Devil monkey animal companion and ranged attack optimization

[grindyelmo]

For an upcoming Carrion Crown game I'm building a small Aasimar Sylvan Sorcerer focused on polymorphing his animal companion and blasting. My animal companion will be a devil monkey and I'm thinking of optimizing him around his rock throwing ability gained at 4th level for when he's not or right before he's polymorphed. It's going to be a small group of 3 PCs (standard Magus, Anglefire Apostle Cleric focused on summoning and me). Those are the feats I thought about, from level 3 onward he has intelligence 3 for feats.

1 Combat Reflexes
2 Power Attack
5 Hefty Brute
8
10 Vital Strike
13

What would you add or change? Are there any sorcerer spells that come to your mind that would help like animal growth? Do Multiattack or higher BAB enable more throws per round and would quick draw be needed? I noticed the startoss style feats but rocks aren't in the thrown weapon fighter category so it probably won't work RAW. What polymorphed forms do have rock throwing or similar abilities that would benefit from the selected feats?

I know that's a lot of questions but your help is very appreciated!

[zza ni]

just like to point out that at level 4 your druid level for companion will still count as 1st level unless you take boon companion feat as the bloodline get -3 when counting the druid level.
(Animal Companion (Ex): You gain an animal companion. Your effective druid level for this ability is equal to your sorcerer level – 3 (minimum 1st). ...)
so unless you take boon companion faet you'll have to wait to level 7 for it to gain stone throwing

[Name Violation]

you'll want point blank shot and precise shot for starters, probably deadly aim too.

[grindyelmo]

Thanks for your answers. Yes, my PC will take both Boon Companion as well as Celestial Servant. Celestial Devil Monkey was just to tempting to pass up.

Deadly Aim is a great idea! I don't know about Precise Shot / Point Blank Shot... I feel like the monkey will just throw until enemies are close enough to attack in melee or be polymorphed in round 2.

How do you think it'll be damage-wise in midgame?

[avr]

grindyelmo wrote:

How do you think it'll be damage-wise in midgame?

At 6th level you're looking at +8 attack, 1d6+7 damage (you may increase one of those values by 1 w/the 4HD increase). The attack value is orange by Derklord's bench-pressing spreadsheet and the damage is close enough to orange as well. This makes it poor but not unusable. Of course the monkey is just a class feature, not a PC (I assume the sorc. will be contributing too) and the figure is pre-buffs.

[grindyelmo]

Thanks for that very useful link!
I also did a calculation and come up with:
Lvl 6
+4 BAB +4 DEX +1 racial -1 large size = +8
2d6 +10 1,5*STR = 17

+1 racial to hit and 1.5*STR to damage come from rock throwing (ex). Base damage should be 1d8 according to FAQ for large size (same as the hill giant) but Hefty Brute gives us a size increase. Possibly +6 damage if the monkey smites evil from celestial subtype.
So it's between green and orange without buffs or whatever the sorcerer does. I think I'll just go with it and see how it performs in the real game!
Thanks everyone for your insights!