Okay, now that I have your attention...
For ease of play, I think we can stop rolling initiative for creatures which are not independent of the PCs -- familiars, animal companions, mounts, pet dogs, and so on -- and just have them act at the same initiative as their owner/operators, so to speak. Mounts in combat already work that way, i.e. they move on their rider's initiative and so on. And in any case, those who got high initiatives would often wait for instructions from their masters before doing anything anyways, so in effect this won't change things that much -- and in fact may get rid of problems arising from low initiative rolls by the minions at the same time.
I will allow minion and master to effectively act simultaneously -- i.e. in any given round, you can move yourself and your minion together, make attacks etc. in whatever order you wish. For those with an animal companion, that will make the logistics of arranging flanking bonuses etc. a little easier, but in essence is much like moving, then readying an attack 'when my pet gets into flanking position', which was possible before in any case. It means too that minion and master can swap who moves first if they like without changing initiative order. However, the master may still need to give instructions to the minion in some way, so as a default, the master is assumed to move first.
From the DMG, BTW -- note that one word commands such as Attack or Heel are Free actions, but more complex orders -- such as 'Attack' a specific target which the master points out to the minion, is supposed to count as a standard action, so it would replace spellcasting or a melee/missile attack. The GM reserves the right to modify minion behavior based on circumstances and the actual wording of any commands given. Intelligent beings being a bit more flexible in that regard, being able to make decisions on their own.
Two somewhat related issues:
Leadership Feat -- Amassing NPCs
I am allowing those who take the Leadership feat to attract a cohort (must be 6th level to take the feat), and even in the long run to establish a group of followers. Actual access to special cohorts will be on a case-by-case basis. Note however that birth rank of a cohort and followers will never exceed birth rank of the Leader -- i.e. a Common character CAN take the Leadership feat but will never have a Noble-born cohort or followers, and Noble-born characters cannot have Imperial rank cohorts or followers. A Barbarian can only attract other barbarians...at least in terms of human types. Also, leadership score is reduced by 2 for the purpose of getting a cohort or followers of the same birth rank. (In the case of followers, use the higher leadership score to determine maximum total number of followers, the lower score to determine what subset of those followers may be of the same birth rank.) For non-human cohorts, effective birth rank will vary depending on race -- i.e. an Ogre would count as having barrbarian birth rank, while a Celestial Dragon would count as Imperial, of course... :) The GM will decide those (as noted above) case-by-case... Note that followers will not be intended to be adventuring companions -- and will require some sort of established base of operations to maintain them, as well as actual gold to upkeep them, so I don't envision that happening in the near future.
Familiars and Companions -- Improving them...
Per Masters of the Wild, animal companions can be improved through special rituals that a Shaman (as opposed to Druid) may perform, assuming that their animal type can advance by hit dice. The ritual costs a small amount of experience and can increase the animal's hit dice, to a maximum of the Shaman's current level or the maximum for that animal type, whichever is smaller. This is a viable option which makes more role-playing sense than dismissing one animal in order to get a 'better' one, something that is unappealing to those who consider their companions to be actual friends. I have already stated that this is an option in Drakara...
Familiars are a different matter. The Improved Familiar feat in Tome and Blood assumes that the master has lost or dismissed his previous familiar in order to get a 'better' one, which like dismissing an animal companion is unappealing at best -- but the link between a master and his familiar is even stronger and thus the idea of casting aside a loyal familiar should be even less palatable. On the other hand, a familiar already gains abilities and such as its master gains levels, especially if those levels are in the spellcasting class which acquired the familiar to begin with. So there is no need for a ritual to improve the familiar itself -- but the concept of using a Feat to enable an even better familiar is not unreasonable, given the scarcity of feats available to most classes. There are a couple of possibilities...
One would be to allow a feat which would let a master apply all his levels -- not just those in the initial spellcasting class -- to contribute towards the familiar's advancement. The familiar already gets some of those factors -- i.e. hit points and hit dice, attack bonus, skill use and saves, etc. are all based on the master's totals regardless of source. However, natural armor bonus, INT and special abilities are based on class level. This feat would allow them to be based on character level instead, which would be very useful for multi-classed characters, even if 'just' going into a prestige class. Note, by the way, from the online SRD: "In the special case of a character with both sorcerer and wizard levels, the character can add those levels together to determine the power level of the familiar." That implies that levels in multiple classes which allow a familiar do stack for this purpose, though few if any characters would have multiple levels in both sorcerer and wizard instead of almost all levels in one of them, due to the steep power curve when accessing higher level spells. (Personally, I like the idea of such a character being able to have TWO familiars, one for each such class...rather than combining levels...but that's just me, and in O.A. Wu Jen don't get familiars and I don't allow Adept PCs, so the question is sort of moot...) So anyways, with such a feat the familiar would get to gain extra INT, AC and the higher level special abilities from the table.
The other possibility would be to allow a master to improve his familiar by 'awakening' the true spirit of the familiar -- adding in a template, basically, which would provide some of the special abilities that an Improved Familiar (per Tome and Blood) might have, similar to the Celestial or Fiendish templates. That would also require taking a feat to gain this option, and the expenditure of some experience to actually carry it out. Using the Improved Familiar feat normally, if one wants to dismiss an old familiar in order to make room for a new one (which also costs a year and a day of time), or when the familiar dies, the master must make a fortitude save (DC15) or lose 200 xp per class level, only half that if the save is successful. So I would say performing the magical ritual that would 'improve' a normal familiar, though obviously it would not require a year and a day to do, would require a similar save and experience point cost. Thus with the Improved Familiar feat, one could get the results of losing one's initial familiar (with the same experience point cost) and then using the feat to gain a new familiar, but could do so without having to go through the actual trauma and the year of waiting, and instead keep the original familiar with personality etc. intact, just adding on the template. Also, the level of the master would determine whether the template could be added, i.e. the feat cannot be used effectively for this purpose until a certain level based on the template being added...just as certain types of special familiars require a minimum level to be available.
So, what do you think? The first option, the second, both, or neither?