Animal Companion help.

[Metahuman1]

I had a friend who just asked me how to get a Talking Animal Companion in 5th edition. Can this be done, and if so, how?

Help Me Playground, your my only hope!

[leogobsin]

Pact of the Chain Warlock lets you have an Imp or Quasit familiar, both of which speak Common and can take animal forms.

[Metahuman1]

Cool. In Anticipation of the next question, what kind of Animal Forms can they take?

[leogobsin]

A Quasit can take the form of a bat, centipede, or toad, and an Imp can shapechange into a rat, raven, or spider. The only stat changes with the shapechange are speed, so if the player had a particular animal in mind it would probably make sense to let the forms be basically anything that's the right size that the speeds make sense for.

[sandmote]

Alternatively you can cast the Awaken spell on most beasts. The spell replaces the animal's intelligence (of three or lower) with a score of ten and teaches it one language (known by the caster). The down side is that it consumes a 1,000 gp agate and a fifth level spell slot.

[Unoriginal]

Does it have to be AL legal?

[Metahuman1]

Does it have to be AL legal?

I don't know, so, I'll assume yes for now. Apparently she is starting at level 1 as well.

[sithlordnergal]

You could always get some sort of beast you really like as a Ranger, and eventually find a Druid to Awaken it for you

[Desteplo]

Few ways (animal companion is specific to ranger)

I believe there is a magic item that lets you speak any language. Just pop that on our animal

Awaken (5th lvl Druid spell) increases your animals intelligence to 10, and can speak one language

Tongues (3rd lvl arcane (and cleric) spell) though it only lasts an hour
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Otherwise if they want it to be able to communicate with speech but not necessarily talk to others. More of a flavor style laughing at your friends with your animal:

Gnomes can talk to small and smaller animals. Some good animals are of the small size.

Warlock has an invocation (beast speech) you basically can talk to all animals forever.

[Fnissalot]

Animal friendship and find familiar is the only ways(and spells) I know at level 1 that can give you a type of companion.