the question is, am i missing something?

[magent_mx]

I have the same questions / issue, any answer?

[Glutton]

If you have a copy of Ultimate magic, all your questions are answered within it. If not here's whats online:

Spoiler:

Vermin companions follow the same rules as animal companions, advancing their Hit Dice and other abilities per Table: Animal Companion Base Statistics. Vermin companions can be trained as if they were animals using the Handle Animal skill.

Mindless: Vermin companions have no Intelligence score and possess the mindless trait. In spite of this, vermin companions may learn one trick, plus additional bonus tricks as noted on Table: Animal Companion Base Statistics. If a vermin animal companion gains an ability score increase (at 4 Hit Dice, 8 Hit Dice, and so on), the druid can apply this increase to the companion's Intelligence, changing it from — to 1, at which point the companion loses the mindless quality and is able to know up to 3 tricks per point of Intelligence, plus the additional bonus tricks, as per Handle Animal. Vermin companions have no skill points or feats as long as they have the mindless quality.

Personally, I believe feats are retroactive, skill points and languages are for instance.

[Suthainn]

Bear in mind a mindless mount can be terribly useful, if you get slept/entranced/etc and can't fight it can and will still happily continue to fight and defend you ignoring said sleep, etc spell or ability without worry.