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Greetings, I have a PFS Shaman who just hit 5th lvl as a "GM Baby" and I have played her at least twice, she's mostly been given GM credit.
I know of several scenarios that grant a specific animal as an Familiar, I am looking to GM one in particular to get her credit for.
So, my question is- if i take the Improved Familiar feat now at 5th, what would be the least confusing way to get said special familiar after already taking the feat?
Thanks much. I just want to avoid confusion if i get audited.
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I did something similar with a different boon familiar. It wasn't a GM credit character, but due to a level dip, at 7th level when I took Improved Familiar I did not qualify for the familiar on the boon. I asked about it in one one the threads here. General opinion seemed to be that when I reached high enough level for the familiar I wanted, I should just release whatever familiar I chose when I got the feat, then pay the cost of acquiring a new familiar. So that's what I did.
Another option, if you don't want to pay to acquire the familiar, is to take a different feat now, then retrain into Improved Familiar at 7th (or whatever level you need to be). Because of the prestige cost for retraining a feat, that's ultimately probably more expensive, but it would work.
EDIT: Just note on your chronicle when you acquire the new familiar and record the cost on your ITS.
Side note: Having to wait turned into a fun roleplaying schtick, as I selected a Brownie in the meantime, and decided my character didn't like him very much. He just showed up at her house one day. She bossed him around and called him "Brownie," because she couldn't be bothered to remember his real name. This resulted in him not always doing what she was ordering him to do, like when she got trapped in a fight on the wrong side of a door from him, and he refused to dimension door into the room, claiming he couldn't hear her. Likely story. So when it came time for him to be dismissed, there happened to be a group of arcane casters in the scenario, so he just decided on his own to stay with them. Essentially, he was treated like and basically was a house elf.
She has to be nicer to the new familiar. He's whimsical and more likely to just leave if he's not made to feel welcome.
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Bah. That's no fun. Get a Brownie to boss around for a couple of levels.
I was unsure about acquiring a free familiar other than at the time of taking the feat (which also coincided with the level I picked up the familiar arcana), so I selected something in the meantime and paid the cost a level later just to be sure. That certainly could have been unnecessary, but it wasn't that expensive, and I figured I'm covered either way.
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I did something similar with a different boon familiar. It wasn't a GM credit character, but due to a level dip, at 7th level when I took Improved Familiar I did not qualify for the familiar on the boon. I asked about it in one one the threads here. General opinion seemed to be that when I reached high enough level for the familiar I wanted, I should just release whatever familiar I chose when I got the feat, then pay the cost of acquiring a new familiar. So that's what I did.
Another option, if you don't want to pay to acquire the familiar, is to take a different feat now, then retrain into Improved Familiar at 7th (or whatever level you need to be). Because of the prestige cost for retraining a feat, that's ultimately probably more expensive, but it would work.
EDIT: Just note on your chronicle when you acquire the new familiar and record the cost on your ITS.
The character's what i thought to be a "support caster" shaman, but hasn't been played enough to find a role or a niche. so she has money to spend until she wants to buy something
Take the Feat at 5th, take the Familiar at 7th.
You don't have to change Familiars immediately.
You can do this as early as 3rd level.
How does one "take the familiar at 7th?"
I have a Magus that's waiting to do the same thing-
but has to actually wait til 6th to get the Familiar arcana, then 7th for the Improved Familiar.
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So my understanding when I asked before was that you get to swap to the Improved Familiar for free at the time that you take the feat. If you get a Familiar at 6th, just take whatever mundane familiar you want for a level. Then at 7th, when you take Improved Familiar, swap for free to your boon familiar.
Where I ran into an issue is that I have 1 level of Occultist. So at 7th level overall is when I hit 6th level Magus, and when I took the Improved Familiar feat. So I picked up the Brownie, since I was acquiring a familiar for free anyway. Then I paid to change at 8th level (7th level Magus) when I could get the boon.
I think what Nefreet is suggesting is either that you can swap once for free, and it doesn't have to be when you take the feat, or that you can just wait to get a familiar period for a level or 4, then get your improved familiar for free at 7th regardless of what level you took the feat. That might be right, I just figured on less table variation doing it the way I did it.
Was it ever clarified how Improved Familiar interacted with the Shaman's "you can never change your familiar type" rule?
Because RAW, while they qualify for the Feat it doesn't do them much good, i.e. "Once selected, the spirit animal cannot be changed." isn't changed by the Feat. (Only clear-cut case that works is multi-classing where you gain Familiar & Improved Familiar before becoming a Shaman (or simultaneous re: Feat) and you thus designate your Spirit Animal to be Improved Familiar from the get go... which you would then be unable to change type if it dies AFAIK)
(Similar is single-Familiar-type options like Domains "gain a hawk familiar" which never allow a choice mechanic in first place upon which Improved Familiar can expand... even if one assumes Improved Familiar implicitly grants a choice mechanic here, would they still be unable to choose different type of 'base' Familiar animals?)
And even if you want to assume "it's supposed to work, therefore it does", that doesn't tell you HOW it works. Do you get a 1-off chance to change your Spirit Animal to anything off what Feat allows? Are you allowed to choose new Familiars freely, but ones that aren't your original Spirit Animal choice won't get the Spirit Animal ability? Lots of possibilities there.
I tried to get answer for this before, as it was immediately apparent that the FAQ didn't answer the most vexing aspect of the problem ("your class level counts as wizard levels for familiar" also applying to improved familiar's 'arcane spellcaster level' was obvious given wizard is arcane spellcaster), but these issues were never clarified AFAIK... (???)
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Was it ever clarified how Improved Familiar interacted with the Shaman's "you can never change your familiar type" rule?
That would be the most pertinent question to be asked, in that regard.
I can understand how there are some restriction, but at the same time why wouldn't Improved Familiar work with Shamans?
Witch's animals are their spell books; for a shaman, just their 'divine focus.'
Why couldn't my shaman's spirit animal become 'better?' I want to play it off as my Spirit Animal 'evolving' as my shaman gains power in her mastery of her spirit magic.
I sympathize, and given the FAQ directly states you can take the Feat for Shaman, I don't think there is argument that it shouldn't work. But the FAQ negligently fails to explain how it works for that case (and others, AFAIK being Druid Domains and some single-familiar-type Archetypes and PrCs ala Pirate and Magician Bard).
There is a variety of potential implementations as I wrote, but it rather matters exactly what is the implementation... It certainly is plausible for there to remains SOME type of restriction (vs. non-restricted Familiar abilities), whether that be ruling that the Feat allows only a one-time change (Shaman), or clarifying that the Feat only adds the Improved Familiar options and thus doesn't allow e.g. Eagle Domain to gain "base" Compsonagathus Familiar for Init benefits etc (although CELESTIAL et al Compsonagathus without Init benefits may be OK? or not since you can't access "base" version?)