Looking for advice from the Animal Companion / Wildshape experts out there

[fatbaldbloke]

Hello,

little background first. I'm about to start running a second game from next week with a party consisting of three players very new to Pathfinder (and RPGs in general) and one epxperienced player.

We've had a few get togethers going over the basics and discussing what sort of adventure they wanted to try out. In the end it was the @Carrion Crown' AP that tickled their fancy.

As the majority of the party are new players we've settled on 20 point builds instead of 15. The guys were a little overwhelmed by all the options available so we settled on Core rulebook classes and races only for now. I have told them that once they hit 4th level or thereabouts, and they're more familiar with the system, I will allow them a free rebuild of their character with expanded options of class and archetype available.

Now one of the new guys has gone for Druid as his class and that's one class I've never really tried out. He definitely wants to go with the animal companion, and he's very keen on teaming up with his pet in combat.

I'm just looking for a few suggestions on useful feats for him to pick up early on and ways for him to develop the Druid/Pet tag team tactics. Also any useful tips to help a Druid and his best friend in a game that will involve lots of undead and spooky critters?

[EgakuDrew]

As far as Core only goes, the Druid's 'must have' feats are Natural Spell and it is strongly recommended to buy into augment summoning. Combat Casting is good if your Druid is planning to hang out in melee with the companion. I am a big fan of taking Weapon Proficiency in reach weaponry at low level, Prof: Bardiche or whatever they prefer to keep them out of harms way until wild shape kicks in.

You want to build the companion to it's strengths and that is based upon the companion. If you have a companion with a grab attack, you want grapple feats. If you have a companion with one big bite you want power attacks. If you are going to have a big cat, take whatever you want.

Treantmonk's Druid guide is core only, so a good place to start.