How do I increase the damage of an ankylosaurus companion’s tail without reducing its attack bonus?

Question

The Dinosaur

As a druid thinking of using an ankylosaurus as an animal companion, I'm interested to see the damage one might get out of it. Unfortunately, it hits one per round at best and its strength (at level 7 where i am going to play it) is only 20. (OK, 20 is a lot but one attack per round kind of mitigates this)

The Damage

Lets face it, 2d6+5 damage is not much at level 7. Stun makes up for it, but I'm not sure of the DC (i'm saving this for another question). If I get power attack then 4 BAB + 5 STR -2 for power attack... that's 7 Attack bonus. Not Great. One attack means you have to make it count.

The Question

How do I increase the damage of an ankylosaurus's tail (even for a short time) without reducing its Attack bonus? Remember I am level 7 so feats and spells are best, but efficient items are good and I will appreciate every option.

Answer 1

Well, druids have a number of spells that are 3rd level or lower which are just for this purpose.

At first level there is

• Bristle
• Magic Fang

and second level

• Bull’s Strength

• Lockjaw

  4th level

• Atavism

But the one you want is at 5th level

• Animal Growth

There are also more. You can create armor and other gear that will help your animal (like amulet of mighty fists to improve natural attacks). You could also ride on top to use mounted combat, either with lance or bow. Give it teamwork feats (one of my places had one which allowed them to ignore difficult terrain all the time because they were riding it) which can grant many effects.

Straight up its not likely to be big on damage, but with some focus there's lots it can do. Even with combat maneuvers.