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Hey All,
My group and I have discussed the possibility of running a game that features them as graduates of the elite Endrin Military Academy in Korvosa and members of the Sable Company.
For those not familiar with the Sable Company they are Hippogriff Riding Marines that defend the skies & waters of Korvosa and its holdings.
Adventure hooks and missions are easy enough to think up (I have dozens swirling through my mind); my problem is making the organization attainable for some classes.
Obviously any class or archetype that grants an animal companion or bonded mount is quite easily suited to the organization, and a solid class choice for this campaign.
But I don't want to pigeon hole or stifle creativity and say "Ranger/Paladin/Cavalier/Druid -pick one and roll with it".
So what about Arcane Casters (for example)? I'm toying with the idea of letting a Hippogriff serve as a familiar - but I'm worried about balance issues/ramifications. The truth is I'm not familiar enough with familiars (no pun intended) to be certain I can think of ways to mitigate potential issues, because quite frankly there is no way for me to know what all of these issues may be.
Any suggestions?
Worst case scenario I could tell any PC that wants to play a class that doesn't receive an Animal Companion or Bonded Mount to pump Ride & Handle Animal and upon reaching a certain rank (probably 4th level), they will be furnished with a generic Beastiary Hippogriff gratis from the Sable Company. But that presents it's own balance issues at later levels...
All advice is welcome.
I'm not familiar with all the various Archetypes for all the various Classes - so if there are obvious ways for a class to pick this up via archetype please let me know.
Oh, as an FYI: We try to keep the rules as close to PFS as possible. We do house rule certain things (like using 25 point buy), but any deviation is clearly spelled out, documented, and shared with everyone prior to character creation in a sort of "Player's Guide". As such I have zero experience with 3rd Party stuff. But I'm open to it.
Well, there is that one wildblooded sorcerer (sylvan I do believe) that gets an animal companion. Nature mystery oracles can get a mount too.
Clerics and inquisitors can get them too, with the right domains.
Technically anyone can get an animal companion with the animal ally feat. It works fairly much like the ranger class feature (-3 to level, limited choices) just requires the nature soul feat and being level 4+ (of course, that means you can take it at level 5 at earliest...which can be troublesome since you can't get boon companion until level 7). A bit feat expensive overall, but I'm sure it would let fighters join in on the fun at least.
2 main options come to mind.
Run this as a gestalt game with 1 class being the rider class.
Give everyone some bonus mount-oriented feats and a couple of extra skill points/level and call it good.
If the whole party is doing this, you can design the scenarios around them. Its way easier to deal with power balance when the group's in synch. The game seems designed to keep people on the ground until at least 5th level, if not 7th, so there's probably some handwaving that will need to occur.
I'm a fan of a gestalt ranger//bomber alchemist I statted up for this kind of concept. I didn't see much point in lance charges. Dropping AOEs from longbow range sounded a lot better!
