Improved Familiar Arcane spellcaster Level


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The Exchange Owner - D20 Hobbies

You likely will never get a FAQ for this, at least until it is widely misunderstood, as it is not believed to need an explanation

To clarify, this means that your caster level has nothing to do with improved familiar. So magical knack, beads of karma, etc do nothing for Improved Familiar. Only levels in the class that grants the familiar do so.

Sovereign Court

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James, it's actually been answered, although it's sort of buried in a wall of text:

FAQ wrote:

Improved Familiars: There are various ways for characters other than arcane spellcasters to gain familiars at this point, and some of those options even grant Improved Familiar as a bonus feat, but technically each Improved Familiar option requires a certain arcane spellcaster level to take it. Does that mean that non-arcane characters with Improved Familiar have a dead feature? How does it work? If it does work, can I take an Improved Familiar as some kind of variant familiar or a temporary familiar like the occultist’s soulbound puppet?

The Improved Familiar description was written back when only arcane spellcasters could have familiars, and it wasn’t sufficiently future-proofed. To that end, you can always substitute your effective wizard level for the purpose of determining your familiar’s abilities for “arcane spellcaster level” to determine the available improved familiars for your character. In general, you can take Improved Familiars for class-granted variant familiars like a shaman’s spirit animal, with a few exceptions: First, temporary familiars like the occultist’s soulbound puppet can’t become Improved Familiars from the Improved Familiar feat, and those class features don’t qualify you to take the Improved Familiar feat. Second, tumor familiars, as lumps of flesh in the shape of animals, can’t become Improved Familiars. In other cases, treat Improved Familiar as if it was an archetype to see if it stacks with other familiar options: since the two things it alters from a regular familiar are that it removes the ability to speak with animals of its kind and it prevents changing the creature type for non-animals, you couldn’t make a familiar that changes the creature type of non-animals or alters or removes speak with animals of its kind an Improved Familiar.

The consequences then are:

1) Magical Knack doesn't work, since it doesn't raise your "effective wizard level for determining the []abilities[/b] of your familiar".

2) Prestige classes that don't progress your familiar, don't count for Improved Familiar either.

3) A wizard/arcane bloodline sorcerer stacks those levels together to determine the abilities of his arcane bond (familiar), so those would also work together for Improved Familiar.

4) Witches are a little vague on whether they stack with other familiar-using classes like wizard for determining abilities, but they probably do since you're not supposed to get more than one familiar. So a witch/sorcerer could probably also stack those levels for improved familiar.

5) Shamans stack with all other familiar-using classes, so that also works.

6) Boon Companion counts your effective class level for determining familiar's abilities, so it also works towards improved familiar.

Are there any unsolved questions about familiar stacking?

The Exchange Owner - D20 Hobbies

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Awesome Ascalaphus!


I disagree on your interpretation of that FAQ. How does being allowed to substitute effective wizard levels for "Arcane spellcater level", change or define what "Arcane spellcaster level" is?
That's a bit of a logical leap.

If the phrase were less ambiguous, would you make the same leap?

The FAQ makes sense with either interpretation.

Either "you can substitute your effective wizard level for your Arcane Class level"

Or

"you can substitute your effective wizard level for your Arcane Caster level"

Both make perfect sense with the quoted FAQ.

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