Making my own Animal Companion

[Roco]

I don't think there's any material out there for how to follow a set string of rules to make a custom Animal Companion but I really want to flavor one for the upcoming campaign I'll be playing in.

You might think "Just be a summoner, Eidolon is a build your own animal companion" and I wanted to, trust me! But, our group is deadly afraid of summoner, even the unchained version. (I've never once played or seen one played but I've always wanted to)

So, instead I decided to go with another pet synergistic class: The Hunter.

As I was building the hunter (going for switch hitter build. I know it's not optimal all too well, but I like the flavor of being able to ride into combat with arrows and switch to melee as needed. Also yes, the animal companion will be used as a mount) I realized the idea of the character I was going for and the idea I had for the animal companion, didn't really fit a normal "Animal". Would fit perfectly for an eidolon but alas...

Our group is pretty okay with flavoring things to look or be like whatever we want so long as it makes sense and doesn't change anything mechanically.

So looks wise this is what I doodled:
Uru, Spirit of the Forest

I was wanting something akin to a plant like otherworldly fey animal creature. (Part of that I thought would be cool is parts of its body, mainly the limbs, are made using woven together vines)

I'm also taking the Courtly Hunter Archetype to better fit that flavor too, as it describes your animal companion being "Fey Touched". Plus, making it shrink to tiny size will certainly be nice as something like this walking into town would definitely turn heads or cause some sort of ruckus.

So anyways, down to the build, I went back and forth between just Generic Wolf, or even the Gulper Plant, and a few other options along both the plant and mammal line of things, but nothing seemed to really fit.

So I came up with my own trying to keep things balanced and inline with things like the wolf, plants, and other baseline creatures that aren't super powerful.

Size: Medium
Speed: 40 ft. Climb 20ft
AC: +2
Attack: Bite (1d6 plus grab) + 2 Claws [or maybe flavor as vines attacks?] (1d4) [maybe just the bite and no extra attacks?]
Ability Scores: STR: 14, Dex 15, Con 14, Int 2, Wis 13, Cha 6 [same as the Riding Elk]
Special Attacks: Swallow Whole (1d6 acid)
Special Qualities: Freeze, Low-light vision [instead of freeze maybe scent? Or Maybe Dark Vision?]

7th lvl advancement:
Size: Large
AC: +3 Nat
Attack: Bite (1d8 plus Grab) + 2 Claws (1d6)
ABility scores: +8 STR, -2 Dex, +4 Con
Special attack: Swallow Whole (1d8 acid)

So that's what I came up with. What are your thoughts? Under powered, over powered, just right? Is there a way to better balance it (like 1st party material that actually covers making your own companion)? How would you build this creature concept?

[Cavall]

This belongs more in the homebrew section, but there is a hunter archetype that adds in some summoner options. That may help you get the best of both worlds and fix your issue.

[Roco]

Cavall wrote:

This belongs more in the homebrew section, but there is a hunter archetype that adds in some summoner options. That may help you get the best of both worlds and fix your issue.

I think I know the one you mean, primal companion. The problem with that particular archetype is the evolutions are temporary, and it got nerfed into the ground.

It was one of the first archetypes I looked at but it doesn't fit very well with what I want to do. Even the un-nerfed version, while it would have been way more versatile, still wouldn't feel right cus the evolutions are temporary.

Thanks for the suggestion though!

As for whether this should be in Homebrew, not sure. This is more asking for advice but it is technically a Homebrew if there is no official material for making your own AC

[LordKailas]

I think it really depends on what you're looking for. There aren't really rules for making your own animal companion. But there are enough animal companions and archetypes that you can mix and match to get something close to what you want.

Thematically you can have a plant wolf animal companion by taking the Verdant Companion Archetype and just applying it to a normal wolf. Ability and statwise though, it won't be much different then a normal wolf.

Another way to go is to pick something that has all the abilities you're looking for and then just "say" it looks like a plant wolf instead of the thing it would normally look like. It sounds like your group would be amenable to this, so this is probably the easiest path to create the custom creature you want.

The abilities you seem to be looking for are
climb speed
1 bite and 2 claws or 1 bite
grab
swallow whole
low light vision and/or darkvision
freeze or scent
Large size

If you absolutely need swallow whole the gulper plant is the only one that has swallow whole and is large. Making it your only option.

If you're willing to drop swallow whole or your group lets your animal companion take the Gluttonous Gobbler feat then your options open up a bit. Any of the following seem to give you most if not everything you're looking for otherwise.

Verdant Giant Chameleon: plant-like, climb speed, 1 bite, grab, low light vision, large size, doesn't have the freeze or scent ability.

Verdant Marsupial Lion: plant-like, climb speed, 1 bite and 2 claws, grab, low light vision, scent, large size.

Verdant Constrictor Snake: plant-like, climb speed & swim speed, 1 bite, grab, low light vision, scent, large size.

Verdant Titanoboa: plant-like, climb speed & swim speed, 1 bite, grab, low light vision, scent, large size.

Crawling Vine: plant, climb speed, 1 slam, grab, low light vision, scent, large size.

IMO the I think the verdant Marsupial Lion is the closest match since even its overall shape is close to what you're looking for.

If you have an animal companion who has the swallow whole ability (either naturally or with the feat above) you'll probably want to go ahead and grab the feat Hefty Brute as well. Also, if you really want it to have some kind of vines it can attack with you can take the feat evolved companion and just select the tentacle evolution.

[Dave Justus]

It looks to me like you took the gulper companion and then just made everything from speed to ac to stats better. That wouldn't fly in my games.

Also, freeze is a fairly useless ability most of the time. I wouldn't let anyone trade it for something like scent or darkvision.

[pauljathome]

For what its worth, my reaction as a GM to this would be
"No, you cannot build your own animal companion. What I WILL allow you, however, is to reflavor an existing PFS legal animal companion any way that you want. With 200 odd (ok, probably an exageration :-)) companions that should suffice"

Edit: At first glance your suggested companion seems far too powerful.

[Roco]

Dave Justus wrote:

It looks to me like you took the gulper companion and then just made everything from speed to ac to stats better. That wouldn't fly in my games.

Also, freeze is a fairly useless ability most of the time. I wouldn't let anyone trade it for something like scent or darkvision.

Well to be fair,the gulper plants stats are complete s##!. Or maybe I'm valuing swallow whole too low. But that's really all it has and it's stats don't let it even do that well.

I also agree freeze is pretty useless but it's a fun flavor mechanic.

LordKailas wrote:

I think it really depends on what you're looking for. There aren't really rules for making your own animal companion. But there are enough animal companions and archetypes that you can mix and match to get something close to what you want.

Thematically you can have a plant wolf animal companion by taking the Verdant Companion Archetype and just applying it to a normal wolf. Ability and statwise though, it won't be much different then a normal wolf.
.....

That's a really extensive group of suggestions! I've never seen the brute or sort of swallow whole feat ability. pretty neat!

Thanks for the ideas.

Quote:

For what its worth, my reaction as a GM to this would be
"No, you cannot build your own animal companion. What I WILL allow you, however, is to reflavor an existing PFS legal animal companion any way that you want. With 200 odd (ok, probably an exageration :-)) companions that should suffice"

Edit: At first glance your suggested companion seems far too powerful.

It certainly is stronger than base plant creatures, but I tried to avoid making it stronger than a striker pet like a big cat with pounce. But I could be wrong, maybe swallow whole is a strong ability.

[Cavall]

Plant is a strong ability, more like it.