I just want a family: Giving animal companions

[unbutu]

I was wondering: With other classes giving the druid's animal companion, and feats such has Horse Master, Monstruous Mount. What would be the most, and highest level animal companions we could give to someone ?

If you know other ways to get pets that are not animal companions, they are welcome !

Would it be 1 lvl of every class that has an animal companion, +1 lvl of cavalier, + horse master ? Can we do better than that ? Would give a bunch of lvl 1, and a Character lvl mount ?

[grarrrg]

You're going to have a hard time with this one.
Going by the basic rules and the FAQ you're generally limited to _1_ Animal Companion, and _1_ Mount.
Rules (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/druid/animal-companions):

The druid's class levels stack with levels of any other classes that are entitled to an animal companion for the purpose of determining the companion's statistics.
FAQ (http://paizo.com/paizo/faq/v5748nruor1fn#v5748eaic9qqn):
This one basically says 'if the same animal can be a Companion AND a Mount, then they stack, if not, you get 1 of each'.

You can also, generally, get _1_ Familiar (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/wizard/familiar):

Levels of different classes that are entitled to familiars stack for the purpose of determining any familiar abilities that depend on the master's level.

So the quick and dirty ruling is "one of each, max".


Of course, there are a variety of "Pack" archetypes (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/druid/archetypes/paizo---druid-archetypes/pack-lord) that let you split your 'Druid' level over multiple companions, so your limit is effectively "one companion per level", but they would all be horridly weak.

You could also interpret the FAQ to mean "if list A has Creature, but list B does not, then you get one of each". This requires getting a bit more creative.
Scalykind (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/cleric/domains/paizo---domains/scalykind-domain) Domain limits you to a Snake, Falconer (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/ranger/archetypes/paizo---ranger-archetypes/falconer) Ranger limits you to a Bird, and a basic Mount limits you to Horse/Camel/Dog. None of these can be the same companion, so by this interpretation you'd have at least 3 companions.
But even going this route, you'd be hard pressed to break probably 5 pets total, as there aren't all that many non-overlapping restricted lists.


And finally, please do NOT attempt the following in an actual game, as it uses questionable calls on multiple rules:
Lunar Mystery (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/oracle/mysteries/paizo---oracle-mysteries/nature) Oracle, do NOT take the Companion ability until Oracle 7.

1st level feat is Nature Soul, 5th level feat is Animal Ally (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/animal-ally), cannot be taken if you have a companion. It grants you a companion of level-3. If you later gain a companion the levels from the feat stack with the levels from the class granting the companion (you'll note that as written it allows most levels to count TWICE for your companion feature).

1 level of Pack Lord Druid, allows you to split your companion feature into multiples.

Race is Elf (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/races/core-races/elf) so we can use the Oracle Favored class bonus to count as +1/2 level higher for the effects one a Revelation. So every 2 levels of Oracle counts as 3 for our Companion (there are a couple other Races with same ability)

Finally, 1 level of Mammoth Rider (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/prestige-classes/other-paizo/i-m/mammoth-rider) for Funsies. This will boost ALL of your level 1 pets to Huge Size. (actual intended interaction between Mammoth Rider and Pack Lord is unknown)

So a level 20 Oracle 18/Druid 1/Mammoth Rider 1 has an effective Druid level of 46. With Pack Lord you can split those into a LOT of Huge level 1 Mounts.
Oracle 18 * 15 = 27
Animal Ally 20 - 3 = 17
Druid +1
Mammoth +1


EDIT: Under Spoiler: Forgot that Mount /= Animal Companion, changed Oracle Mystery to suitable replacement, and lost Huntmaster feat.

[Quiddle]

I did some work with this optimizing a character for E6, hope this is useful. Have fun breaking the action economy!
From pathfinder there is:
Hunter 1
Druid 1
Cavalier (Huntmaster) 4+
Samurai 1
Oracle (lunar) 1
Ranger (falconer) 1
Inquisitor (Sacred Huntsmaster) 1

If you can use unearthed arcana then there is:
Wizard 1
sorcerer 1

Feats:
Additional Animal companion
Animal Cohort

Things to bring your animal companions up to speed:
Boon Companion (feat)
Huntmaster (human racial feat)
Horse Master (combat feat)

I think the best plan for you is to use straight Cavalier (Huntmaster) to get a bunch of companions then use supportive feats to boost them up to a decent strength.

[grarrrg]

I did some work with this optimizing a character for E6, hope this is useful. Have fun breaking the action economy!
From pathfinder there is:
Hunter 1
Druid 1
Cavalier (Huntmaster) 4+
Samurai 1
Oracle (lunar) 1
Ranger (falconer) 1
Inquisitor (Sacred Huntsmaster) 1

Samurai is an "Alternate Class" of Cavalier, and thus you cannot take both.

Ignoring Huntmaster>multi-companion for the moment... Depending on Animal Companion rules, and FAQ interpretation this gets you between 1 and 4 pets (see my prior post for ruling-stuff):
Druid/Hunter/Inquisitor all pull from the same pool, thus they all stack with each other > 1 companion
Cavalier would get you a Dog or Bird > +1 Companion (assuming that it is different than Druid)
Oracle gets you a short list > +1 Companion (assuming that it is different than Druid)
Ranger gets you a Bird > +1 Companion (assuming that it is different than Druid/Cavalier)

Horse Master feat actually winds up doing NOTHING here. Horse Master: "Use your character level to determine ...the powers and abilities of your mount." Mount is the operative word here, and none of your classes has a "Mount".*
For the sake of argument, we'll assume you go with Oracle>Nature for a Mount (which gets us into the RAI of 'is Horse Master only supposed to affect the Cavalier's Mount?', which we'll ignore for the moment), and choose a Horse Mount.
This leaves you with...the same exact listing I gave above (1-to-4 companions), with the exception that your Horse has 'full level', and everything else is stuck at lower levels.

If we add in Huntmaster>Multi-companion it still does little to help, as Horse Master does not interact with Animal Companions, so you'd still have a horde of worthless low-level critters.


Feats:
Additional Animal companion
Animal Cohort

Feats are 3rd party and/or 3.5


*Do note that an Animal Companion is NOT the same thing as a Mount when it comes to the Rules.

[unbutu]

so you'd still have a horde of worthless low-level critters.




I'm so satisfied with the conclusion :) I imagine a makeshift ''summoner'' who enlist every animal he meets as animal companion, and brings them do die against ennemies that outlevel them horribly :)

Also I'm glad you looked into it, because I was wondering for real if there was any trick to be known about this. Turns out, not really !