Beast Born

The call of the wild is too strong for some vigilante, forming intense bonds with nature itself through both animals and their own physical form. Beast born go beyond simply emulating animals, instead becoming them, mastering their forms and powers to become a master of all beasts.

### Animal Companion (Ex)

At 1st level, a beast born forms a bond with an animal companion. A beast born may begin play with any of the animals available to a druid. This animal is a loyal companion that accompanies the beast born on their adventures. This ability functions like the druid animal companion ability (which is part of the nature bond class feature). The beast born’s effective druid level is equal to their beast born level. If a character receives an animal companion from more than one source, their effective druid levels stack for the purposes of determining the companion’s statistics and abilities.

A beast born must take care when changing from one identity to another, including making any changes necessary to ensure that their animal companion is not associated with their social identity and vice versa (although if anyone suspects them of being anything other than what they appear to be while in their social identity, they need not make a separate Disguise check for their animal companion). The beast born always requires 1 minute to change identities, regardless of other effects that reduce the time required, and they cannot choose the immediate change or quick change social talents. While transformed into an animal, the beast born can attempt to appear to be a normal member of their animal’s type, but doing so imposes a –10 penalty on their Disguise check. The bonus provided by seamless guise still applies to the beast born’s attempts to appear to be an ordinary animal.

As a standard action, a beast born can touch their animal companion to transform it into a similar Tiny animal to allow it hide easily or even blend in and act as a spy. For instance, a tiger could be transformed into a housecat, a wolf could be transformed into a Tiny dog, a dire bat could be transformed into a Tiny flying fox, and so on. This functions as a polymorph effect, and the animal companion gains a +2 size bonus to Dexterity and a –4 size penalty to Strength (use the polymorph table to adjust its ability score if the animal companion is larger than Medium). A beast born can return their animal to its normal form by touching it again as a swift action, and when a vigilante enters or leaves their vigilante identity, they can choose to change their animal companion’s form as a swift action as long as it is within 30 ft. of them.

This ability alters dual identity and replaces vigilante specialization.

### Beast Bred (Su)

At 1st level, a beast born can transform into a small, harmless animal as per the harmless form spell as a standard action at will (even if they would not normally be a valid target for that spell). At 4th level, a beast born gains the wild shape class feature of a druid of their level, gaining an additional use of this ability at 8th level and every 4 levels thereafter. A beast born treats their beast born level as their druid level to determine which forms they can take with this ability, although they cannot transform into an elemental or plant with this ability.

This ability replaces the 4th, 8th, 12th, 16th, and 20th level vigilante talents.

### Beast Within (Su)

At 20th level, whenever a beast born uses their beast bred ability, they gain the benefits of an animal growth spell.

This ability replaces vengeance strike.