Do Familiar Skill Rank Totals Improve as Caster Levels?


Rules Questions


Improved Familiar Skill ranks - As the Arcane Caster levels up, does the Familiar's Skill ranks also increase?

Example: 7th level Arcane Caster gets a Improved Familiar: Pseudodragon.

It's skills are set at -
Skills: Diplomacy +5, Fly +15, Perception +6, Sense Motive +6, Stealth +19 (+23 in forests), Survival +6; Racial Modifiers +4 Stealth (improves to +8 in forests)

Now I know how to figure out these skills and that if the Arcane Caster Skills are higher, to use those instead. My question is -

Does the Pseudodragon class skill pluses increase as the Arcane Caster levels up or do they stay the same?

Example: Arcane Caster is now level 8. Does his familiar get any ranks to bump up the familiar skill ranks?
ie. Pseudodragon bumps his Perception up to a +8 & Survival to a +7 (plus how many other skill ranks the familiar might get.)

Have skimmed through a couple of threads on this and it just made me more confused.


The familiar will either use its skill rank or its master's skill rank -- whichever is higher.

This does not change which skills are class skills for the familiar, and does not change the familiar's own modifiers on those skills (for example a familiar might have an inherent +4 bonus on swim or climb checks).

The easiest way to figure out what rank a familiar has is to reverse engineer it. First take the total bonus then subtract out the ability modifier from it, then subtract out any inherent bonuses and what not the familiar has. Then check and see if the skill is a class skill and subtract out the bonus for that too if it applies.

The resulting number should be the number of ranks the familiar has in that skill.

Sanity checks:

Does it have more ranks than hit dice? If so something went wrong.

Does it have more ranks than it should for it's hit dice/skill points? If so something went wrong.

Does it have less than 0 ranks? If so something went wrong.

What went wrong? Depends -- could have been bad math from the book, could have been your bad math, or it could be something else.


As Abraham said, it uses your skill ranks. It gets not skill ranks of its own, besides what it already has when you get it.

Note: when reverse-engineering how many ranks it already has, keep in mind that various creature types (dragon, fey, etc.) have their own set of class skills, which will be different than normal familiars which have animal class skills.

In the case of the Pseudodragon, its Perception score gets a +1 from its 12 Wis, a +3 because Perception is a class skill for dragons, and it has two ranks (for its 2 HD), giving it its total +6 bonus. If you have more than 2 ranks in Perception, it uses your ranks instead of its own, so its total Perception bonus will be 4+(your ranks).


Think you mis-understood me -

I'm talking about the Familiars skills that it starts with. Not how you factor the familiar using it's masters skill ranks.

Arcana Caster levels up *DING* now level 8

Familiar also Levels up with Arcane Caster *DING* is now considered level 8 (I think) for purposes of HD.

Does the familiars skill ranks also increase as it is considered to have leveled?

At moment, from what I'm reading, I don't think so but confused.


There is an argument for familiars getting an increase from their caster leveling up.

Most people (rightfully in my opinion) throw that argument out the window with an "are you mad?!??!" look on their face.

As it stands I have never seen a familiar write up in any NPC block that had it's own skills increased from the caster's leveling up, and I've never heard of anyone allowing their players to do so either.

So I would say: No they do not gain any increase in their own skills from the caster leveling up*

*EXCEPT from the intelligence increase that a familiar gets from his caster increasing his *class level* (not his caster level) which would result in more skill points being available for the familiar.


Matt2VK wrote:

Arcana Caster levels up *DING* now level 8

Familiar also Levels up with Arcane Caster *DING* is now considered level 8 (I think) for purposes of HD.

Here is the misunderstanding. The familiar never gains HD. Your Pseudodragon, for example, will perpetually remain at 2 HD. For purposes of effects related to HD (like Color Spray, Symbol of Death, Hypnotism, etc.) it is treated as if it has your number of HD, but in actuality it always has 2 HD. Familiars cannot level up, and therefore cannot gain their own skill ranks, feats, ability score increases (besides the Int granted to them from the familiar rules,) etc.


RumpinRufus wrote:
Matt2VK wrote:

Arcana Caster levels up *DING* now level 8

Familiar also Levels up with Arcane Caster *DING* is now considered level 8 (I think) for purposes of HD.

Here is the misunderstanding. The familiar never gains HD. Your Pseudodragon, for example, will perpetually remain at 2 HD. For purposes of effects related to HD (like Color Spray, Symbol of Death, Hypnotism, etc.) it is treated as if it has your number of HD, but in actuality it always has 2 HD. Familiars cannot level up, and therefore cannot gain their own skill ranks, feats, ability score increases (besides the Int granted to them from the familiar rules,) etc.

However this increase in effective hit dice will improve the DC of any poisons or such abilities the familiar has. So that's nice.


No when you level your familiar doesn't level (at least not in the same sense that a character does).

It gains an effective HD for working out how it interacts with the rules. It doesn't actually gain a HD. It doesn't gain any skill points of it's own, it doesn't gain any feats or the +1 ability score increase if it's a level divisible by 4.

When you level your familiar gains 1/2 the hp you gain, any increase in skill ranks that YOU get that exceeds it's existing skill points.

Does that help?


Thanks -

What I thought but wasn't clear on.

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