Building the menagrie

[Wizard_Lizard]

Apologies if this has been done before, but if I were to try to build a thing with as many "pets" as possible how would I go about doing it.

Obvious pick is artificer battlesmith with homunculus and steel defender, dip beastmaster ranger for beast, and then get find familiar somehow.. also shepherds druid? And maybe for find familiar go warlock pact of chain for better familiars?

[Dork_Forge]

If all you care about is pets (and I'll say permanent pets at that) then:

-Urchin for that pet mouse
-3 levels of Battle Smith for Steel Defender, push to 6 for Homunculus
-Grab Find Familiar from a dip or a feat, going Warlock yields a more useful familiar, but also increases MADness, so you need to choose viability vs just checking the numbers box
-3 levels Beast Master Ranger (if they get FF in Tasha's this can also take care of that)
-Find Steed. 5 levels in Paladin or 3 in Lore Bard (Find Greater Steed is high enough level it's only viable on a Bard if you still want to grab other pets)

Total pets: 6

Other pet options to consider:

-Flock of Familiars is temporary but can really make you swarm out
-Create Magen
-Create Homunculus
-Simulacrum (and the pets it in turn can have if of you)
-The Raven Queen patron from UA gives a cool pet
-Tiny Servant has a pretty long duration, you could probably consider it for this
-I've seen a YT game where a player treated an Unseen Servant and Mage Hand like pets/accomplices basically


The cleanest path to a viable character with a lot of pets is a V.Human (MI or RC for FF), Urchin Battle Smith, by 6th level you net 4 pets spread out throughout your progression, most of them useful too!

[Wizard_Lizard]

If all you care about is pets (and I'll say permanent pets at that) then:

-Urchin for that pet mouse
-3 levels of Battle Smith for Steel Defender, push to 6 for Homunculus
-Grab Find Familiar from a dip or a feat, going Warlock yields a more useful familiar, but also increases MADness, so you need to choose viability vs just checking the numbers box
-3 levels Beast Master Ranger (if they get FF in Tasha's this can also take care of that)
-Find Steed. 5 levels in Paladin or 3 in Lore Bard (Find Greater Steed is high enough level it's only viable on a Bard if you still want to grab other pets)

Total pets: 6

Other pet options to consider:

-Flock of Familiars is temporary but can really make you swarm out
-Create Magen
-Create Homunculus
-Simulacrum (and the pets it in turn can have if of you)
-The Raven Queen patron from UA gives a cool pet
-Tiny Servant has a pretty long duration, you could probably consider it for this
-I've seen a YT game where a player treated an Unseen Servant and Mage Hand like pets/accomplices basically


The cleanest path to a viable character with a lot of pets is a V.Human (MI or RC for FF), Urchin Battle Smith, by 6th level you net 4 pets spread out throughout your progression, most of them useful too!

Nice! Maybe even shadow sorc for a hound of ill omen.. It's super suboptimal and silly and would be an absolute pain at a real table but still!

[Dork_Forge]

Nice! Maybe even shadow sorc for a hound of ill omen.. It's super suboptimal and silly and would be an absolute pain at a real table but still!

It's actually not so bad! As long you know what pet is useful for what then you can still be a pretty effective character (especially since you can use infusions to help mitigate thin stats and spread thin levels). For example, fighting at range? Use your homunculus for your bonus action and keep your Steel Defender close to hand for the reaction defense, use your familiar for advantage if you want or save it for scouting. You can pick up Inspiring Leader at some point to dole out temp hp to your menagarie, helping to compensate for the lack of level based hp growth.