Help a Pathfinder newbie turn a concept into mechanics

[Quiver]

And by newb I mean "started playing my first ever game via play by post". So...very newbish.

Anyway.

I had a concept for a second character, but I'm struggling to figure out how to put it into mechanics.

The character idea?
The Zookeeper.

If you don't know, he was a supervillain in a Futurama episode. A more accurate description would be I wanted to play Aladin, with Abu.

The character concept was to play a thief, or burglar, who steals with the help of a trained animal. Only problem is...well, I'm not sure how to replicate that in terms of mechanics. The best I can think of is to just use a Ranger, and develop his skills so that I play him the way the Rogue would have worked (Performance and Stealth, while the monkey steals from the distracted victims).

Anyone got any better ideas? Or -for that matter- suggestions regarding character building, period?

[NRSASD]

Depends entirely upon what system you're playing in. 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons? Pathfinder? Odds are you'll have better luck if you try one of the dedicated subforums, but we need to know what system you're using before we can give advice.

[FocusWolf413]

Ranger/scout could work well in 3.5. Use the cityscape urban companion acf to get a familiar instead of an animal companion.

[Quiver]

I...thought I put a game tag thing up. Sorry.

It's Pathfinder. Sorry about that.

(Actually, I'm honestly not sure which subforum is filled under)

[Laughingmanlol]

You probably want the Carnivalist rogue archetype, that seems closest to your concept:
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/rogue/archetypes/paizo---rogue-archetypes/carnivalist

[Firest Kathon]

You can have your post moved to the D&D3.0/3.5/d20 subforum, where Pathfinder topics are taked about, by reporting your own post and asking to have it moved.

Regarding your question, I would suggest a Summoner (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/summoner). The summoner itself is a spontaneous arcane caster who can cast a limited selection of spells, mostly de-/buff. It's main focus is an intelligent summoned creature called an Eidolon (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/summoner/eidolons), which you can customize with Evolutions which grant it different abilities. You could e.g. start with a small quadruped which looks like a monkey and has the evolutions climb, skilled (sleight of hand) and tail.
If you are looking more towards nature, you could have a look at the Wild Caller (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/races/core-races/half-elf/wild-caller-summoner-half-elf) (if you are a Half-Elf) or Naturalist (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/summoner/archetypes/paizo---summoner-archetypes/naturalist) archetype. You can also pick up "thievish" skills using Traits, e.g. Criminal (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/traits/social-traits/criminal), and use Variant Multiclassing (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/character-advancement#TOC-Variant-Multiclassing) to Rogue, if allowed in your campaign.

If you prefer a less magical character, a Ranger would work as well (Urban Ranger (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/ranger/archetypes/paizo---ranger-archetypes/urban-ranger) archetype for a thief skill set) or you could look at the Hunter (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/hybrid-classes/hunter) which also gets an animal companion. The reason why I am leaning towards the Summoner is that the Eidolon is almost human-level intelligent (Int 7) and can talk, which seems more like Abu than a simple trained animal companion. Also with your magic you have some options to contribute to the group, and the Eidolon can be a very capable combatant if the campaign/group composition requires that.