I am plating my first druid and while I love it the shear number of options and possibilities is a little overwhelming. Anyway, on to the questions...
1. How do I catch animals to train without spells?
The campaign I am playing there is no divine magic or supernatural abilities until we are able to restore them (Around level 3-5) so I am a little gimped at the moment. I have read through the spells and I know Call Animal would do the trick but lacking that...how can I catch a bear.
2. How many animals could I have or train?
I know that non animal companion animals can have an impact on combat if the are properly trained but can I really have an army of 150 grizzly bears march into combat with me?
Also there is a possibility later in the campaign I will want to train large numbers of mounts (probably hippogriffs) for our army. How many can I train at once?
3. Train for other special purposes?
I think birds could be expecially useful for non-combat roles. Could I train a hawk to scout for me and alert me to humanoids on the trail ahead of the party? How about a raven to deliver messages (without the animal messenger spell)? Maybe an owl as a night watchman to alert me of intruders at camp?
Any resources that you may be able to suggest that could offer information, advice, or insight on these things would be great.
Thanks for your help
What about 3? Training for special purposes?
1. How do I catch animals to train without spells?
Call Animal is the standard.
Otherwise, Knowledge Nature and Survival checks to figure out where bears live and track one down, then Wild Empathy to get it to be friendly and have it follow you around.
2. How many animals could I have or train?
As many as you have time for. Training an animal takes 3 hours per animal per day for however many weeks are required by the trick. Realistically, then, you could train 5 animals per day (15 hours) while still leaving time for sleeping, eating, and other basic tasks.
I know that non animal companion animals can have an impact on combat if the are properly trained but can I really have an army of 150 grizzly bears march into combat with me?
Assuming you always succeeded on your checks and trained 5 at a time with no breaks (using Call Animal, probably, to get them to come to you), you'd need to spend almost 3 and a half years training bears to get 150 of them combat trained. Oh, and your army won't attack weird monsters like undead (nor would they be able to, since Combat training eats up all 6 tricks).
Also, handling an animal (i.e. having it use a trick like "attack") is a move action, so you'd either need 75 turns or 74 assistants to spur the army to attack.
Also there is a possibility later in the campaign I will want to train large numbers of mounts (probably hippogriffs) for our army. How many can I train at once?
Technically? Zero. Handle Animal only works on animals and Hippogriffs are magical beasts. Typical Hippogriff riders will have them as an animal companion, which apparently the Sable Company Marine Ranger archetype can get. I never heard of that archetype, but it's mentioned here.
3. Train for other special purposes?
I think birds could be expecially useful for non-combat roles. Could I train a hawk to scout for me and alert me to humanoids on the trail ahead of the party? How about a raven to deliver messages (without the animal messenger spell)? Maybe an owl as a night watchman to alert me of intruders at camp?
Purposes are just collections of tricks you can make a single training roll for, rather than rolling for each trick separately.
Scouting ahead and alerting you is probably the Seek or Detect trick. Ravens can deliver a message with the Deliver trick. An owl can watch your camp with the Watch trick.
If it helps, my druid has several trained animals (in addition to my animal companion, of course). I have a horse with the Combat purpose, though thankfully, I haven't needed him to fight anything.
I have a hawk and owl each trained for Hunting (except with Watch replacing Track, since neither bird has Scent). The Hawk watches ahead of us as we travel and guards camp during the day. The owl does the same at night. If I need to send a message, I just use Animal Messanger, but I might grab a bird for that at some point later.
I also have a ferret trained with the Burglar and Liberator purposes.
Any resources that you may be able to suggest that could offer information, advice, or insight on these things would be great.
This basically tells you everything you could ever want to know.
Thank you very much. This pretty much covers it.