Beast Tamer (3.5 Base Class, PEACH)

[Zaydos]

Beast Tamer:

The man came from the woods; dressed in tattered garments made of deer hide. Wolves came with him, as obedient to his command as any dog trained by normal men. He walked to the town hall, and into the gaggle of elders who had met there. With the accent of one to whom human speech has long gone unheard he gave his ultimatum. He would kill the necromancer whose undead loomed over our village, but in exchange we must hold the forest sacred ground and inviolate and all who entered would die.

The next day the necromancer's head was in the village, brought their by a mighty grey wolf whose growls warned men from approaching too near. The forest became a sacred place; for no man left there alive.

Attempted Balance Point: Tier 3; they are especially not meant to be as powerful as a druid because druids are just silly strong. Specific concerns: Capstone ability too weak. Should BAB be medium instead of good? Is the strongest animal companion too weak? Also I'm thinking about feats to add select Magical Beasts to your list of Animal Companions but the question arises, should the bonus HD add full BAB (as normal for a magical beast) or +3/4th like normal for an animal companion?

Adventures: Beast tamers become adventurers because they do not fit fully into traditional society. Left on the fringes it is only natural that they tend towards an adventuring lifestyle. Some adventure in hopes of earning themselves a place in society, proving the value of their talents and the animals they can command. Others seek to see the wild places of the world, adventuring in the most dangerous environments. Some are adrenaline junkies, who fill a common thrill when upon the hunt and when fighting to the death against demons and fiends beyond their world.

Characterestics: A beast tamer is trained in some weapons and a modicum of armor, even so their true power does not lie in their own ability to fight. A beast tamer's strength is the animals at his command, which serve as allies in battle and scouts outside of it.

Alignment: Beast tamers can be any alignment. They tend to live outside of normal society, and as such tend towards the chaotic alignment. The evilest beast tamers use their animals as expendable minions relying on their ability to call and bind more to them and are willing to let any number of them die in pursuit of their own gains. Good, and even most evil, beast tamers tend to have more respect for their beasts protecting them as they would their dearest friends and loved ones.

Religion: Beast tamers often revere animal spirits or spirits of nature. Those which serve gods often align themselves with gods of nature, animals, or the hunt.

Background: Many beast tamers come from outside of civilization, the same places which give birth to barbarians, others just from the edge. Closer to the wild than mankind, they turn to the beast and gain a deep connection with them.

Races: Many beast tamers are elves and gnomes due to their closeness to animals. Half-elf beast tamers are also common as they retain an elven connection to beasts and as they are never quite at home amongst elves or humans they often find a place outside of society. Half-orc beast tamers turn to the arts due to their outcast nature, seeing as much in common with the beasts of the wild as with their own race. Dwarven beast tamers are rare, living on the outskirts of dwarven civilization and striving to earn acceptance through the use of their talents to help defend their fortress homes from the hordes that assail them.

Other Classes: Beast tamers feel much in common with barbarians who share their place on the edge of civilization. They also feel kinship with druids and rangers who share their respect for nature. They feel little kinship with wizards, often seeing their obsession with the unnatural as disturbing. Sorcerers, and bards, whose magic come naturally they find more to their liking.

Abilities: The most important ability score for a beast tamer is decided by his totem if any. In the absence of totems, Charisma determines how well you can deal with animals and Constitution determines your health and how well you can survive attacks directed at you. Strength and Dexterity help you if you decide to go into melee with your animal companions, while Int determines skill points. Wisdom is possibly your least important stat only aiding Will saves.

Inspiration and Reasons for Doing This:

Spoiler

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I've always loved animals and I've always loved playing characters with pets; wizards who make good use of their familiar (a feat from the Dragon Magazine Compendium which extends the range at which you can share spells is especially useful for this), druids who fight primarily by buffing their animal companion, etc. I always liked the Animal Lord and Beastmaster PrCs from Masters of the Wild and reprinted in Complete Adventurer, but always found them lacking. The Beastmaster, especially, annoyed me as only the first level seemed worth taking because the other animal companions would never be above those of a 7th level druid at 15th level and the other two even less useful. I was also reading Andre Norton's The Beastmaster which made me want to make this class even more (and was quite different than the movie based on it which I loved in my childhood). The fact that it has 4 animal companions just like the titular character of the book and film is coincedental, I assure you.

Game Rules Information:

HD: d6.
Skills: 4 + Int.
Class Skills: Autohypnosis (Wis), Climb (Str), Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Handle Animal (Cha), Heal (Wis), Hide (Dex), Intimidate (Cha), Jump (Str), Knowledge (nature) (Int), Listen (Wis), Move Silently (Dex), Profession (Wis), Ride (Dex), Search (Int), Sense Motive (Wis), Spot (Wis), Survival (Wis), Swim (Str), and Use Rope (Dex).

Beast Tamer:

Level	Base Attack Bonus	Fort Save	Ref Save	Will Save	Special
1st	+1	+2	+0	+2	Animal Companion, Wild Empathy
2nd	+2	+3	+0	+3	Speak with Animals
3rd	+3	+3	+1	+3	Improved Bond +1, Endurance
4th	+4	+4	+1	+4	Woodland Stride
5th	+5	+4	+1	+4	Telepathic Bond
6th	+6/+1	+5	+2	+5	Supernatural Claws
7th	+7/+2	+5	+2	+5	Second Animal Companion, Nature’s Favor
8th	+8/+3	+6	+2	+6	Quick Handling
9th	+9/+4	+6	+3	+6	Improved Bond +2, Trackless Step
10th	+10/+5	+7	+3	+7	Charm Animals
11th	+11/+6/+1	+7	+3	+7	Improved Telepathic Bond
12th	+12/+7/+2	+8	+4	+8	Camouflage
13th	+13/+8/+3	+8	+4	+8	Improved Supernatural Claws, Third Animal Companion
14th	+14/+9/+4	+9	+4	+9	Nature’s Balance
15th	+15/+10/+5	+9	+5	+9	Heal Animal Companion, Improved Bond +3.
16th	+16/+11/+6/+1	+10	+5	+10	Greater Telepathic Bond
17th	+17/+12/+7/+2	+10	+5	+10	Boon of Resistance
18th	+18/+13/+8/+3	+11	+6	+11	Dominate Animal
19th	+19/+14/+9/+4	+11	+6	+11	Fourth Animal Companion, Superior Supernatural Claws
20th	+20/+15/+10/+5	+12	+6	+12	Nature’s Avatar

Class Features:

Weapons and Armor: All light and medium armor and shields; all simple weapons and any 2 martial weapons or 1 martial weapon and whips.

Animal Companion: A beast tamer can summon an animal companion as a druid of their class level. Levels in beast tamer and druid stack for determining the abilities of your animal companion and what animal companions are available to you.

Wild Empathy (Ex): As druid ability of the same name.

Speak with Animals (Su): Beginning at 2nd level a beast tamer can speak with animals as a supernatural ability.

Endurance (Ex): At 3rd level a beast tamer gains endurance as a bonus feat.

Improved Bond: At 3rd level a beast tamer’s ability to call animal companions improves. He treats his level as one higher for the purposes of determining the abilities of his animal companions and what animal companions he can summon. At 9th and 15th level this ability improves further.

Woodland Stride (Ex): At 4th level a beast tamer gains Woodland Stride as the druid ability of the same name.

Telepathic Bond (Su): At 5th level a beast tamer can communicate telepathically with his animal companions within 100-ft.

Supernatural Claws (Su): At 6th level the natural weapons of a beast tamer’s animal companions count as magic for the purposes of overcoming damage reduction.

Nature’s Favor (Sp): At 7th level a beast tamer gains the ability to use Nature’s Favor as a spell like ability a number of times per day equal to your Charisma modifier (minimum 1 time per day).

Second Animal Companion: At 7th level a beast tamer gains the ability to call a second animal companion. This animal companion has more limited abilities than his first one and it must be chosen from the list of animal companions available to a druid 3 levels lower than his actual level and their special abilities are likewise reduced. Druid (or ranger) levels stack for determining his effective druid level for this ability.

Quick Handling (Ex): At 8th level a beast tamer can handle an animal as a swift or move action, or push it as a move action; if it is one of his animal companions he may still handle it as a free action and may now push it as a swift action.

Trackless Step (Ex): At 9th level a beast tamer gains trackless step as the druid ability of the same name.

Charm Animals (Su): At 10th level a beast tamer can charm animals they talk to as a standard action usable at will; an animal which successfully saves against this ability is immune for 24 hours. The DC for this effect is 10 + ½ their character level + Charisma modifier. They may have no more than 4 HD per class level of animals charmed at one time, if a newly charmed animal would push them beyond that number they lose animals that have been charmed the longest until within that limit once more.

Improved Telepathic Bond (Su): At 11th level a beast tamer’s telepathic link improves and he is now able to communicate with them from up to 1 mile.

Camouflage (Ex): At 12th level a beast tamer gains camouflage as the ranger ability of the same name.

Improved Supernatural Claws (Su): At 13th level the natural weapons of a beast tamer’s natural weapons gain a +1 enhancement bonus to attack and damage. Any animal companions with only one natural weapon instead gain a +2 enhancement bonus to attack and damage.

Third Animal Companion: At 13th level a beast tamer gains the ability to call a third animal companion. This animal companion has more limited abilities than his first one and it must be chosen from the list of animal companions available to a druid 6 levels lower than his actual level and their special abilities are likewise reduced. Druid (or ranger) levels stack for determining his effective druid level for this ability.

Nature’s Balance (Sp): At 14th level you gain the ability to use Nature’s Balance as a spell-like ability a number of times per day equal to your Charisma modifier (minimum 1); a beast tamer may only target animals (or their animal companions) with this ability.

Heal Animal Companion (Sp): At 15th level a beast tamer gains the ability to use Heal Animal Companion as a spell-like ability 1/day per animal companion they have (they do not have to use this ability once each on each animal companion and could in fact use all their uses on one animal companion).

Greater Telepathic Bond (Su): At 16th level a beast tamer’s telepathic link improves and he is now able to communicate with his animal companions as long as they are on the same plane.

Boon of Resistance (Su): At 17th level a beast tamer’s bond with his animal companions grants them a resistance to magical effects. All of a beast tamer’s animal companions gain Spell Resistance equal to his class level +5, and a resistance bonus to saving throws equal to 1/5th his class level. This spell resistance does not apply to spells and spell-like abilities from the beast tamer himself.

Dominate Animal (Su): At 18th level a beast tamer can dominate animals (as the spell Dominate Animal) they talk to as a standard action usable at will; an animal which successfully saves against this ability is immune for 24 hours. The DC for this effect is 10 + ½ their character level + Charisma modifier. They may have no more than 4 HD per class level of animals dominated and/or charmed at one time, if a newly dominated animal would push them beyond that number they lose animals that have been dominated the longest until within that limit once more.

Fourth Animal Companion: At 19th level a beast tamer gains the ability to call a fourth animal companion. This animal companion has more limited abilities than his first one and it must be chosen from the list of animal companions available to a druid 9 levels lower than his actual level and their special abilities are likewise reduced. Druid (or ranger) levels stack for determining his effective druid level for this ability.

Supreme Supernatural Claws (Su): At 19th level the natural weapons of a beast tamer’s animal companions gain a +3 enhancement bonus to attack and damage. If an animal companion only has one natural weapon it gains a +5 enhancement bonus to attack and damage with it instead.

Nature’s Avatar (Sp): At 20th level a beast tamer gains the ability to imbue his beasts with the furious power of nature; he may use Nature’s Avatar as a spell-like ability 4 times per day. When he activates this ability he may choose to use it on any number of his animal companions within telepathic range; this uses one use of this ability for each creature affected (so all his animal companions as one swift action if he wishes).