So I'm not really into playing classes with animals companions. Mostly because I don't enjoy having to control two characters at a time. But I am now looking into a level 8 Halfling Bard character concept that involves being mounted.
I was thinking of just dipping 1 level into cavalier, but I looked at the very limited mount options and then the stats for them are pretty bad as well. Then I was thinking that maybe I'd just buy a normal mount.
After further inspection it seems to me that the combat trained animals, as far as their bestiary entries go, are vastly superior than their animal companion counterparts. And they are cheap too. 75 gp for a combat trained Bison with a 27 STR!?
Anybody can chime in or share their experiences. What am I missing? Advantages or disadvantages of both? It should be noted that I do not intend to go more that 2 level Cavalier if any.
For one thing, Companions scale. Grow, gain HDs, and therefore feats, skills, etc.
Cattle does not.
Get a couple level further and regular mounts will be very fragile. As in, one round life expectancy, at best. At your level 9, they should already start being brittle.
Good thing they're cheap, as noted.
I would agree that taking one level ever only for a companion is a waste. One level and Boon Companion is already a different story, but even that will be limited, ultimately.
If you don't plan on putting them in unreasonable danger, standard animals could have their uses.
What is the point of being mounted? If it involves charging into melee your probably need a fairly durable mount or a reliable plan for when your mount get wasted.
If though it is being mobile for delivering ranged attacks, then a less durable mount might well be sufficient, especially if it is something nice, but not required for you.
I would recommend taking the animal ally feat. This gives you an animal companion that will scale with you meaning you don't have to dip into another class at all.
It's a 2 feat investment, but you don't have to worry about it not staying relevant after so many levels.
Another thing to consider are spells like mount and phantom steed. Sure, they can still get killed just like any other mount, but they last for hours and literally cost you nothing. You could go for something pricey like an wondrous figurine but you often have to wait before you can bring them out again when they get killed. Which is probably not good if your character is built around being mounted. So, even if you're willing to spend some cash, I would suggest picking up some pearls of power and/or a rod of extend so that you're not even spending more than one spell slot on the mount.
Edit: I just realized mount isnt a bard spell. But phantom steed is. Which may or may not be worth one of your 3rd level spellslots. But as i said using a meta magic rid of extend and a couple of pearls of power you wont be spending more than one spell slot on it.
Note that big combat trained animals that aren't animal companions may not be safe to have around. They tend to be skittish and aggressive and might well charge at carts going past, noisy dogs, small children... or they might run away from those which could be equally as destructive.
As mentioned above, Animal Companions will get stronger with every level you take in a class that gives you one. And depending on the class, they get other features too. For example, if you have 3 levels in Hunter, every time you take a Teamwork feat, your Companion automatically gets that feat for free. I used that feature to make a mounted Hunter that's very effective in melee from flanking and AoOs.