animal companion feats

[Alexander123]

Can you choose which feats your animal companion takes? The riding dog entry has as its feats alertness and track. I wanted to take power attack and weapon focus (bite).

 

[Dandu]

Unclear. It's supposed to be a typical member of the species, but that's not firmly defined.

I'd personally allow it.

 

[Jhaelen]

Can you choose which feats your animal companion takes? The riding dog entry has as its feats alertness and track. I wanted to take power attack and weapon focus (bite).

Not by RAW. Animal companions are standard in every respect.

Since I use the retraining rules from PHB2, I'd allow the pc to retrain a companion's feat instead of retraining one of her own feats.

 

[Dross]

Not by RAW. Animal companions are standard in every respect.

From the PHB pg35: A 1st-level druid’s companion is completely typical for its kind except as noted in the sidebar on page 36.

Other than being treated as a magical beast wrt creature type v effects the sidebar notes the extras a companion gets for being a companion rather than changes.

The MM has this to say under improving monsters: Each of the monster entries in Chapters 1 through 3 describes a typical creature of its kind.

So by RAW apparently no feat changes.

I personally would allow it however as long as it wasn't some strange esoteric feat setup and had a reasonable back story that I might be able to hook into.

 

[Jhaelen]

From the PHB pg35: A 1st-level druid’s companion is completely typical for its kind except as noted in the sidebar on page 36.

Other than being treated as a magical beast wrt creature type v effects the sidebar notes the extras a companion gets for being a companion rather than changes.

The MM has this to say under improving monsters: Each of the monster entries in Chapters 1 through 3 describes a typical creature of its kind.

So by RAW apparently no feat changes.

I personally would allow it however as long as it wasn't some strange esoteric feat setup and had a reasonable back story that I might be able to hook into.

Thanks for digging out the page reference!

The reason I wouldn't allow it completely for free is that it can dramatically increase the effectiveness of a creature, particularly one of the higher-level animal companions with tons of HD.
I know this because as a DM one of my preferred tricks of making encounters more challenging is picking feats that synergize well with a creature's inherent combat abilities (or those of an ally). Particularly 'mundane' animals often come with a selection of suboptimal feats or rather feats that are only useful in non-combat situations.

 

[Dandu]

"One quick and easy method is to change their default
feat selection. Because feats are more or less equal in
power, swapping out one or two can significantly alter
the play experience without increasing the monster’s
Challenge Rating."
-Dungeonscape, page 103

 

[Dross]

The reason I wouldn't allow it completely for free is that it can dramatically increase the effectiveness of a creature, particularly one of the higher-level animal companions with tons of HD.
I know this because as a DM one of my preferred tricks of making encounters more challenging is picking feats that synergize well with a creature's inherent combat abilities (or those of an ally). Particularly 'mundane' animals often come with a selection of suboptimal feats or rather feats that are only useful in non-combat situations.

I personally like track & scent more than the WF: Bite & PA, but I tend not to use such companions as pseudo fighters.

 

[Wyvernhand]

A trick if you could do that, would be to give your AC the Improved UAS feat. That way it can make full iterative attacks with its UAS, then make all of its natural attacks as secondary natural attacks.

Alternatively, give your AC the Bind Vestage and Improved Bind Vestage feats, you know...cause its amusing!