You cannot typically increase an animal's Intelligence past 2. If you manage to do so somehow, via awaken or other means, it ceases to be an animal and is now a magical beast, and probably no longer eligible to be an Animal Companion. You would need the Leadership feat to keep it as a cohort and thus it would act as any other NPC and could take the Familiar Bond feat if it really wanted to.
Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
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Your AC could have a familiar, but it is kind of pointless. Since you can only have one combat pet active at a time, you could either have your AC in play or his familiar. But when your AC is not in play, the familiar isn't either, because it's his familiar, not yours...
I suppose your AC could have a familiar that just rides around in it's familiar satchel and provides a static bonus, but that is about it.
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Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
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You cannot typically increase an animal's Intelligence past 2. If you manage to do so somehow, via awaken or other means, it ceases to be an animal and is now a magical beast, and probably no longer eligible to be an Animal Companion. You would need the Leadership feat to keep it as a cohort and thus it would act as any other NPC and could take the Familiar Bond feat if it really wanted to.
You can advance the animal's inteligence past 2 many different ways actually, without using awaken (which isn't PFS legal, neither is leadership.) It stay an animal, just a very smart one.
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Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
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The answers you are looking for are in the FAQ for PFS
Specifically:
How many animals can I have at any given time?
Can I improve my companion’s Intelligence to 3 or higher and give it weapon feats?
I missed that this was under the PFS thread. PFS has some silly rules.
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You cannot typically increase an animal's Intelligence past 2. If you manage to do so somehow, via awaken or other means, it ceases to be an animal and is now a magical beast, and probably no longer eligible to be an Animal Companion. You would need the Leadership feat to keep it as a cohort and thus it would act as any other NPC and could take the Familiar Bond feat if it really wanted to.
This is incorrect, and its not a silly PFS house rule, its right in the druid section spelling you explicitly that you can do this, and further clarified in the monkey see monkey do blog that the 2 int thing was for designing monsters, not a global rule.
Skills: This lists the animal's total skill ranks. Animal companions can assign skill ranks to any skill listed under Animal Skills. If an animal companion increases its Intelligence to 10 or higher, it gains bonus skill ranks as normal. Animal companions with an Intelligence of 3 or higher can purchase ranks in any skill. An animal companion cannot have more ranks in a skill than it has Hit Dice.
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I missed that this was under the PFS thread. PFS has some silly rules.
This isn't exactly a PFS specific rule, this is pretty much a core rule. You can increase your animal's intelligence, but it stays an animal. This was covered by a general blog post a few years back.
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The short answer to the original poster:
Yes, if you
1. Increase its intelligence to 3 or more
2. Take Iron Will
3. Take familiar bond
I actually do have a character that has done this. The familiar is the "mascot"'archetype and it's just fun to have it go around cheering up everyone. (Nothing mechanical, it's roleplaying fluff that can be played down when time is an issue.) This character is definitely in the realm of "role-playing" not optimization.
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Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
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The short answer to the original poster:
Yes, if you
1. Increase its intelligence to 3 or more
2. Take Iron Will
3. Take familiar bondI actually do have a character that has done this. The familiar is the "mascot"'archetype and it's just fun to have it go around cheering up everyone. (Nothing mechanical, it's roleplaying fluff that can be played down when time is an issue.) This character is definitely in the realm of "role-playing" not optimization.
True, flavorwise it is awesome. I was just looking at it mechanically as far as mechanical benefits when I said it was pointless.
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You cannot typically increase an animal's Intelligence past 2. If you manage to do so somehow, via awaken or other means, it ceases to be an animal and is now a magical beast, and probably no longer eligible to be an Animal Companion. You would need the Leadership feat to keep it as a cohort and thus it would act as any other NPC and could take the Familiar Bond feat if it really wanted to.
There are several ways to bump up an AC's Intelligence score, including at least one way that works as of 1st level.
Most common way:
At effective Druid level 4, and every 5 levels thereafter, the Druid's AC gains an ability score increase, just like PCs do at every 4th level. There is nothing in the rules stating that the Druid's AC has its Intelligence stat be excluded from the list of legal targets for this increase.
Less common, but not unheard of:
Human alternate racial trait:
Eye for Talent: Humans have great intuition for hidden potential. They gain a +2 racial bonus on Sense Motive checks. In addition, when they acquire an animal companion, bonded mount, cohort, or familiar, that creature gains a +2 bonus to one ability score of the character's choice. This racial trait replaces the bonus feat trait.
No limitation there, either, saying it couldn't boost Int.
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It has always been my understanding that you have to increase Int to at least 3 on a Druid's animal companion so that it can take certain feats, for instance teamwork feats and also in order to be able to understand Common so that you have it take commands from a party member when you are wild shaped.
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It has always been my understanding that you have to increase Int to at least 3 on a Druid's animal companion so that it can take certain feats, for instance teamwork feats and also in order to be able to understand Common so that you have it take commands from a party member when you are wild shaped.
First part is correct. Your animal companion must have an Int of 3 or more to take feats other than the ones listed in the Druid section.
Second part is incorrect. Even if your animal companion understands common, it still takes a Handle Animal check to make it act. You can make Handle Animal checks even while wildshaped (a gesture with your maw or something similar). Your allies (or enemies) can make Handle Animal checks whether or not your AC understands common (unless you gave it the "exclusive" trick).
