Animal Companion class

[stewstew5]

Animal Companion pure class. Your animal companion and you improve at a similar rate, each as a sort of half-character. How balanced is it?
You are slightly more tanky than a barb, but effectively lose half your features at half health,
You get more attacks per round than a fighter of equal level, but will be considerably less powerful than most weapons a fighter will be using,
otherwise, you get no major spellcasting, tanking ability, skill/control features, etc

https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/HkbihdZ49V

Oh, also, I didn't realise the beastmaster existed when I started this.

[Leathalsandwich]

On your turn does it attack for free or do you have to command it.
Like the beast master this will be hard to balance since it upsets the action economy.
As of right know this class is the best 1 level dip ever such is a bad sign.
I hope you can consider these problems and find a solution because it is a wonderful idea and would be so cool if it currently wasn't broken

[stewstew5]

On your turn does it attack for free or do you have to command it.
Like the beast master this will be hard to balance since it upsets the action economy.
As of right know this class is the best 1 level dip ever such is a bad sign.
I hope you can consider these problems and find a solution because it is a wonderful idea and would be so cool if it currently wasn't broken

So here's the thing, beastmaster big time sucks, for that particular reason. Theres a lot of ways to "break" the action (for example, it only requires your action for a familiar to attack, not to act), and you dont really have a way to get the animal companion back if it does die until around level four in the class (generally you should still be able to keep it up with a well-balanced party, but if it DOES go, theres a reason to not level-one dip) and it only improves as you level up the class, so dipping isn't a huge issue I think. You could get the same value if you took magic initiate for find familiar or animal bond, let alone the sweet cantrips. Otherwise, does it seem well balanced? I'm really concerned about potential game shattering