UA lets your party get a menagerie, thoughts?

[TerrorSweats]

Unchecked UA multiclassing can get you 6 pets, which is neat.

Hi. (TLDR, 5th paragraph down.)

After the strixhaven unearthed arcana opened up the idea of an odin style 2 wolves, 2 crows tenser's caster + light gish style build(I forgot about beast masters), it made me realize that it could go further. In stead of collecting any powerful or efficient abilities to visit flashy
feats of personal violence upon your enemies, which is at this point getting old, your party can just ignore that they have those, get a bunch of pets & give up on getting into fights altogether. Or become baby's first horde.

I know necromancy & conjuration are always a thing, but they tend to need to be recast pretty often, so I don't really count them as pets as much as summons or spell effects, which seems retrospectively callous

Anyway, I figure you could theoretically cram about 6 or 7 permanent pets into each low to mid lv character, if you factor out class fluff & combat efficiency, that all come online pretty early. If anyone has any ideas on how to add more or faster I'd honestly love input on how to get wilder with this stupid thing I arguably shouldn't have done.

Now.
Class order & ability spread outside hitting minimums don't matter unless you're thinking of making this viable or using it, which, why would you do that to your table? Combat would take forever.

For perermanent pets there's:
Lv1 Lorehold Bard/Wiz(UA)
Lv1-3 Raven Queen warlock (Perma discarded-UA)
Lv3 Battle Smith Artificer
Lv3 Beast master

That's a golem, a familiar, a raven, a robot, a homunculus & a beast by lv 8, with the option to get improved familiar by lv 10, without any recasting unless they die. Each. Most of which are by raw aesthetically customizable to be fluffed as almost whatever critters you want.

Then there's an empty proxy ghost from echo knight, if you wanted to count that & reflavor it pretty a lot.
Also, find steed's instantaneous, so there's that if you could get a scroll, or add 5 levels of paladin or another 6 to 9 levels of bard depending on whether lorehold was bard or wizard. Bard could be a good follow-up since it would progress the ancient companion bonuses, in stead of going something like cavalier or beast barbarian for riding & pack rage.

Alternatively, Swarmkeeper ranger allows for vastly more individual lil varmints per level, but they can't leave your space, only act as the one hivemind & are less likely to remember what you've named each of them, so, judgement call.
And, Artillerist gets 2 pet bots to the battle smith's 1, but that takes 10 levels & lasts an hour/use.

As for semi permanent & dismissable pets:
For a more actionable character, a Drakewarden/Artillerist with dips into Wildfire Druid & a Chain Warlock could reskin to make a respectably varied low level Pokemon style lineup, With buffs extending that further.

That's all. Just an observation that I couldn't find written up elsewhere by searching most pets or permanent pets + 5e, so I figure either not many cared about keeping track of how many birds & dogs you're allowed in certain games
or fewer cared enough to bring it up, but apparently I did. Which was unexpected, since I've never been that inclined to make characters with pets.

I don't know how to end an opening/ potentially only thread post. This whole thing went too long & sounds stupid. IDK.
Sorry?
Bye?

[Wraith]

Somehow I always manage to find a group wherein at least 1 player insists on walking up to the Dire Wolf and/or Purple Wurm and making kissy-kissy noises at it until the DM relents and lets them have a pet, so there is definitely a market for this sort of build. :smalltongue:

There's a couple of other ways to add to your little petting zoo, if you wanted and didn't mind if some of them are temporary.

Find Steed occurs at level 5 Paladin and gives you a horse/donkey/camel that stays around until it dies or you dismiss it. Unfortunately you can't use Find Steed and Find Greater Steed at the same time, but if you wanted to invest in that route then you would eventually swap your pony for a rhinoceros, which sounds fun.

There's a spell in the Lost Laboratory of Kwalish sourcebook called Flock of Familiars that gives you at least 2 more familiars of your choice for an hour. Up to 9 altogether, if you cast it at level 9 and already have a normal Find Familiar.

Unseen Servant requires concentration, but it's the only one I've mentioned so far that does so all is well there.

Finally, since we're using UA then we could take a small step to the side and use the Planeshift supplements to get Zendikar Vampire as your Race. They have an ability where, if they successfully grapple an opponent, they can drain their blood and the resulting death turns the victim into a Thrall (using the Zombie statline).
Unfortunately for the DM the ability's description stops there, so apparently there is no limit to the number of Thralls you can have and they don't expire until killed. Technically unlimited Zombie henchmen, although be prepared to have lots of books thrown at you if you try it!

[JackPhoenix]

Well, they can get arbitrary (or as much as the GM is willing to tolerate without using the MM as an improvised thrown weapon) number of pets by just taming/breeding/buying the animals, no class features needed, though proficiency in Animal Handling and access to Animal Friendship and similar spells may be helpful. Humanity did that for the last, what, 20 thousand years or so (except without magic)?

[TerrorSweats]

Well, they can get arbitrary (or as much as the GM is willing to tolerate without using the MM as an improvised thrown weapon) number of pets by just taming/breeding/buying the animals, no class features needed, though proficiency in Animal Handling and access to Animal Friendship and similar spells may be helpful. Humanity did that for the last, what, 20 thousand years or so (except without magic)?


That's fair & probably the correct way to do this, not that they don't stack with each other. I was just curious about how many you could get through class features or feats regardless of how many critters willing to join the party the gm let's float around for y'all to run into before starting to resent them like you said. Unless they're really into to npc interaction being overwhelmingly dominated by animal noises. In which case go absolutely nuts.

[TerrorSweats]

Buncha good ****

All really great stuff, especially for pokemon/summoner/necrohorde style builds, I didn't even know there WAS a find greater steed.

Even with the reduced duration it seems worth it to swap out your mastiff for a peryton or rhino for 10 mins.
I'm not sure how to fit 4th level paladin spells in here, but seems pretty goo-Oooh dip, I just looked it up and magical secrets can swipe up to 5th level up front!

Don't know where I got it from but I always thought it was capped at 2nd lv spells unless they were on the class list for some reason.
Well that's this theoretical petting zoo build's capstone now.
A big dog that turns into crazy **** then disappears.

Damn, I slept on paladins. They get a battlecat/swiftwind activation spell that can replace their mount with a juiced one? Hell yes.

[Man_Over_Game]

All really great stuff, especially for pokemon/summoner/necrohorde style builds, I didn't even know there WAS a find greater steed.

Even with the reduced duration it seems worth it to swap out your mastiff for a peryton or rhino for 10 mins.
I'm not sure how to fit 4th level paladin spells in here, but seems pretty goo-Oooh dip, I just looked it up and magical secrets can swipe up to 5th level up front!

Don't know where I got it from but I always thought it was capped at 2nd lv spells unless they were on the class list for some reason.
Well that's this theoretical petting zoo build's capstone now.
A big dog that turns into crazy **** then disappears.

Damn, I slept on paladins. They get a battlecat/swiftwind activation spell that can replace their mount with a juiced one? Hell yes.

Don't forget that Bards can pick up those spells. Might take a lot of levels, but IIRC they can get it before Paladins do.

[Wraith]

Don't forget that Bards can pick up those spells. Might take a lot of levels, but IIRC they can get it before Paladins do.

Bards get level 4 spells at level 7 and get Magical Secrets at level 10. Since Paladin don't get level 4 spells until level 13, you're almost certainly better off progressing in Bard than trying to squeeze in Paladin.

If you ask your GM very, very nicely, they might let you swap the spell chosen at Lore Bard's level 6 Magical Secrets for a different spell when you reach level 7 which would mean Find Greater Steed - however strictly speaking Magical Secrets doesn't have that option and you're stuck with a level 1-3 spell. Something to bear in mind and possibly barter for? :smallsmile:

[quindraco]

Unchecked UA multiclassing can get you 6 pets, which is neat.

For perermanent pets there's:
Lv1 Lorehold Bard/Wiz(UA)
Lv1-3 Raven Queen warlock (Perma discarded-UA)
Lv3 Battle Smith Artificer
Lv3 Beast master

That's a golem, a familiar, a raven, a robot, a homunculus & a beast by lv 8, with the option to get improved familiar by lv 10, without any recasting unless they die. Each. Most of which are by raw aesthetically customizable to be fluffed as almost whatever critters you want.


Don't lowball how bad it is that Lorehold will probably end up existing. You can do this:
Level 1 Warlock of Lorehold
Level 2 Wizard of Lorehold
Level 3 Bard of Lorehold

That's three Ancient Companion statue-constructs (and a familiar, but literally anyone can get a familiar, that's not impressive) with nothing but INT and CHA. If you really wanted, you could keep going, or you could go to L6 in each for one of each statue type (assuming your DM won't let the benefits stack).

[Brawnspear]

Heck, even if you want to keep it official you can get a bunch of semi permanent friends.


Warlock 3: Pact of the chain, pick up the Investment of the chain Master to make it a semi-useful Familiar

Wildfire Druid 2: Flame Spirit summoned for an hour using Wild Shape charges, no concentration, could also Drop warlock and take Wild Companion which burns a wildshape for Find familiar for 1/2 druid level hours

Beast Master Ranger 3: Beast of the air/earth/sea

Battle Master Artificer 3: Homunculus and Defender

Creation Bard 6: Animated object

Paladin spells for Finding steeds


And in all actuality I think that Creation Bard is likely the best bet for getting as many minions as possible. while within the 20 level limit, but it will take 10 levels of your build to max it.
10 Creation bard, with either the ritual caster or Wizard Initiate feat: Find Greater Steed Spell, Find Familiar Spell, Animating Performance (only lasts for an hour, but no concentration and can burn spells to wake it back up).
3+ Beast Master ranger: Beast of the Air/Earth/Sea
3+ Artificer : Steel Defender and Homunculus
2+ Wildfire Druid: Wildfire Spirit

7 pets, and you can sacrifice an attack to command the ranger pet, a bonus action to command one of the other ones, and your steed has its own turn if its uncontrolled. Steel defender can still discourage people from attacking you without spending an action, and they all use your spell casting dcs, so you can choose what to focus on. Maybe go mostly wis and cha to focus on your ranger and bard pets, using artificer as a utility (mending for your constructs, guidance for other things), and pick up the cantrip fighting style for ranger (or defense and just rely on your minions).

If you want it to come quick, go Ranger Druid first and then you have 2 wisdom based pets that can be used with your action and bonus action come level 5. They can both be flying so you can try to keep them from being aoe-d and getting their sub 20 hit points taken out. Fire Spirit has a ranged attack and Beast of the air has flyby.

[Ettina]

Finally, since we're using UA then we could take a small step to the side and use the Planeshift supplements to get Zendikar Vampire as your Race. They have an ability where, if they successfully grapple an opponent, they can drain their blood and the resulting death turns the victim into a Thrall (using the Zombie statline).
Unfortunately for the DM the ability's description stops there, so apparently there is no limit to the number of Thralls you can have and they don't expire until killed. Technically unlimited Zombie henchmen, although be prepared to have lots of books thrown at you if you try it!

Note that there's nothing in that ability that states that you have control over the resulting zombie. If I'm DMing, I'd make it hostile to everyone. Sure, you can make as many as you want, but you'd better have a plan for protecting yourself and your party from them!

[Wraith]

Note that there's nothing in that ability that states that you have control over the resulting zombie. If I'm DMing, I'd make it hostile to everyone. Sure, you can make as many as you want, but you'd better have a plan for protecting yourself and your party from them!

Absolutely true, however the bestiary entry for Vampire Nulls says that they are "mindlessly loyal to the Vampire nobility" so... *shrug* Are they definitely always under your control? No, but take the Noble background and there's possibly a case for it. :smalltongue:

[TerrorSweats]

Don't lowball how bad it is that Lorehold will probably end up existing. You can do this:
Level 1 Warlock of Lorehold
Level 2 Wizard of Lorehold
Level 3 Bard of Lorehold

That's three Ancient Companion statue-constructs (and a familiar, but literally anyone can get a familiar, that's not impressive) with nothing but INT and CHA. If you really wanted, you could keep going, or you could go to L6 in each for one of each statue type (assuming your DM won't let the benefits stack).

Huh. Neat

I just assumed there was no way they'd let you take the same subclass more than once.
In fact, I thought it must have said you couldn't somewhere but I'd skimmed past it.

Frankly even if you can, I'm betting a lot of tables wouldn't allow it but I'm completely fine with this kind of whacky bull****.

Plus after taking 6 in each, having three competitively scaled up rock pets and no 4th level spells by lv 18 is just aces by me. Doubling down on a character concepts by making weird decisions is never something I'm mad at.

As an alternative to summoning it's hardly that broken relative to what you could do running a single class caster to 18th. Like, wizards can
already summon elementals to back up their permanent undead army by then anyway. Lv3 does seem quick for 3 pets, but not unprecedentedly so.
But doing both is admittedly excessive.

[LordShade]

This thread is hilarious and awesome.

The issue is that you can't get the entire menagerie to act, right? Most pet classes seem to require you to give up your own actions in order to command the pet.

[BerzerkerUnit]

Huh. Neat

I just assumed there was no way they'd let you take the same subclass more than once.
In fact, I thought it must have said you couldn't somewhere but I'd skimmed past it.

Frankly even if you can, I'm betting a lot of tables wouldn't allow it but I'm completely fine with this kind of whacky bull****.

Plus after taking 6 in each, having three competitively scaled up rock pets and no 4th level spells by lv 18 is just aces by me. Doubling down on a character concepts by making weird decisions is never something I'm mad at.

As an alternative to summoning it's hardly that broken relative to what you could do running a single class caster to 18th. Like, wizards can
already summon elementals to back up their permanent undead army by then anyway. Lv3 does seem quick for 3 pets, but not unprecedentedly so.
But doing both is admittedly excessive.

Under the "Using these Subclasses" section, end of first paragraph:
"You can choose the subclass only once,
even if you multiclass into another class that is
also compatible with the subclass"

So no, you can't MC and stack levels for progression or get the same benefit more than once by RAW. Not that you'd need to. Lorelock 7, Chain pact with Summon Aberration. 3 Pets, one granting you an attack alongside your EBlasting which you could use for another PD sting, maybe 2 KOs in one round:
bonus action Familiar attack, and free action Aberration blasting for 2 more attacks. You're making 6 attacks/round... d10+4 x2 (18), d8+7 x2 (22), ~d8+3 x1 (7) (crossbow?)(or d4+2 (4)with KO poison), d4+2 x1 (4)with KO poison). ~50 DPR for 1 spell. I love the lorelock.

My preferred combo is Summon Undead (ghoul type) with Pseudodragon. PD sting will poison for 1 hour on a fail vs your DC 16 and by RAW a foe with an 11 or less result falls unconscious. If they are poisoned for the hour, every attack the undead makes might paralyze them.