How can I get a more powerful animal companion than my druid level entitles me to?

Question

I would like to make a druid build where my character's power resides in my animal companion(s) and what little druid spellpower I can muster I use to buff it.

By powerful I mean most druid level to increase the animal companion's row on the Animal Companion Table. This could be by adding character feats to amplify the animal companion, as well as animal companion feats that could contribute to its rank. I am hoping for a companion that is higher in rank than my druid level, in other words.

How can I accomplish this?

Answer 1

I'm not sure if you could raise your animal companion level past your Druid level, but you could always be a Pack Lord Druid and take Boon Companion twice to buff the level of each companion, and have two max level companions until level 9.

If you are an Aasimar, you could take the feat Celestial Servant to give your animal companions the celestial template.

I don't think as it stands there is a way to do this via Druid, but a Lunar Oracle should fit what you're looking for just dandy. Just take the primal companion revelation:

Primal Companion (Ex): You gain the service of a faithful animal of the night. You can select from a bear, boar, crocodile, shark, tiger, or wolf. This animal functions as a druid's animal companion, using your oracle level as your effective druid level.

After that, use the favored class bonus of an Aasimar Oracle:

Oracle Add +1/6 to the oracle's level for the purpose of determining the effects of one revelation.

The original version of this (before a July 2015 errata) let you have +1/2 instead of +1/6. Despite that, you can use the spells Righteous Might and Divine Power (which stack and can be cast on your animal companion via the Share Spells feature). Also look into Divine Vessel for a disgusting display of animal companion power.

Answer 2

The Boon Companion feat allows you to have an animal companion of up to 4 levels higher than your druid class level. However, it is limited to your character level...this means you could use this to make up for multiclassing, but wouldn't make it more powerful than your total character level. Not quite what you want, but I thought I'd mention it for completeness.

Answer 3

Use Retraining

If you choose a domain for your Nature's Bond class ability, you can gain an animal companion at level-3 once you are level 4 via the feat Animal Ally. Retraining your Nature's Bond class feature from a domain to an animal companion at level 4 costs 200 gp and takes 5 days, but really you should do it at level 5 for 250 gp to avoid also needing to retrain your 3rd level feat.

Animal Ally specifies that, though you can't take it if you already have a companion, you can keep it if you later get a companion and the effective druid levels stack. This means that by retraining into having an animal companion you end up with a total effective druid level of 2*druid level-3, so you can have a 9th level companion at level 6, for example, or a 37th level companion at level 20.

Answer 4

You can't get a animal companion above your own active level, theres multible way for people to aquire animal companions as several others has stated, can add exotic heritage + Eldritch Heritage: Fey; Sylvan would would also get you a animal companion tho with a effective level of -5 instead of the -3 a animal ally would give, but it also has it's own benefits.. but either way you do it, you can't ever get a animal companion above it's masters max level.

The best way to get around this is to simply play a awaken animal with class levels and take the leadership feat and have a human or whatever cohort with you as a NPC, dont know if this would satisfy your idea however but thought i would atleast throw it out there!

Answer 5

Be a Sorcerer

Specifically, a human sorcerer with the Racial Heritage (Gathlain) feat.

Animal companion: Sorcerer level + 7
(not limited by character level)

The Sylvan Wildblooded bloodline gives you an animal companion with an effective druid level of your sorcerer level - 3. Take the Arcane Malignancies trait to boost your sorcerer level for that bloodline power by 1. Then, buy a Robe of arcane heritage to boost your sorcerer level for all bloodline powers by 4. Since Sylvan is associated with the Fey bloodline, you can use the gathlain alternate FCB to boost your sorcerer level for that bloodline power by 4 (at level 8).

So your effective druid level is: Sorcerer level - 3 + 1 + 4 + 4 = Sorcerer level + 6.

Finally, there's a human feat called Huntmaster that boosts the effective druid level of your animal companion by 1. Unfortunately, your companion has to be either a bird, dog, small cat, or horse. So if you're willing to use one of those options, your companion's effective druid level can get as high as your sorcerer level + 7.

Answer 6

You can have an animal companion beyond level 20 and the rules for such an effort are denoted in the core rule book (which is about as RAW as RAW gets). Here is a link to a similar rules question on Paizo's forums with the necessary information you might be looking for.