Tooth and Nail: FedoraFerret’s Mini-Guide to Animal Companions

Animal companions have a long and storied history in TTRPGs. And why wouldn’t it? Fiction and mythology are rife with heroes who traveled alongside a loyal animal sidekicks, particularly if they’re of the ranger-y variety, to say nothing of noble steeds. Pathfinder’s first edition saw a lot of, uh, let’s go with “less than balanced” companion builds, not only through crazy cheese (I still shudder at the thought of a grippli riding a velociraptor, long story) but even something as mundane as a large cat specced out with Dex boosting items and an Agile amulet was an absolute terror to behold. Second edition has made them a lot less ridiculous, though, so we need to figure out how to break play them all over again. Onwards, shall we?

The Ratings System

Five Stars (*****) Best in class, hands down, if you just want the most optimal thing you can possibly get then this is it, this is the option.

Four Stars (****) Very, very good thing, this is a very compelling option or a very compelling facet of an option that should make you want to take it.

Three Stars (***) Solid, but not particularly thrilling. Generally reserved for things that are average, that are worth taking but not necessarily going out of your way for.

Two Stars (**) This does not inherently mean that the option is bad, only that it isn’t great. As a general rule, if an option is two stars it’s either situational, in which case I’ll call it out as such and usually mention the situations it applies (such as an undead-focused ability in an undead heavy campaign), or it’s statistically inferior but there are reasons you might want to take it (seen in this guide, trading 2 AC for +1 to-hit and damage).

One Star (*) This means that the option is bad. Very often, I personally imagine I will be going back and upgrading a one-star to a two-star because someone pointed out a reason someone might find it valuable. If it’s one-star, that means that I, the author of this guide, cannot fathom any possible reason someone would want to choose this over another option.

Companions in a Nutshell , or, Ferret Crunched a Ton of Numbers So You Don’t Have To

Animal companions lag behind equivalent PCs in almost every way imaginable. They start with a lower ability score spread (though not by much), their proficiency progression is a fair bit slower, and also, they’re made out of paper. The latter is the most important bit as it’s going to inform a lot of our decision making going forward, because the difference between a companion with armor class options compared to other options is the difference between getting crit on a nat 16 and getting crit on a nat 10. Their attack bonus is decent early but falls off pretty fast, while their damage is one of the few things that roughly keeps up with PCs (they get dice slower but their ability modifier progresses faster than an equivalent martial). Realistically, your companions are going to fall into one of three roles in combat, adjusting according to the situation.

Secondary DPR (**) Thanks to the aforementioned “being made of paper” and “attack bonus that falls off” you’re never going to want to send your companion into melee with bosses or other equivalent- or higher-level enemies, but they can be very effective at cleaning up mooks/adds/whatever you want to call the low level scrubs who exist to debuff, flank, or otherwise inconvenience the party against stronger enemies.

Support (***) When there’s only one enemy, the companion is likely going to focus on support. This means entering a flanking position, using its advanced maneuver to debuff the enemy, or activating its support benefit. Ideally, this also draws very little attention to the companion, meaning if it gets hit it’ll be on saves, which are a companion’s best numbers.

Mount (***) Thanks to the upgrade druids and rangers get at Mature Companion and that champions get at Imposing Destrier, where your companion gets a free action every turn, every companion of suitable size can be an awesome investment just for the merit of granting you a free Stride at enhanced speed every round. You lose their support benefit if it’s not a horse, camel, or <insert future companion with mount here>, but that can be worth it just for the free mobility.

You can still do things with a companion like send it charging into battle against a powerful boss, but only if you’re prepared for a high likelihood of a doggy funeral. Fortunately, if you are a callous monster who doesn’t care if you companion lives or dies, replacing them is easy.

Advancing Your Companion

Advancing your companion to mature is easy with no choices involved, so we’ll pass over that because it’s just static, passive boosts to various skills, and instead take a look at what I call the Incredible stage, where you get a choice of three advancements: Nimble, Savage or Indomitable, and oh boy are they not created equal.

Nimble Companion (****) Far and away the best of the three, like, there is legitimately no contest here. The extra Dexterity is a boost to your finesse attacks and armor class, the increased unarmored defense is a boost to your armor class, and Acrobatics has just as many uses as Athletics. You don’t need a compelling reason to take Nimble, you need a compelling reason to take either of the other two.

Savage Companion (**) By comparison, I personally think savage is garbage. Compared to the other two, you’re trading a lot of survivability for a +1 to hit and +1 or 2 to damage (+2 or 3 damage once you hit Specialization, but even so). There’s just legitimately no comparison to Nimble, and even if there was…

Indomitable Companion (***) Indomitable is just the better option of the two. You have the same skill training, the same damage boost, and instead of the small boost to hit, you get a bump to your HP. More importantly, you pick up expert in Barding, which isn’t quite as good as Nimble’s expert in Unarmored (especially since Nimble can reach master and Indomitable can’t) but it’s better than nothing and probably the better option for a more strength focused companion like a bear or badger. More importantly, like savage it makes your Medium companion Large, which is important for medium characters who want a mount.

So yeah, Nimble is great, Indomitable is good if you want something large and muscular, and Savage is straight flaming trash unless you’re especially invested in the higher damage.

Our last progression is specialization, which is thankfully a bit more balanced, although as we’ll see, the Dexterity options are still king.

Ambusher (****) Hide in plain sight, advancing stealth, more Dexterity, more AC proficiency. Top tier.

Bully (***) No Dex boost, but a massive +5 jump to your Intimidation (and +3 to Athletics) is fantastic for a supportive companion debuffing enemies.

Daredevil (****) As ambusher, except instead of hide in plain sight we’re gaining even more AC benefits.

Racer (**) A decent upgrade for the mount but it doesn’t give you much compared to the others.

Tracker (***) An excellent boost to your companion’s utility, particularly as it has master Perception already.

Wrecker (*) The worst option of the bunch because compared to Bully it only really gives you the Strength boost. I think they might’ve written this while debating having sundering rules, if I’m being honest.

Phew. And that’s all of our advancement options. What we’ve learned here today class is that Dexterity is king, so naturally companions with better Dex and finesse attacks are going to have the edge. That being said though, because the base difference in ability scores is only going to be 1 at most, the thing to really focus on for companion types is going to be their skills, support benefits, advanced maneuvers and speeds (and damage dice to a lesser extent).

Welcome to the Pound: Pick Your Companion

Badger (***)

Attacks (***) Pretty basic strong attack->agile attack combination.

Ability Scores (**) Boosting Wisdom or Constitution is pretty good. Boosting both means you lag on your attack, damage, and/or AC.

Skill (***) Survival is handy, particularly since you are starting with a boosted Wisdom.

Speed (***) Burrow and climb together are incredibly versatile. Bonus points, as a burrowing animal your gnome can talk to it. On the flip side, slower base than everyone else.

Support Benefit (**) Really only good if you’ve got someone with a reaction to capitalized on a Stride and that enemy is going to try and reposition or flee, which is one of the more situational benefits.

Advanced Maneuver: Badger Rage (***) This right here makes the badger one of if not the best companion for cleaning up mooks, that extra damage will go a long way.

Overall: Badgers are a very average choice here, where their main benefit is the niche they fill with their burrow speed and massive damage output while raging.

Bear (****)

Attacks (***) Still the basic setup.

Ability Scores (***) The ideal strength setup, hitting hard and better able to take a hit.

Skill (**) Intimidation is cool but your bonus is going to fall off ridiculously hard until you can specialize.

Speed (***) Average.

Support Benefit (****) Want to just add 1d8 points of damage to all your attacks for the round for the cost of a single action? I thought you might.

Advanced Maneuver: Bear Hug (**) Requires you to hit the target first (which means it can only apply starting your turn adjacent), then to hit them again (MAP is a hell of a drug), but if it works, Grappled is a really good debuff condition.

Overall: Bear has so many options. The support benefit is one of the best possible, you have the best combination of stats and strikes for a pummeling style and if you go mounted then Bear Hug, if it’s successful, will do a ton of damage and leave them susceptible to your attack (of course, your bear is then going to immediately die, but c’est la vie d’un ours). All in all, probably the best general Strength option.

Bird (****)

Attacks (***) Another standard one-two of the finessable variety.

Ability Scores (***) Your bird is squishy in the Con, but it has Wis to compensate.

Skill (****) Stealth is the real tech, you’ve got big Dexterity, you’re primed to go into Ambusher, and as a bird, you can just kinda hang out in a tree and who’ll notice?

Speed (*****) Fliiiiiight. And not just flight, a fly speed of 60 feet. The only downside is that until you get the free movement every round you basically have to command your bird unless your GM is willing to fiat that it Hovers every round.

Support Benefit (****) The damage isn’t as good as bear’s, but you’re here for the dazzled, and the bleed is a side bonus.

Advanced Maneuver: Flyby Attack (****) The second you get this it should be your bird’s every turn unless it’s using the support benefit. You get your move, you get your attack, and even with the two action limit you’re never left fluttering next to an enemy that can three action attack you.

Overall: If you’re going for pure optimization, bird is your choice. If bear has one of the best support benefits, bird has the best, with a potentially long lasting effect that’s dealing damage and debuffing them, and on top of that flyby attack is a great option. The only downside is it’s the only companion without scent.

Cat (***)

Attacks (***) As bird.

Ability Scores (***) Also as bird.

Skill (***) Today I learned that cats are just flightless birds.

Speed (***) And here’s why cats aren’t as good as birds.

Special (***) Sneak attack on an animal companion, how novel.

Support Benefit (***) Just straight up flatfooting isn’t bad, but as debuffs go it’s absurdly common.

Advanced Maneuver (****) One action stride and strike is really efficient and efficiency is important with companions. If you Stride away afterwards it also lets you dart in and out like Flyby Attack does, further cementing cats as Worse Birds.

Overall: Yeah, I think that sums it up. Cats are worse birds. They have the benefit of sneak attack, but their support benefit is worse, and only having a land speed is comparatively just kinda lame. That being said, being a worse bird isn’t saying much when birds are already so great.

Dromaeosaur (****)

Attacks (****) Finessable and bigger dice than the bird or the cat get, pretty dang sweet.

Ability Scores (***) You’re less good at hunting but a bit more survivability.

Skill (***) Third verse, same as the first.

Speed (****) Not as good as flight, but still faster than all the others.

Support Benefit (***) Much like the cat’s, the main thing is granting flatfooted, but it’s better because you can provide it against multiple enemies at multiple angles.

Advanced Maneuver: Darting Attack (****) Another hit and run attack, but you trade speed for not provoking attacks of opportunity.

Overall: Tiny dinosaur is probably the middle child of the Dex kids, not quite as good as bird but I would say better than cat, and it has a solid thematic and mechanical niche in its constant darting around and high speed.

Horse (***)

Size (****) I didn’t mention this with any of the others because they all start small, but the horse starts large, and that’s huge because it means medium PCs can mount it from level 1 while still going Nimble.

Attacks (**) You only get one option and it’s just a d6. Agile, but still.

Ability Scores (***) You are a horse, Str and Con are pretty reasonable stats.

Skill (***) It’s weird that a horse is a good tracker and can forage food for you and your friends, but there it is.

Speed (***) A little faster than normal, but not quite dinosaur/bird speed.

Special (****) The main thing is you get to use the support benefit while mounted and moving, which is necessary since its benefit is meant to be used while moving. Other benefit, if someone casts fly on your horse then you can fly.

Support Benefit (**) A decent boost to your static damage, but it doesn’t compare to a bear.

Advanced Maneuver: Gallop (*) I mean, if it’s going to Stride twice anyway the extra 10-foot speed is nice, but this isn’t a reason to take a horse.

Overall: Literally the only reason the horse isn’t two stars is the size, if it weren’t for that it would be a two-star creature because otherwise it doesn’t bring anything special to the table. On release it probably would’ve been four stars, but the camel exists now.

Snake (****)

Attacks (****) Only one attack and it’s not agile, but makes up for it by being a finessable d8. Later on you’re probably not going to use it much anyway.

Ability Scores (****) Hooooo baby, you get both Strength and Dex. That gives you options.

Skill (***) Stealth is good, as we have established.

Speed (**) Swim isn’t as good as burrow, unfortunately, so the heckin’ slow speed is a major drawback here.

Support Benefit (***) Niche, but a very underutilized niche. Not many things can just straight up deny enemy reactions like that.

Advanced Maneuver: Constrict (****) This has a bit of a weird snafu in that, while the companion section says companions calculate their DCs like you do, it doesn’t specify what the DC is based on here. There are three options: one, the companion has a stealth class DC they’re just trained in. This is the worst option. Two, it uses your class DC, which is cool but makes little sense. Three, it uses the snake’s Athletics DC. This is the one I’m most inclined to go with, which is also cool because its Athletics skill scales much better.

Overall: Snake is interesting in that it can go either Dex or Strength focused and still be really solid either way. If you go Dex, invest heavily in Stealth and make use of the finesse attack, and enjoy the passive boosts to Strength. If Strength, focus more heavily into Athletics and Constrict, and enjoy bypassing your crappier attack proficiency. In either case, you also have the support benefit in your pocket. All in all, snakes make for a really good pet.

Wolf (**)

Attacks (****) As snake.

Ability Scores (***) Fast and durable, wolves seem to be the dex-based heavy hitter.

Skill (***) Now see wolves, I can believe as your tracker/hunter.

Speed (***) Fast pupper.

Support Benefit (**) I would call this easily the weakest support benefit. Speed penalties are good in two ways: one, for a tank preventing the enemy from getting away or getting past them to the squishies, and two, off of a ranged attack to slow the enemy and waste their actions (a la tanglefoot). Now you could set this up and then shoot them with a ranged attack, but then they’re just gonna hit your dog, and your dog is, as we’ve established, made of paper.

Advanced Maneuver: Knockdown (****) This, on the other hand, is one of the best advanced maneuvers. Prone is one of the best conditions to inflict: you flat-foot them, waste their action on standing up, guarantee AoOs from nearby fighters, etc. Doing it with no check is fantastic.

Overall: Sadly I would put the wolf as the weakest of the Core Rulebook animal companions. They’re still good doggos, but the only major utility or niche they offer is Knockdown, which requires extended time adjacent to the target and a successful hit, and for Dex options there’s simply better choices.

Camel (Adventure Toolbox) (****)

Size (****) As the horse.

Attacks (**) Low damage, not finessable, not agile. Go next.

Ability Scores (***) As horse again.

Skill (***) Camel being survival is more understandable than horse, they have to live in the desert.

Speed (***) Slower than horse, but not by much.

Special (****) Also as horse, but also you get to flip the bird to the weather, which is a nice little ribbon.

Support Benefit (****) Not quite as good as bird’s for duration (or the lack of damage for that matter) but makes up for it by having a little range.

Advanced Maneuver: Sand Stride (***) Now this is how you do an advanced maneuver that’s just movement. A little slower than the horse’s but much, much faster with a lot of difficult terrain around.

Overall: I would put camel as being better than horse overall, with a more utility-focused support benefit and a better advanced maneuver overall.

Hyena (Adventure Toolbox) (***)

Attacks (****) That good old finessable d8 jaws.

Ability Scores (***) As wolf.

Skill (**) Much like the bear, we’re still not good at this.

Speed (***) Slight speed.

Support Benefit (****) Oh hell yes. Who needs the hyena to intimidate when you can just whack them while the good dog laughs.

Advanced Maneuver: Gnaw (**) The bleed damage is nice and the speed penalty is better than wolf’s because you only need to apply it the once, but it still depends on a hit, and I’m of the mind it’s better to use the support.

Overall: I’m sad to report that hyena is just a better dog than wolf. The support benefit is really what shines here.

Vulture (Adventure Toolbox) (***)

Attacks (****) More finesse jaws, nice.

Ability Scores (**) The weakest combination.

Skill (***) Survival is still useful, and you should put that Wisdom to good use.

Speed (****) Not as good as Generic™ bird, but still good.

Special (***) Hey, free bonuses are free bonuses. Saves are already the companion’s strong suit, but if it survived all the attacks it’s going to take only to die to disease that would just be embarrassing.

Support Benefit (***) This is weird because it’s the only support benefit that includes a save and can only target one person besides, but being at a slight range and applying sickened (a condition they can’t get rid of without expending actions and more saves) plus triggering on any damage, not just strikes, is actually pretty good.

Advanced Maneuver: Feast on the Fallen (****) As we’ve established, animal companions are squishy, so having a free self heal once per hour is great even if it’s very small. As an added bonus, it puts no limits on what kind of creature counts, so while traveling you can send your bird hunting and it will murder squirrels to heal off of. Also, there’s just something visually cool about you knocking an enemy down, and your vulture going “I’m a bit wounded and a bit puckish” and tearing out that enemy’s innards.

Overall: “Not as good as the Generic™ bird, but still good” about sums it up I think. The advanced maneuver is cool and will help keep you alive, the support benefit has a unique niche and is a compelling reason to take Indomitable despite it not being rideable, and it still has most of the perks a regular bird has (flight, the perk is flight, don’t think too hard on it, it’s flight).