Mauler Archetype Familiars and Enlarge Person


Rules Questions

Dark Archive

Battle Form (Su): At 3rd level, a mauler gains the ability to transform into a larger, more ferocious form and back at will. In battle form, the mauler’s size becomes Medium and the mauler gains a +2 bonus to Strength (this stacks with the normal Strength adjustments for increasing in size). This ability replaces deliver touch spells.

Share Spells: The wizard may cast a spell with a target of “You” on his familiar (as a touch spell) instead of on himself. A wizard may cast spells on his familiar even if the spells do not normally affect creatures of the familiar's type (magical beast).

Enlarge Person says "Multiple magical effects that increase size do not stack."

Is there any reason why a familiar in Battle Form could not benefit from an Enlarge Person spell cast on it through the Share Spells familiar ability? Would it count as multiple magics effects not stacking?


Yes, it would be multiple magical effects not stacking (also battle form is missing its polymorph tag due to my error of omission, which, when present, would also trigger a separate line about polymorph effects and size changing spells).

Dark Archive

Enlarge Person isn't a polymorph effect, is it?

Scarab Sages

Enlarge person does not have a target of "you". "You" target is a specific type of targeted spell, not just casting any spell on yourself.


You can still cast Enlarge Person on a familiar via the second part of that rule: "A wizard may cast spells on his familiar even if the spells do not normally affect creatures of the familiar's type (magical beast)".

Grand Lodge

Victor Zajic wrote:
Enlarge Person isn't a polymorph effect, is it?

No, but Battle Form was supposed to be, and you can't stack polymorph effects with any form of size changing magic.


Since there still seems to be some confusion for the OP and it hasn't been specifically addressed yet.

Supernatural abilities are magical but not spell-like. Supernatural abilities are not subject to spell resistance and do not function in areas where magic is suppressed or negated (such as an antimagic field). A supernatural ability's effect cannot be dispelled and is not subject to counterspells. See Table: Special Ability Types for a summary of the types of special abilities.

The only possible argument for combining these two abilities is that Battle Form(Su) is a static change (always to Medium) and therefore not technically an "increase" in the sense that it doesn't care about your original size (iow it's not an increment to base size).

However, in context, that position is quickly demonstrated to be contrary to intent as it is a familiar only ability and I don't know off any familiars larger than Small, meaning that Battle Form is always an increase.
Further... only the polymorph rules can reconcile the statement "(this stacks with the normal Strength adjustments for increasing in size)", as the only other part of the rules that deals in this language is the Bestiary where it describes monster advancement (usually coupled with increased hit dice).

Ergo, Battle Form doesn't stack with Enlarge Person because they are both magical effects that increase size, and if it's not part of the Polymorph subschool, you only receive the listed +2 Str.

ps. in case anyone cares, there are polymorph spells that don't remove your base form (specifically I'm thinking of Animal Aspect), so there may be some extreme corner case reasons to argue RAW vs RAI on this point until it's FAQ'd or errata'd.

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