Part 1
Quick explanation of the goal:
Wizard who rides his animal companion turning the combo into a mobile spell casting platform. the animal companion mixes it up in melee while the wizard gets off spells at point blank range. (so yes much defensive casting and defenses to survive)
Now this can be done with a Sylvan Sorcerer but for RP reasons wizard is a much better choice.
So any ways to pull this off as cheaply as possible as soon as possible before level 5 would be optimal with either little or no loss of wizard levels.
Part 2
Now if the above is a lost cause, what is the animal companion class feature worth for the wizard ?
e.g.
lose familiar, lose arcane school gain animal companion ?
or
lose familiar, lose arcane school powers (1st 8th etc) but not the arcane school (+1 spell of school per level) gain animal companion
or
lose familiar, lose scribe scroll gain animal companion ?
or
something less something more ?
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I think you are wasting your time. I have a Sylvan Sorcerer and I would never dream of going into melee on my animal companion. Casting defensively isn't the problem, it's that you are going to run into creatures with reach and they are going to ignore the animal with the tough hide and pick the juicy wizard off its back.
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Yeah, the rider can protect the mount with Mounted Combat and a Ride check, but there's no way for the mount to protect the rider.
Obviously there's the Mount spell if you just need something to ride, but as for getting an animal companion, I'm pretty sure you need to multiclass.
If you're going to try to houserule it with your GM, I'd say giving up your familiar and your arcane school is a fair trade. After all, Druids get to pick between a domain and an animal companion.
Mmm I'll keep it as a last resort I try to refrain from discussing houserules with GM's unless I a) absolutely have to make something work and b) are confident that's what I really want to play.