wizard's pets needed for a custom game

[taltamir]

Background (you can skip this):
I am trying to design a 3.5e based game that I want to run.

the idea is to have only ~3 players who are the same class; This lets me do a lot of cool things for them without worrying about inter-class balance at all. Also it lets me do away with the god-mode that XP for encounters is (you killed 20 goblins, your mastery of magic increased by the same amount as 20 years of study). XP for fighting monsters makes a lot of sense for a fighter, as he gets invaluable combat experience; maybe even a sorcerer, but not so for a wizard...
I already have some ideas on what characters could do to gain XP.. mainly, every new spell you learn nets a little XP (say, 50XP per SL), binding a familiar gives a good XP boost (finally a reason to take a familiar). But the best XP would be from finding ancient tomes of secret knowledge, draining the lifeforce of a demon, traveling to an elemental plane to form a link with a crafted "power source" style gem for your staff, etc etc etc. Let the players come up with ideas, as well as provide them with many of my own (via teachers / tomes introducing that knowledge).
I will make a different thread for coming up with ideas for XP gain values (ill link it too with an edit)

I have also considered (well, just got the idea) of a special gestalt thing, where fighting things gains you "combat XP", which gives "combatant" levels to the gestalt, while doing wizardy things gains you "education XP" which advances wizard levels. so if you have 15k education XP and 3k combat XP then you will be a gestalt of wizard 6//combatant 3.
Combatant increases your BAB to 1 for those levels, and increases your HP by a flat 5 points per level. maybe improve your other saves too.

The first I want to try is an all wizard variants in a wizard college. The party consists only 3 wizards and their pets. Now, since the party might need some tanking capability, I have considered what sort of pets they might get (i want to avoid hirelings).

here is the thread for the general idea:
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...43#post8172743
here is the thread for this specific 3 wizards in a college setting:
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...11#post8172711

Question:
What are the various pets (mainly tanks but any useful "pet" will be welcome) that a wizard can get, and how?
the ones I know off the top of my head are golems, shield guardians, and undead.

[AslanCross]

Enthralled ogres are a classic.
He can have oozes that he can drop from the ceiling.

[Eldariel]

Domination, etc. is obviously one thing. But mostly yeah:
- Constructs
- Undead
- Planar Bound Outsiders

For the easiest. Also, Wild Cohort and Improved Familiar offer various options. Though mostly, the role can be covered with elusive tactics á la in Arcane Adventures.

Arathion "tanks" by being in the front and drawing enemies' attention and Abrupt Jaunting away, or with just everyone using ranged abilities from out-of-range. It's not really that difficult to improvise, especially when you have multiple Wizards with full spell lists to work with.

[The Glyphstone]

Chimeras or Owlbears? A Wizard Did It, and kept the results with him afterwards?

[Flickerdart]

Depending on the power of the wizard you can justify any pets for him, up to and including small planes. Make his tower a Genius Loci for bonus fun points.

[arguskos]

Dragon #341 has a large number of construct familiars and lesser golems, totally perfect for a lower-level arcane game.

[Jack_Simth]

Question:
What are the various pets (mainly tanks but any useful "pet" will be welcome) that a wizard can get, and how?
the ones I know off the top of my head are golems, shield guardians, and undead.

Almost anything, depending on the Wizard.

Humanoids? Charm person is 1st, Dominate Person is 5th.
Most nonhumanoids? Charm Monster is 4th, Dominate Monster is 9th.
Undead? Command Undead is 2nd. Additionally, Mindless undead are loyal from creation.
Constructs: Craft Construct Feat. That's what it's for.
Outsiders/Elementals: The Planar Binding line gets you those.

How strong are these characters and their pets going to be at first?

[boomwolf]

Cats, Rats, Bats, Dogs, Frogs, Snakes, Small Birds.

AKA-look at the familiar ability of the wizard.


If one of them is necromancery focused it might also be a good idea to give him an undead thingy.

[EpicEvokerElf]

Spellstitch your undead buddies for extra fun (Libris Mortis).

[taltamir]

thank you for the info...

I have just finished writing up the setting for my first game (3 wizards):
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...11#post8172711
and the idea behind it (could be wizards, or paladins, or rogues, or any class really):
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=147041

What do you think would be appropriate to find in a mage college? If you are playing evil mages in they then yea, all those work. But I don't see undead and dominated humans in a more civilized place.
what would be good starter minions for low level mages? (sure a high level wizard can have everything... but what can you get at level 1? level 5? level 10?)

Dragon #341 has a large number of construct familiars and lesser golems, totally perfect for a lower-level arcane game.

i don't have access to it.

Enthralled ogres are a classic.
He can have oozes that he can drop from the ceiling.

those are good ideas for protecting your tower. but a good portion of the campaign will involve being in a perfectly safe wizard academy, and being low level. so:
1. as a low level wizard those are not an option.
2. you don't need them to be dropping from the ceiling, it is perfectly safe here, you need to take them out with you when going on a mission outside campus.
3. it needs to be something that will not be killed on sight by the campus defenses
4. it needs to be something that will be tolerated by the other wizards and students (most are nobles)
5. ideally, its clean and sanitary and safe enough to keep in your room and have it help you around (carry your stuff without melting it)

however, something like an ooze CAN be kept in a special container or a bestiary... so it will be a very good "grunt" for higher level wizards.

[taltamir]

actually, now that i think about it i was being too critical... the idea is to have options and cinematic style magic..

so ALL of those options are an and the players can have "whatever they want" as a pet.
binding a powerful creature requires significant enough level that they will be "level appropriate" by the time they finish the quest to bind it.
a created creature will be as powerful as they can make it, which will match the power of the creatures they can bind outright.