Hello, is it possible to take the commander's companion feats (riding drake) from Commander Class and apply it with the drake rider archetype to obtain winged leap, wing rider, wing hover on its mount from commander feats ?
Thanks for your future answer.
You'll need to talk to your GM about making some adjustments.
Strictly by the rules (RAW), you'd end up with two different companions possessing different abilities. However, I can see many GMs allowing you to merge the two—or even combine the *Commander's Companion* dedication and feat into a single feature.
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Strictly by the rules:
You can have only one animal companion at a time.
So having two different companions with different abilities would not be allowed.
Beastmaster Dedication has a very explicit override of that general rule. "Contrary to the usual rules for animal companions, this feat can grant you a second animal companion."
I think you'd need to take both sets of feats, either with Free Archetype or just really focussing on your companion. Normally with this sort of thing (say, a Champion with a steed who takes Cavalier) I assume the RAI is that you can take the archetype and then retrain the redundant class feat. Later feats usually don't specify that feat as a prereq, just that you have a companion for this reason. But given that in this case both have specific benefits and are a hard prerequisite for later feats, I'm pretty sure you just need to collect 'em all.
The objective is not to obtain two companions but a single.
An animal companion with the feats from commander to upgrade the animal companion (riding drake).
I want to know if the character takes the archetype drake rider, can it use the feats from the archetype for the animal companion from the commander feats.
Strictly by the rules:
You can have only one animal companion at a time.So having two different companions with different abilities would not be allowed.
Beastmaster Dedication has a very explicit override of that general rule. "Contrary to the usual rules for animal companions, this feat can grant you a second animal companion."
Good point; I had forgotten about that.
The objective is not to obtain two companions but a single.
An animal companion with the feats from commander to upgrade the animal companion (riding drake).
I want to know if the character takes the archetype drake rider, can it use the feats from the archetype for the animal companion from the commander feats.
I'd talk to your GM. Personally I'd allow it, even if it's an edge case RAW-wise. Usually prereqs are written to avoid overlap conflict like this (a Ranger/Beastmaster is very deliberately viable), so we can assume that's the general intent, even if both these feat trees have specific enough benefits to require stricter language.
Sounds like a cool character!
so what happens if you do take an archetype which grants you an animal companion when you already have one? Presumably the actual granting of an additional companion is just a dead feat, but do the subsequent upgrades from feats later in the archetype apply then to your already existing companion, or are they also dead feats? Should you even be allowed to take the archetype/feats?
As far as I know, the rules aren't very clear on that.
For the reasons that you mentioned already, I would say that the feats that you get that improve your companions all apply to the one companion that you have. So the Commander character with Drake Rider archetype given as the example should work.
The lack of any rules guidance saying that Ranger and Druid (both core classes with built-in support for Animal Companions) aren't compatible with archetypes that grant or improve companions indicates either that the interaction is intended, or the game developers haven't thought about or considered this possibility in the many years that the game has been released.
So yeah - even with the ambiguity, if the GM doesn't want to allow it, they should be up front about the incompatibility before players start taking archetypes.
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so what happens if you do take an archetype which grants you an animal companion when you already have one? Presumably the actual granting of an additional companion is just a dead feat, but do the subsequent upgrades from feats later in the archetype apply then to your already existing companion, or are they also dead feats? Should you even be allowed to take the archetype/feats?As far as I know, the rules aren't very clear on that.
For the reasons that you mentioned already, I would say that the feats that you get that improve your companions all apply to the one companion that you have. So the Commander character with Drake Rider archetype given as the example should work.
The lack of any rules guidance saying that Ranger and Druid (both core classes with built-in support for Animal Companions) aren't compatible with archetypes that grant or improve companions indicates either that the interaction is intended, or the game developers haven't thought about or considered this possibility in the many years that the game has been released.
So yeah - even with the ambiguity, if the GM doesn't want to allow it, they should be up front about the incompatibility before players start taking archetypes.
Note though that the Commander feats chain and the Drake Rider feats chain are very explicit that they provide their advantages only to the Companion that came with the starting feat of the chain.
I feel it is quite similar to the old Ancient Elf + Eldritch Trickster conundrum of RAW builds with incompatible abilities.
Note though that the Commander feats chain and the Drake Rider feats chain are very explicit that they provide their advantages only to the Companion that came with the starting feat of the chain.
That's fair.
Though to be complete, Ranger also has some rules language specifically improving its own Animal Companion - the Ranger's companion can benefit from the Ranger Edge. If combining that with Beastmaster archetype, does only one of the Animal Companions get that bonus?
It is an open question.