As a Ranger you could pick up the spell Reduce Animal for your companion when he becomes large: hours per level duration and gives the same penalties as Reduce Person, so that's -2 Str, +2 Dex, and then another +1 hit/AC. So he's still medium but a much more badass medium than he was.
In regards to mounted combat, if you are only planning on using it as a weapon firing platform, you don't need any special feats (not even Mounted Archery). You can still full attack if it moves, and it says you only take negatives if it is double moving or running. If you want to melee while riding than you need feats, but I can't help you there as I never looked into that route.
I haven't looked at Treantmonk's guide in a while so I'll see what feats he suggests and see if I have anything else to offer in a bit.
Mounting/dismounting is a move action, or a free with a DC 20 ride check (though you need to have an available move to try it and if you fail it uses your move).
Under the Ride skill it says it is DC 10 free action to have your mount attack. If you aren't riding you would need to make a DC 10 Handle Animal check as a free action to get it to do what you want (as long as it has the appropriate trick learned). To be honest though I never saw a DM actually use those rules or the rules for tricks. Your DM might go RAW there, but in my experience you can probably be fine just controlling it however you see fit, especially because the DCs are trivial.
Reduce Animal is a 2nd level Druid spell; you could look into maybe getting a wand of it and having a party member use it for you if you aren't investing ranks in UMD. Since you're going to be dropping your weapons a lot, maybe look at the Called weapon property.
If I remember correctly wands are caster level (usually minimum for the spell, so 3) X spell level (2) x 750 = 4500 gold. It would have 50 charges and each charge would last 3 hours.
Also no need to apologize, you're using the Advice board for its intended purpose :p
Adaptive is nice just because it simplifies things, but you could do without and if you wanted Called it would save you a lot more than 500 gold. A +2 weapon like your +1 Adaptive costs 8k base (bonus squared x 2000) as opposed to a plain +1 bow with composite which would be around 2400 or 2500. If you wanted Called and composite 4 or 5 it would be around 8400 or 8500 gold, which is still much less than a +1 Called Adaptive which would be 18,000.
I never really used an animal companion, so I can't really give you much advice there. Maybe give it some armor if it takes the feat for proficiency, but I wouldn't prioritize magical gear for it. An Amulet of Mighty Fists would come in handy for some animal companions, but those are expensive and its even worse because a Wolf only has one bite attack.
Something you may want to consider, since you are going to be using an Elven Curve Blade, you could drop your STR considerably, raise your DEX through the roof and finesse the Curve Blade. Add Agile to the sword. This will drop your damage to your bow, but you'll hit a lot more often (especially with secondary attacks). Your Sword will cost a bit more (cost of Agile) but the damage will be the same (you can still use power attack as long as you keep STR at 13 or higher).
Overrun seems kinda awful... you can move through their square and maybe knock them prone with that, or your Wolf can just use its bite and get a free trip attempt if it hits. Also since we were talking about how large size might be an issue, check out Narrow Frame. Looks like that would help your companion in dungeons, especially if you didn't want to bother with Reduce Animal.
Also check out Animal Companion Archetypes. I kinda like the Bodyguard one. Combat Patrol + Combat Reflexes + Trip on the bite AoO could be interesting.
If you went Agile you would still get the PA bonus damage for using a two hander, so that's something.
A wolf only has the one attack so its not really going to stay competitive in the damage compartment for long, so I'd try to use it as a flank buddy that can debuff a bit by keeping enemies on their ass. As I said I'd go Combat Patrol and Combat Reflexes. Besides that I'd consider Power Attack, Light Armor Proficiency, and Narrow Frame once he gets large size. Weapon Focus couldn't hurt either.
For all 'standard' Rangers, I reccomend the Infiltrator archetype. Take a look at it.
Those are certainly some interesting benefits. I'd have to think on it though. The +2 to natural armor is enticing, as well as being able to boost one of your saves. Is it really worth it though? I haven't been playing in PF long so I don't know if Favored Terrain comes into play a lot or not.
I've gotten very little use out of favored terrain, but for my Dwarven TWF Ranger with a Wolf companion, I was able to add these abilities as an infiltrator:
3rd level - Fast Movement (Goblin)
8th level - Resist Fire: 10 (Giant), Resist Cold: 10 (Giant)
13th level - Lunge (Dragon), Resist Electricity: 10 (Giant)
18th level - Swim 15 (Animal), Climb 15 (Animal)
Mileage may vary of course, but that's a lot more utility there than favored terrain offers in my opinion.
...you could do without [Adaptive] ... it would save you a lot more than 500 gold. A +2 weapon like your +1 Adaptive costs 8k base (bonus squared x 2000) as opposed to a plain +1 bow with composite which would be around 2400 or 2500. If you wanted Called and composite 4 or 5 it would be around 8400 or 8500 gold, which is still much less than a +1 Called Adaptive which would be 18,000.
Ignore this. Adaptive adds a flat 1,000 to a bow’s cost, no matter what other enchantments are on the bow.
It’s not worth saving 500g on your bow by getting a compound bow instead of one with the Adaptive enchantment. Buffs will raise your strength bonus in the field, and you want a bow that lets you take advantage of that. There’s also a small chance of you being hit with a curse or something else that reduces your strength score, which would prevent you from using your compound bow. 500g is really small potatoes at level 9--don’t go cheap on your most important piece of gear.
If your wolf is primarily for movement, consider the feat Stable Gallop. Iron Will is excellent for animal companions, Great Fortitude is nearly as good, and Lightning Reflexes is nice. The Spring Attack feat chain (Dodge->Mobility->Spring Attack) will pay off when your wolf is in a combat where it can trip easily--i.e. it is not reduced in size and the opponent is a human-sized biped.
That's certainly fair enough. Just to clarify when you activate your adaptation you only get one of the bonuses or do you get all the ones you've accumulated?
You select one ability/bonus/feat at a time and activate it in 10 minute increments. You get 10 minutes of use per Ranger level.
The above was the Dwarven Ranger I used in Rise of the Runelords, and the favored enemies that seemed appropriate for the character lended itself to some really useful Infiltrator abilities. Right now I'm designing a Dwarven Ranger for someone else to use in a Jade Regent campaign, and the favored enemies (Goblin, Human, Undead, Evil Outsider) offer less useful abilities in my opnion, so I'm probably going to build it as a straight Ranger with the standard favored terrain bonuses.
So, my advice is that if you're pre-planning your build, decide on your favored enemies first and then look to see if you're getting what you think is value from the Infiltrator options available... if they don't blow your skirt up, then stick with Favored Terrain.
Ignore this. Adaptive adds a flat 1,000 to a bow’s cost, no matter what other enchantments are on the bow.
And I always thought it was a +1 enhancement. Wow, sorry about that and the wrong information I gave.
