|
Hey there.
Tigers are awesome animal companions, but can you give me some more details on the character that you are playing? What are you multiclassing hunter with? What level are you? What race?
My sylvan sorceress, Zahra, has a high-int tiger. I got Pumpkin to a high int by choosing to give up my first bonus feat as a human for "Eye for Talent" and boosting his int. This allowed me to take feats that tigers don't normally qualify for, use ioun stones with the tiger, etc. Pumpkin has a slew of great and useful tricks, and frequently grapples bad guys and captures them alive. Pumpkin has the Improved Grapple chain of feats, plus Lookout (a teamwork feat he shares with Zahra.)
I've also seen people train their tigers to go dragon style fighting, which works beautifully with tiger abilities. It requires a large investment of animal companion skills in acrobatics though... However, human hunters can add skill points to their animal companion as a favored class bonus, making this more feasible.
You can also raise your tigers int by getting them to level four and boosting that attribute.
The feat "boon companion" is also a must for multi-classers, because it allows you to raise your animal companion four levels -- up to the level of your character, if you have 4 levels in something else.
What are you looking to do with your tiger?
Hmm
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
The human eye for talent racial option is the easiest way to have a smarter companion.
|
Headband of Vast Intelligence
Human Race Trait: Eye for Talent
Bonus ability score points for each 4 hit dice.
Headband offers the addition of one skill at max ranks. For every 2 points it increases the Int score. For example my level 4 human hunter just got a headband +2 for his animal. This gives him 6 more tricks, and his hit dice in skill ranks for stealth. When I go with a +4 headband I will add Acrobatics.
Human Race Trait: Eye for talent lets you pick one ability score to add +2. However it must be taken at level 1. It dose not give you skill ranks because 2 + Int mod is still negative and you get 1 mini. So in order for the animal to get more skill they will need a Int of 10.
Edit: Just a reminder. You can't make it smarter and by pass the need for handle animal. You still much have skill in handled animal to get it to do tricks. It is only a 10, or 12 for known tricks. However you still need to get a DC 25 to get the animal companion to do tricks it is not trained in.
Once the animal has intelligence over 2, it can put a rank in linguistics to learn languages. It still can't talk, but it can understand most of the meaning of your words.
|
|
Hey this is Hmm, Zahra's player. I'm posting again to talk more about dragon-style and why it's great for tigers.
If you can get that int raised early (via the 4th level attribute bonus and boon companion), you can take improved unarmed strike which opens up both improved grapple and dragon style combat. It allows your tiger to charge through both difficult terrain and allies. At later levels, when the tiger gets pounce, this ability becomes fantastic. The issue with dragon style is planning. You need three ranks of acrobatics to take it, and animal companions get very few skill points.
Humans, half-elves, half-orcs and aasimar with scion of humanity trait can all add skill ranks to their animal companions via the hunter FCB.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Hey this is Hmm, Zahra's player. I'm posting again to talk more about dragon-style and why it's great for tigers.
If you can get that int raised early (via the 4th level attribute bonus and boon companion), you can take improved unarmed strike which opens up both improved grapple and dragon style combat. It allows your tiger to charge through both difficult terrain and allies. At later levels, when the tiger gets pounce, this ability becomes fantastic. The issue with dragon style is planning. You need three ranks of acrobatics to take it, and animal companions get very few skill points.
Humans, half-elves, half-orcs and aasimar with scion of humanity trait can all add skill ranks to their animal companions via the hunter FCB.
Not to be a wet blanket, but aren't unarmed strikes and natural weapons considered two different things. Wouldn't a tiger's claws and bite attacks be considered natural weapons and not unarmed strikes by the rules. The wording found in the feral combat training feat would seam to support this. Depending how your dm rules, your tiger comapion may have to take feral combat training in order utilize the last benefit of the dragon style combat feat.
Inara is the best companion, but Rose Tyler and Amy Pond ain't bad either. ;-)
You can give an animal companion the Light Armor Proficiency feat and you can give it a +5 chain shirt barding and improve its AC by 9.
Inara is the best companion, but Rose Tyler and Amy Pond ain't bad either. ;-)
You can give an animal companion the Light Armor Proficiency feat and you can give it a +5 chain shirt barding and improve its AC by 9.
Why not make it out of mithril instead and reduce the armor penalty down to 0 and not waste a feat slot for light armor proficiency.
Why not make it out of mithril instead and reduce the armor penalty down to 0 and not waste a feat slot for light armor proficiency.Inara is the best companion, but Rose Tyler and Amy Pond ain't bad either. ;-)
You can give an animal companion the Light Armor Proficiency feat and you can give it a +5 chain shirt barding and improve its AC by 9.
Mostly out of habit. :-P My 3.5 elf druid had a wardog animal companion came with Light Armor Proficiency from the war-trained feature. And we kind of assumed (I know, I know....) that since druids cannot wear metal armor, their animal companions couldn't wear metal armor. Well, I know my druid wasn't going to spend metal coins for metal armor.... My dog wore leather scale armor (base AC +3) in 3.5. Maybe I upgraded it to darkwood ironwood breastplate at higher levels.
Why not make it out of mithril instead and reduce the armor penalty down to 0 and not waste a feat slot for light armor proficiency.Inara is the best companion, but Rose Tyler and Amy Pond ain't bad either. ;-)
You can give an animal companion the Light Armor Proficiency feat and you can give it a +5 chain shirt barding and improve its AC by 9.
Mostly out of habit. :-P My 3.5 elf druid had a wardog animal companion came with Light Armor Proficiency from the war-trained feature. And we kind of assumed (I know, I know....) that since druids cannot wear metal armor, their animal companions couldn't wear metal armor. Well, I know my druid wasn't going to spend metal coins for metal armor.... My dog wore leather scale armor (base AC +3) in 3.5. Maybe I upgraded it to darkwood ironwood breastplate at higher levels.
Mithril can get costly, especially in barding, and the debate about multiplying the cost modifier is a debated issue in the past when it comes to making barding with it. Chain shirts give +4 armor bonus to AC and comes with a -2 penalty. If making it out of mithril costs to much, why not make the barding out of studded leather armor, it gives a +3 armor bonus to AC and has -1 penalty, which can be negated by making the armor/barding masterwork. Much cheaper and all you lose is a +1 armor bonus. Animal Companions have a limited number of feats they can take, and in my opinion unless you are going to pursue medium or heavy armor to wear, light armor proficiency for an animal companion is a waste for a feat slot.
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
The idea of dragon style is just to ignore difficult terrain and allies when you charge, so you can get your charge pounce of doom anytime you want. The 1.5 str modifier is secondary, and I wouldn't really care if I got it at all. Certainly wouldn't waste a feat of feral combat training on it.
The idea of dragon style is just to ignore difficult terrain and allies when you charge, so you can get your charge pounce of doom anytime you want. The 1.5 str modifier is secondary, and I wouldn't really care if I got it at all. Certainly wouldn't waste a feat of feral combat training on it.
true there. That is way I said the last part of the feat. Sorry if I sounded rude on that. Still a great feat with or without feral combat training.
|
|
Exactly!
If I had planned Pumpkin's skill points better, I could have had that feat on Pumpkin! I only saw it as an option much later. The bonus to charge is great!
Back to the OP: so your character has 4 levels of investigator, and she's transitioning to hunter. That's perfect. It means that at this level, she can take Boon companion feat and get a tiger buddy that is her level. If she stays hunter, her tiger companion will level with her.
So, her tiger starts out as a fifth level animal companion.
This means that you can start your animal buddy out with an int of 3, figuring in the attribute boost. It also means that you have 5 skill points and 3 feats. You can plan for 3 points in acrobatics, improved unarmed strike and dragon style combat -- if you decide that is how you want to go.
If you are doing a lot of dungeoneering, you may also want to plan for giving your tiger narrow frame feat in anticipation of the level 7 growth spurt.
Alternative: Hunters can cast reduce animal. Invest in some scrolls of that before 7th level if you want to have another feat option.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
If she is planning on archery and wants to ride her tiger, the dragon style, and to a large extent anything that buffs up an animal companion isn't really necessary. Even boon companion, although nice, isn't necessary.
The trick to mounted archery is having mobility to move (and stay out of melee) while still making full attacks. I would say a maxed out ride skill and mounted combat would often be a better choice than boon companion. If she is a medium sized char though, she will probably want a different (large) companion for a few levels, so she can ride it from the beginning. If she wants to ride a tiger as soon as possible, boon companion will be necessary, although the 7th level feat would work fine for that.
Of course a few ranks of perform (sing) is necessary so you can belt out 'Eye of the Tiger' during fights.
|
|
Actually, Boon companion is still needed. Otherwise the tiger won't be high enough level to have the right number of feats and skill points for Dragon style, and she'd have to wait too long for it to be large enough to ride.
+1 to performing Eye of the Tiger during battles. Alternately, she could chant "The Tyger" by William Blake. That could be pretty badass as a literary reference.
Actually, Boon companion is still needed. Otherwise the tiger won't be high enough level to have the right number of feats and skill points for Dragon style, and she'd have to wait too long for it to be large enough to ride.
Dragon style isn't very useful for a mounted archer.
|
|
Your animal companion's abilities are determined by your effective druid level. These abilities include raising hit dice, str+dex increases, feats, skill points, etc. In other words, the total "level" of your animal companion is determined by your effective druid level. You don't want a companion that is four levels behind you. Such companions die quickly and cannot do much.