A Dearth of Flying Animal Companions?

[Palanan]

Looking through the list of animal companions, I'm surprised how very few flying forms there are. "Bird" is the only flying option in the CRB, and the expanded list on the PRD only gives a handful of others--just the dire bat, pteranodon, vulture and roc.

Are there any other winged options that I'm missing? And are they even worth it? My tengu druid will be spending a lot of time in eagle form himself, and won't be mixing it up in melee, so I'm not sure if even having an animal companion is worth the hassle and effort.

[Psyren]

Monstrous Mount gives you a griffon and hippogriff.

I'm a little confused by your question though. You want flying animals that aren't birds or dinosaurs (I know XKCD, same thing)... well, what else is there really?

[Palanan]

To be persnickety, a dire bat is a mammal.

But I may not have the best notion of how animal companions work in Pathfinder. The "bird" in the CRB is extremely generic--to the point of obscuring the tremendous differences between eagles and owls, which are literally as different as night and day.

I'd be open to some form of bird, but there don't seem to be any which are especially distinctive or useful--apart from the roc, and I'm not sure how that advances. I'd just as soon trade away the animal companion for something else, but the druid domains are especially meh.

[Psyren]

But I may not have the best notion of how animal companions work in Pathfinder. The "bird" in the CRB is extremely generic--to the point of obscuring the tremendous differences between eagles and owls, which are literally as different as night and day.

I'd be open to some form of bird, but there don't seem to be any which are especially distinctive or useful--apart from the roc, and I'm not sure how that advances. I'd just as soon trade away the animal companion for something else, but the druid domains are especially meh.

In D&D combat how much do the differences really matter though? They've got wings, talons and a beak, and the size categories are pretty broad. Combat in this game is abstract, so one more broad brush shouldn't matter.

If you're looking for ornithological accuracy in D&D you're probably going to come away disappointed. Hell, they even dropped day/night cycles for monsters, reducing nocturnality to fluff.

[(Un)Inspired]

Trade away your AC for the Eagle domain. It's got some useful stuff, god spells and you get a Hawk familiar right away.

Turn that hawk into an improved familiar and you're sitting pretty.

[kopout]

The PFSRD has the blackwisp egret, giant beetle, dimorphodon (a kind of Pterosaur), Quetzalcoatlus (a really big Pterosaur), trumpeter swan, and giant wasp

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by (Un)Inspired
Trade away your AC for the Eagle domain. It's got some useful stuff, go[o]d spells and you get a Hawk familiar right away.

Eagle domain is perfect, thank you. It works very nicely with my ranged focus and the general eagle theme I'd been considering.

Originally Posted by (Un)Inspired
Turn that hawk into an improved familiar and you're sitting pretty.

I assume this would become a celestial hawk? Is there anything the celestial hawk brings above a regular hawk, which would justify spending a feat on?

Originally Posted by kopout
The PFSRD has the blackwisp egret, giant beetle, dimorphodon (a kind of Pterosaur), Quetzalcoatlus (a really big Pterosaur), trumpeter swan, and giant wasp….

Cool, thanks--somehow I managed to overlook those. The egret would be tempting if not for the Eagle domain.

Originally Posted by Psyren
If you're looking for ornithological accuracy in D&D you're probably going to come away disappointed.

Gawd, don't get me started.

I was just noticing that both the giant eagle and the giant vulture weigh 500 pounds, which is absurd. An eagle at the size they give would weigh 50-60 pounds at most. Even large birds are fragile featherweights; they couldn't fly otherwise.

As for a key distinction between eagles and owls, I suppose it's lumped together under Perception in Pathfinder--one change I'm not fond of, and it obscures the difference between the eagle's incredible sight and the owl's incredible hearing.

But the folks at Pathfinder, like those at Wizards, evidently don't get outside too much. "Disappointed" ain't in it.

.

[Psyren]

I guess I just don't see what wasting design time on that level of zoological granularity is supposed to achieve. The average player won't notice and the true bird-nerds out there will nitpick it to shreds even more if they try. It's like trying to come up with different stats for a leopard, jaguar and panther - what it adds is not worth the additional time it would take.

[Palanan]

Not worth it for some players, perhaps. For those of us who know and care about what makes a species unique, it's a different story.

And certainly not a waste of time, not when the result enhances our enjoyment of the game.

[Psyren]

I would argue for most. And they can't cater to everyone, there just aren't enough hours in the day or pages at the printer.

Hell, they can't even get swordplay accurate, and that is far more central a concept to the game!

This is a drawback of just about every system out there; it's just endemic to the medium.

[Eldaran]

Not worth it for some players, perhaps. For those of us who know and care about what makes a species unique, it's a different story.

And certainly not a waste of time, not when the result enhances our enjoyment of the game.

If it's that important to you, why not homebrew some specific animals, since you probably know a lot more than the designers anyway. The great thing about tabletop games is their flexibility, you can literally do whatever you want, even if it's not in the rules.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by (Un)Inspired
Turn that hawk into an improved familiar and you're sitting pretty.

I'm open to a word of advice on this part, as to whether it's worth spending a feat to acquire a celestial hawk.

Just looking at the basic celestial template, it looks as if a dash of energy resistance and a single smite are pretty much the only benefits. Is there anything else?

Originally Posted by Eldaran
If it's that important to you, why not homebrew some specific animals, since you probably know a lot more than the designers anyway. The great thing about tabletop games is their flexibility, you can literally do whatever you want, even if it's not in the rules.

Yup, I've been working on that.