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I'm making a new character for Pathfinder Society and I really like the idea of going Huntmaster Cavalier (from Animal Archive) and then Golden Legionnaire. If I do go this route I would want to have a Bird animal companion rather then a dog.
I'm curious what the board thinks about the effectiveness of such a character. Is it viable at all? What feats would you recommend?
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Honestly, no it's not viable. This is not an issue with your pet choice but in the restrictions PFS places on the archetype.
Bein limited to a single Small or smaller sized companion takes away everything the class was built around since all of it's abilities are designed to enhance it's companions instead of his party.
Overall looking at it as it stands now you'd be better off playing a halfling cavalier with a wolf. You'll have more fun and be less frustrated.
Axebeak is a bird right ? :-)
It's a type of bird, but it's not the Bird animal companion that the text refers to.
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I have to disagree Mathwei. The Huntmaster is perfectly viable for use and can provide some pretty fun gameplay.
You're restricted to either a Dog or a Bird for your pet, which aren't the best options but aren't terrible either. A Bird can use some neat tricks to harass enemies and the dog becomes Medium sized with a pretty decent stat block at level 4. Either option is more convenient than a Horse or Camel for exploration and dungeon crawling
You give up the Banner ability, but that's no great loss. Instead you get some useful tracking abilities for you and your animal. Tactician only affects you and your pet, which is a pain but this isn't an ability you could use all that often anyway.
The boosts you get to your animal companions are nice as well. When you issue a challenge your boost your pet as well. If you pick a dog, it gets a free trip attempt after every successful attack! Sure that's just once per round, but extra damage plus a trip with your guaranteed flanking buddy is pretty nice for any melee character.
Personally, I also like the additional tracking / bounty-hunter themed abilities you get. Invest some skill points into Survival and Stealth and you could play a very different Cavalier from the standard type.
A breakdown of everything you just said translates to:
This archetype with the restrictions on it turns your cavalier into a 2nd rate ranger but without the flexibility of pet choices.A ranger can gets everything the Huntmaster gets faster, easier and better with less risk and is actually designed to do the bounty hunter/tracker theme.
However, the real question isn't why should I play this instead of a ranger but why should I play this instead of a regular Cavalier?
A typical Cavalier in PFS will play a small race and take a wolf companion (which starts at medium at 1st level and stays that size forever), the huntmaster gets a small companion that grows to medium at 4th.
+1 point Regular Cavalier.
Challenge, The huntmaster does allow your AC to benefit from your challenge which is a nice bonus.
+1 point Huntmaster Cavalier.
The Wolf begins play with Trip while the dog has to wait for it at 4th but the dog can attempt an entangle instead. But gives up all the perks of charging that cavaliers usually get.
+1 point Regular Cavalier.
The regular cavalier can grant his tactician feat to all allies within 30 ft INCLUDING his wolf, the Huntmaster can only give it to his dog.
+1 pt regular cavalier.
Expert Trainer becomes Skill focus Handle animal but for the Regular applies to dozens of different animal choices, the Huntmaster only applies to Dogs and Birds.
+1 pt regular cavalier.
The Regular gives a bonus against fear & a bonus to attack when charging to EVERYONE he likes within 60 feet. The huntmaster can track a little faster.
+1 point Regular Cavalier.
A regular Cavalier gets three extra feats they can use to customize their character as they see fit, the Huntmaster gets Step up for himself and his dog.
I'd consider this a wash except I routinely give my AC's this feat anyway so we give this to the huntmaster.
+1 point Huntmaster Cavalier.
Overall the only thing the PFS Huntmaster brings to the table is the ability to grant his challenge ability to his pet. That's it, everything else the regular cavalier can do as well with a better, more powerful companion.
In a home game the Huntmaster will be a much more popular choice even if it never takes more than 2-3 companions (which is the most I'd ever expect to see) since it's much more flexible and doesn't have so many restrictions on it.
In PFS it's really just a pared down Ranger (scout archetype) with a poor combat or scout companion (without spell casting the bird makes for a pretty poor scout).
Posted this sample build in another thread. However I'm assuming that you can take Boon Companion multiple times to boost multiple animal buddies which seems to be controversial.
As to how to build such a char I thought about a progression for dogs and Master up to level 9 focusing heavily on tripping (duh). At level 9 once Greater Tactician comes online (for Broken Wing Gambit) your team should be crazy dangerous.
No idea as to how to allocate Stats but Str/Dex/Con/Int/Cha/Wis is how I'd set priorities with Str being the main priority and Dex requiring at least a 14 (to make combat reflexes useful).
Human Cavalier (Huntmaster) of the Order of the Cockatrice
Fights with a two handed reach weapon (Bardiche/Flail?) in order to set up easier flanks for his dogs and to do massive damage after a successful trip. Cockatrice gives you two nice abilities which synergize well with the rest of the build but there might be a more optimal Order choice I've overlooked.
Traits:? Boosts to Will saves might be good
Feats/Abilities
1 Combat Reflexes
1 Eye for Talent
1 Tactician: Paired Opportunist
2 Order: Dazzling Display as a move action
3 Tandem trip
4 Stuff you don't need
5 Boon Companion
7 Power Attack
8 Steal Glory
9 Boon Companion
9 Greater Tactician: Broken Wing Gambit
Dogs
1 Paired Opportunist
2 Tandem Trip
5 Combat Reflexes
8 ???
For the dogs (or one of them) you should also consider the bodyguard Archetype. If you feel comfortable using your first Standard action on Tactician till level 9 than you don't need to give your dogs paired opportunist. Dazzling Display helps here as debuffing opponents and activating Tactician still seems like a valid use of a full round while your doggies go at it.
I'd love to be able to make the cavalier himself a better tripper but I'm afraid you can't afford the feat tax associated with it. The only feats from the current build I'd feel you can do without are Eye for Talent (not a feat I know) and maybe maybe Power attack. Saving on Boon companion would leave you with way weaker dog friends that also lack prerequisite feats.
Axebeak is a bird right ? :-)
+1 for effort, and an ominously scary flanking buddy
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*cough* You could run a certain set of PFS scenarios to get an axe beak *cough*
/Of course it won't get the Takedown abilities since it's neither a bird nor a dog type AC.
//And a Human Huntmaster with the Huntmaster feat is redundantly awesome.
@Alex: As a minor issue with your suggested build, the dogs cannot take the Paired Opportunist feat at level 1 since their Intelligence isn't high enough (has to have Int 3 to use any feat not on the Animal Companion feat list). Give the dogs Combat Reflexes first, then by level 5 they can get the Int point and then Paired Opportunist.
ummm where can i see a PDF of this or a linkypoo?
@Alex: As a minor issue with your suggested build, the dogs cannot take the Paired Opportunist feat at level 1 since their Intelligence isn't high enough (has to have Int 3 to use any feat not on the Animal Companion feat list). Give the dogs Combat Reflexes first, then by level 5 they can get the Int point and then Paired Opportunist.
That is the point of Eye for Talent...
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Posted this sample build in another thread. However I'm assuming that you can take Boon Companion multiple times to boost multiple animal buddies which seems to be controversial.
As to how to build such a char I thought about a progression for dogs and Master up to level 9 focusing heavily on tripping (duh). At level 9 once Greater Tactician comes online (for Broken Wing Gambit) your team should be crazy dangerous.
No idea as to how to allocate Stats but Str/Dex/Con/Int/Cha/Wis is how I'd set priorities with Str being the main priority and Dex requiring at least a 14 (to make combat reflexes useful).
Human Cavalier (Huntmaster) of the Order of the Cockatrice
Fights with a two handed reach weapon (Bardiche/Flail?) in order to set up easier flanks for his dogs and to do massive damage after a successful trip. Cockatrice gives you two nice abilities which synergize well with the rest of the build but there might be a more optimal Order choice I've overlooked.Traits:? Boosts to Will saves might be good
Feats/Abilities
1 Combat Reflexes
1 Eye for Talent
1 Tactician: Paired Opportunist
2 Order: Dazzling Display as a move action
3 Tandem trip
4 Stuff you don't need
5 Boon Companion
7 Power Attack
8 Steal Glory
9 Boon Companion
9 Greater Tactician: Broken Wing GambitDogs
1 Paired Opportunist
2 Tandem Trip
5 Combat Reflexes
8 ???For the dogs (or one of them) you should also consider the bodyguard Archetype. If you feel comfortable using your first Standard action on Tactician till level 9 than you don't need to give your dogs paired opportunist. Dazzling Display helps here as debuffing opponents and activating Tactician still seems like a valid use of a full round while your doggies go at it.
I'd love to be able to make the cavalier himself a better tripper but I'm afraid you can't afford the feat tax associated with it. The only feats from the current build I'd feel you can do without are Eye for Talent (not a feat I know) and maybe maybe Power attack. Saving on Boon...
First no controversy on the Boon Companion feat, it specifically states in the feat you can take it multiple times and applies to different AC's.
Second, the OP is trying to examine using the huntmaster for PFS which restricts them down to 1 and only 1 animal companion.
Outside of PFS your build has some potential to it but remember past 10th level or so, trip builds stop working so well. Most of your opponents either get to big to be tripped or are always flying making them impossible to trip.
question if the dogs used entangle could they entangle a flying creaure? lets say it was low enough to leap and bite, or they jumped off a cliff to grab it or something else obscure, what if they actually hit and entangled it?