[ACG] Prototype00! You are an ANIMAL! (Soul)

[prototype00]

So those of you who have the ACG or who have been reading the forums know about Animal Soul, a feat that lets you be affected by magic that usually only affects our four legged friends. Which ones are worthwhile?

Glad you asked! (*-**** scale, NA if awful/not applicable)

1st Charm Animal, 1st Calm animal, 2nd Hold Animal, 3rd Dominate Animal, 2nd Animal Trance, 6th Share Skin - NA

Why would you let yourself be affected by this?

5th Animal Growth - ****

Gold standard for self buffing, +8 to Str, +4 to Con, +2 Natural Armor, -2 Dex, +1 size category

3rd Anthropomorphic Animal - *** or NA

Might have promise if you can use it while wild-shaped. Otherwise, pretty useless.

2nd Reduce Animal - **

Eh, interesting. I thought of it for my druid to solve the problem of T-Rex can't fit through doors, but polymorph rules nix that.

2nd Carry Companion - ***

Basically makes you a small statue that can be carried around sneakily. Good for covert stuff. Hope that you don't get dropped!

5th Raise Animal Companion - ****

You can be raised from the dead for 4000gp less! Nice!

1st Shield Companion, Companion Mind link, 3rd Bleed for your Master, 3rd Hunter's Friend - NA

Unless you are someone else's animal companion, doesn't apply to you

2nd Wartrain Mount, 2nd Animal Purpose Training - NA

Hopefully you already know all this stuff!

4th Atavism - ****

Ooh, nice! Advanced simple template gives +2 bonus on all rolls, including damage rolls and special ability DCs, a +4 bonus to AC and CMD, and +2 hit points per HD. If you aren't high level enough for animal growth... *Actually this would affect druids that have wildshaped, while animal growth wouldn't, thats nice.*

2nd Scamper - ***

Short buff to boost your combat acrobatics use. Not too bad.

2nd Sea Steed - ***

Nice 10min/lvl buff to make you perfect for aquatic campaigns.

4th Sea Stallion - ***

Buff for you and the guy who is riding you. (Wait, that sounded wrong...)

3rd Sky Steed - *

Why would you need this instead of Fly or Wind Walk at the same level? And its a Paladin spell, even worse!

2nd Companion Life Link - *

This is basically Deathwatch? Meh.

2nd Shield Companion - *

Basically Shield Other, for animals.

5th Awaken - NA or ************

This is so stupid good that it is either going to be errataed out or DMs will ban it. If your DM allows it, the right thing to do would be to read out the spell description to him before he makes the mistake.

And there you have it! Treats for everyone!

prototype00

[Chaotic Fighter]

Awaken... Oh good lord...

[LessPopMoreFizz]

Reduce Animal is also handy for Tiefling/Aasimar and others that can't be affected by Reduce Person.

[Dexion1619]

Awaken won't work unless you're character has an INT of 2 or less.

[DominusMegadeus]

Dexion1619 wrote:

Awaken won't work unless you're character has an INT of 2 or less.

Get your wizard to feeblemind you, fail the save on purpose?

[KuntaSS]

Then your type changes to magical beast and you don't get all the handy spells that can be cast on animals, plus you get 2HD of magical beast which isn't very good compared to HD of PC levels, so in the long run it'll screw you over usually.

[Deadkitten]

You would still have the option to be considered an animal due to retaining the feat.

[KuntaSS]

Oh well that's actually not that bad a tradeoff then, the only thing that's going to suck is the 2hd that may not advance the important class features you would have preferred. And if you retain the animal type when you want you can repeat it until you die irl from flying books or have 20HD.

[Chess Pwn]

Um... I don't think there's anything saying you can't have more than 20HD, so doing this is just getting free hit die. No penalties to it.