I've got a player who wants to play a Barbarian with an animal companion. I'm not sure what builds to suggest for this. Barbarian/Druid? Barbarian/Ranger? Straight ranger and give up barbarian?
Are there any feats or prestige classes to think about?
I believe that one of the Barbarian archetypes gives you a mount that levels as an Animal Companion. Should be in the SRD.
The Mounted Fury archetype, in the Advanced Player's Guide is exactly what you're looking for. In short, fast movement is applied to the mount instead of you and you replace uncanny dodge by the mount/animal companion.
As for a prestige class, I can't think of any better one than the Mammoth Rider.
And since the Mounted Fury archetype has an effective druid level of your barbarian level - 4, the Boon Companion feat would be good. Also, if you're an aasimar, you can take the Celestial Servant feat to give your mount the Celestial template (DR/Evil, Spell Resistance, and a Smite Evil). There are aasimar variants that give +2 to STR or CON, also.
And since the Mounted Fury archetype has an effective druid level of your barbarian level - 4, the Boon Companion feat would be good. Also, if you're an aasimar, you can take the Celestial Servant feat to give your mount the Celestial template (DR/Evil, Spell Resistance, and a Smite Evil). There are aasimar variants that give +2 to STR or CON, also.
As long as the aasimar is based around Agathions... I don't see angels raging that much XD
Righteous Fury, if the Aasimar happens to be a follower of Ragathiel.
Agathion is actually a worse fit, since they are all about the inner calm.
There's also the ranger archetype wild stalker which give rage to the ranger.
There's also the ranger archetype wild stalker which give rage to the ranger.
And takes away the Hunter's Bond, unless there's a workaround I'm not seeing.
I'd vote for the mounted fury, too.
If he doesn't want to ride you as the gm could make little changes to turn the mount into a normal AC.
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My two cents.
I have tried something quite similar and this is what I came up with.
I wanted to create a character that mostly ran around on a huge mount and have the mount do most of the fighting, possibly trampling everything. I wanted to make it a barbarian and use the feroucious mount line of feats and just generally make the mount as strong as possible. For future reference, I will call any mount you might have "FUZZY."
Intresting things I found out that you must be aware of.
-The mounted fury archetype grants Fuzzy a +2 moral bonus to str while you rage. Ferocious mount makes Fuzzy rage as well, for double the rounds of rage and it is, as well a moral bonus... They dont stack... why on earth a 'Mounted Barbarian That Can Make His Fuzzy Unstoppable' would chose not to take ferocious mount, I dunno. Check with your GM if you can get the two to stack as otherwise you lose the free bonus.
-Ferocious mount requires you to spend 2 rounds of rage every turn. If you decide to go for ragecycling, that makes it 4 per turn... Dont rage cycle... That being said, rage rounds are at a primium. Having a high starting con will help tremendously with how long you can keep Fuzzy raging as will a race that grants extra rage rounds as a favoured class like the half-orc. An example, a human with 12 con at level 2 would have 7 rounds of rage and could only 'mount-rage' 3 times a DAY. A half-orc with 16 con and the racial in con, taking rage as favored class bonus would have 12 rounds or 6 'mount-rage' rounds. Big difference. As a side effect, your hp will be sky high with a d12 hit die and a +3 or even +4 con bonus.
-Going barbarian has a disavantage of not being able to get Fuzzy untill level 5, unlike lvl 1 for a ranger/druid. This means you have to buy a regular horse and ride it till level 5, replacing any dead ones and generally having a weak horse. Even after you get it, you are stuck with a horse till level 10, if you decide to go into mammoth rider unless you are an ork, but I will go into that later. Just be aware of this.
-Do be aware of size issues... having a large Fuzzy can be a pain in small caves most of the time and getting your horse to enter the Creepy Black Hole Of Doom might be a chalenge as well. Going up to huge makes things worse... Just be aware of it.
-In regards to race, two good selections I have found (aside from assamir as i dont know that one) are human and orc. The human gets Eye for talent, allowing you to give Fuzzy a +2 str instead of yourself. They can also take Heart of the fields to give yourself a once-a-day emergency rage-cycle. If you chose to go superstitious to make you and Fuzzy untouchable, the favoured class bonus can help you in that regard.
Half-orcs can get beast-master alternate race trait to get a +2 to handle animal and free proficency with nets (really good!). They can give up intimidating for a free endurance feat if they want, they have dark-vision witch is great, and they get bonus rage rounds as their favoured class bonus, again great. The real kicker, they can take the beast rider feat. This allows you to gain a non-horse mount sooner than waiting for the mammoth rider prestige class and gives you free training for your Fuzzy (so you dont have to spend weeks training it) but comes at a hefty cost of a feat in a most likely feat starved build.
-In regards to multi-classing and PrC's, I would generaly avoid multiclassing as you gain most of your benefits from your rage powers and the amount of time you can rage. Mammoth rider is probably your go to for any PrC, but I would probably only do a single level dip in it till after lvl 13 or so. Some major powers to look at would be ferrocious mount and ferocious trample and the greater versions. Do note that you cannot get trample or gr mount till you hit level 8, your choice on witch one first, and grt trample till level 12. The grt trample is the reason for only 1 level dip in mammoth rider untill 13, after that, do what you want. the trample powers equals 'you walk, things die.' Grt trample means that every time you trample something, you get free overruns for more damage! With the overbearing advance power, you and Fuzzy get to deal extra damage equal to your str bonus, and Fuzzy should have a real good str, so its quite a bit, making for a decent power as well. With the trample feat, you get to make free hoof attacks against any targets you overrun and is knocked down. Essentially it looks like this, you trample someone, doing 1 1/2 str damage and overrunning them for str damage, possibly knocking them prone dealing hoof attack damage, and then gaining a free overrun for str damage and a second chance to knock them prone. Also note that you do not have to trample in a straight line or only one target, you could pottentially zig-zag around and with a big mount, cover alot of area.
So ya, long winded and I got more I could say, but that should be good for some food for thought. I say go for it!