Hi there,
Simple question: Can a 1st level Courtly Hunter have a Big Cat as my animal companion? I have a halfling that I want to have ride into town on a tiger on the first day or the campaign. It would be soooo cool.
Thanks for any help,
Graham C.
Hunter Animal Companion (Ex): "A hunter may begin play with any of the animals available to a druid."
Courtly hunter Courtly Companion: "A courtly hunter’s animal companion was touched by either the fey or the nature spirits that form leshys and answer to commune with nature, granting it its own intelligence. The companion’s type changes to magical beast (augmented animal), but this doesn’t change any of its statistics and it counts as an animal, not as a magical beast, for the purposes of determining all effects, prerequisites, and so on."
There doesn't seem to be any ambiguity; a courtly hunter can have any valid animal companion, including a big cat. At 1st level, the big cat courtly companion is Medium size, which allows the Small halfling to ride without needing to take the Undersized Mount feat.
A hunter may choose any animal companion that is available to a Druid. The courtly hunter archetype does not change this so you should be good unless your GM says otherwise.
Thanks guys!
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No problem. One thing to note about the courtly hunter archetype is that you loose many of the good combat oriented focus normally available to hunters. As a halfling you could take the Caretaker alternate racial trait to increase your pets strength a bit. You could also take the Totem Beast feat to apply aspect of the bull focus to your pet permanently and the Favored Animal Focus feat to increase aspect of the bull further. The Planar Focus feat can be taken to give your pet fire damage on each of its natural attacks. One final thing to keep in mind is that Courtly Hunter companions do not stack with any other companion granting classes so multiclassing into any of those will result in multiple non-stacking companions. Good luck in your upcoming game :)
One final thing to keep in mind is that Courtly Hunter companions do not stack with any other companion granting classes so multiclassing into any of those will result in multiple non-stacking companions.
However, you can get both a full-powered mount and a full-powered courtly companion with 4 levels of cavalier (any archetype that keeps Expert Trainer), Boon Companion, and Horse Master. You can have a halfling with both a canine mount (dog, wolf, or wolfdog) and a big cat companion if you really want (cue Bill Murray: "Cats and dogs living together! Mass hysteria!").