In the Garreg Mach Monastery in Fire Emblem: Three Houses, you'll be meeting a whole host of characters who form the three different houses. Regardless of which house you choose to align with at the beginning, you'll have the opportunity to recruit characters from other houses along the way. So, just how many characters can you recruit?
There are 33 recruitable characters in the game but recruiting everyone during a single playthrough is near impossible.
First off, some characters get taken off the table as soon as you pick a house, which makes recruitment in Fire Emblem: Three Houses a little more complicated. You can't recruit the other house leaders, Claude, Dimitri, and Edelgard if you don't pick their house. Characters like Dedue and Hubert, who are both incredibly loyal to Dimitri and Edelgard, are also unobtainable if you don't choose their respective house.
Besides that, almost every other character from Three Houses, including professors and knights like Catherine, Shamir, Seteth, and Gilbert are recruitable through giving gifts, returning lost items, and sharing tea with them. You only need to reach a high base level to recruit characters like Shamir and Catherine, while other characters like Flayn and Seteth will join you based off which route you pick in Fire Emblem: Three Houses.
There are also other story-based restrictions with some characters. Leonie, for example, can only be recruited after a major event if you didn't choose the Golden Deer House. Ferdinand has a similar restriction, but most other characters can be recruited easily.
There are multiple ways you can recruit students. Fire Emblem: Three Houses tells you that you need to gain a certain amount of skill points in order for a student to want to join your house. You'll need strong flying stats to recruit Ingrid, for example. You can lower the stat requirement by simply raising your relationship level with the student. Give them gifts and return lost items and that stat requirement won't be as harsh. If you get to B support level with a student you can override the skill requirement altogether and recruit them.
There is no limit to how many characters you can recruit per run, but time is a natural roadblock. It'd be difficult to bond with every recruitable student, knight, and professor at Garag Mach before the time jump (the point in the game which most characters become unobtainable). You also only need 11 or 12 units to fully round out your army meaning that you won't have much use for more.
If you want to experience the unique side missions and dialogue that comes with each character, try multiple playthroughs and pick a different house. This relieves you of the pressure of trying to fit all the students into your packed schedule in a single run.
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