Splinter the Super Squirrel - Familiar help please!

I was playing around with my sensei/monk of time character who is all about rerolls, and found the wonderfulness that is cackle/fortune. In addition, I discovered the fascinating thing that is beast bonded. Essentially, the build before used bodyguard to aid others. Now, I can get a familiar to do it for me!

Thus was born Dan Sensei and Splinter, the Super Squirrel.

Why squirrel? Because flavour, that's about it. Strictly speaking it isn't highly optimized, but, squirrel. Can anyone recommend any other good high dex familiars, or good familiar feats?

Sensei Dan was adopted by a family of halflings, and grew up learning martial arts. His family has a long history of adopting squirrels too, and using them as messengers and helpers. He has been training his long time pet Splinter to be an amazing martial artist at his martial arts and calligraphy school.

Essentially, it revolves around getting a valet familiar and passing it feats, while making a character that everyone wants at their pathfinder table. It's dangerous to go alone, take the squirrel. Level progression is such:

I haven't planned much past level 5. Start of a dungeon I have Dan get fortune up on the party, and then cackle it (flavoured as muttered advice :D). I then position him to be within 30 ft of everyone at all times. Splinter sits on a relevant shoulder and grants a +4 to everyone next to him's AC 4 times a round, and a +6 to mine. Start of combat, I bardic performance and cackle. Next round I'll ill omen if the party wizard wants it, or move into flanking position or aid the party fighter to hit, or smash someone with a stunning fist. Misfortune on a big bad that made his save, or allow an ally a reroll on their save with ki mystic. Out of combat, Splinter and I combine to give a +11 to pretty much any skill check, including craft checks (thanks valet). Play test in a home game has shown that a diminutive critter with prestidigitation and a monster stealth can do some amazing things.

So, will I need SCAR? Or should I grab something else (i'm aiming for Bewildering Koan eventually)

I'm not sure if there's more to be done here. Any fun feats to give splinter or me?

Help me make the most awesome squirrel/sensei combo ever!

Since no one else seems to have weighed in here yet, I'm really liking the idea of a crazy old man and his attack squirrel. (This coming from a guy who just built a Half-Orc Inquisitor who fights by throwing his pet badger.) I have a few suggestions though, which I hope might help.

1) You really might want to rethink your stat spread. Starting with a 20 in Wisdom is really expensive, largely overkill, and pretty dangerous for a support character that hangs near the front lines. Lowering it even to 16 (+2 racial) can give you 8/14/14/12/18/10. That gives you much improved Fort and Reflex saves, more AC, and more hit points. (Also, the more hit points you have, the more your squirrel has.) I took the liberty of lowering strength because you don't really need it for anything beyond easily circumvented carrying capacity, and I lowered CHA because...

2) Don't dip Oracle. Misfortune is good, but your character has enough going on that you don't really need to hamper your BAB and pick up two curses and weaken your Inspire Courage just for another power to force a reroll and some low level divine powers.

3) Consider going Qinggong Archetype as well and trading out things like Slow Fall to pick up True Strike. Your 6th Level of Sensei lets you spend a Ki Point to give the effects of something that's usually self-only (Like True Strike) to an ally. That's a pretty substantial buff for those hits you just HAVE to land.

4) Scar is a cool hex, but this character seems to be primarily a supporting, skilled monk, and doesn't really have a lot of hexes that are so useful that he needs to be able to cast them from a mile away. I'd start aiming for that Koan, but Feral Speech could be flavorful and occasionally useful too. If you rearrange some of your feats (maybe giving the squirrel Additional Traits at Lv 5) you could use your Sensei bonus feat to pick up Improved Grapple and focus on that path, since this build is never going to do much damage. If the Prehensile Hair hex counts as an unarmed strike for Insightful Strike (and it should) you could even grapple at range if necessary. You could even take Vow of Peace for a few extra Ki points, but that would be far more for the sake of flavor than optimization.

Good luck, and go sic some furry woodland creatures on people for me.

Shaman Bond

Thanks a bunch for the thoughts Shaman. I definitely grabbed qinggong, which has had some very very interesting synergies I had not thought of. I am sorry but I simply HAD to get misfortune, it was so thematic. Honestly, misfortune is almost defining for the character after a couple of levels of play, players love it, DM doesn't feel it's overpowered, but between fortune and it, we crit all the time, and monsters NEVER do, and we almost never fail important saves. I switched one of my traits to magical knack and got embrace destiny for 3 CLs as my oracle spell, which has been a life saver when I NEED a high roll on that one skill check. I dumped strength as you said, and put my stats at 7/14/14/12/18/12. I still wonder if maybe I should have grabbed that extra dot of wisdom, but ah well. I'll grab an agile amulet of mighty fists down the line, which will give me only slightly suck damage when I really want to punch something.

I also grabbed a cackling witch blouse, and retrained my extra hex to racial heritage, which gave me the koan at level 5 (ki mystic gives a ki pool at lvl3).

I've gotten to play some at level 6 now, and he has been a BLAST to play. One thing I never noticed when theory crafting is that since splinter is tiny, he can 5ft step into an enemy squares, and then provide bodyguard to me AND the flank buddy since he's adjacent to both! Yes, he gets more defensive scrolls than me :p

You were right about never dealing damage, so I looked at other ways to help. Main thing you mentioned was grapple and I looked into it, and determined grapple was going to be useful on occasion, but suffered from being hard to do on large or huge creatures. I have had several instances of splinter aiding me to grapple a caster and bodyguarding the AoO, so that works. I looked at other combat maneuvers, and focused on dirty trick, which especially fit the theme of a buffer/debuffer.

Then I looked and qinggong and true strike, then I looked again. It's self only, which means I can use it on splinter before I get mystic advice at monk 6. Which means I have SPLINTER give what amounts to a guaranteed dirty trick or trip on his turn.

I've had several combats that consist of: first turn, sensei advice, cackle, bewildering koan some poor sucker with a fortuned bluff check. They use their koan 'dazed' turn to partial charge us, which is met with a readied, fortuned spear from the fighter for X2 damage, and a bodyguard roll from splinter which pretty much guarantees a miss and a ton of damage, if he crits I just misfortune it. My next turn, I 5 ft step to a flanking position, cackle, true strike or aid splinter depending on my estimate of their CMD (take the AoO for true strike, which splinter bodyguards for a +7 to AC, yay benevolent armour, misfortune any crits). Splinter's turn, he 5ft steps into the square and fortune dirty tricks the poor guy blind for the next 5 rounds from the huge check, and no AoO since I took it already. At this point, combat is usually over as everyone uses their fortuned/adviced attacks on the flat footed enemy.

I'm still on the fence for squirrel familiar being the best. I can't seem to find a companion with a higher dex than 19 though, which gives him the highest AC on top of everything else. He also gets two junk feats to replace with extra item slot. I've been giving him kinsight goggles so I can get even better scouting out of him. I'm also looking at a level 7 feat, and honestly there's SO many potential directions to go I'm lost. Give splinter improved dirty trick? Grab lookout or some other teamwork feat (tandem trip or escape route)? Grab scar (the 30ft limitation on cackle has been an occasional annoyance)? Get boon companion for better splinter stas?

Help me advice forums, you're my only hope!

I love the idea but must sleep and prep my character for PFS tomorrow...er, today. But I will check back with ideas when I can.