...with an alarming frequency.
I've tried very much to avoid the whole "I don't really have a familiar until I remember I do" bit, keeping my fox in the mind of our GM, even when he forgets about the little guy ("That ice storm covers a bit of ground, right? *rolls for fox's reflex*). It's made for some fun role-playing moments, but it feels a little like my attempts at keeping my familiar in the game are starting to backfire, a bit.
Of the past few encounters it seems like an inordinate amount of the bad guys are savvy to a Witch's weaknesses and are singling out my little buddy for their attacks. He's been driven down to the negatives more than 3 times in the last fight alone. A lot of my time is spent healing the poor guy, rather than beating up on monsters and megalomaniacal jerkfaces, which is more of what I signed up for.
I've never really played a class that is so very dependant on its familiar to be a truly effective party member, so I'm not really hip to the ways of embettering a familiar. Are there any suggestions from smart people out there on how I can keep little Tag alive? (Perhaps I should've started by not naming him "Tag".)
Thanks for any help!
Consider the spell "Carry Companion" from Knights of the Inner Sea. You temporarily turn your familiar into a small stone figurine.
If your GM allows conversion of old v3.5 stuff, there was a spell called "Familiar Pocket" that might be useful.
Also...you may want to talk with your GM. Unless you're coming across recurring enemies who have knowledge of who and what you are, it's going to be the rare baddie that would spend effort singling out a seemingly harmless fox rather than deal with surviving/fighting the party of threatening murder hobos that are whomping on them.
He might be letting his own wariness of your whomping-on-jerkfaces skills cloud his play in combat.
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Short of very savvy BBEGs who have scryed on you, I don't see why anyone would attack your pet fox. Cleverer enemies might seize the opportunity to grapple the fox and threaten it: "Put down your weapons or her little friend gets it!", etc; however, it's probably better strategy to just grapple you.
Have you tried just asking him during combat why the bad guys are attacking a small fox over other targets?
Also, don't forget about Improved Evasion and higher natural armour. If you start casting mage armour on your fox as well as ordering it to take Total Defence when not doing anything else, it should be nigh unhittable and able to make most reflex saves, taking half damage even if it fails.
Are you useing to flank or deliver touch spell? Or is just get caught in area of effect spell or negative engery burst.
If it for role playing like Mergy said.
Or is GM just want you to spend GP & time and time agian.
If just sitting there giving you +3 skill or some thing else then your gm just being mean.
Then wait your turn to be GM and kill him over and over agian.
You could buy extra small animals to confuse enemies.
If the enemies still target your familiar, above all others, then you need a sit down with the DM.
Ha! I love this idea, buy a litter of foxes from some exotic animal dealer, and rear them for combat. Then have them run around doing very little except run around. You might lose one of the little buggers, but it would be a great sight better than losing your familiar. Also, as a GM, I have to agree with some statements made already. There aren't going to be a whole lot of groups of enemies that collectively understand they should target a witch's familiar. Unless a group of sentient baddies has a witch as a friend, or was specially trained to hunt witches, I don't foresee them being terribly aware of that tactic. Now, on the other hand, if you are using your familiar to cast touch spells frequently, and the enemies see that, then I would say of course they'll target the little animal, just to prevent it from being the medium for those spells.
Tell your fox to climb in your backpack when the fight starts.
I played a witch who had a King Crab familiar, and kept him in a bucket in a Handy Haversack.
I thought I read some where about a tattoo familiar? Something about able to make your familiar into a tattoo to protect it?
Does anyone know?
Familiar Tattoo (Su)
A tattooed sorcerer gains a familiar as an arcane bond, as a wizard equal to her sorcerer level. Her sorcerer levels stack with any wizard or witch levels she possesses when determining the powers of her familiar—this ability does not allow her to have both a familiar and a bonded item.Unlike most familiars, her familiar can transform itself into a tattoo that she carries in her flesh. Transforming into a tattoo or back to normal familiar form is a move action for her familiar. In tattoo form, the familiar looks like a stylized version of itself, but does not count as a creature separate from the tattooed sorcerer. In tattoo form it continues to grant its special familiar ability, but otherwise has no abilities and can take no actions except to transform from tattoo into creature. A familiar tattoo cannot be erased or dispelled.
This ability replaces her 1st-level bloodline power.
I thought I read some where about a tattoo familiar? Something about able to make your familiar into a tattoo to protect it?
Does anyone know?
That's a sorcerer archetype. There's also a more generic caster prestige class that gets it, but it's not very witch-friendly (doesn't progress hexes and only 3/4 spellcasting progression).
Then wait your turn to be GM and kill him over and over agian.
Then everyone can have an equal amount of fun spending time on these games.
Or if your DM wont allow 3.5 stuff and you can't get your hands on an artifact:
https://sites.google.com/site/pathfinderogc/magic-items/wondrous-items/wond rous-items/r-z/stone-familiar
Link fixed, and thank you about that, i didn't know this item existed.
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Any classed NPC should be experienced enough to be wary of a group of adversaries accompanied by animals (with the exception of horses). I know my PCs are. Why shouldn't others who have "experienced" the world?
That said, the Gmay be taregeting your familier too much.
But another option, the GM may have a grander story option planned.
Any classed NPC should be experienced enough to be wary of a group of adversaries accompanied by animals (with the exception of horses). I know my PCs are. Why shouldn't others who have "experienced" the world?
But how do the NPCs know which animals to be so worried about? If a witch's familiar dies, she is crippled, but if a wizard's familiar or arcane-blooded sorcerer's familiar is killed, she's barely affected at all; attacking it would be a waste of the NPCs' time. A ranger's or druid's animal companion, or a summoner's eidolon, is a potential threat in combat, but not so squishy that it can be easily removed like a familiar. And if the animal is not a proper companion at all but rather a temporary product of the summoner's Summon Monster SLA? The PC's would love for you to focus your fire on it.
Unless the familiar is being used to deliver touch spells or something, targeting it relies on more than just "animals that accompany people might be important".
hosteling shield would store it safely, you don't have to wear the shield to use it.
There are numerous spells, mundane items, and magical items that can help you to deal with this. In Ultimate Equipment alone there is the stone familiar wondrous item which stores your spells for you, a mundane familiar "carrying case" that grants your familiar total cover, hosteling shield/armor, among others.
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You could buy extra small animals to confuse enemies.
If the enemies still target your familiar, above all others, then you need a sit down with the DM.
Its not quite directly pertinent to the original question, but we did have a char in my last campaign that had a group of monkeys he kept on leashes running around him dressed in tiny peasant outfits. When they inadvertently died from area effect attacks he would cry for a bit then replace them with some other tiny animals from a bag of tricks and use his tailor skill to fit the clothes for them.
But he was a barbarian rather than someone who had to protect a familiar. He just liked to consider them his serfs since he dressed in glamoured armor that looked like a noble outfit and had a powdered wig.
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This seems more like being selectively attentive to that aspect of collateral damage. Familiars should always be at risk in the heat of combat, but most don't focus on them like that. Familiars, your equipment, your clothes, are all at risk from area spells, but more GMs don't worry about those saves. By most cases, any party attacking a spellcasters stronghold would come out devoid of body hair and clothing after a few fireballs and fire related traps.
Hopefully, the GM isn't having all his NPCs in the meta-game and trying to kill the familiar as a top priority, and not attacking anyone else's weakness specifically, i.e. sundering the cleric's holy symbol, sundering the wizards component pouch, sundering the fighter's armor. They are valid tactics, but not when they are used most of the time and more-so on a single player.
This seems more like being selectively attentive to that aspect of collateral damage. Familiars should always be at risk in the heat of combat, but most don't focus on them like that. Familiars, your equipment, your clothes, are all at risk from area spells, but more GMs don't worry about those saves.
Attended items only need save against area spells if you roll a natural "1" on your own save, and even then it is generally only a single attended item that risks getting zapped.
It's also worth noting that mundane items don't often get saves.
Items that are not attended, such as gear lying around your camp site, it extremely vulnerable to things like fireball ambushes. :P
Any classed NPC should be experienced enough to be wary of a group of adversaries accompanied by animals (with the exception of horses). I know my PCs are. Why shouldn't others who have "experienced" the world?But how do the NPCs know which animals to be so worried about? If a witch's familiar dies, she is crippled, but if a wizard's familiar or arcane-blooded sorcerer's familiar is killed, she's barely affected at all; attacking it would be a waste of the NPCs' time. A ranger's or druid's animal companion, or a summoner's eidolon, is a potential threat in combat, but not so squishy that it can be easily removed like a familiar. And if the animal is not a proper companion at all but rather a temporary product of the summoner's Summon Monster SLA? The PC's would love for you to focus your fire on it.
Unless the familiar is being used to deliver touch spells or something, targeting it relies on more than just "animals that accompany people might be important".
All I said was they should be experienced enough to be wary. And they would likely react differntly to a tiger in tow versus a fox or an eagle or a toad. An AOE targeted on the animal and as many PCs as possible seems very logical tactic for classed NPCs -- whether the animal is summoned, a PC in animal form, a familier, or an animal companion.
But yeah, if the NPCs are avoiding other obvious threatening targets while the familier does effectivly nothing, then that is a cause for a concern.
Any classed NPC should be experienced enough to be wary of a group of adversaries accompanied by animals (with the exception of horses). I know my PCs are. Why shouldn't others who have "experienced" the world?But how do the NPCs know which animals to be so worried about? If a witch's familiar dies, she is crippled, but if a wizard's familiar or arcane-blooded sorcerer's familiar is killed, she's barely affected at all; attacking it would be a waste of the NPCs' time. A ranger's or druid's animal companion, or a summoner's eidolon, is a potential threat in combat, but not so squishy that it can be easily removed like a familiar. And if the animal is not a proper companion at all but rather a temporary product of the summoner's Summon Monster SLA? The PC's would love for you to focus your fire on it.
Unless the familiar is being used to deliver touch spells or something, targeting it relies on more than just "animals that accompany people might be important".
This +1.
I've wandered into many fights that the bad guy has had an animal with him, to find out it is literally JUST an animal. How would I know that's a guard/war dog, or a animal companion?
This depends on what that animal does.
If the enemy sits back and says "get him fido" and does nothing, Ill kill the dog first.
IF the enemy says "get him fido" and shoots arrows at me, I'll probably kill the dog first, unless the little ankle nipper is irritating me and the guys arrow almost split my spine.
If the enemy has a barky dog that sits back, and does nothing while the enemy beats on me, I ignore the dog.
If the enemy is using fido for a flanking buddy, I might kill the dog first to eliminate the flank advantage.
If Jack sparrow attacks me with his sword, I'm not going to do anything about the annoying monkey that is running around on the ship.
If jack sparrow has levels of caster, and his annoying monkey jumps on me and delivers a touch spell that nearly burns my face off, I might try to kill the monkey.
What does a wizard look like? what does a sorcerer look like, do they look different than witches? What about an armored dude with a sword and a weird looking pet? how do I choose which fluffy is worth a target?
Even if I figure out the lady is a witch (mad cackling, or some other behavior I have seen before and can reasonably identify) and I decide to kill her fluffy, has that really increased my odds of survival in THIS fight? Sure she cant RENEW her spells, but that doesn't stop her from casting the already prepared ones, nor does it turn off her hexes.
IF I was going to target fluffy, I'd do it in a stealthy way, perhaps killing or kidnapping fluffy. Once I have taken fluffy out of the equation, I can continue to hit and run the witch, hoping to drain down her now, unreplentishable resources, or use fluffy as a bargaining chip.
What if it wasn't a witch at all? what If I'm mistaken, and that crow isn't a familiar, and it's an animal companion, and I try to jump it and put it in my bag? Now Ive got a nasty critter trying to kick my azz. One I might not even be able to kill on my own, especially before the druid joins in.
What if the witch and the druid in the party both have monkeys? One is a familiar the other an animal companion? One is a fluffy hostage, the other is going to go kung fu on me and spit in my eye. How do I know, In game, which is which.
AoE's of course snag everyone.
Which is why a Witch with a bird or something can keep her fluffy at a safe distance.
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hmmm. That is a very strange rule on the items effected by area spells. I can see it is there to not screw the players every time they get nuked, but having a single item effected only when you roll a 1 is odd. Take a fireball dead on and your hat only burn off, while your cloak, pants, shoes are all just fine.
Items Surviving after a Saving Throw: Unless the descriptive text for the spell specifies otherwise, all items carried or worn by a creature are assumed to survive a magical attack. If a creature rolls a natural 1 on its saving throw against the effect, however, an exposed item is harmed (if the attack can harm objects). Refer to Table: Items Affected by Magical Attacks: Items Affected by Magical Attacks. Determine which four objects carried or worn by the creature are most likely to be affected and roll randomly among them. The randomly determined item must make a saving throw against the attack form and take whatever damage the attack dealt.If the selected item is not carried or worn and is not magical, it does not get a saving throw. It simply is dealt the appropriate damage.
On the other note, fireball camp ambushes would be brutal on unattended mundane objects. no save and full damage.
on another note, if I were a traveling companion to a witch having this issue, an I were say a ranger or druid, some wild empathy and keeping some random critters, and/or summons would easily confuse the issue enough.
Alternatively, as a fighter, I could buy a few monkeys, or foxes and keep them around.... at least that's what i would do for my witch buddy.
plus you never know, a fox could be useful for something else. like finding traps?
hmmm. That is a very strange rule on the items effected by area spells. I can see it is there to not screw the players every time they get nuked, but having a single item effected only when you roll a 1 is odd. Take a fireball dead on and your hat only burn off, while your cloak, pants, shoes are all just fine.
On the other note, fireball camp ambushes would be brutal on unattended mundane objects. no save and full damage.
Items Surviving after a Saving Throw: Unless the descriptive text for the spell specifies otherwise, all items carried or worn by a creature are assumed to survive a magical attack. If a creature rolls a natural 1 on its saving throw against the effect, however, an exposed item is harmed (if the attack can harm objects). Refer to Table: Items Affected by Magical Attacks: Items Affected by Magical Attacks. Determine which four objects carried or worn by the creature are most likely to be affected and roll randomly among them. The randomly determined item must make a saving throw against the attack form and take whatever damage the attack dealt.If the selected item is not carried or worn and is not magical, it does not get a saving throw. It simply is dealt the appropriate damage.
This was done to mitigate the power of AOE spells, IIRC in 1e these types of spells could ruin a lot of your gear.
I suggest you try to kill your GM right back, and see how HE likes it.
That'll show him.
I've seen a few bards who cackle madly in combat, even before the witch class was introduced. Give one a small animal that follows them around and there you go, a decoy.
Thanks SO much for all of your kind responses! If it's okay, I'll address the general ideas, rather than respond to each post.
Re: Bad guys not knowing about Witchy-ness, talk to GM: I actually talked about this with our GM, and to be fair, he's pretty good at keeping the meta from his game. Of the three groups we've encountered and fought, one of them already knew of my witchitude from an encounter at the market and had a (bad) witch among them. It was the (bad) witch who suggested beating up my fox and kind of got the whole ball rolling in the first place. For the other encounters, each had a caster with sufficient ranks in Spellcraft and Knowledge: arcana to guess at my Hexing as opposed to casting, then also know how a witch interacts with her familiar. From there, I guess both casters figured that attacking Tag was a good way to keep the (good) witch off her game. Begrudgingly, I can't fault him this chain of logic. He's not had the skelingtons we encountered go after my fox, so there's that. And I don't really want to get into a whole "You singled out my fox when you GM'd, so now I'm going to punch your Monk when I'm running the show" type thingy. I just don't want to run my game that way.
But I think I'll have another chat at him if this seems to trend into our next session. Even if it doesn't, I'm still stuck with the realization that my familiar is very much a squishy part of my squishiness. 0_0
Re: Travel with your own skulk of foxes: This is clever, and would work in some circumstances very well, I think. My witch though, in character, would probably care more about the foxes than many of her humanoid companions, and would be loathe to endanger innocent animals just to protect her familiar. Also, at higher levels, if anyone decided to really go after the foxes, it'd be a turn or two at best before I was standing knee deep in pelts. In other news, even though she loves animals, my witch isn't exactly set up for training them. Low Chr and no ranks in Survival. Or Diplomacy. :P
Re: Buffs for Tad: I've used Mage Armor and False Life on my kit, and they've done some good, but they've also been dispelled with stunning frequency and also been pointed to by my GM as possibly being one thing that tips off any baddie who uses Detect Magic as to Tad's importance. I dunno. I still use them. Tad still winds up a cute little arrow cushion.
Re: Multi-classing to get non-witchy benefits for familiar protection: Um.
This seems like one of the more effective ways to protect my baby, but not one I'd be too excited about. Still, some of the spells that others get that protect a familiar that aren't on the spell lists for witches are very tempting. I'll have to think about it. Aside from the power trade-off, though, as far as progressions go, I'd be hard pressed to find a reasonable in-story way to make it happen. That's my deal, though, and I might just have to suck it up, as it were.
Re: Things that have been linked to: Darned if my computer here isn't letting me see the links. I'll have to check them out when I get home. The wonderous items and equipment that have been mentioned sound great. I'm rather poor at the moment, but those sound like things that would be nicely saved up for. Or found, if I can put the proverbial bug in my GM's ear. Very promising.
Re: Putting Tad away for battle: Huh. Yeah, I could defintely get a bigger pack, and try to get him all snug and away for combat. I'm leary of putting him in any of the bags of holding places, because I just know how much my GM loves to mess with stuff like that. Grrrr... but yeah, I feel stupid for not even thinking of that. Tad really hasn't done much in combat (I mostly use my hair for touch spells), so I've never really had any reason to keep him around during combat, except that I was always nervous to have him out of sight.
Urm. I'll look through books and better internet when I get back home, but I really appreciate all the input and suggestions thus far. Sorry for the huge post. :(
My rogue/wizard's familiar had standing orders to hide at the first signs of hostilities. With my skill ranks and his racial skill mods, it was very difficult to find him if he didn't want to be found.
Yeah, conspicuous familiars can be a problem. That's one reason my witch ended up with a rat as a familiar instead of the more attractive fox, otter or raccoon.
(There were other considerations: with a high DEX her Reflex save was okay; we're running in the disease-infested Serpent's Skull AP, so Fort saves are more important than usual; and the fact that I plan to eventually upgrade to an improved familiar and figured that in-character she'd have less difficulty parting with a rat.)
I'd recommend crafting Tad a collar of invisibility a.s.a.p.
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My raven familiar with my conjuration wizard is essentially Yelling Bird from the online comics indietits and questionable content.
I'm frankly stunned that no one ever tries to kill him, my own group included.
I guess they love him or something. I'm at a loss. Must be the cloaca jokes.
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What's your God?
What are your stats?
What is your race?
What is your name?
What is your quest?
What... is the air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow?
I have a witch with a compy familiar named Book. Book hides as soon as anything wrong happens. I don't think my GM has ever targeted him in anyway because if I slip he will ask, Are you sure you want to do that?
If Mr X. attacks your fox, why not have him double move away? In fact why not do this at the start of battle? Run pelt! Run!. How many critters/enemies are going to be able to catch up to a double moving fox? plus they would be leaving the battle.
Also you could just have the fox keep moving, if something is chasing him and beating on him, you can have your fox pass through squares of melee buddies, if the guy keeps chasing the fox, he provokes AoO. Good way to give your melee buddies free attacks.
Getting targeted with AoE? Move him into squares near baddies, try that fire ball again bozo.
Ranged fire? cover and concealment.
Rays? Counterspell.
think outside the box...i guess?
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In fact, as far as cover and concealment goes, you could get a tree frog familiar, and he could cling to the back of the the melee guys shield??
Go grippy go!
I still don't understand why the bad guys target the familiar that does nothing in combat and they are wasting their actions instead of focusing on the guys who try to kill them.
well thats what I said, killing the familiar doesnt help in your fight against the witch TODAY, it just keeps him/her from relearning spells.
My witch is a gravewalker, so has a poppet instead of a familiar, but just to throw people off, he purchased a trained hawk and treats the hawk as if it is his familiar.
Of course he also pretends to be a cleric, wizard, sorcerer or anything else he can get away with too.
He's all about misdirection...
Personally, part of believes you could get reasonable justifications to target the familiar even if they didn't know she was a witch. A large part of the reason familiars are suggested over bonded items (besides how often they get target; different issue entirely) is their uses besides a few bonuses. Often in the debate over arcane bond, I have seen people mention times where their familiar saved them from after they got captured and stripped of their items.
Given a couple of bards with creative flares, I could see cautious enemies wanting to take care of the familiar problem before they steal the keys and help its master escape. Of course, in combat, there are usually more pressing concerns, but that is part of the problem. If things go sour, the familiar could slip away and sneak in while everyone's attention is diverted. Killing it then and there should only take a second (underestimation might be involved in this) and would save a world of trouble later on.
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Skimmed the thread and did not see it though I might have missed it. Familiar Satchel from ultimate equipment. Gives the little fella full cover.
While there might be good arguments concerning whether or not the GM should target your familiar with such frequency, since your GM doesn't sound like a jerk, it think you should see it as an opportunity instead.
You've played the familiar to have an actual role in the game, rather than being a furry spell book. Thats great, and now the threats to your familiars safety lead to new opportunities to let it affect your game.
There has already been suggested spells to keep it alive. Others might further improve your familiar's survivability. Make it your character's goal to keep it alive, and it should be fun.
Even if it die, you have the option of Raise Animal Companion to get the familiar back.
Improved Familiar could give it a celestial or other template for DR and SR.
At the end of the day, if your familiar is drawing the much heat, getting targeted by spells and attacks, then it seem to be filling a much more contributing role than most others.
yeah, if running around in battle is dangerous, you put your fox inside your backpack, or under your clothes, or whatever.
no line of sight/effect will stop most things that could target/affect it it.
you could go with the tattooed mystic PrC, but i don't see why you need to really, other means can conceal/protect the familiar.
if you're really worried about it, grab improved familiar and one of the outsider types with lots of immunities, regen, etc.
or check out the companion figurine feat from classic treasures revealed:
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/companion-figurine
i do wonder about the frequency of it being targetted, because doing so only seems like a good idea for enemies who are planning attacks against you over some period of time... taking out the familiar (vs. other actions against your group) isn't the best way to win an encounter, because it has minimal effect compared to taking out a PC. taking out the familiar is only important for long term sequences of encounters spread over multiple days, where you need the familiar to prep spells, and where the enemies aren't being defeated by you in the encounters (because they retreat, or because they are only sending henchmen on a mission to kill the familiar and otherwise hamper the party). shorter than that time-frame and it doesn't make sense to target the familiar. that said, they can still get in danger from time to time, and if you are using them to deliver touch spells (offensive or buffs to allies) they can very easily be provoking AoOs or leaving themself in position to be easily attacked.