Paladin's Divine Bond

[Stokkem]

Hey, I'm a level 4 paladin, and I know that I'm going to level up next session. We're a party of 4, me, summoner, witch and a ninja. I'm the only tanky one, and they heavily depend on me to take or deflect the hits. We already know who we must fight (High level antipaladin) later in the campaign, because he's hunting down our ninja (his sister).

My question is, would taking animal companion debilitate my abilities as a paladin severely, especially since the weapon bond scales so well. Is it too big a sacrifice to take the animal companion, especially if I'm going to fight an antipaladin?!

Secondly, my GM says he will give me more options if I choose the animal companion, and I'm not stuck to mounts necessarily. I can take small cats and constrictor snakes, and potentially dinosaurs, if he so has decided (they're in the campaign).

I know from most guides, they say take the weapon because it's so good, but the potential of an animal companion tripping or overrunning your target is now open to me, does that sway this the other way?

sorry for the long post, thanks for any answers!

TLDR It's my inner min/max needing a reason to pick animal companion over the corrupting forces of the divine weapon bond.

[Chess Pwn]

The animal companion is the stronger choice, especially if you can pick a really cool one. Having a complete set of actions is greater than a small weapon boost for a few minutes

[Stokkem]

@Chess Pwn
I'm leaning towards going for an animal companion. In addition I'm playing Suli so I get elemental blast once a day, for rds=my lvl. I should go with my heart on this one and just pick the darn animal companion, thanks for helping me get over my indeciciveness :D

[Goblin_Priest]

At my table we always take an item but honestly the mount sounds better, the more I look at it. I never use my divine bond because it's not worth the action to activate...

[Melkiador]

The mount should be good. You'll eventually be able to buy a wand of carry companion which should make it much more convenient.

[Mysterious Stranger]

The weapon bond is usually considered stronger because of the lack of opportunity to use a mount. If you are playing a medium size race that means your mount has to be large. Trying to get a horse in a dungeon or in a building is often difficult or impossible. This means the divine bound is severely underused and in some cases almost useless. Mounted combat also requires investment in feats and skills, both of which a paladin has in short supply. The weapon bond on the other hand can be used with any weapon so always available. If your GM is allowing you to expand the list to include animals that you can easily take with you this changes things.

Another thing to consider is that even with the 6 INT from being a bounded mount your companion is still an animal. This means that you need the skill Handle Animal to get to push it perform a task not covered by one of its tricks. This is a DC 25 but it is a CHA based class skill, and you do get a +4 to the roll for it being your animal companion. Paladins don’t have that many skill points and playing a race with a INT penalty means you probably have less than normal. If you have not been investing in handle animal you are going to need to pumping that as high as you can. Handle Animal is a trained only skill so if you don’t put points into it you only get a straight CHA roll to push it.

If you have not already put any points into it your roll will probably be around a +8 without the bonus for being an animal companion. This is going to mean your pet is not going to be well behaved and you will have trouble controlling it out of combat. Controlling in combat is probably going to be ok because it will have enough tricks to allow you to control it. So you should be able to prevent your animal companion from eating the prisoner, but it may decide to “Mark its territory” at inappropriate times and places. This is assuming you do put some skill point into handle animal. If you don’t it will probably be a lot of trouble out of combat. Once you get your roll to +15 you should be able to take 10 on most out of combat pushes so it is no longer a problem.

[Fuzzy-Wuzzy]

If you are not semi-permanently with this GM, take the cool (non-mount) A/C because you will probably not have the opportunity to do so with a paladin again, whereas you can always play one with weapon bond.

[Childeric, The Shatterer]

If your DM is willing to let you break the normal rules by getting a non-mount companion, go for it. You might never get the chance to do something cool like that with a paladin again. Besides, you can always just upgrade your weapon the same way everyone else does.

[Chess Pwn]

You don't ride your mount, riding it is an awful idea. Get a nice something and have it be an extra party member.

handle animal is a class skill, and you have a good CHA and you get a +4 for it being your Animal companion. This puts you at a +12, which lets it do any trick it knows even while injured. That's all the investment into the skill to have a well trained animal fight for you.

[Java Man]

Or if your GM uses the explanations of various companions in Ult Camp there is the "Sentient Companions: A sentient companion (a creature that can understand language and has an Intelligence score of at least 3) is considered your ally and obeys your suggestions and orders to the best of its ability. It won't necessarily blindly follow a suicidal order, but it has your interests at heart and does what it can to keep you alive. Paladin bonded mounts, familiars, and cohorts fall into this category, and are usually player-controlled companions." No handle animal needed.

And the ability to summon your buddy to your side can help get it up cliffs and down chimneys.