|
I just bought a copy of Animal Archive so that I could "unlock" some things for Society play.
I'm going to have my ranger take Boon Companion as his next feat, which jumps his wolf from 5th level to 9th.
Now the wolf gets some huge natural armor bonuses due to his regular leveling and the 7th level wolf advancement (+10 in all).
But even an AC of 22 (+3 Dex, +10 Natural, -1 size) is a low for a 9th level front-liner.
Now my question(s):
Wolves can use neck slot items. Can I give the wolf my ranger's amulet of natural armor, or must I buy one that's shaped like a collar?
In either case, does its bonus (an enhancement bonus) stack with his existing natural armor bonus? It appears that it does.
I'll be buying some new barding in the proper size as well, trying to keep the beastie on his feet.
Any other suggestions for AC gear? Can magic fang be made permanent, etc.?
|
I just bought a copy of Animal Archive so that I could "unlock" some things for Society play.
I'm going to have my ranger take Boon Companion as his next feat, which jumps his wolf from 5th level to 9th.
Now the wolf gets some huge natural armor bonuses due to his regular leveling and the 7th level wolf advancement (+10 in all).
But even an AC of 22 (+3 Dex, +10 Natural, -1 size) is a low for a 9th level front-liner.
Druids local 704 highly recommends getting him or her masterwork studded leather armor barding or mithral chain shirt barding. Neither have any armor check penalty, so they don't require proficiency. Here, Take a card
Wolves can use neck slot items. Can I give the wolf my ranger's amulet of natural armor, or must I buy one that's shaped like a collar?
Nope. A neck slot is a neck slot. I sometimes use a collar of obedience (made for animals) to boost the fighters will save if they haven't invested in a cloak of resistance yet.
In either case, does its bonus (an enhancement bonus) stack with his existing natural armor bonus? It appears that it does.
Yes. Its an enhancement bonus to natural armor. It just won't stack with barkskin.
Any other suggestions for AC gear? Can magic fang be made permanent, etc.?
Pathfinder society doesn't allow permanancy. Both the amulet of natural armor and the amulet of mighty fists vie for the coveted neck slot.
I would recommend the amulet of mighty fists over the amulet of natural armor for a few reasons.
1) You can cast barkskin. You can't cast magic fang yet.
2) There's a number of ways of increasing armor class. there's really only 1 way of upping hit and damage.
3) The amulet of mighty fists actually counts as cold iron or silver if you get it up to +3. Your magic fang spell won't. Barkskin is just.. barkskin.
|
|
Thanks for the detailed advice! Very helpful. Hadn't thought of mighty fists... Now, I already took Light Armor Proficiency as a feat. Is it worth the re-training cost (if an AC *can* re-train) at this point?
My four feats would presently be: Armor Proficiency (light), Dodge, Toughness, and Weapon Focus (really, I like these because they're all solid boosts that are always active).
|
|
Animal companions can't retrain.
What you CAN do is the catch and release trick. You release the animal from your service, and then re acquire them. Whether or not this is worth the feat depends mostly on how much the flavor of it bothers you.
The upside is that there is no gold cost to doing this.
The downside is that once mr fluffy has been running around in the wild he loses all of his tricks, and when you re acquire him (or a suspiciously similar mr fluffy depending on how you see it) he starts with only his bonus tricks (Attack attack, and heel probably). You can then, once per session, attempt to train him a number of times equal to the number of ranks you have in handle animal (which should probably get him back up to full rather quickly)
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
In the Additional Resources is a strange rule that says that an animal companion can only equip items on one of those slots if you have the companion take the Extra Item Slot feat and select that slot. So have you wolf take the Extra Item Slot for neck and you can put on an amulet of natural armor. And it does not have to be a special collar.
Animals get the lesser of barding and neck slot items or the slots listed on the inside front cover of the animal archive. A wolf gets barding and neck slots by default and only needs to buy other slots with the extra item slot feat. Go ahead and get him an Amulet of Natural Armor, or Amulet of Mighty fists.
Can I give the wolf my ranger's amulet of natural armor, or must I buy one that's shaped like a collar?
Magic items tend to come in a one size fits all category. The same boots that go on your human's feet go on a tieflings hooves just fine. Just imagine its a one size fits all or that there are some really nice and convenient tailors out there!
What you CAN do is the catch and release trick. You release the animal from your service, and then re acquire them. Whether or not this is worth the feat depends mostly on how much the flavor of it bothers you.
Release and catch an animal of the same size, type, fur color, gender, name, personality, etc...
|
|
Flutter, have you considered a mithral kikko? +1 AC vs Mithral Chain Shirt, still no AC penalty, costs 1000 more to start, but once you start adding +X it will be a lot cheaper.
Yup. Its 3k more but it WILL pay for itself eventually. (If you want to go nuts you can get mithral breastplate with the comfort armor enchant) It might be 6k more depending on how you calculate the cost. As far as I know there's no official word on whether you multiply then add or add them multiply.