Hi is a first level Druid. His hobbies include long walks in the woods, gazing at the starlit sky, and demonstrating the superiority of nature. Of course he's also only level 1, which means he
only66 HP (and 7 HD)! Holy shit.
AC 28/16/22 without barding! Huzzah for Thick Skinned Breed!
4 natural attacks, 2 at +11 to hit and 2 at +9 to hit with the primaries doing 1d6+7 each and the secondaries doing 1d6+3 each. If charging (and you will be) you even get a free rake. You also get 3 chances for a 1d6 Dex poison at DC 18, a free trip at +7, and if that works a free grapple at +11. The only downside to these last two abilities is that they only work on Medium or smaller creatures. Oh and you get automatic claw and rake damage on a successful grapple. I'm not sure how the hell rake damage is supposed to be calculated, but it's still free. Remember kids, this is at level 4. Which means it's like having your very own Giant Enemy Crab, sans the weak point for massive damage. Consider buffing your friend up for even more carnage. A shared Bear's Endurance is a good choice, and also makes its poison even stronger. Bull's Strength gives more DPS. Plenty of options there. You also get a feat for HD advancement. I suggest Power Attack, because you probably have the attack bonus to use it.
Getting to level 5 should be no problem. Now as a Druid you get Wild Shape. Which means you can turn into a Fleshraker too if you want. Your friend is stronger than you though so it might not be worth it. Or you can continue summoning Pokeymons for flanking buddies and such. You're a Druid, you have options.
But you think that's broken? Oh no... we're not done yet! Level 6 is the best level of all! Because at level 6 we get... no, not Natural Spell you fool. Better than that! But first let's check on our dino friend!
He now has 9 HD. Which gives him 85 HP. At level 6.
His AC is now 30/16/24. Again without even counting barding.
His attacks are now at +14/+14/+12/+12, doing 1d6+8/1d6+8/1d6+4/1d6+4.
His saves are now 11/13/6 (10 vs enchantment).
He gets another feat, which we will make Improved Initiative.
But... wait a second...
9
Holy fucking shit, our dino isn't overpowered enough already what with all that shit and DC 19 poison to boot.
It needs MOAR DAKKA!
Medium Large +8 str -2 dex +4 con +2 natural armor -1 attacks/AC
So now it has 103 HP, +17/+15 to hit with +12/+6 added damage. Its AC is the same overall, but it loses 2 touch AC and gains 2 flat footed AC. Its trip is now +16 and its grapple now +22 and works on Large or smaller creatures. -1 Reflex saves, trade 5 Hide for 4 Jump. I also think you get reach now, which makes it even more broken. Oh and +2 poison DCs also for a total of 21.
Now remember what I was saying about something better than Natural Spell?
Turns out the team of Hi Welcome has gained a lot of renown. And you know how it is when you're famous. People love writing stories and singing about how awesome you are.
You guessed it! Leadership for a Bard! But not just any Bard, oh no. This fellow takes pride in his performance. When he spreads the good word of Hi Welcome everywhere, he wants everyone to remember and repeat it!
So he has Song of the Heart, a Badge of Valor, and the Inspirational Boost spell along with a MW horn.
At which point combat goes something like this:
Bard blows the Horn of Awesome(tm). Hi summons Pokeymans or fleshraker charges or whatever. Welcome eats enemies' faces with a +4 to hit/damage boost, PAing for full for a final result of +17/+17/+15/+15 to hit and 1d8 +22/+22/+16/+16 damage. If for some reason enemies actually survive this the Bard uses his Badge on the next round for another +1 to hit and damage.
Hi Welcome easily hits level 8, and his cohort hits 6. Now Hi can Wild Shape into Large creatures. Unfortunately he can't pick an advanced to Large Fleshraker. Too bad. Welcome doesn't get any better... but level 6 Bards can take Words of Creation. Which means double the song benefits. He also takes some minor nonlethal damage which can just be wandwhipped away.
At this point beatsticks everywhere commit ritual suicide, and you win. The enemies won't have given up though, but they'll quickly become flayed dino food once the +8/+10 Ode to Hi Welcome starts playing.
This build is completely playable 1-20. It is a bit front loaded, and past this point it stops scaling as quickly. More to the point you're also close to the point where HP damage in any amount isn't really a good contribution. But you're a fucking Druid, I'm sure you'll think of something to stay awesome. You'd have a hard time not doing so.
Pretty simple to build.
Race: Must be something with a bonus feat or this build will not work. Human or Strongheart Halfling are both good choices, and the latter also lets you ride your dog and later, dinosaur. If you're in Eberron you'll fit right in. Any other race is fine as long as it has a bonus feat and is LA 0. If you can get some Con and/or Wis out of the deal, even better. I don't recommend the halfling Druid thing. It doesn't do a whole lot for you. If you have an alternate means of getting a bonus feat or ignoring the need for Spell Focus: Conjuration you can pick any race you want that doesn't penalize Con or Wis. If you have an alternate means of getting another feat (flaws) you can pick any race you want that doesn't penalize Con or Wis.
If you really have your heart set on something that doesn't give a bonus feat, consider Greenbound Summoning instead of Augment Summoning. Note this will require your cohort to take a special feat in order to bolster your Pokemon army. Namely, this one.
Green Ear CV: You can affect plants with your mind-affecting bardic music-like abilities, but they receive a huge save against them. I only find this useful for allies with the plant subtype, so that they receive the bonuses of your songs. For example, a druid/bard pair with greenbound summoning, this feat and optimized inspire courage can produce really impressive summons.
Note though that he won't actually be able to take this until level 7 (actually 9, because you get no feat at 7 or 8) which delays access to songs that work on your summons for 5 levels. So there are significant drawbacks to this approach instead of it being a given.
Your cohort's race can also be anything LA 0 as long as it doesn't penalize a stat other than Str or Wis.
Feats:
1: Spell Focus: Conjuration.
H: Augment Summoning.
3: Natural Bond.
6: Leadership.
9: Natural Spell.
12: Whatever you want.
15: Whatever you want.
18: Whatever you want.
Extend Spell and Improved Initiative are good choices, as are many others. You could consider Greenbound instead of Augment Summoning and take Augment Summoning later. If your bard cohort has Green Ear, his songs will still work on your summons (but remember you're level 11 by this point and missed out on songs for 6-10). However you will be unable to use animal specific spells on them which means it is most useful at lower levels (where you're already insanely overpowered) and less useful at higher levels (where this specific strategy becomes less effective, even though Druids themselves are still awesome). Otherwise +6 NA, possible damage die increase, at will entangle, 1/day wall of thorns, low level DR, FH 3, +4 grapple, cold and electric resist 10, tremorsense 60, +6/+2/+4/+0/+0/+4 stats and +16 conditional racial bonus would be too awesome to pass up. Even if you can't use the SLAs at all, it still leaves no doubt in anyone's mind that FR was written for one purpose and one purpose only - to make insanely overpowered stuff.
For your cohort make sure you have Words of Creation at 6 and Song of the Heart at 1 or 3. Improved Initiative is also highly recommended to get songs up quickly. How you advance him depends on what you want him to do. If you want this guy fighting directly consider the stat substitution stuff and the usual gish stuff (arcane strike, etc). Between Knowledge Devotion, Inspire Courage, Arcane Strike, and something that lets you use your Cha to attack and damage you'll do decent DPS while having real defenses like mirror image and such to survive counterattacks. If you want him in more of a supporting role stick to things like Extend spell and such. Either way though he should have those defensive spells as he will become a target and while Druids can get enough AC to make enemies miss them from time to time, Bards really can't.
Stats are 8/8/14/10/18/10 which is 26 points. If you have any more points left throw them in Int or Cha or Con or something. You must have at least 10 cha or Leadership will not work in the manner I describe. Obviously you want Con min 14 because you're an adventurer and Wis maxed because you're a Druid.
For your cohort go 8/12/14/15/8/15 which is 26 points. If you have any more points throw them in Cha, Dex (up to 14), or Con. You must have Int and Cha 15 for Words of Creation, and more Cha is always nice.
Skills: Make sure to pump Handle Animal until the point of no further benefit (total modifier +11). That's good enough for any Warbeast training mentioned here along with the tricks and such you'll be teaching them. Speaking of which...
Make sure they have attack anything, along with whatever other tricks you want. You'll have plenty of room, so pick based on what you want to do.
For your cohort, I'd suggest lots of Knowledge skills (other than the ones you have), UMD, the usual Bard stuff. You'll have plenty of skill points to go around.
Gear: Doesn't really matter much. Studded leather barding for your animal friend is a good low level item, and consider upgrading later. Keep in mind a fleshraker probably won't be able to use the same barding as a riding dog, and once your fleshraker grows bigger it won't fit in its armor anymore either. There is surprisingly little room for improvement here, as Fleshrakers have a high Dex and you don't want your dino slowed down anyways. While there is nothing technically preventing an animal companion from using metal armor you're supposed to not like lots of metal, so opt for dragonscale alternatives if you go that route. For you a Wis item and a Con item will cover most of your basic needs. You have Barkskin if you care about AC, and Superior Resistance for your saves along with Wild Shape to attack so you don't need to worry about most of the usual suspects for items. An Animated wooden shield is a good choice and doesn't depend on Wilding Clasps, which you should load up on. Naturally this means you'll have plenty of money left, so consider spending some on nice items for your animal friend. MIC has a good selection, and str/con items are always nice. Also consider Bracers of Natural Attacks. The reason why the Amulet is 6k squared is because it's offslotted. Bracers aren't, so it comes out to be 4k/16k/36k/64k/100k for +1/+2/+3/+4/+5. Or you could just cast Superior Magic Fang (Greater at lower levels), whatever.
I'm sure this idea could be improved upon to make it even more broken. I wrote this because I was bored and felt like smiting any fools who think a Fighter is a worthwhile party member by showing them a Druid who cranks it to 11.
Contested point or people raining on my parade:
[spoiler]The Eberron Campaign Setting has a well hidden line saying that Druids (and Rangers, but no one cares) cannot have Magebred animal companions. Of course it was then stealth errataed in Five Nations to say that they can and if anything seems to give it to them 3 levels sooner. Of course this is extrapolation from the examples given. Without it you lose 4 natural armor, 4 str, 2 dex, 2 con and have to take multiattack as your 6 HD feat (since you won't get it for free) and power attack at 9 HD (delaying Improved Initiative to 12). But honestly, if your DM is letting you play this build to begin with I doubt he cares about taking the conservative reading of ambiguous rules.
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If you're even more of a bastard, it gets better!
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Craven is in the Champions of Ruin Faerun book, or some-such. Venomfire + the Lesser Rod of Maximize is good. Since the build is so RAW fuzzy, anyways, might as well go for broke.
Use Extra Spell to get into a single level of Sacred Exorcist. Then use DMM: Persistant Spell on your Druid goodies (Sirine's Grace, for example). And stack those Nightsticks for Bite of the Werebear and that Form of the [landshark] spell. Nothing like having a 43 Str all day long. Might as well add Nymph's Kiss and Touch of Golden Ice. Don't forget to put Improved Unarmed Strike on yourself and that fleshraker: you want to add iterative attacks on top of your natural attacks, particularly after pouncing. If that's too much, just use all that on your animal companion, and use your rod of maximize spell with Control Winds (while under a Control Weather) to have maximized tornado kill everyone (well, 30 damage per round over 10 rounds... plus falling damage... whatever). Persist Stormlord (or whatever, SpC spell), and call yourself "Stormy", while flying around; make sure to share that last one with your Dire Polar Bear. But why stop there? Hire a spellcaster to make an eternal wand of Persistant Wraithstrike and Heroics (Power Attack), and crossclass UMD a bit. Might as well use Divine Power and Righteous Might, too. These are all things I did with my Druid when the DM forced casters to multiclass (one level of Cleric + the Planning and Undeath domains, the fool). The DM was passing out Epic items to the other party members like crazy to help them keep up. I'll never play a Druid again.
Honestly, I don't think advancing the size really matters if you're already using a fleshraker.
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