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Boon companion doesn't do usualy anything for a druid since it doesn't let the companion advance above your level.
Did they grab the AC from the animal domain option?
Boon Companion
Your bond with your animal companion or familiar is unusually close.Prerequisite: Animal companion class feature or familiar class feature.
Benefit: The abilities of your animal companion or familiar are calculated as though your class were 4 levels higher, to a maximum effective druid level equal to your character level.
Animal Domain
You can speak with and befriend animals with ease. In addition, you treat Knowledge (nature) as a class skill.Granted Powers
Speak with Animals (Sp): You can speak with animals, as per the spell, for a number of rounds per day equal to 3 + your cleric level.
Animal Companion (Ex): At 4th level, you gain the service of an animal companion. Your effective druid level for this animal companion is equal to your cleric level – 3. (Druids who take this ability through their nature bond class feature use their druid level – 3 to determine the abilities of their animal companions).
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Its base will save is +3 at level 10. It is +7 vs enchantments due to devotion, but it still wont be great.
Just hit its will save. If it has int 3, it is suspectible to a fair bit of things on top of what it normally is.It also gets knocked out cold after receiving 3 intellignce damage
You'll have to account for the additional modifications to its ability scores from the advanced creature template that the Atavism spell adds (+4 to every ability score).
As for the original question, are you requiring the Druid to 'handle' the animal during combat in order to issue instruction? The tricks that the creature 'knows' (whether from being taught or druid companion bonus tricks) are all based around the Handle Animal skill and should most likely be unavailable for use during the time in which Atavism is active. This is important because the druid can no longer 'free action' handle the animal and must resort to a 'push' (which is a move action) to get it to perform the basic tricks (except 'attack') it is used to doing while under the effects of the spell. The spell makes the critter MORE wild and primal, not less.
So, if you are fighting obviously unnatural enemies, the animal is not very likely to want to attack them and must be pushed. If you want to issue a command to 'flank' the enemy, you must push the animal.
Last of all, stop letting them get three rounds to buff themselves. More than one round is already pushing it.
Our group basically banned anything like an animal companions (as well as Eidolons) or anything that gave you a second "character" to play for this very reason. It was way to easy for them to dominate the game. Just the fact that it gave the player more actions per round in combat was enough for us to take a look at it, and it became broken with the Cleric raising an army of skeletons, or the druid summoning a bunch of Huge Earth elementals.
We still allow tamer companions such a traditional familiars, or certain builds like the mounted paladin, but in general we have a house rule of no major "companion" builds.
I'm running the AP Reigns of Winter and we are at the start of the 4th module around level 10. I have a group of 5 players (Monk, Rogue, Alchemist, Druid and a Shifter) and I have a growing problem in handling the Druid and, specifically, his animal companion.
To put it simply the Druid has a snow leopard as animal companion, and uses the combination of two spells (atavism + animal growth) and boon companion feat, to have an overwhelmingly strong creature that can simply tank and finish easily any encounter previously balanced for the rest of the group.
As an example: after 3 rounds of buffs ...
On top of that: the druid uses animal shape to fly and avoid being targeted while casting buffs or AoE spells far away while his animal destroy everything. ...
I think there's a two-part answer to this.
The first, and most obvious, involves scaling up the CR of your encounters. I'm curious to know whether your encounters thus far reflect traditional APL/CR, or if they're already scaled up to take the animal companion as a separate PC. With respect, the proposals you listed so far feel kind of ad-hoc; perhaps you need a more focused approach with regard to the CR of the encounter, the number of creatures normally listed, adjusting said number of creatures, etc.
The second, and perhaps more tricky, comes down to what you identified already. You know the animal companion's strengths, you know it takes three rounds for the animal companion to reach "critical mass," and you know the Druid relies on distance and flight to carry this out. Do your encounters take this into account already? Meaning, do they involve terrain to limit the impact the animal companion can have and creature types to keep the Druid busy instead of just buffing?
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I think Deathless One has it right. Between the number of rounds required to apply the buffs (4 including the Druid's wild shape) and the need to push the animal because of atavism for anything other than a straightforward attack, the impact will be lessened significantly.
I wouldn't do any of your considered options. I think customising encounters to specifically nullify a perceived problem is poor form and penalises the players who develop a good strategy.
However, you may want to consider encounter variety. The Druid can only pull that trick a few times per day and has sacrificed a lot of other options to have it available. Introducing more encounters per day will mean the Druid will have run out of spells before the day is done. Do this 2 or 3 times and the Druid will be more circumspect about using their resources. Have an encounter against a creature that can take control of the Snow Leopard. That will terrify the party. Introduce encounters against flying creatures, the snow leopard is useless and the Druid is exposed, especially if their prepared spells are focused on buffing the snow leopard. An encounter in an enclosed space will make the snow leopard's size a liability.
In short, by introducing variety you will make the party and the druid consider a broader range of tactics and stop relying on the huge snow leopard. This in turn will mean that more of the spell slots are filled with things other than snow leopard buffs, which means that the snow leopard strategy becomes an occasional rather than regular occurrence.
Maybe throw some swarms at the party. In general animal companions are far less effective against swarm type creatures. Also any type of creature that you wouldn’t want to strike with a natural attack like a mimic or fire elemental, that sort of thing.
Since we haven’t heard back from the poster it’s hard to say where the advice should lie. Some questions remain unanswered.
Are the players being allowed many rounds before combat to buff?
Is the druid misusing boon companion to gain more than he should?
That said, druid is really powerful. It seems to be what the summoner was balanced against but only the summoner draws criticisms.
While it’s AC may be 32 its touch AC is only 16. Target the leopard with rays and other touch attacks. Chances are most of the party has a better touch AC at this point then that so throwing more touch attacks will not be a problem for them. In some cases, it may actually be more beneficial.
Also, something that dangerous is going to draw the attacks of the enemy. This is going to mean less danger for the rest of the party. Throw in a few extra enemies and have the majority of the enemies target the leopard.
Terrain.
Add columns of snow covered rocks, trees, caves, and other places huge things cannot easily fit into, between, or under. Make it so the big, stupid cat can't fit next to your enemies.
... The animal’s primal instincts take hold for the duration of this spell—if the animal knows tricks granted by the Handle Animal skill, it loses access to all of those tricks save for “attack.”
"Push" an Animal: To push an animal means to get it to perform a task or trick that it doesn’t know but is physically capable of performing. This category also covers making an animal perform a forced march or forcing it to hustle for more than 1 hour between sleep cycles. If the animal is wounded or has taken any nonlethal damage or ability score damage, the DC increases by 2. If your check succeeds, the animal performs the task or trick on its next action.
Action: Varies. Handling an animal is a move action, while "pushing" an animal is a full-round action. (A druid or ranger can handle an animal companion as a free action or push it as a move action.)
Special: ...
A druid or ranger gains a +4 circumstance bonus on Handle Animal checks involving an animal companion.In addition, a druid’s or ranger’s animal companion knows one or more bonus tricks, which don’t count against the normal limit on tricks known and don’t require any training time or Handle Animal checks to teach.
This is the relevant information you need to know about how the 'tricks' an animal companion knows and how it would interact with the Atavism spell. Note, that any 'tricks' an animal companion knows (even the bonus ones that don't require a check to teach them) are still granted by the Handle Animal skill itself, as it is the skill that is used to 'order' them about in combat.
Many, many, many people (nearly all of them) gloss over the rules for using animal companions and it creates an impression that the character is more powerful than they really are. How people play the game (ie, whether or not they follow the rules) will drastically change ... everything. They have to invest skill points into the skill. They have to spend actions in highly stressful situations when every action counts. They have to spend wealth.
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About atavism: I didn’t find any detail on the animal “trick” part: can you point me where can I find more please?
If you are asking about the atavism-specific laguage, it is in the text of the spell.
The animal’s primal instincts take hold for the duration of this spell—if the animal knows tricks granted by the Handle Animal skill, it loses access to all of those tricks save for “attack.”
If you mean tricks in general, that's in the text of the Handle Animal skill. It is a very common mistake for groups to misunderstand how "smart" animal companions are. They aren't tactical thinkers. If they are told to "attack" they will take the most direct path to the target, paying no attention to possible traps, attacks of opportunity, etc. And once the target is fully dead, they will move on to the next target until Handled to do something else. Normally once an animal companion has been taught a particular trick it's close to automatic for the master to get them to perform it. (Just need a skill bonus of +7 or more.) But atavism changes it to a DC 25 to do anything other than attack.
As for the CR calculated in my fights I usually augment the CR by 2 or 3 depending on the situations. Even in +3 CR encounters for my group level, they pretty much kill everything I throw at them in 2-3 rounds, without suffering any damage sometimes.
IMO, CR is designed for 15 points buy, with 4 newbie players, no optimal builds, no optimal party composition, and no companions/animals, with only WBL. Most people who play this game are going to be way different than that, and IMO, you should have a +1 CR, for each thing you don't match on that list.
So 5 players, plus an animal companion, that's +1 or +2 CR, experienced players? Another +1 CR, did you roll stats or use a higher point buy? +1 CR for that too, Decent party build, but not really optimized, so no extra there
So that's a total of +3 or +4 CR to your encounters, to be a normal challenge, more if you want it to be difficult. Even more if you are breaking WBL. So, max out the bad guys hit points, advance them a time or teo if you want, and just flat out ad more mooks. Oh, and don't give extra XP for this, use Milestone leveling, that way you can keep them on pace with the adventure.
I think Deathless One has it right. Between the number of rounds required to apply the buffs (4 including the Druid's wild shape) and the need to push the animal because of atavism for anything other than a straightforward attack, the impact will be lessened significantly.
I wouldn't do any of your considered options. I think customising encounters to specifically nullify a perceived problem is poor form and penalises the players who develop a good strategy.
However, you may want to consider encounter variety. The Druid can only pull that trick a few times per day and has sacrificed a lot of other options to have it available. Introducing more encounters per day will mean the Druid will have run out of spells before the day is done. Do this 2 or 3 times and the Druid will be more circumspect about using their resources. Have an encounter against a creature that can take control of the Snow Leopard. That will terrify the party. Introduce encounters against flying creatures, the snow leopard is useless and the Druid is exposed, especially if their prepared spells are focused on buffing the snow leopard. An encounter in an enclosed space will make the snow leopard's size a liability.
In short, by introducing variety you will make the party and the druid consider a broader range of tactics and stop relying on the huge snow leopard. This in turn will mean that more of the spell slots are filled with things other than snow leopard buffs, which means that the snow leopard strategy becomes an occasional rather than regular occurrence.
I think Deathless One and Hugo Rune have the right of it.
1) Don't allow the player to control the pace of combat and allow them more than 1 round of buffing before combat, unless the put in special effort to locate the enemy and stage an ambush. Enemies don't just sit there waiting for the PCs to show up. They can hear, and patrol and call out for help if nearby.
2) Limit the amount of encounters that can happen close by. Why? Because this lets the buffs run out. Atavism is a relatively short duration spell. Put 20 minutes between combats and now the Druid needs to cast it again.
3) Atavism limits the commands the animal companion will carry out. Anything beyond basic move towards an enemy and attack is beyond them. And basic attack wont even get your animal companion to attack a lot of things.
The animal attacks apparent enemies. You may point to a particular creature that you wish the animal to attack, and it will comply if able. Normally, an animal will attack only humanoids, monstrous humanoids, giants, or other animals. Teaching an animal to attack all creatures (including such unnatural creatures as undead and aberrations) counts as two tricks.
Atavism will prevent it.
4) If the druid does want their animal companion to do anything beyond move directly to an enemy and attack they will need to push them, which is a move action.5) Spell casters are scary, intelligent enemies should do their best to get rid of the spell caster that is casting buff spells on their animal companion and friends because they are making things more challenging for the bad guys.
Impose conditions on the party... the Druid, in particular. An enemy with Dazzling Display may be able to make everyone Shaken, and that would give a -2 penalty to the Druid's skill checks... like Handle Animal.
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I just read Atavism on AoN. It says they gain the Advanced template, but then immediately lists the benefits of the "quick rules" from that template. Are we sure this spell is supposed to increase the AC's stats? I think it just gives the +2 on rolls and special ability DCs, +4 to AC and CMD, and +2 HP/HD.
Six of one, half a dozen of the other. The benefits given by the "quick rules" are the same results you would get if you went through the full rebuild process of increasing the stats.
+2 on special ability DCs because (whatever stat the ability is based on) the stat went up by 4.
+4 to AC and CMD because the creature got +2 natural armor and +4 Dex.
+2 HP/HD because Con went up by 4
There are some edge cases where using the full rebuild results in slightly different numbers than the quick rules, but most of the Advanced template cases involve creatures with class levels. The two most likely edge cases for an animal companion:
1. If the companion has an attack that gets 1-1/2 x strength damage bonus, then it would get +2 on the attack roll and +3 on the damage roll.
2. If the animal companion is wearing barding, it might exceed the max Dex limit of the armor and not get full benefit to AC from the increased Dex.
I usually use the rebuild rules if it's a permanent change or a change that I know I'll be using over and over again (like atavism). If it's a summon that gets a template, I just use the quick rules.
In addition to all that has been said, I think Monk, Rogue, Alchemist, and Shifter are classes that could be easily overshadowed by a buffed AC. I would be interested to know more details about the other 4 pc's. How well built are they?
3) Atavism limits the commands the animal companion will carry out. Anything beyond basic move towards an enemy and attack is beyond them. And basic attack wont even get your animal companion to attack a lot of things.
Quote:
The animal attacks apparent enemies. You may point to a particular creature that you wish the animal to attack, and it will comply if able. Normally, an animal will attack only humanoids, monstrous humanoids, giants, or other animals. Teaching an animal to attack all creatures (including such unnatural creatures as undead and aberrations) counts as two tricks.
Atavism will prevent it.
Will it? If you have taught the AC the attack skill twice why would it lose 1 of them?
@Mark Hoover
I think you misread Claxon's comment with your reply. He's used the phrase 'unless the[y] put in special effort to locate the enemy' and you then counter with an example of special effort of using wildshape to scout ahead and find the enemy.
I think you both agree that if the PCs don't put in special effort to detect an enemy ahead that the party wouldn't have time to cast 3 buffs and to wildshape at the start of a typical encounter.
I think you're right that the Leopard stats might be wrong.
Not sure about your wiggle room re: animal tricks and atavism, the spell is very clear the only trick the Druid can use is Attack, everything else is a Push, requiring a move action. The only debate is whether an AC with two Attack tricks can attack undead etc. I would be pro-player in my ruling and say that they can.