Hippogriff Cohort - How could I build one for a Sable Company Fighter?

[Dirtfox]

Afternoon everyone! I need some GMing advice.

I'm running Curse of the Crimson Throne, and having a blast making everyone's character choices take center stage in the story. We're getting pretty far into the 2nd module, and I want to be prepared for something:

Two of my players chose to make their characters members of the Sable Company. One, a Ranger, took the archetype that will give him his Hippogriff as an official animal companion. Nice and straightforward.

The other player went Fighter, which is also a reasonably logical choice, and the party needed it. For plot fun, I prefer to have them each taking care of their own Hippogriff mount. I know from experience a 'purchased' base Hippogriff mount from the book is not going to last...

I'm willing to let the fighter take the Leadership feat for purposes of making the Hippogriff her cohort only.

What I'd like to know is if there is a better method I should consider, perhaps one that could set the Hippogriff up as a proper animal companion? Or, if not, how to advance the hippogriff cohort. Fighter levels? Barbarian? It won't get intelligence like an animal companion or familiar, so I'm guessing the group will be making a lot of handle animal checks. I just want the beastie to survive and occasionally be useful, not crazy optimized.

Advice appreciated :D

[blackbloodtroll]

See here.

For the Fighter, just use the Bestiary entry.

[CalebTGordan]

For the fighter, if you are going to use the Leadership feat you could just level it like a regular animal companion to avoid the possibility of one of the two characters being clearly more powerful than the other.

I will warn you right now: fights where two flying mounts can be used are going to be tough to make challenging. My Kingmaker game had a cavalier with a flying mount and he reduced all foes he could fly against to pulp in a matter of a round or two. I would also caution your players to not invest too much in mounted feats. CotCT is largely indoors and those feats may not see enough action to make them worth it.

[XMorsX]

I would actually suggest to modify the Animal Ally feat and this way give your Fighter acces to a Hippogriff AC like the one of the Ranger. Remind him of the Dragoon archetype if he is into melee mounted combat, otherwise Weapon Master probably makes for the best fighter archer.

Nature Soul

Animal Ally

And of course Boon Companion.

Maybe make the feat have 5th lvl as a requirement and give you access to a hippogryph at your lvl -4 in order to preserve balance.

[Corodix]

Considering the Ranger needs to take Boon Companion to make his Ranger level count as his druid level for the animal companion (instead of it being Druid-3) and that he had to give up his first favored terrain option in order to get that companion, I would make certain that the fighter has to expend a reasonable amount of resources in order to get a hippogriff as in the end that hippogriff was worth a feat and two class features (that's including hunter's bond).

I probably wouldn't let him get it just through the Leadership feat, as I don't think one feat is worth two class features like that. One feat per class feature (allow the fighter to use his bonus feats for it) sounds a bit more reasonable when considering balance with the ranger. Then he just needs to take Boon Companion like the ranger.

If he has at least 13 charisma then an option would be for the fighter to take the following feats (or you remove the 13 cha requirement for him this one time):
Skill Focus(Knowledge Nature)
Eldritch Heritage (Sylvan bloodline)
That can give him an animal companion at druid-3. He'd just need Boon Companion then.

[Dirtfox]

Thanks for the thoughts everyone!

I appreciate the alternate methods (I wasn't familiar with Animal Ally at all!) and the balance discussion both.

I can see the fighter spending one feat wouldn't be fair to the ranger, but I can also see how the resulting animal companion is more beneficial to the ranger. (Archery Ranger + Mobile Gun Platform versus Melee tank + making a fancy entrance when you jump off?) I'll see if I can get the fighter to spend two feats on the Hippogriff, but in the end I'm more invested in the potential impact on the story we're all enjoying together.

[XMorsX]

The Fighter with Death from above and the usual chargin feats + lance can be scary, mind you. But I agree that the Ranger will make better use of it.

Both Animal Ally and Eldrich Heritage are good ways to give it to him. The Eldrich Heritage is probably more elegant (less houserules) and will obtain it earlier, but he would have to raise Cha.
For a 15 pb Human fighter, this probably means an array of

STR 17
DEX 10
CON 14
INT 10
WIS 10
CHA 13

3 skillpoints per lvl for perseption, handle animal and ride.