I think they clarified that Items that were specifically designed for particular types of animals were good ... Horeshoes of the Zephyr were the example back then as well ... dont ask me for the source because its been a while
Pathfinder Maps Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber
FLite wrote:
Michael, I think I just found an unintended consequence.
Horseshoe of ... items are all foot slot magic items. In otherwords, they don't work on any horse except for animal companions that have taken the feat Extra Item Slot: Feet
Is that correct?
Not correct.
The FAQ states:
However, an item called out to be used by a specific animal is usable by that animal regardless of slot.
Hey Mike, thanks for clarifying. I was looking at the FAQ and saw that the entry was red, and had no idea that it had simply been moved to a more appropriate section and that the previous message board rulings still applied. Sorry for the trouble. Thanks again!
I am not sure of the specifics, but isn't the Arbiter more like a martial character than a magic user? I would surmise that his inability to use a wand is because of that instead of not having the proper physical means to do so.
I am not sure of the specifics, but isn't the Arbiter more like a martial character than a magic user? I would surmise that his inability to use a wand is because of that instead of not having the proper physical means to do so.
I am not sure how really martial a tiny creature is - but the issue is UMD which plenty of martial non-magic people use to manipulate magic items like wands and scrolls.
"Stealthy, observant, and frequently persuasive, arbiter inevitables are the scouts and diplomats of the inevitable race
....
Generally peaceful unless combating true creatures of chaos, arbiters prefer to cast protection from chaos on their allies and use command to make opponents drop their weapons and run. "
certainly you can't customize familiars' own ranks in PFS, come on...
you are not the familiar, it is a distinct creature, that already had skill ranks before you called it.
you also don't get to customize the skill ranks and feats of summoned creatures.
Sure ok, but if the familiar levels up I can't tell him what to put skill ranks in?
That seems weird, but ok.
Quandry, that is a pretty bad analogy, considering familiars are totally different from summoned creatures.
Also, a note, the diabloist class gets an imp as an animal companion, and you do get to customize those skill ranks. Does that imp still have to use its master's umd?
Imp Companions aren't Familiars, and thus they don't use their Master's Ranks,
and like other Companions their Skill Ranks grow over time (level) and can be dedicated wherever they are dedicated.
Hawks and other creatures also can be either Companions or Familiars, but you only use one ruleset or the other.
Well, you certainly don't want them using their UMD ranks. Most likely won't have any.
Oh, familiars only have skill ranks as listed in the bestiary? I thought I could spend them how I wanted.
Imps get 7 skills per hd, I was hoping I could put some to umd
my understanding is that familiars really don't improve - they don't get skill ranks, feats, stat bnues, or bab. Their hit points improve by their master, and their HD improve for purposes of spell defense only.
Familiars either have their starting ranks in skills, or the skill ranks of their master. So if I have 14 ranks of UMD, then the familiar uses those ranks with its base stat bonuses.
I use the 14 ranks as an example because I have such a character.
I am not sure of the specifics, but isn't the Arbiter more like a martial character than a magic user? I would surmise that his inability to use a wand is because of that instead of not having the proper physical means to do so.
bumping - because it is not an idle question - I have an arbiter familiar
I beleive you'll have to wait until next week to hope for an official revisit. But for right now, does the arbiter a) have hands and b) can speak? I don't remember. If a or b are not met, odds are he's going to be wandless.
I beleive you'll have to wait until next week to hope for an official revisit. But for right now, does the arbiter a) have hands and b) can speak? I don't remember. If a or b are not met, odds are he's going to be wandless.
Edited to make word change.
yes Arbiter has hands (and wields a tiny longsword in their stat block) and can speak (has true speech as well)
I guess I'll stop playing the character in question until things change.
The best way to get leadership to revisit your question is to make a separate thread saying something very specific like "arbiter familiars should be allowed to use wands for the following reasons" and then list some good reasons.
For an example, dig into the archives and find the exact same post made about Mephits a few months back. It was well reasoned and very effective.
Well, you certainly don't want them using their UMD ranks. Most likely won't have any.
Oh, familiars only have skill ranks as listed in the bestiary? I thought I could spend them how I wanted.
Imps get 7 skills per hd, I was hoping I could put some to umd
Seeing as how you can swap their feats, this seems like a reasonable assumption, but sadly no. On the bright side, getting to use your skill points is quite often adequate, at least in my experience.
CWheezy wrote:
Sure ok, but if the familiar levels up I can't tell him what to put skill ranks in?
That seems weird, but ok.
Quandry, that is a pretty bad analogy, considering familiars are totally different from summoned creatures.
Also, a note, the diabloist class gets an imp as an animal companion, and you do get to customize those skill ranks. Does that imp still have to use its master's umd?
I don't think they ever actually gain hit dice, they just get to ape some of the effects of hit dice their masters have.
Well, you certainly don't want them using their UMD ranks. Most likely won't have any.
Oh, familiars only have skill ranks as listed in the bestiary? I thought I could spend them how I wanted.
Imps get 7 skills per hd, I was hoping I could put some to umd
Seeing as how you can swap their feats, this seems like a reasonable assumption, but sadly no. On the bright side, getting to use your skill points is quite often adequate, at least in my experience.
Well, you certainly don't want them using their UMD ranks. Most likely won't have any.
Oh, familiars only have skill ranks as listed in the bestiary? I thought I could spend them how I wanted.
Imps get 7 skills per hd, I was hoping I could put some to umd
Seeing as how you can swap their feats, this seems like a reasonable assumption, but sadly no. On the bright side, getting to use your skill points is quite often adequate, at least in my experience.
How do you swap out their feats?
This came about with Animal Archive, I can try and find the information. I think it is part of the legal pages listed.
animal archive pg 18 wrote:
This section presents new feats for animal companions and familiars, as well as for PCs that make use of these animals.
Some feats might be available to other creatures that meet the prerequisites. Feats that are meant for familiars can be
switched out for a familiar’s default feats (as listed in the familiar’s statistics) if the familiar meets the prerequisites. Such
feat replacements must be made when the PC first acquires a new familiar, and—like all new feats from supplemental
sources—the new feats should be approved by the GM before being integrated into play.
Hmm looking at the additional resources it simply says the feats on those pages are legal, not the text about those feats. I know I have seen lots of people IRL and on the boards talking about doing this since the release of the book. I think it is legal, otherwise it would be the rare character that would even make use of them.
Poor Mike getting pestered to death during Gen Con. so i get it, the slots have nothing to do with whether or not a given AC or Familiar can use a wand. Let me ask a different question. What was the deciding factor. At a glance i am thinking its the base int. All the critters mentioned were 12+ at base.
In another thread someone asked why are Cassians able to use wands, I dont think Cassians are PFS legal anyway, god knows i would take one if they were.
Let me ask a different question. What was the deciding factor. At a glance i am thinking its the base int. All the critters mentioned were 12+ at base.
I think game balance was the primary motivator, but that's just me. Economy of actions has been cited by Mike (and others) several times, in several places. (Had I been "the decider" I might have made the list even shorter based on this factor alone. I might have even chosen a list of none!)
If you don't mind detailed analyses with a peppering of humor...
I suspect the process of thinking/deciding may have resembled the following:
Step 1) Establish a baseline or default rule. In this case it appears that "no activated magic item use as a general rule for ACs & familiars," was the chosen starting point.
People have made lots of attempts at proving that X should be allowed to use Y. The most common ones have probably been about those precious wands and everyone's favorite "Apes should be allowed to use manufactured weapons. Great clubs at the very least! Wild apes do it in nature!" No, no and no.
Sometimes the real world and what we think we know about it are really poor sources for mechanical arguments about games. Often they completely ignore game balance, action economy and design intent. It's perhaps more troubling that the basic premise of such arguments are often wrong.
Hands, body types and intelligence are logistical traps in the general case. As soon as you make one exception based on the real world, like those darned apes (damn them all to hell, Charlton!) you open the door for countless unintended others, either now or down the road.
a. At one time it was thought that apes and humans were the only real world creatures that used tools, but this is no longer the case. This belief may have been founded in hubris — we're the top of the food chain and superior and different from animals in every way! But, apes are our closest cousins and look an awful lot like us, so maybe it's acceptable that they, and only they, can 'ape' our superior behavior and problem-solving skills in trivial ways. Ignorance and/or the lack of study of other species behavior is likely to have contributed. It's a truism that we only tend to find things in the places we look for them. We have a habit of not even noticing things that jump up and bite us if they happen elsewhere.
Here's the shocker. (No, not eels! But close!) Octopi have been observed carrying portable shelters — coconut halves, plastic/metal containers...yes, octopi use our irresponsible pollution as tools of opportunity! This means that a clever mollusk can always be prepared to hide from predators regardless of the nearby terrain. This allows it to expand its potential hunting territory, and both shelter and expanded territory are big survival advantages.
Not a primate. So much for that "big, complex brain" ego-centrism.
Not a mammal. So much for lock-solid, never questioned scientific theory.
Not even a vertebrate! Ack! Is everything we know WRONG!?!?
A real world 'lower life form', with a decidedly rudimentary brain, has the smarts to use a tool! This might be the only way it ever uses tools, but then again, it might not! The ocean depths are not one of those areas we can easily and endlessly monitor so who knows what else is happening that we've missed or are missing?
Given the astonishingly low bar set in the real world, once you open the door for one creature, there's almost no way to rationalize stopping ALL of them from storming through it!
b. Real world raccoons manage to open modern "locked" trash cans to access their version of "5-star dining". Snapping lids? Check. Metal clasps? Check. Tape or twine? Check. Heavy objects on the lid? No problem! Raccoons manage to manipulate the mechanisms, chew through whatever they need to, and knock over virtually everything we throw at them. Hunger + irresistible aroma = unstoppable critters. It takes time and determination and the clatter they cause gives ample opportunity to try and shoo them away, but their nocturnal and hungry and we are already a sleep-deprived species so we're more likely to pull the pillow over our heads and ignore them or sleep right through the din. Or is that "dinner"?
They're already in the Bestiary 3 as familiars and in the AR doc as PFS-legal options. If apes ever get the nod for expanded options the ensuing raccoon argument will crash Paizo's servers within moments.
c. The trunk is more or less equivalent to the hand in terms of capability and versatility. The only real difference is that real world animals only have one trunk when hands seem to come in pairs. Neither of those are hard requirements in biology but they're especially flimsy 'facts' in the realm of fantasy! Trunks can accomplish things that we tend to believe require opposable thumbs, and they may even have a greater breadth in terms of the delicate-vs-powerful dimension. Pick up a feather? Turn a dial 1-degree to the left? Effortlessly crush this egg? You bet! Sure, PFS has the "elephants are never legal" Additional Resources clause, but someday a non-huge creature with a trunk may end up under the control of PCs. Minimals anyone? The judicious use of a certain feat to add a 'trunk evolution' to any otherwise mundane AC/familiar might be as likely to happen as the publication of a new creature option.
Unlike the octopus, science has always claimed that elephants aren't just behemoths, they're among the intellectual giants of the animal world, too. Look out, "Grape Ape"! If you want to build "Wacky and P!*@!" or "Captain Caveman" (all 3 being ancient TV cartoons) in the spirit of the Beast Rider & Mammoth Rider archetype & prestige class, just so you can have a woolly mammoth that wields a wand and snub your (prehensile) nose at the establishment and their misconceptions of nature, science is behind you! Just get your home game GM to okay it and crazy-go-nuts! But please, let's not do this in open gaming.
Step 2) Consider the possibility of exceptions. Is there any confluence of abilities and options that could justify making exceptions to our baseline rule? If there is, the Improved Familiar feat might be the most logical and/or reasonable way to introduce some flexibility in our magic item use policy. The trick is in doing it without throwing action economy, game balance and other critically important design factors out the window when doing it. The worst case scenario is that Improved Familiar becomes an overwhelmingly superior feat choice...that nearly everyone takes.
3) Establish parameters for evaluating the worthiness of candidates for exceptional status. Instead of starting with the full list of Improved Familiars and arguing which shouldn't be allowed to wield wands, perhaps PFS started with NONE and added only the options for which they couldn't find compelling reasons why they couldn't (or shouldn't) be allowed the exceptional status to use wands. Starting with nothing and adding exceptions is likely to generate a slightly shorter list than starting with everything and working backwards.
What issues might come up in Step 3?
a. Intelligence and Charisma seem important. Mere sentience or self-awareness is probably too low a bar, but exactly where that higher bar is set can be relatively arbitrary. Intelligence may not even be as big an issue as Charisma given that a familiar's intellect grows with it's master's power.
b. Capability for complex vocalization and/or legitimate speech seems relevant. In order to differentiate between the final privileged list and creatures like Mynahs and Parrots or more fantastic mimics, language comprehension is probably a requirement.
c. Monster Type seems to be a reasonable place to look for examples and guidance. Can intelligent monsters of this Type freely use magic items, or is this only available to some examples within the Type and not all of them? Can they generally use both slotted and slotless items, even when they might seem ill-suited for their bodies? For example, Dragons don't have ideal anatomy for the use of some items but they've either found ways to make them work or they are inherently magical enough that they just do. In other words, maybe it is significant that dragons can wield a ring when it is jammed onto (or embedded into) what amounts to a fingernail when others cannot?
d. Gross anatomy seems important. The capability to make precise manipulations and fine gestures is frequently a factor for magic item use. The presence and sensitivity of sensory apparatus (eyes, ears, etc.) might also matter if there is any amount of feedback and timing in the activation process. Blindness and deafness often impair the ability to use magic so this isn't completely unreasonable to consider.
e. Racial mindset or personality might be valid considerations. Does the candidate have sufficient patience, flexibility, analytical skills, adaptability, concentration and/or focus to explain why they would choose to use a finicky 'tool' instead of a more natural instinct or ability? There may be other types of behaviors that matter — my list is not meant to be comprehensive.
f. Attention to out-of-game concepts, like social and business issues, are fair as well. A business issue that might be considered is sales promotion. Would the inclusion of a candidate help move any specific product? A social issue that might be important is public perception. Would the inclusion or omission of a candidate help some customers (PFS participants) feel more positive about PFS? An example might be whether players perceive that their play-style is being validated/enabled or whether they perceive that their play-style is being unfairly or irrationally invalidated or criticized.
g. Game balance should probably be reexamined before rubber-stamping any candidate creature. Even if a candidate manages to meet or exceed the critical thresholds for the previous 6 dimensions, it is worth considering whether it NEEDS to get any 'extra juice', or if extra juice would make it too much better than other available options.
So, the final list (for now at least, everything in PFS is living and evolves over time) ended up being just SEVEN names long: brownie, faerie dragon, imp, lyrakien azata, mephit, quasit & sprite. To be fair, it's more than 7 choices since some of these 'names' have multiple subdivisions.
So, how does the list break down when compared to the hypothetical criteria?
* By brainpower: Only mephits, quasits and sprites have INT below 13 and only the quasit and sprite have CHA below 14.
* By language: All actually speak, and all know at least 2 languages. Faerie dragons, quasits and lyrakien are slightly more versatile communicators as they also have telepathy or truespeech.
* By monster type: 1 Dragon, 2 Fey & 4 Outsiders. All 3 types are notorious for being magical in nature, and for embracing or reveling in its use. The one dragon chosen can easily be confused as a Fey creature, so maybe only 2 monster types really made the cut? (More about that below.)
* By gross anatomy: All but the faerie dragon are essentially bipeds. All but the brownie has wings. One of the mephits can swim, too. All are tiny except the brute mephits (small) and the runt sprite (diminutive).
* By mindset: All seem to be personality-appropriate for magic item use. On the surface, sprites might seem problematic given their 'primitive' nature, but their magical inquisitiveness likely more than compensates. Some of the mephits might be appear the least apt to use magic given some of the minimalist, cartoonish descriptions in the Bestiary and their overall ecological role of lackey to more capable, influential and powerful elementals. I guess that wasn't enough of a concern because they made the list.
I don't know that anyone not employed by Paizo is in a position to comment intelligently about the out-of-game considerations of any candidates, successful or rejected. Also, the nuances of game balance might be too subjective to be worthy of open discussion. In any case, none of us have the statistics to support any such discussion, so those two decision points will have to remain mysteries inside the black box.
The only things that might be worth adding at this point are weaknesses, shortcomings and drawbacks that could be seen to make the actual worth, power or attractiveness of any one candidate as notably less than the sum of its parts.
- As small creatures, mephits are much bigger targets than any of the others and don't have superior defensive options (like Invisibility) that are common among other Improved Familiars. Their Fast Healing is so environmentally specific that it almost never applies. Even worse, in some cases those specifics are actually hostile to PC lifeforms! Those that manage to have a single immunity also have the associated vulnerability. Then again, they are the only candidates that don't have to enter an enemy's space to attack them since they can reach beyond their own space! That has to be worth something.
- Imps and quasits can easily invite negative reactions from other PCs and NPCs. These are entirely fair reactions and IMHO potential backlash is absolutely something that should be considered in terms of the total value or worth of any companion. Shape Change and/or Invisibility certainly help mitigate those social ramifications, and they just happen to be powerful tactical options, too!
Why do I claim it is fair and understandable for these underlings to elicit negative reactions? Ignorance, stereotypes and reputations certainly account for part of the problem. In their natural forms they look like fiends, and EVERYONE knows what fiends are all about, even when they are wrong. Unfortunately, being in the know about these conniving critters doesn't change anything about how they are viewed.
When its master dies, an Imp is left free to cause whatever havoc it can manage on the material plane. As immortal Outsiders and master manipulators, Imps outlive their masters at least as often as they don't, and you'd better believe that they've had decades to lifetimes to consider just what they're going to do when that chance comes, planned down to the least details. This is the ONLY reason they agree to tolerate the indignity of years of servitude as a familiar to a lesser being in the first place!!! Most of us instinctively think (at some level, at least) "what's in it for me?" but we're far less likely to remember that this question is just as central for most everyone else!
As bad as that may be for the rest of the world, quasits are even worse...for their masters! 50% of the time an unbuffed quasit ends up as the same eternal blight on society and civilization. Unfortunately for you, Mr. Wizard, it also has a 50% chance at capturing its newly deceased master's mortal soul, stuffing it into its proverbial pockets in the truly insulting form of a hideous larvae, and parlaying you into personal gain. (If the quasit has anything buffing its native Will save, the odds skew even more badly for you, Mr. Wizard!) The worst price of taking on a quasit familiar is that the tiniest error or bad luck on your part, or on the part of any of your allies, could not only lead to death but result in you winding up as an infinitesimally trivial part of the Abyssal economy. I take that back. The worst part is that the quasit is actively trying to bring that about ALL THE TIME! Oh how the mighty have fallen! I don't know HOW this is supposed to be adjudicated in PFS, or what implications it has on the viability or costs of magically returning from the Great Beyond, but it's right there in Bestiary black and white to enable Pathfinder GMs to torment you...when your GM has any say in the matter, which they may not in open gaming.
One might wonder how any Neutral being could choose either of these fiends as their BFF without an eventual and unavoidable slide to Evil, but that issue has been waived by fiat in PFS, whether reasonably or unreasonably. Imps and quasits are lined up waiting for you to free them from their lowly status on their loathsome home planes and play you for a fool for as long as absolutely required...just to get what they really want. Hey, it's your funeral, you call the shots. However, if you make the mistake of thinking of one as an ally or partner (even a partner in crime) then you are exactly where they want you, and you should be very afraid!
Tangential observation about evil familiars and their relevance and appropriateness for PFS and open gaming in general — AKA Pims and Staquis:
FWIW, whenever I've seen a fiend familiar in a home game, the GM has ALWAYS controlled them, not the player. This was regardless of the alignment of the PC! A perfect match in ethics and morals meant NOTHING in the long haul! There was an explicit and openly-discussed understanding that the motivations of even the least fiends NEVER align with those of the PCs for any significant length of time, and that they are ultimately and infinitely better served by the PC's death (and actively expediting it) than the continuation of the status quo.
As a result, players had to treat these bad boys with the utmost respect — and no amount of suspicion was ever thought as unwarranted paranoia — since they KNEW that these lackeys (like all good/interesting fictional and historical lackeys) utterly hate their circumstances and similarly their masters, have epic delusions of grandeur and endlessly scheme to get out from under the control of their unworthy masters.
With NONE of those things happening in PFS, I have never understood why they are permitted. As PFS PC options they effectively lose all the flavor as bits that make them what they are and instead become boring, sycophantic, odd-looking, non-elemental mephits, but still manage to tick off the vast majority of NPCs, most good PCs, some Neutral PCs, nearly all paladins and most clerics, and a heck of a lot of players! Why bother? What's the point?
I'm not saying that they shouldn't be valid options for Neutral-aligned PCs. I'm saying that the nature of open gaming, and the conditions and exceptions that are required for it, make them inappropriate for Neutral-aligned PCs in open games.
In private games participants have so much more control over the content and the play experience as a whole. When someone wants to think outside the box, there's both ample time and personal familiarity to make negotiating such an exercise possible and manageable. In open gaming there is virtually no control, no time and little to no personal familiarity to make the unusual manageable. You have no say over who you will have at your table, and you have even less say over what currently legal choices they can and will bring with them. Further, you can't even bring up concerns about another person's legal choices without quickly getting labeled as "the jerk". If you have a unresolvable moral or ethical difference between two (or more) legally built PCs, the options are massively limited in open gaming.
1) One or more players change PCs until there's a compatible mix. That seems easy, obvious and rational, but in most cases people won't have multiple in-tier options, so that means looking at the next possible accommodation, which is playing a pregen.
2) PFS rules mandate that a player cannot apply the credit earned from playing a pregenerated character to any PC of similar level, regardless of the reason the pregen was played.
I understand the desire to encourage people to play their own PCs and not pregens. People have more fun when they play their characters and having fun is good for business. Self-designed PCs use non-standard, non-core build options and that is very good for business.
I also understand the desire to prevent players from using pregens as a means to avoid permanent negative consequences like death, ability drain or negative levels. This falls into the same category of concerns as the recent changes to the determination of subtier as an attempt to manage character wealth. To purists, it may also fell like cheating.
Unfortunately, the blanket policy used in PFS has a very negative consequence. It either bars the best and easiest mechanic for a player to act responsibly and do their part to avoid and/or resolve a conflict, or it makes it so unpalatable for a person to choose the mechanic as to be tantamount to a ban.
Yes, a player can apply pregen credit to a PC of lower level instead. I very much doubt this was by design, but the unintended consequence of this policy amounts to punishing the person who tried to solve a problem (or wanted to) by ignoring their wants or needs to advance the PC of their choice. Whether we want to acknowledge it or not, players have to manage the advancement of their PCs in an effort to keep themselves with legal PCs for all levels of play. Forcing their hands into decisions they don't want is therefore a mechanical problem as well as a problem of perception or optics. At the same time, the policy manages to tacitly reward the person who does nothing to resolve the conflict and in effect treats their needs and wants as more important than the person who went out of their way to be accommodating.
In this example, the player doesn't want to play a pregen, but they are offering to make that concession in the interest of community but PFS requires them to accept further, unnecessary concessions when they do. That is patently backwards and the policy is in great need of at least a tweak!
3) The only remaining option is that one (or more) of the players leave(s). Is that really the solution PFS wants to encourage? Buy our product and join our organization in order to not play?
Social psychology tells us that these issues have noted dynamics that are predictable. (It should be noted that in social science, there are no absolutes. At best there are high probabilities and correlations so exceptions are not only possible, they are inevitable. A counterexample does not disprove a theory. To prove or disprove a theory requires a very large sample and statistical analysis to establish the significance of the observed results.)
In most situations, a person who has chosen to buck a trend, express their own individuality or creativity, or choose an unpopular option is far less likely to be the one to make an accommodation or provide an easy solution. The reason isn't meanness or anything else that could be described as a negative quality or trait. The primary reasons are emotion and identity. There is emotional attachment and investment in the making of these kinds of decisions. It isn't easy to choose to be different. Further, we may not expect to be complemented for daring to be different, but we do ~want~ recognition or appreciation and respond to it. We tend not to give that desired response to others when they stick their neck out, but that changes nothing.
Being different is hard, and we tend to internalize both conscious decisions to be different (e.g. style or fashion) and inherent differences (e.g. philosophy or gender) as matters of identity. That means things like self-esteem or pride are connected to our differences.
The presence of emotion and identity as factors means that the merest suggestion that a person that has gone to the trouble of "putting themselves out there" with an unpopular choice should make a change or be accommodating is frequently taken as a personal insult or affront. You just pushed someone's biggest and most intimate 'buttons', so expect things to escalate rapidly.
In this case, that dynamic frequently maps to bringing some voluntary source of evil to the game table. Since people tend to take inquiries into their unpopular choices personally and as a result are unlikely to be accommodating what that means for us is that the person bringing a source of evil to the table is most likely not going to be flexible about it.
The person that has 'caused the conflict' by being different will remember the experience as extremely personal and negative and will almost never see any personal responsibility in the conflict. The other people will have a decidedly different view. They may perceive that person as unreasonable, or may go so far as to label them as trouble makers. The person or people that expressed their concern, sought negotiation or made an accommodation or sacrifice will often feel marginalized and unappreciated. That means they may feel negatively about everyone involved, not necessarily for being problematic, but for not being supportive or active in the search for resolution. Given that the passive observers that had no concerns (or chose not to express their concerns) will often feel as negatively toward the person that expressed their discomfort as they do for the person that precipitated the problem, and at times may actually blame them MORE!
So, chances are that everyone walks away feeling worse about themselves and/or everyone else at the table. What's worse is that the problem is fairly repetitive and even cumulative.
It tends to be the same people that precipitate a problem again and again. (In our case that is fairly obvious PCs persist until retired or killed, so everything is likely to be the same from session to session.) For psychological reasons related to emotion and identity they tend to not contribute to the resolution and get increasingly agitated/insulted each time the problem 'irrationally' arises and tend to view it as extremely personal. The more upset they get, the less likely they are to be accommodating, and the more likely they are to get hostile.
At the same time, it tends to be the same people who act to resolve conflicts time and again. The more it falls to them to make accommodations or sacrifices for the good of the group (or perhaps for the good of the one person who introduced the precipitating factor), the less happy they are to do so, and they less likely they will continue to do so. Just like their counterpart, they get increasingly frustrated, and will eventually see the lack of support from individuals and the organization as a personal matter, and may also become hostile.
All the while multiple people are feeling wronged or put off, and in a way that on the surface seems impossible to reconcile! (How can they both be right, or both be wrong for that matter, but objectively that's the truth of the matter.) Reputations are assigned whether earned or not, and players/customers are eventually lost.
Further, in the long run you can be pretty sure that the existing policy is accidentally telling people that evil is more important and more highly valued than good or balance. Why is that illogical conclusion being reached? Because of the emerging pattern. The rare evil is brought in, causes ripples and due to emotion and personal investment it is left to others to make the problem go away. That makes it seem like evil has more rights, honors and/or privileges than the rest.
No good can come of it. Under the current system you can't even choose to bar someone from your own public event when they've continually sent things off the rails and accepted no responsibility for it. So, why design a network of policies that seem to maximize the chances of harm occurring?
If the only reason evil familiars are permitted is to ensure that Neutral-aligned PCs have an adequate number of Improved Familiar options then it would be far smarter to remove them from PFS play and design replacement options for future publication AS SOON AS POSSIBLE! More product, and similarly, more inspiration for new product, are good for business, aren't they? The fact that their removal and replacement with less 'loaded' counterparts would remove one of the biggest sources of out-of-game conflict is also a lot more than icing on the cake.
If that isn't viable then just make an exception and re-skin them! Pims and Staquis for everyone! What are they? They are tiny Outsider (Native) creatures that are physically identical to imps and quasits... right down to their stat blocks, with the sole exception of alignment which are LN and CN respectively. (Maybe you can make them a different color or striped, just so there's some physical representation of the fact that a change has been made.) They'll happily partner up with casters of the same alignment ONLY! ("Only" so that Neutral- and Good-aligned casters stay in balance in terms of the number of legal choices.)
The same would go for all the equally despicable and irredeemably evil fiend familiars, and an argument could be made for ALL evil familiars to go away, be replaced, or be re-skinned.
PFS rules have already reduced fiend familiars to one-dimensional stat blocks suitable only for roll play, not role play, and completely unnecessary sources of conflict and divisiveness. If people want to take them for their abilities then let them take Pims and Staquis and they won't see a single difference, except perhaps fewer headaches from offended players, PCs and NPCs. They might even be HAPPIER to have gotten what they wanted while avoiding the perception of 'taint', or of 'getting away with something that shouldn't be done.'
On the other hand, if people want to take fiend familiars because they want to play evil masquerading as Neutrality in an obvious attempt to circumvent the clear "no evil PCs" rule, then why exactly are you being their enablers to that end? There has to be a reason why no evil PCs are allowed, and providing a loophole for people to invoke in order to actively frustrate, anger and/or annoy other participants seems to defeat or fly in the face of that reason.
Players and GMs can be extremely reluctant to 'report' behavior that would otherwise be a clear violation of the basic "don't be a jerk" rule when those behaviors are "legitimized" by other rules, policies and logical role playing. When a player can honestly say that they are "merely doing what the rules dictate that they do" that shuts down a lot of potential complaints and criticisms. When it is unclear which rule or policy should take precedence, most people go into 'bystander' mode. Not gonna get involved. Not my fight. Let someone else deal with it.
So, please stop sending a mixed message, and in the process help reduce the number of misunderstandings, conflicts and bad experiences.
If it can't be a change to the PFS-legal options for evil, then by all means use the same fiat powers used to make them semi-workable to relax or eliminate the paladin code of conduct. Why should good divine casters (mainly paladins) suffer the need for Atonement after Atonement for decisions made by other PCs that they can't control, can't affect and can't even address without violating PFS-OP rules? That solution would mean having even more bland, RP-neutered, game-effects without flavor or context options, but that seems OK for the evil goose, why not for the gander too?
Out of curiosity, has anyone in the history of FRPGs had their evil or evil-friendly PC pay for a paladin's or staunch cleric's Atonements? Similarly, why don't evil or evil-friendly PCs have to atone for consorting with goody two shoes like paladins? Is it an intentional parallel that the in-game dynamics surrounding how evil affects others be a reasonable definition of evil? (i.e. "Evil is doing whatever is most personally satisfying or advantageous while letting the burden of responsibility and clean-up for all the consequences fall solely upon others.")
- Sprites are diminutive, not tiny, and even getting to use Dexterity instead of Strength doesn't make them as survivable as their alternatives. Their spell-like abilities are quite trivial, both in effect and DC. When they are left without an alternative to combat, they are incapable of doing lethal damage without huge help from their master! Hit or crit, the best they can do is 1 point of non-lethal damage with their attacks, and they have no secondary effects they can add to the damage. Their first instinct for nearly everything is "flee!" Not only don't they have a means of Invisibility, they have to expend a swift action to stop shouting "look at me, look at me" with their natural luminosity. A swift isn't much, but it is always possible that it may preclude another, vital swift or immediate action. Finally, as 1HD base creatures, there really isn't much that they bring to the table that will be better than anything they gain/borrow through their association with their master. When Dexterity is your only attribute with a positive modifier, you know you might be in trouble!
- Brownies, while tiny, not diminutive, are almost as limited as the sprite. They are the only one of the 7 options that doesn't fly as a rule. They too have no magical means to avoid detection. They also cannot do more than 1 point of non-lethal damage when forced into actual combat, and are self-derisive about that! They also have the 1HD problem. Other than that, they are superior to sprites in most measurable ways, but not being worst isn't the same as measuring up as a whole.
As to why any particular candidate may have been left off the list, only leadership can say for certain and we'll probably never know exactly why. Want some possibilities?
* the construct type or construct qualities may be seen as an issue
* inflexible behavior
* significant obsessive-compulsiveness or outright insanity
* a lack of hands or an alternative means to manipulate objects
* monocular vision or any other irregular senses/perceptions (?)
Any, all or none of those might have been factors.
Why Faerie Dragons and not Pseudodragons? Perhaps the feeling was that Faeries are as much Fey as they are Dragon and thus better candidates? Pseudos are technically tiny dragons but have few of the impressive and fantastic qualities one expects from a dragon. In the grand scheme of FRPGs, they're not much more than smart lizards! Another, stronger distinction may be that Faeries actually speak. According to the Bestiary, Pseudo vocalization is limited to animal sounds. It seems they fluently understand Draconic and can even bypass the need for language entirely by communicating via telepathy...but only within 60 feet. Beyond 60 feet they're just scaly eavesdroppers. That may very well fall short of whatever threshold was set for item use.
Why not Elementals? They appear to be widely varied in their basic forms, but it may have been decided that even in the optimal humanoid form they lack the fine-detail features for manipulating objects. In other words, ham fists make impressive weapons and look like hands but they aren't the same as having fingers and opposable thumbs. The fact that all elementals attack with slams instead of talons, manufactured weapons or whatever (other detailed attack form might match their approximated body shape) seems to support this view.
In the end, if one doesn't like the options made available and the conditions or limitations placed upon them, one is free to avoid them entirely. It can be frustrating when we are not given what we need to understand why things are the way they are, but this is true everywhere — it's not a gaming problem. To add greater degrees of freedom, individuality and/or creativity to your game repertoire the best option is probably to seek opportunities outside open-gaming.
I hope that this helps 1+ people resolve whatever issue(s) they may have with the Improved Familiar + wand rule as it stands.
Let me ask a different question. What was the deciding factor. At a glance i am thinking its the base int. All the critters mentioned were 12+ at base.
I think game balance was the primary motivator, but that's just me. Economy of actions has been cited by Mike (and others) several times, in several places. (Had I been "the decider" I might have made the list even shorter based on this factor alone. I might have even chosen a list of none!)
If you don't mind detailed analyses with a peppering of humor...
I suspect the process of thinking/deciding may have resembled the following:
Step 1) Establish a baseline or default rule. In this case it appears that "no activated magic item use as a general rule for ACs & familiars," was the chosen starting point.
People have made lots of attempts at proving that X should be allowed to use Y. The most common ones have probably been about those precious wands and everyone's favorite "Apes should be allowed to use manufactured weapons. Great clubs at the very least! Wild apes do it in nature!" No, no and no.
Sometimes the real world and what we think we know about it are really poor sources for mechanical arguments about games. Often they completely ignore game balance, action economy and design intent. It's perhaps more troubling that the basic premise of such arguments are often wrong.
Hands, body types and intelligence are logistical traps in the general case. As soon as you make one exception based on the real world, like those darned apes (damn them all to hell, Charlton!) you open the door for countless unintended others, either now or down the road.
a. At one time it was thought that apes and humans were the only real world creatures that used tools, but this is no longer the case. This belief may have been founded in hubris — we're the top of the food chain and superior and different from animals in every way! But, apes are our closest cousins and look an awful lot like us, so...
Here is the entire FAQ. Please let me know what you are not clear on:
It is intended that animal companions or familiars can not activate magic items. An animal companion could benefit from an item with a continuous magical effect like an amulet of natural armor if its master equipped the item for the animal companion. Animal companions of any type may not use manufactured weapons.
Animal companions are also limited by their individual anatomies. In Pathfinder Society Organized Play, animal companions always have access to barding and neck-slot items so long as they have the anatomy. For example, a horse and pig can always have access to barding and neck-slot items. A snake does not have access to either. However, an item called out to be used by a specific animal is usable by that animal regardless of slot.
Additionally, animal companions have access to magical item slots, in addition to barding and neck, as listed on the inside front cover of the Animal Archive so long as they select the Extra Item Slot feat. The Animal Magic Item Slots table found in Animal Archive is not a legal except under the following conditions. First, an animal companion, familiar, or bonded mount, may choose one slot listed under its body type when taking the Extra Item Slot feat (this feat may be taken multiple times, each time selecting a different available magic item slot based on the creature’s anatomy). Second, access to specific magic item slots may be granted at a later date by another legal source. If you do not own a copy of the Animal Archive, your animal companion may only use barding and neck-slot items.
An animal or familiar has to have an intelligence of 3+ to activate an ioun stone. If the animal or familiar has less than a 3 intelligence, they may not activate an ioun stone.
The brownie, faerie dragon, imp, lyrakien azata, mephit, quasit, sprite familiars, granted by the Improved Familiar feat, use the Biped (hands) section of the chart. The carbuncle and voidworm protean, familiars granted by...
Michael while i agree with the vast majority of the above, i have to call out one thing on one Familiar. That being the Faerie Dragon.
Faerie Dragons 'cast spells as' a third level sorcerer
thats a very specific wording that triggers specific logic per the bestiary rulings. If you cast spells as ... class x. you can use trigger items, like wands, as if you were that class. So a Faerie Dragon could use wiz/soc wands without needing UMD. The fact that they come with UMD would also let them use clerical wands if they make the check.
I do have an additional question on familiars that i can not find a ruling on anywhere in rules questions.
skills: For each skill in which either the master or the familiar has ranks, use either the normal skill ranks for an animal of that type or the master's skill ranks, whichever is better. In either case, the familiar uses its own ability modifiers. Regardless of a familiar's total skill modifiers, some skills may remain beyond the familiar's ability to use. Familiars treat Acrobatics, Climb, Fly, Perception, Stealth, and Swim as class skills.
So if the master has a rank in a skill that is a class skill for the familiar , but the familiar does not normally come with said class skill, does the familiar gain the trained bonus??? The wording does not address this.
This is a Rules Question, and not PFS specific, but to answer you if the Master has one rank in Fly and the Familiar has none, the Familiar gains the +3 bonus, since Fly is a class skill for Familiars and it uses its Masters ranks.
This is a Rules Question, and not PFS specific, but to answer you if the Master has one rank in Fly and the Familiar has none, the Familiar gains the +3 bonus, since Fly is a class skill for Familiars and it uses its Masters ranks.
Ok thanks I had another PFS GM argue with me on that.
let me add an update to additional resources to clarify that would be helpful. Wording could be better.
faire dragons cast spells as if they were a sorcerer, I was curious how this jived earlier with "all use their masters umd" (ie if all must use their masters umd, it doesn't matter what their ranks are
If a familiar has actual spellcasting ability (not spell-like abilities) like a faerie dragon does, it activates wands on the sorc/wizard list as if it were actually a sorcerer. So Infernal healing, mage armor, etc. are all available to you.
I understand that's how umd normally works, but it's already implied that PFS has different idea and directives about this.
Quote:
Wand use doesn't require the Animal Archive for these few improved familiars - brownie, faerie dragon, imp, lyrakien azata, mephit, quasit, sprite familiars - gained with the Improved Familiar feat. They use their master's UMD when activating a wand.
In a non-PFS setting they would use their own UMD or their masters.
Quote:
It is intended that animal companions or familiars can not activate magic items.
So if it's the intent, and with the above changes to umd, is it the intent that the master actually invest in UMD if he wants a familiar to use wands... even if he's gone throug the sanos abduction so he can access fairy dragon?
The bit about using their master's UMD does not override all the other rules about wand use, such as not having to UMD if you are a spellcaster. I can't really see the idea that the house rule overrides all of the RAW wand use rules as a valid reading of the PFS guide.
I guess you weren't reading the prior part of this thread?
Without the ruling this thread created with mike brocks posts, familiars with hands could use UMD anyhow. Now only ones listed may, and to top it off they are likely restricted to their masters UMD.
I think clarity in this regard would be nice before I waste time and energy getting a fairy dragon when a gm might decide it doesn't fit with this thread =D
I read the prior part of this thread a year ago when it happened. This has been a house rule for a while now.
The only thing where the PFS house rules make a problem is by blanket forbidding the use of scrolls where a faerie dragon would be allowed to use them by RAW.
Wand use doesn't require the book for those few improved familiars - brownie, faerie dragon, imp, lyrakien azata, mephit, quasit, sprite familiars - gained with the Improved Familiar feat
It can use a wand since it is slotless. It uses its master's UMD. No other animal companions or familiars can activate a magic item.
Michael Brock wrote:
Felix Gaunt wrote:
The FAQ says:
"The brownie, faerie dragon, imp, lyrakien azata, mephit, quasit, sprite familiars, granted by the Improved Familiar feat, use the Biped (hands) section of the chart. The carbuncle and voidworm protean, familiars granted by the Improved Familiar feat, uses the Serpentine section of the chart. If you do not own a copy of the Animal Archive, your animal companion may only use barding and neck-slot items."
It mentions animal companion at the end and not animal companion\familiar. I thought the ruling for Biped (hands) Improved Familiar's can wear\wield whatever, provided of course that it is available on the Biped (hands) chart. That is still correct right? And if so is it only correct if you have the Animal Archive?
This is correct. You folks are going to get me in trouble. My wife has me at an event and I can only tell her so many times that I'm checking my Gen Con flight and hotel info ;-)
This was the FAQ as it was updated when the AA came it and is what PFS has been going by for months.
To summarize:
1) the faerie dragon, imp, lyrakien azata, mephit, quasit, and sprite familiars can use wands
2) the faerie dragon, imp, lyrakien azata, mephit, quasit, sprite, and brownie familiars can can wear\wield whatever provided it is available on the Biped (hands) chart (which says "Available Slots: All item slots") (and monkey familiar?)
Okay, a couple questions:
1) Why the heck are these clarifications still not in the official FAQ after a year and a half???
2) Presumably an improved familiar can wear armor/barding as appropriate. But can a sprite wield a shortbow? Can a lyrakien azata wear a headband of alluring charisma?
3) The FAQ calls out only Animal Companions needing the Extra Item Slot feat to wear these items. Is this correct?
4) "It can use a wand since it is slotless." Yet other slotless items, such as staves, remain unusable, right? What about Faerie Dragons and Pages of Spell Knowledge?
Has this still not been added to the main PFS FAQ? Or did it somehow get removed after this conversation?
Having a wand-buddy familiar seems like a pretty common plan, but as far as I can tell, this conversation is the only basis for it and never made it into the posted FAQ?
Wand use doesn't require the book for those few improved familiars - brownie, faerie dragon, imp, lyrakien azata, mephit, quasit, sprite familiars - gained with the Improved Familiar feat
It can use a wand since it is slotless. It uses its master's UMD. No other animal companions or familiars can activate a magic item.
