With the most recent Beta Update, the silhouette of various creatures presented in the F&D book is more clear, giving Pathfinders more options to play around with when choosing a bonded animal. However, I still have one concern. The book gives suggestions for a "juvenile" version of a creature that grows with it's master, allowing Pathfinders to raise larger creatures over the course of a campaign. You could even retrofit those rules to allow for a small creature growing to astounding size and strength via the care of a talented Force user.

But what if you:

A) Want to keep the same animal companion throughout the campaign

B) Want or need the creature to stay small for whatever reason

and

C) Still want that creature to improve with your Force Rating

Case in point: Kasuni Tamm, the Pathfinder premade character for Force and Destiny, has a small bogwing as an animal companion, whose greatest strength is his ability to act as a flying spy. Increasing his size and strength may make him a more potent combat pet, but takes away much of his stealth use.

I feel that options should exist for the player that wants to have a small pet, but still wants it to improve over the course of the campaign, or at least feel like their animal mastery is improving.

For those players, I propose these (rough draft) changes, and invite you all to give feedback on them, and on whether you feel such options should exist.

-Change the text of Animal Bond regarding the silhouette limitations to: "The character may be bonded to a number of creatures no greater than their Force Rating, with combined silhouette no greater than half the character's Force Rating rounded down."

-Add to the text of Animal Bond regarding commanding the animal: "If the character is bonded to more than one animal, they may still only issue commands to one animal per round. Alternately, the character may command all their bonded animals to act together, using minion group rules."

-Add to the text of Mental Bond: If the character is bonded to more than one animal, they may still only commune with one at a time. Changing which bonded animal the character is communing with is an action.

-Add another sidebar in the Adversaries section:

IMPROVING SMALL CREATURES

As a character with the Animal Bond talent grows stronger in the Force, they may gain the ability to bond with a larger creature. However, for mechanical or narrative reasons, the player may wish to retain the same bonded animal. If the player simply desires a larger version of the same animal, you may reverse the process of creating a "juvenile" creature, explaining that the animal has grown to extraordinary size and strength thanks to the character's care and the power of the Force. This may not be reasonably applicable to all types of creatures, and the player and GM should work together to determine if this is a viable option.

Alternately, the player may wish for a small bonded animal to remain that size throughout the campaign, but still improve with the character's Force rating. To accommodate this, whenever the sillhouette of a character's bonded animal would increase, the character may instead increase the bonded animal's wound threshold and attack damage, and a single characteristic of the animal's by 1, and add 1 rank to a single skill that animal has ranks in. The animal's silhouette now counts as one higher only for the purposes of determining the maximum silhouette of creatures bonded to the character. Again, this is not viable for every type of animal, and the GM and player should discuss whether this option works for them.

I am most adamant about the additional sidebar about improving small creatures, as I realize that adding the ability to control multiple creatures makes an already complex talent even more so. However, if it can be done in an elegant way, it does open up a number of interesting options. Primarily though, my concern is still to allow players that like having small animal companions the ability to improve them.

It's a little d20ish, but I like the idea of controlling multiple creatures whose total silhouette is less than or equal to half of your force rating. Of course, the math breaks down when dealing with sil 0 creatures.

Reminds of something, but I am not sure what.

I might just handle this outside of the rules. I don't know that I'd allow anybody to take multiple companions, but I would probably allow a player to improve their existing one in ways other then size. If a player gave me a reasonable set of stat upgrades on a smaller animal I'd be fine with that.

It's a little d20ish, but I like the idea of controlling multiple creatures whose total silhouette is less than or equal to half of your force rating. Of course, the math breaks down when dealing with sil 0 creatures.

Reminds of something, but I am not sure what.

I thought of that, regarding Silhouette 0 creatures. There's a clause up there that limits total # of bonded creatures to your Force rating. (So if your FR is 2, you could still only have maximum 2 creatures, even if their combined Silhouette is 0.) It's partly to fulfill the fantasy of being a true "beastmaster", commanding several animals at once via the Force. I can also see a hunter-type character wanting to have a "hawk" companion that acts as a scout, as well as a "wolf" companion to do the fighting, and/or a "horse" companion to act as a mount.

I realize that, like most things like this, the part about improving small creatures can be handled via GM/player discussion, but having some kind of "official" guidelines would be helpful as a starting point. Again, this is what I'm looking for most, since adding the ability to command multiple creatures makes things a little complex, and I have a suspicion that there might be a dedicated Force-based beastmaster specialization in an F&D splatbook that somehow allows multiple companions via some kind of "Improved Animal Bond" talent.

Give your juvenile creature some cigarettes.

I mean, the Talent is basically intended to allow for Witches with Rancors. I know there are lots of "power gamers" out there, but this game isn't really about making optimal characters. For every optimal character build out there, there's at least a dozen that are perfectly functional and a hundred times more interesting. If you want a smaller animal, you get a smaller animal. Done.

I mean, the Talent is basically intended to allow for Witches with Rancors. I know there are lots of "power gamers" out there, but this game isn't really about making optimal characters. For every optimal character build out there, there's at least a dozen that are perfectly functional and a hundred times more interesting. If you want a smaller animal, you get a smaller animal. Done.

Powergaming isn't actually the point of my proposals.Quite the opposite actually. It's about how the animal bond talent feels to the player, both mechanically and narratively, and how it can better deliver on the fantasy of having a loyal animal companion that becomes as valuable and integral a part of the team as the player character. Part of that fantasy is being able to train that animal companion over time to become stronger and more skilled and watch it grow into something cool, in this case aided by the Force.

I want the person that picks a bogwing, or a kouhun, or a jubba bird because they think it's cool and they like what it brings to the table to feel like that choice is going to deliver on everything they want it to, even into the later stages of the game. Having ways for the animal companion to grow with you besides "make it bigger and tougher" is something I feel will help that.

It's about how the animal bond talent feels to the player, both mechanically and narratively, and how it can better deliver on the fantasy of having a loyal animal companion that becomes as valuable and integral a part of the team as the player character.

It's about how the animal bond talent feels to the player, both mechanically and narratively, and how it can better deliver on the fantasy of having a loyal animal companion that becomes as valuable and integral a part of the team as the player character.

I believe you're overemphasizing the intended value of this talent. At 15XP (or even 25) its definitely more helper monkey than pet unicorn.

But, as your Force Rating increases (spending more XP), you can already control larger creatures as per the talent's current wording, which takes it from "helper monkey" (silhouette 0) to "pet wolf" (silhouette 1) when you go from FR1 to FR2, up to something like the acklay (silhouette 2) if you ever hit FR4, which falls into "pet dinosaur" territory. Which is great if your goal is to be a rancor-rider. The talent, and the sidebar about juvenile creatures growing with their masters, delivers really well on the "raise a mighty beast from birth" concept.

I feel like just as many people are going into the Pathfinder specialization with a character concept more like a hunter with a well-trained smaller animal, and that it is a key concept to be able to deliver on with a specialization like this. The prospective rancor-rider's animal companion has a meaningful and visible progression as they invest XP into their Force Rating via the size increase. There is no such progression for those wanting to play the hunter/trainer.

It seemed to me like the best ways to allow for that would be:

A) enable a player to command increasing numbers of small companions

and/or

B) enable a player to give up the size increase for a skill/ability increase

I personally like the beast master type idea.

It opens up more possibilities and with certain limitations doesn't really break game anymore then a regular animal bond would. I mean I have a ******* Nexu that I can control on my Pathfinder so I don't think giving someone two smaller animals that are spy worthy more so then combat is a big deal.