If your DM agrees, you can always apply the Leadership feat to animals if your class is nature-oriented, like Druid or Ranger.
IIRC, there's also a feat called Wild Cohort, but it's not made to gather followers like Leadership does.
I also think that Handle Animal could be used in place of Diplomacy to befriend animals. If not, there is always the Charm Animal spell.
There is a PrC(3.5) that allows for multiple animal companions, but the druid gets little to no spellcasting progression, and the extra animal companions get weaker and weaker.
PS: I would look at the Wild Cohort feat. There is also a feat that allows you to add +4 IIRC to your level for the purpose of determining the strength of your animal companion.
There was a 3pp 3.x feat called Extra Companion. It allowed the Druid/Ranger to take an additional animal companion. The new companion started at the beginning of the level curve so it wasn't too powerful.
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I was recently talking to a druid player about how there used to be a 3.0 spell that gave a druid multiple companion. Now, I prefer the animal companion rules for Pathfinder. However, flavor-wise, I like the idea of a druid being accepted as the alpha of, say, a pack of wolves. Question is, how to give the druid multiple companions while maintaining game balance...
I was think that if a druid took, say, four animal companions, each would advance as the companion of a druid of 1/4 the PC's actual Druid level. Maybe with each companion after the first taking further penalties to level.
What do you guys think? I know dividing their class levels makes them less combat effective. I'm just wondering how to make the companions survivable without giving the "pack" druid an advantage over the traditional, single-companion one.
Maybe look at leadership for ideas?...
I agree that a Druid or Ranger with more than one animal companion is a very cool and very flavorful idea. Very AD&D ...
I'd love to play with a lion or tiger or something like that AND a hawk or falcon etc.
I actually added this very option in the way of a Ranger Talent for the Spell-less Ranger. If you have that issue of Kobold Quarterly, you could probably modify the Talent into an actual Feat with little work at all. If you have the PDF of the issue, you can even use the Animal Companion side of the Ranger Tracking Sheet to fully detail and keep track of the animal(s).
Otherwise, I think a modified version of the Leadership feat is a very interesting way to approach this.
I think the leaderships feat is a great starting point. Maybe change it from charisma to wisdom? Have your cohort be an additional animal companion with effective druid level -2 or something, and then when you hit a score high enough for followers, they can be individual wolves.
This is funny, because I have always wanted to play this sort of druid myself, and have actually specced out the character, but unfortunately, there is at least one player in my group who has a real problem with characters who do lots of summoning. I do not agree with his reasons, but I do sympathize with the emotion behind them, so I have tried to be chill about it with the summoner characters I have played. His reasons are basically that it causes that character's turn to take too long, that player ends up with many more actions than the other players, thus making other players feel sidelined, and in the case of high-level summons, such as those brought into play by the planar ally and gate spells, he feels that he becomes no more than the cohort of the summoned creature. Even playing a druid and doing something fairly standard like summoning 1d3 arrowhawks with a Summon Nature's Ally V spell visibly disturbs him.
But, in a different playing group this is the sort of druid I would play:
main stat: CHA
leadership feat as early as possible
Use Wild Empathy class ability and Handle Animal skill to gather large numbers of wolves around me.
When I get to high enough level to cast Awakening, use it on the best of my wolf-pack and turn him into my super-intelligent wolf (or Dire Wolf) cohort.
Spend as much time as possible in dire wolf form.
Use Dominate Animal to recruit any particularly fearsome dire wolves I find in the wilderness for short periods of time.
Of course Summon Nature's ally spells enhance the size of the wolf-pack nicely for short periods of time.
All hail the Wolf King.
The PrC you are looking for is in Complete Adventurer, it was called the Beastmaster. Away from books at work, but I think it gave you another companion at 4th, 7th and maybe 9/10th level? Each time you gained one your effective level for abilities was lower for that particular animal, basically they got progressively weaker. Honestly this is probably exactly what you are looking for.
I like the idea of the leadership feat but there are a bunch of ramifications to think about, not the least of which is that wolves are probably much more combat effective than most of the npcs you'd get from leadership (as well as intelligence as was mentioned). Also, how would you dictate commands to them? Are they really companions in which case all it takes is a free action (I think again away from books) to give each one of them a command? Or are they actual animals in which case it takes actual actions away from the druid to issue a command to each animal.
Again what the OP is requesting is probably done best with the Beastmaster PrC, I'd suggest looking it up if for no other reason than to build off of it to get exactly what you might want.
IIRC - If I remember correctly.
I posted a Beastmaster PRC which didn't get any notice a while ago, but it specifically deals with what you're looking for.
Cool idea, but I really don't want to have to Awaken the wolves to get them into the pack...
The Awaken is not required to add them to your pack, that's what Wild Empathy and Handle Animal are for. Awaken is used only on the best of your pack, so that he can become your cohort using the Leadership feat, and then advance with you taking class levels (I would probably favor Barbarian levels for a Dire Wolf)