Animal Ally feat stacking

[Baumfluch]

Hi,

got 2 questions about the animal ally feat. (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/animal-ally)

1: "must not have an animal companion or mount that advances as an animal companion."
Does that mean i cannot pick that feat if i start level 1 as a druid or knight or sth?

2: If i start my charakter with 5 levels of Fighter, i can pick nature soul level 1 and animal ally level 5. my effective druid level would be 2. (5-3)
Not i go into inquisitor - sacred huntsman (or any other class with full druid level) for the next 5 levels, would my effective druid level be 12?

calculation:
5 levels in INQ-SH would grant me 5 effective hunter levels (=druid levels)

animal ally grants effective druin level 7 (character level 10 - 3) and explicitly says that it stacks with other sources.

isnt it stupid that i must spent full 5 levels of none-animal-companion class? im thinking about fighter / sacred hunter but want my animal companion at full progression. i´d prefer going into the sacred hunter first and dip in the fighter later, but that seems not to work.

[Christopher Dudley]

Baumfluch wrote:

Hi,

got 2 questions about the animal ally feat. (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/animal-ally)

1: "must not have an animal companion or mount that advances as an animal companion."
Does that mean i cannot pick that feat if i start level 1 as a druid or knight or sth?

2: If i start my charakter with 5 levels of Fighter, i can pick nature soul level 1 and animal ally level 5. my effective druid level would be 2. (5-3)
Not i go into inquisitor - sacred huntsman (or any other class with full druid level) for the next 5 levels, would my effective druid level be 12?

calculation:
5 levels in INQ-SH would grant me 5 effective hunter levels (=druid levels)

animal ally grants effective druin level 7 (character level 10 - 3) and explicitly says that it stacks with other sources.

isnt it stupid that i must spent full 5 levels of none-animal-companion class? im thinking about fighter / sacred hunter but want my animal companion at full progression. i´d prefer going into the sacred hunter first and dip in the fighter later, but that seems not to work.

1. Yes. That's exactly what that means.

2. No, you do not add the 5 again; you've already added them. You add the effective druid level from your Sacred Huntsmaster class, which is 5, to the 2 you got from being a Fighter with Animal Ally, for a total of 7. If you gain more levels in any other class, you will continue to gain an effective druid level for your companion. But you will never have an effective druid level greater than your character level - 3.

(ETA: some clarification)

[GinoA]

You may be looking for http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/boon-companion

[Diego Rossi]

It has already been replied for other similar feats. No.
it applies only to the classes that don't give you levels for the animal companion abilities.

A better editing of the feat text would have been useful, but the intent is clear.

[Baumfluch]

by raw i guess it would overstack.

the feat refers to the characterlevel wich is 10.
my character level is 10. im not a fighter with animal ally feat, im a 10th level fighter/Inquisitor with the feat...

so it seems it's kind of an unwritten rule that your animal cant be on a higher druid-level then your character level. im fine with that.

with the sacred-hunter/fighter i could get it up to character-level using the boon companion feat. i can pick 4 levels as fighter and boon companion increases my pets level by 4 to a maximum of my character level.

Still, if somehow possible, i´d like to get it up with an ordinary INQ picking the animal domain. (dont wanna lose judgement due to Sacred Hunter archetype).
that would work out with my first way, but not with boon comapion since i need to get the fighter at least on level 3 for armortraining II (using the "sash of the warchampion")...

[Chess Pwn]

you can only count a level once. So a level can either count as option 1 or option 2, not both at once.

[Melkiador]

Chess Pwn wrote:

you can only count a level once. So a level can either count as option 1 or option 2, not both at once.

I don't think that's actually a rule though.

[Sah]

Wouldn't the feat stop working as soon as you took a level in a class that grants an animal companion? Maybe not from the way it's worded, but I was under the impression that's how it worked.

[CBDunkerson]

Baumfluch wrote:

2: If i start my charakter with 5 levels of Fighter, i can pick nature soul level 1 and animal ally level 5. my effective druid level would be 2. (5-3)

Not i go into inquisitor - sacred huntsman (or any other class with full druid level) for the next 5 levels, would my effective druid level be 12?

calculation:
5 levels in INQ-SH would grant me 5 effective hunter levels (=druid levels)
animal ally grants effective druin level 7 (character level 10 - 3) and explicitly says that it stacks with other sources.

The feat covers this;

"If you later gain an animal companion through another source (such as the Animal domain, divine bond, hunter's bond, mount, or nature bond class features), the effective druid level granted by this feat stacks with that granted by other sources."

So... you had an effective Druid level of 2 from Fighter 5 - 3. Then you added 5 effective Druid levels with Sacred Huntsman. 2 + 5 = 7.

Quote:

isnt it stupid that i must spent full 5 levels of none-animal-companion class? im thinking about fighter / sacred hunter but want my animal companion at full progression. i´d prefer going into the sacred hunter first and dip in the fighter later, but that seems not to work.

The Animal Ally feat exists so that classes which can't normally get a companion can do so early in their careers... however there is nothing FORCING you to do it that way. You CAN go into Sacred Huntsman first and then dip fighter later... only then you'd want to take Boon Companion and/or possibly the Huntmaster feat.