Best pet class

[Monarchco]

Oddly enough, when I searched for this, I expected to find a ton of actual discussion threads on this, but instead all I found was a metric ton of stuff with people going "oh well here's the best one for tabletop, idk about the game"

So here we are.

Whats the best class for pets? Or preferably a breakdown of the best for pet volume, and the best for pet quality (like 10x skeletons vs 1 giant elemental)?

[Pat Fenis]

"Army" of summons is annoying tbh, always running around looking for a spot to stand and end up setting off traps and blocking movement in combat.

Create undead mummy is beyond useless.
Horde of flying ghouls is alright, but if you add necromancy of thay to that you get the "army" problems mentioned above.
3-4x skeletons are alright

The best pets are upcast lvl 6 myrmidons or Djinni imo. Deva or cambion is alright too.

Dire raven was great on a ranger, almost worth not having the third attack and maneuvers of a battlemaster.

[Tax evasion]

Spore druid, by far, possibly multiclassed into necromancy wizard.
You get :

• 4 ghouls from Danse Macabre (act 1 to 3 quest)
  
• 4 reanimations from Fungal Infestation
  
• 4 skeletons from Animate Dead with Necromancer subclass

and maybe others I forgot, but those I know for sure.
If you reanimate zombies instead of skeletons, they debuff the enemy with "Crawling Gnaw", that creates more (temporary) zombies when they die. It's nuts.

[GriffinPilgrim]

I had a lot of success with Cleric summons but only on the last couple of levels. Then you get Summon Planar Ally and that let's you summon an Astral Deva. Flight, no stat below 17, resistant to all physical damage (and Radiant), attacks do 1d6 bludgeoning and 4d8 Radiant normally and they can do another 1d6 Psychic and cause Frightened with their "Wrathful Smite" ability which they can use every turn. Oh, and they can cast Revivify.
But again, you do have to hit level 11 as a cleric.

[Metrod125]

If you’re playing a wizard necromancer or have a companion as one, Dance Macabre ghouls will be affected by the lvl 6 passive. Allowing you to call forth 5 ghouls instead of 4.
Now if you more into having a more meaty pet, Beastmaster Ranger probably suits your tastes better.

[GriffinPilgrim]

Originally posted by Metrod125:

If you’re playing a wizard necromancer or have a companion as one, Dance Macabre ghouls will be affected by the lvl 6 passive. Allowing you to call forth 5 ghouls instead of 4.
Now if you more into having a more meaty pet, Beastmaster Ranger probably suits your tastes better.

Downside to Danse Macabre is that if you're facing an enemy with a decent aoe spell and they go before you they tend to kill them all and set off 4 (or 5) Necrotic Damage bombs right next to your party.

[asnjas19]

Disagree with beastmater. The pet pathing for bm is terrible and inaccurate. Pets get stuck very easily on corners, doorways and obstacles. You will constantly need to manually control your pet to unhook him from obstacles. The bird is fine but the boar wolf and bear are frustrating.

Not much experience with other temporary summons but as a lvl 12 beastmaster ranger from the jump, I'd never recommend this class for the pathing reason alone.

[Metrod125]

Originally posted by asnjas19:

Disagree with beastmater. The pet pathing for bm is terrible and inaccurate. Pets get stuck very easily on corners, doorways and obstacles. You will constantly need to manually control your pet to unhook him from obstacles. The bird is fine but the boar wolf and bear are frustrating.

Not much experience with other temporary summons but as a lvl 12 beastmaster ranger from the jump, I'd never recommend this class for the pathing reason alone.

tbh if the pet doesn't have the ability to fly they get stuck on anything unless you're area transitioning.

[GriffinPilgrim]

Originally posted by Metrod125:

Originally posted by asnjas19:

Disagree with beastmater. The pet pathing for bm is terrible and inaccurate. Pets get stuck very easily on corners, doorways and obstacles. You will constantly need to manually control your pet to unhook him from obstacles. The bird is fine but the boar wolf and bear are frustrating.

Not much experience with other temporary summons but as a lvl 12 beastmaster ranger from the jump, I'd never recommend this class for the pathing reason alone.

tbh if the pet doesn't have the ability to fly they get stuck on anything unless you're area transitioning.

Another point for Devas!

[Freckled Banana]

Spore druid gets the most Pets, and you can also get the Macabre skill from that Necromancy book... But micro managing pets is the most annoying thing in the whole game.

They are constantly getting stuck on terrain and they never stand where you want them to stand.

[MachineGod]

My favorite pet is Halsin underwear optional

[Lily]

Originally posted by Tax evasion:

Spore druid, by far, possibly multiclassed into necromancy wizard.
You get :

• 4 ghouls from Danse Macabre (act 1 to 3 quest)
  
• 4 reanimations from Fungal Infestation
  
• 4 skeletons from Animate Dead with Necromancer subclass

and maybe others I forgot, but those I know for sure.
If you reanimate zombies instead of skeletons, they debuff the enemy with "Crawling Gnaw", that creates more (temporary) zombies when they die. It's nuts.

6 spores druid with 6 Wizard is what I've been seeing. You get the important benefits you want from both like the animating spores, the upcasting of animate dead to get more ghouls, 6th level spell slots and capable of learning unique scrolls.

Sadly you miss out on Conjure Woodland being.

You get a list.
1. Mage Hand
2. Find Familiar(variants cheeky Quasit, Scratch, Boo)
3. Flaming Sphere
4. Animate Dead
5. Conjure Minor Elemental
6. Conjure Elemental
7. Create Undead
8. Danse Macabre
9. Sights of the Seelie: Summon Deva
10. Animating Spores
11. Planar Ally(through Infernal Rapier)

Not sure if Sights of the Seelie and Planar ally work together, I'll test that sometime.

But in total at any given time you could have a total of 18 summons at once. 19 if Planar ally works with Sights of the Seelie. Although by that point some aren't worth it to cast.

[AokiYakumo]

Frankly speaking I hate the micromanagement of Disney Princess'ing encounters. I stick to less numbers and more f*ck sh*t up energy.

For that, any class able to summon Elementals (Druids, Wizards, and Warlocks) tends to get my vote. The base elementals already are amazing, and for Druids/Wizards specifically you can get Myrmidons which are just insane.

[Brian_the_Brute]

any class, using customcompanions mod to clone baby owlbear so they can be an NPC you can control movement with and join scratch on your adventure rather than be stuck at camp without his pal.

[Eternal President Uncle Slam]

I like moon druid as a summoner class. You don't get as many summons, but moon druid has very little use for its spell slots since you will be using wild shape a vast majority of the time. Then both wild shape and summons don't rely on gear or ability scores, so you got one character that you can pretty much ignore gearing up. Dryad can cast an infinite amount of spikes which is incredibly useful and its shillelagh does 4d8 bludgeoning! Moon druid with tavern brawler makes them hit very hard and consistently(3 times per turn as well), so they are far from useless without their summons.

Moon druid summoner isn't about shear numbers, its more about summoning things that are actually useful and don't limit the casters combat effectiveness. Don't even bother with summoning Azer with conjure minor elemental, they are completely useless. They are really slow even if you buff them with long strider and they miss nearly every attack. Mephits can fly, you get two per cast, and they have more utility. All the myrmidon's are really good, but they do take a higher spell slot.

Always combine summons with a cleric(even if its just a camp buffer), so you can buff your summons hp with aid and hero's feast. Even an imp or scratch go from being useless to being a consistent nuisance to your enemies when they get that extra 30+hp.

[AokiYakumo]

Originally posted by Eternal President Uncle Slam:

I like moon druid as a summoner class. You don't get as many summons, but moon druid has very little use for its spell slots since you will be using wild shape a vast majority of the time. Then both wild shape and summons don't rely on gear or ability scores, so you got one character that you can pretty much ignore gearing up. Dryad can cast an infinite amount of spikes which is incredibly useful and its shillelagh does 4d8 bludgeoning! Moon druid with tavern brawler makes them hit very hard and consistently(3 times per turn as well), so they are far from useless without their summons.

Moon druid summoner isn't about shear numbers, its more about summoning things that are actually useful and don't limit the casters combat effectiveness. Don't even bother with summoning Azer with conjure minor elemental, they are completely useless. They are really slow even if you buff them with long strider and they miss nearly every attack. Mephits can fly, you get two per cast, and they have more utility. All the myrmidon's are really good, but they do take a higher spell slot.

Always combine summons with a cleric(even if its just a camp buffer), so you can buff your summons hp with aid and hero's feast. Even an imp or scratch go from being useless to being a consistent nuisance to your enemies when they get that extra 30+hp.

Vouch on the CLC combo here; You can stack Bless, Aid, and Heroes' Feast for pretty much every battle which is enough to make even a spider/crab familiar contribute meaningfully to combat scenarios.

If we were to take this to 11 and never look back, we can actually build upon the combo further: A Bard with Crusader's Mantle and a Wizard with Fire Shield can add loads of extra damage per round with the right setup. Have the Bard wear medium armor (Valor's the best option for this) and focus on DEX over CHA (so you can use Armor of Agility, Helldusk Helm, and Cloak of Displacement to ensure you both dodge 90% of attacks and resist 70% of spell effects). The Wizard will need to be an Abjurer with 3 Cleric levels so they can throw Warding Bond and Fire Shield on your strongest summon (that way they deal good reflect damage but resist everything, and whatever damage gets redirected to the Wizard gets reduced even further to minimal levels). Wizard will be wearing Armor of Persistence (and will likely need the Absolute's Brand for the Absolute's Protector shield for even more DR) while sporting Heavy Armor Master to minimize incoming damage as much as possible.

For this, the final party would be a Bard Tav, DUrge, Wyll, or Astarion; a Cleric SHeart or Jaheira; a Wizard Gale; and a Druid Karlach or Halsin.

Pro Tip: If you have undead or fiends in the mix like ghouls, Shovel, or cambions; Wizard should be wearing Circle of Bones. It's as good as the Abyss Beckoners without the frenzy drawback, and allows a free Animate Dead once per LR. Similarly, don't scrap the Staff of Arcane Blessing or any of the pieces of the Wapira Set; the Cleric can use those to maximum effect to keep the Disney army alive.