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Wow! You've probably seen this vaguely similar approach. It's outrageously effective. I'd say your Barbarian is kinda like this, only on steroids. My Cleric with this build makes an outstanding front line fighter and tank. I'd hate to GM for your Barbarian :-)
I'd say you're already pretty maxed out.
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Make sure both you and your mount get reach, in which you probably need to start as a half orc and burn 2 feats. Exotic weapon profeciency will get you a faulchard with 18-20 crit range.The set of mounts for animal ally and mounted fury does not have any mounts with reach, so you need to be a half orc and take beast rider to get access to a stegosaurus. Wear armor spikes, ride your dinosaur into battle. You'll make a matched pair, spikey all over :D
Your challenge will be to fit the feats in.
Lv 1:combat reflexes
Lv 3: Power attack
Lv 5: boon companion
Lv 7: beast rider
Lv 9: broken wing gambit
Lv 11: paired opportunist
Lv 13: exotic wep profeciency (falchard)
sigh..no space to fit weapon focus and improved critical for sieze the moment.
If outflank route, then use a pteranodon. Change feat at lv 13 to outflank. Flying makes for easier flankers. If you don't mind your animal companion 2 lvs lower then your char level you can skip boon companion.
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Oddly enough, with this approach one need not threaten adjacent. If you work out the geometry of a rider with reach on a large mount with reach, both with Paired Opportunists, you will find you can always attack foes with your reach weapon, even when they are adjacent to your mount. Sometimes your mount will provide the foe soft cover, but Paired Opportunists lets you take an AoO anyway, despite the soft cover. Worst case, your AoO to hit bonus is only +0, instead of +4. Your primary weapon at +0 to hit is almost certainly better than armor spikes at +4 to hit.
Couldn't your animal pet take the Lunge feat to gain reach?
A Stegasaurus seems like a great mount for this build with its trip attack, reach and surprising dexterity for AoOs.
Just a Mort is right, it's all in fitting in the feats with this build so I'd probably go human. I was thinking it would be really nice to be able to share the teamwork feats with your companion, since I'm pretty sure that's the only way you could really go ham and stack come and get me with broken wing gambit. Hunter 3 does it and gets a free outflank on the way. Do the levels for the companions stack? If so Mounted Fury 12/Hunter 8 seems like an awesome way to go.
How attached are you to Come and Get Me? As I see it Broken Wing Gambit does much of the same thing when you build with teamwork in mind and it has the advantage of coming as soon as level 5. If you want to play this combat style as close to advertised from the beginning I'd think about going for Broken Wing Gambit first and letting Come and Get Me come in a little later than a straight 12 barb.
Maybe something like this for a feat and class level progression
Human Mounted Fury 12/ Hunter 8
Level 1: Mounted Fury 1- Power Attack, Combat Reflexes
Level 2: Mounted Fury 2
Level 3: Hunter 1 - Boon Companion
Level 4: Hunter 2 - Outflank
Level 5: Hunter 3 - Broken Wing Gambit, Paired Opportunist
From here I'd go with Mounted Fury until Come and Get Me at level 15, unless 2nd level Hunter spells seem more important.
If you go with hunter at level three or something, then the companion comes from that and I'm pretty sure the hunter can get a steg, or something else crazy, but I could be wrong. Whether or not the Mounted Fury's ability then stacks with hunter levels I have no idea.
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Cavalier: Do animal companion levels from the druid class stack with cavalier mount levels?
If the animal is on the cavalier mount list and on the list of animal companions for your other class, your cavalier and druid levels stack to determine the animal's abilities. If the animal is not on the cavalier mount list, the druid levels do not stack and you must have different animals (one an animal companion, one a cavalier mount). (...) (Note that the design team discourages players from having more than one companion creature at a time, as those creatures tend to be much weaker than a single creature affected by these stacking rules, and add to the bookkeeping for playing that character.)
http://paizo.com/paizo/faq/v5748nruor1fn#v5748eaic9qqn
Sorry. Recent faq somewhere says if druid allows you all companions, but mounted fury only offers you some, your mounted fury levels advance your animal companions levels only if they fall in the category of mounted fury animal companions.
yikes, yeah, this is a nasty build. Maybe throw in antagonize somehow? Since enemies attacking you proc more ugly repercussions, taunting them to attack you before they close the distance will ensure that. If they actually survive the round and choose to attack your mount, it's not gonna be your fault, it was just a couple of unfortunate rolls. But more often than not that build is gonna literally ROFLstomp everything.
I think people keep pushing for more reach because they want to have that big kill/no fly zone around the tank, to keep the squishies safe. But that only really works with a bunch of trip synergy and ways to create difficult terrain (in which case it works well). So, with antagonize, you could bypass the need by dragging enemies your way. Barbs also have that challenging shout, so you might wanna work that into the build too.
Otherwise you're not so much a tank as an angry axe-beak riding terror that the enemies avoid in favor of killing your party.
Depending on your + to attack rolls, you might want to consider getting Dazing Assault? You do take a nasty -5 to all attack rolls, but with the amount of AOO's you are capable of putting out, your would-be attackers would probably not get to do anything at all.
Well, y'know, if they are still standing after being on the receiving end of 4 AOO's.
Dazing Assault (Combat)
You can daze foes with wild attacks.Prerequisites: Str 13, Power Attack, base attack bonus +11.
Benefit: You can choose to take a –5 penalty on all melee attack rolls and combat maneuver checks to daze opponents you hit with your melee attacks for 1 round, in addition to the normal damage dealt by the attack. A successful Fortitude save negates the effect. The DC of this save is 10 + your base attack bonus. You must choose to use this feat before making the attack roll, and its effects last until your next turn.
EDIT: Upon rereading realised that you included dazing assault 1 hour ago in one of the potential builds. Derp.
yikes, yeah, this is a nasty build. Maybe throw in antagonize somehow? Since enemies attacking you proc more ugly repercussions, taunting them to attack you before they close the distance will ensure that. If they actually survive the round and choose to attack your mount, it's not gonna be your fault, it was just a couple of unfortunate rolls. But more often than not that build is gonna literally ROFLstomp everything.
I think people keep pushing for more reach because they want to have that big kill/no fly zone around the tank, to keep the squishies safe. But that only really works with a bunch of trip synergy and ways to create difficult terrain (in which case it works well). So, with antagonize, you could bypass the need by dragging enemies your way. Barbs also have that challenging shout, so you might wanna work that into the build too.
Otherwise you're not so much a tank as an angry axe-beak riding terror that the enemies avoid in favor of killing your party.
antagonize is fantastic in theory... and terrible in practice. even if you do pass the check to do it they only ahve to attack you once, plus, since he's going to be going first most of the time, and even so reaching combat first most of the time on his mount even if he does miss the initiative... he should almost always be the target of aggression unless his allies are something like wizard/gunslinger/inquisitor/rogue and like putting themselves in harms way.
antagonize is fantastic in theory... and terrible in practice. even if you do pass the check to do it they only ahve to attack you once, plus, since he's going to be going first most of the time, and even so reaching combat first most of the time on his mount even if he does miss the initiative... he should almost always be the target of aggression unless his allies are something like wizard/gunslinger/inquisitor/rogue and like putting themselves in harms way.yikes, yeah, this is a nasty build. Maybe throw in antagonize somehow? Since enemies attacking you proc more ugly repercussions, taunting them to attack you before they close the distance will ensure that. If they actually survive the round and choose to attack your mount, it's not gonna be your fault, it was just a couple of unfortunate rolls. But more often than not that build is gonna literally ROFLstomp everything.
I think people keep pushing for more reach because they want to have that big kill/no fly zone around the tank, to keep the squishies safe. But that only really works with a bunch of trip synergy and ways to create difficult terrain (in which case it works well). So, with antagonize, you could bypass the need by dragging enemies your way. Barbs also have that challenging shout, so you might wanna work that into the build too.
Otherwise you're not so much a tank as an angry axe-beak riding terror that the enemies avoid in favor of killing your party.
Yeah, just trying to theorycraft some way of getting enemies to attack the rider and not the mount, or also, to potentially be able to pull enemies away from allies who've drawn some ire or who get caught in bad positioning. 'Course it'll require some high intimidation, and I don't think that CHA 10 will quite cut it on more willful mobs, but even with class bonus it'll do: level 10+class= 13. 50/50 chance for taunting say a level 5, level 6 rogue (or you could invest further for that STR to intimidate feat, but i think your feats are already pretty well used up, so no trade-ins till much later)
Anyway, against intelligent enemies, it's a possibility for when the rider can't afford to move from their position/has other priority targets. He can antagonize/challenging shout in his round, then rely on attacks of opportunity to deal the damage. Even without the antagonize/challenging shout, you're going to be a menace with that build, and 10' reach is enough of an issue that moving around him will be a real pain.
I'm not sure if I like the feat progressions on those builds. Broken Wing Gambit and Paired Opportunist end up dead feats for one of the two for a couple levels on either build. I'm gonna keep harping the use of hunter, since it gets Broken Wing Gambit (the heart of the tactics really) online the fastest.
Here's a revised build for a Half-Orc Mounted Fury/Hunter with a Stegasaurus companion. At large size the steg has 10 foot reach and a 2d8(awesome for size modifiers+vital strike) attack that can trip on hit. This is perfect for the tactics desired. Consider Primal Companion Hunter for this, that archetype is just dirty
Level 1: Mounted Fury 1: Combat Reflexes
Level 2: Mounted Fury 2: RP-Lesser Beast Totem
Level 3: Hunter 1: Boon Companion
Level 4: Hunter 2: Outflank
Level 5: Hunter 3: Paired Opportunist, Broken Wing Gambit
Level 6: Mounted Fury 3:
Level 7: Mounted Fury 4: Beast Rider, RP-Ferocious Mount
Level 8: Mounted Fury 5:
Level 9: Mounted Fury 6: Power Attack, RP-Beast Totem
Level 10: Mounted Fury 7:
Level 11: Mounted Fury 8: Lunge, RP- Greater Ferocious Companion
Level 12: Mounted Fury 9:
Level 13: Mounted Fury 10: RP-Greater Beast Totem, Open Feat
Level 14: Mounted Fury 11:
Level 15: Mounted Fury 12: RP-Come and Get Me, Open Feat (If you haven't picked it up yet get dazing assault here)
For levels one and two just use a horse, but then the Hunter companion comes online. I went with ferocious companion over mount since they are functionally the same while mounted but the companion version offers greater versatility. You're not going to be able to be mounted all of the time...
Power Attack at level 9 just seems wrong for a Barbarian but I'm thinking that the addition of a big steg smacking things and all of the AoO shenanigans that follow would make up for DPR.
This build seems like a serious nightmare. Once the greater versions of the beast totem and ferocious mount kick in you're playing two reach beasts with pounce and scary full attack sequences. And then the fun actually begins once the opponent tries to do anything about it. Just brutal.
Could be wrong, but wouldn't the mounted fury levels mean that your companion would be nerfed? Your barb levels count as druid levels -4: Meaning your mounted fury, at level 8 (when the archetype's companion kicks in) would be level 4 total (3 from hunter, 1 from mounted fury).
Also, has anyone tried this whole mash-up with the mammoth rider Prestige class? In all honesty, I've paid very little attention to animal companions and their use as riding mounts, but the more I see them crop up on the boards, the more I've looked into them and kind of marvelled at the potential. Makes me think of Doroga and the Marats from Jim Butcher's Alera series. I imagine it'd be tough to squeeze a huge wolf into a dungeon, but for above-ground adventures...
Anyway, I'm totally stealing some ideas from you all, hope you don't mind. I need a really intimidating bbeg for the campaign I'm running. :D
P.s - not negative critique here - i mean, if the level nerf was intended, I'm sure all the rage synergy to the mount adds up to some beefy stat boosts, just wondering if gaining the rage outwieghs the loss of base levels/hp/growth?
the Boon companion feat at level three makes up for the four levels of mounted fury not accounted for by its mount ability. Beast Rider even gives two more "free levels" of non companion progression classes if desired. I can't remember the name of it, but there is a rage and teamwork themed prestige class that could fit in well as a two level dip, but since that wouldn't be until after level 15 I didn't really bother with it. I tried to make the build I posted as functional as possible from level one onwards since most play starts low level and doesn't get past the mid levels.
My problem with Mammoth Rider is that a permanently huge companion can be a real problem of logistics if you're not playing in a campaign with constant open spaces. Not having half of your teamwork centric character be able to enter most dungeons/buildings is going to be so frustrating.
As for the build I'm thinking that full blooded Orc might be even more optimal. With bull aspect and rage a level three Mounted Fury/ Hunter could easily have a 26 strength: 16(base)+4(Orc)+4(Rage)+2(Bull Aspect)=26
That's a +12 to damage on those reach attacks at level 3!
the Boon companion feat at level three makes up for the four levels of mounted fury not accounted for by its mount ability. Beast Rider even gives two more "free levels" of non companion progression classes if desired. I can't remember the name of it, but there is a rage and teamwork themed prestige class that could fit in well as a two level dip, but since that wouldn't be until after level 15 I didn't really bother with it. I tried to make the build I posted as functional as possible from level one onwards since most play starts low level and doesn't get past the mid levels.
My problem with Mammoth Rider is that a permanently huge companion can be a real problem of logistics if you're not playing in a campaign with constant open spaces. Not having half of your teamwork centric character be able to enter most dungeons/buildings is going to be so frustrating.
As for the build I'm thinking that full blooded Orc might be even more optimal. With bull aspect and rage a level three Mounted Fury/ Hunter could easily have a 26 strength: 16(base)+4(Orc)+4(Rage)+2(Bull Aspect)=26
That's a +12 to damage on those reach attacks at level 3!
Nice... okay good to know, I think I'm gonna mess with some builds now. Yeah- it won't matter for this BBEG i'm making at least, as the whole campaign is above ground, in a 80% rural setting. Takin a bunch of your barb build, and slapping a mammoth rider into it. Literally, Big Bad Evil Guy. (the mammoth's not the only thing that's big in this build)
p.s. funny that you mention orc too...
A war bull would be an awesome companion, but I think it's a little worse mechanically than a lot of the other charger companions. I'm looking at triceratops and rhinoceros right now because I think powerful charge>trample. I stumbled upon a rage power, Boar's Charge, that allows a level 12 Barbarian to automatically critical their gore attack on a charge. This would come online by the time the build has greater ferocious companion, so you could have a rhino or tops mount that always criticals on their powerful charge. It's much less focused on the reach/combat reflexes side of things unless you go for Primal Companion Hunter and use an evolution point to give the gore reach. That's not a bad idea really, as a the three early levels would get you reach on the gore, an increased damage die, and a set of claws to hit things that get too close.
Personally I think the cavalier is a weaker version of the hunter for what you want. Hunter provides constant teamwork feat sharing as opposed to numbers/day that need an activation time. The Hunter spells are far superior for debuffing/buffing (lead blades and entangle at level 1 are greater than most of what the cavalier has to offer) and the hunter gets a buttload of free feats since each teamwork feat counts twice.
If you want a character that has that kind of feel with challenge-eque things I would suggest a ranger/hunter build. You can use the first level spell, hunter's howl (that you would get much quicker because of how the hunter spell list works) to make any enemy in the radius a favored enemy and scare those that are already enemies. This can have a much greater potential swing of buffing/debuffing than the one on one action that the cavalier provides. Add in rapid shot and two levels of ranger seems like an awesome way to make a switch hitter that's still capable of these crazy AoO shenanigans.
Grab a Horsemaster's Saddle and get Amplified Rage.
Yeah bender I just found that today too... made me fizz a little. I'm sure this is old stuff to guys used to theorycrafting supermount builds but I really like where this is going with the AoO aspect and a much tankier companion. Primal Companion Hunter keeps popping up to the front of my mind since it is such an easy way to pimp out the companion. I'm pretty sure everything to do with the summoner was a major design misstep, but if you can get it to fly it offers so much more than the aspects and that was already a good class feature.
Aemesh I'm jealous I've always loved the Mammoth Rider but it's never been practical for me. Have fun!
As for the MF 12/ Hunter 8 build, Furious Guardian is the prestige class I was looking for earlier. It could be used as a one or two level dip. The second level gives a +5 bonus to save against attacking his ally if he managed to fail a save against a compulsion spell. This seems a bit less relevant for a PC since the dm could just choose a different target of attack, but it's perfect for your big bad orc NPC. I'm not quite sure how to work the prc in, but the only requirements are skills and BAB i'm pretty sure so it can definitely weasel its way in while still hitting come and get me at level 15.
I'm in love with browsing for animal companions rights now. The anklyosaurus is giving the stegasaurus a real run for its money as my favorite controller companion. The stun ability happens on every hit, it isn't some standard or full action attack and threatens to daze the target for one round. This plus broken wing gambit means a hunter could be doing the come and get me shtick by level 7.
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I've played a very similar build in PFS. Switched to SLOW advancement as soon as the mount came online. This combat style has worked out very well. Mine is just a Cleric with 1 level of Fighter, so not as optimized as can be a Hunter, but still very, very effective. Squishy allies are always well protected, unless they are too foolish and impatient to benefit from the protection. I think part of the reason our party was surprised in that encounter is that no one could believe the Bard would be so foolish.
My favorite aspect of this approach is how your movement is the main thing, not attacks during your turn. Even if you never attack on your turn this build is still viable. This has lead me to do silly & outrageous roleplaying things for my own action, such as eschewing attacks in order to give my opponent tips about melee combat, casting Create Water to dump water on someone's head, etc. This has caused 1 or 2 foes to surrender, where we would otherwise have killed them, so it's a moral victory.
Easy-mode PFS adventures are not built to handle this sort of powerful martial character. When on an early-season easy-mode adventure Rodinia usually stables her mount. When on a late-season hard-mode adventure like Bone Keep, of course, do whatever it takes to triumph.
is it possible to have multiple totems?
I don't think so. It's a pretty dumb restriction. There really should be a feat or an archetype at least that allows it.
Evolved Companion is a feat that gives a 1 point evolution to your companion if you can manage the 13 charisma. I like that it's permanent, but the builds are already pretty feat heavy.