Ritunn's page

In the guide, the Medic ability of the Divine Emissary is rated as Green and the text references the 2-action Heal.

But the ability actually mentions the 1-action Heal.

I would rate it as Orange myself.

Oh yes, you're right. Must have misread that when I was writing that up a long time ago. I'll update it when I get the chance.

Otherwise, yes, Familiar Master does have a couple of unique feats, but only 2 of those feats particularly can do something useful (in my opinion at least, I just don't really like Mutable Familiar except for Resistance altering). Familiar Sage is just going to be better in the long run for familiar utility for a witch, especially since you often want to grab a Lesson at level 2 and level 4 is pretty meh on Witch in general. In the end, most of the feats of value (for me) can be acquired via your own class unless you got a specific use in mind for Familiar Mascot or Familiar Conduit, one of which is a bit dependent on spell choices. However, as mentioned, it's a pretty good choice if you just want Enhanced Familiar at level 2 at least and have no interest in other early level archetypes (other than Scion of Domora or Familiar Sage which were going to give you a stronger familiar without it anyway).

Yeah, I think Summoner would work best for a concept like that. Though if you want a very intelligent familiar, that Thaumaturge idea you had could work well, especially if you pick up some abilities Skilled + Second Opinion, then grab Speech, you could end up with a very similar vibe. You could also try an Awakened Animal Raven with the Captain Archetype if you want a very smart and pompous sage-like raven with their bodyguard.

Added the Infernal Pactbreaker from Cheliax Infernal Inheritance along with the House Spirit, Sprite, Tooth Fairy specific familiars and the Bonded Companion and Bug Friend ancestry feats all from Feybound.

In other news, Feybound is a book I've been waiting 5 years for at this point, so I'm quite happy to have read through it. This is quite likely my favourite Pathfinder book published (at least until we get something on the Dark Tapestry and Mythos!). If you haven't checked out the book yet, I highly recommend it! The highlights for me personally are the art and narrative framing, but there's plenty of fun new things too, the Fadrim Versatile Heritage being the best among those in my opinion. My first character, a kobold rogue with a fey dragonet familiar and Fey Influence is probably the whole reason I made this guide a few years later, so glad they got stuff I would've loved to have back in 2020.

Anyway, that's likely it for the year. Now to wait until Lost Omens: The Unseen World I imagine. If not, I got a nice break for a while. Once again, thanks for all the support folks have shared as I've diligently tried to keep this up to date for almost 3 years now. The discussions folks have here and elsewhere about familiars is a big help! Enjoy brewing and enjoy the coming holidays this month and next.

Personally, all I'd really love to see is some more arcane thesis options. We haven't ever gotten any new options (which is fine), but considering the variety of magical tools that have come out since the game was released, it'd be interesting to see a thesis that focuses on empowering grimoires or even spellhearts. As previously mentioned by others, spellbooks are a big part of the wizard fantasy and I think having some feats and options for the magical spellbooks would be neat. Something like gaining a mini grimoire with a very arcane themed spellshape benefit for some iconic wizard spells you can meld with a higher level one later (like staff nexus) could be neat. Meanwhile, spellhearts could get something like being able to affix two on one piece of equipment and higher level feats that can let you use your spell DC for all spells from it eventually. You'd probably want a custom spellheart on offer upon initially taking it as well (like staff nexus again).

Truth be told, I think I just like staff nexus. Though I think magical equipment is an important part of the wizard fantasy and I believe some extra arcane thesis options to support different types of equipment would be a lovely way to expand on the class further.

Added a cleric, necromancer, and runesmith build to the guide and did some minor updates. One of those updates is detailing a new type of familiar that has seen more support post-remaster, the sacrificial familiar. Whether it's via Kindling found innately on the Lantern Wisp and Shikigami specific familiars (or any generic one you wish to add it to), through casting final sacrifice, or just playing around with the Undead Familiar on the necromancer, there's quite a few benefits to killing familiars now. Of course, I do believe necromancer, witch, and Shikigami users are the only ones who can pull it off effectively (and I doubt even witch wants to do it much considering the strength of their familiars), but familiar's resurrection makes it possible to kill familiars a few times a day now.

Otherwise, that's likely the last update for a while. I imagine Lost Omens: Cheliax or Feybound may surprise me with some new options (anticipating a reprint of Shadowcaster in the former), but I expect my work to be done until then.

I very much agree! I always love to see the lore associated with certain familiars and where and why exactly they are. Truthfully, I always think picking a familiar that appropriate for the cultural fantasy you've set up for your character is important.

Class familiars as a subset of specific familiars is how I pretty much seem them right now myself. I don't think we'll see them for a while again beyond archetypes, but I do look forward to whatever playtest we have next year and what it'll bring with the possibility of more familiars in the style. We are seeing them in Starfinder with Luminary next year though!

I spent most of last night updating the guide to now include all the new content from Impossible Magic! That was a lot more than I expected... but it's all added now. I'll be adding a Necromancer and Runesmith build in the future, but for now I'm sure most of you can manage thinking of ways to use familiars on the two classes considering their unique nature.

On another note, I'm actually curious what folks think of Paizo doing specially designed familiars that interact with the mechanics of a class in a unique way rather than adding Familiar / Enhanced Familiar and calling it a day. All at the cost of less versatility of course, but generally being a bit more interesting. Personally, it makes me think of what other classes could have specially designed familiars (besides Witch of course). Lots of design space in the concept!

I'm a bit disappointed considering all of this. I made liberal use of art assets on AoN to make tokens for monsters and I still can, I own most of the books, but it's certainly going to be a bit more time consuming.

Otherwise, I never really would've taken the leap to even try PF2e without AoN's exceptional quality. It made running the game a much simpler task than it ever was for D&D 5e. Of course, it'll still be available to do such, but that's why it sort of puzzles me as well. If anything, a slower update cycle on the website, similar to how it was immediately post-remaster, means folks will just check Demiplane or Pathbuilder. Which at the end of the day are more inconvenient, but if someone wasn't buying books already and was relying on free sources like AoN, I don't see any reason for why they'd buy books now rather than just use an alternative that updates earlier.

I'm quite interested in playing a Resurrection Dragonblood Human Bone or Spirit Reaper Necromancer. Resurrection dragons are really cool and a character using their powers acquired from being a connected from one for their necromatic magic sounds fun. There's also my Kholo Bone Necromancer I played during playtest that was a big follower of Set I'd love to bring back as well. Maybe reflavouring the Blood Fascination to be a little sandy.

It's been half a year, but the guide is now updated with the surprising amount of options found in Lost Omens High Seas! I also did some general editing and expect to be doing plenty more work at the end of the month when Impossible Magic releases with a new class that can use familiars in Necromancer.

I honestly just really would love to put together a Lost Omens: First World or some other First World themed book. Been playing around with fey and fey themed options for a while now, whether for running campaigns or just as third party stuff to put together for fun. There's a lot to explore with it and I'd honestly love to see some more dedicated First World stuff like what we had in PF1e.

I've been reading it myself over the last week and found I really liked all the lore for the dragon gods. Seeing expanded information about Dahak and Apsu was a real delight, especially with all the other neat deities. Otilaz and Brixori especially being new favorites of mine.

Otherwise, I've had a fey dragonet character for years and resorted to using draxie sprite whenever I played him in oneshots. So, having an actual full ancestry for him now had me really excited. The dragonet features are quite cute and silly overall as well, which is exactly what I wanted!

To add some other alternatives as well, all the art I use for my guide I either purchased myself for campaigns over the years (not always feasible for everyone), or I just asked friends and community members if I could use their art in it.

There's plenty of artists who wouldn't mind having their art used in a guide if you ask nicely and properly credit them I find. The Pathfinder community especially is full of great artists who will gladly work with you to feature their art if you ask! Does take a bit of extra effort, however.

It's been a while! Not much familiar stuff came out this year after Spring, so not much to add. However, with the release of Draconic Codex, I've added the new familiar options and a new build for playing 4 dragons at once.

Otherwise, been about 2 years writing for this now! I look forward to updating it further in 2026 with whatever familiar options the Necromancer inevitably gets.

Though I am curious to see what new classes they make now that a majority of them from PF1e are now full classes or archetypes thematically or mechanically, I am curious to see more class archetypes to expand on the existing classes too. Something like a Skald could be neat as a class, but I'd love to see if they bring it in as a class archetype instead.

I'm glad to hear Technomancer is getting some love! Love the idea of minibots, figured it'd be an addition anyway, but this should help out Technomancer a good bit.

Finished a playthrough of BG3 last summer wishing we had a PF2e CRPG just as good. This seems like a fun way to scratch that itch for now!

The Grindle-Drake is all its grub-like drake glory has been added to the guide from Lost Omens: Shining Kingdoms. I've also continued some more editing. That's all for this month! I'm also contemplating adding some stuff for Starfinder 2e if that ends up getting some unique familiar options, but I'll wait and see.

Overall, I quite like technomancer reading through it, however, one thing I've noticed is a few problems with Viper's Jailbreak Spellshape. This allows you to turn used spell gems into electromag grenades until the end of your next turn upon jailbreaking Spell Circuit. However, the one issue here is that grenades rely on Class DC to decide their save DC, which you're notably Trained in forever.
However, level 8 has a feat called Grenade Spell. This allows you to put a burst spell into a grenade and allows you to use your Spell DC for its save DC if its a Reflex save spell (in addition to casting the spell on folks caugh in the grenade burst), but there's a minor issue here. To get your electromag grenade and throw it next turn with requires:

Round One: 2-Action (Typically) Spell Cast > 1-Action Overclock
Round Two: Free Action Jailbreak Spell Circuit > 2-Action Spell Cast > 1-Action Overclock
Round Three: Free-Action Jailbreak Grenade Spell > 2-Action Spell Cast > 1-Action Area Fire with Electromag Grenade

Ignoring the fact that it takes 3 rounds of set up to throw a grenade with a DC that won't suck late game, it sort of makes one of your core class features as a Viper Technomancer useless if you don't take an 8th level feat. An 8th level feat mind you that will only make the grenade have a decent DC with a small selection of spells (a much more minor issue thanks to Spell Cache). Clearly this isn't a terrible issue, but it kind of feels bad to be forced to take an 8th level feat to even justify the action usage of throwing the grenade over anything else. It'd be nice if Viper had the ability to just use their Spell DC for the electromag grenades produced via their own feature in my own opinion just to allow you to make use of them outside of Grenade Spell. However, I imagine there are other solutions too, or perhaps it's fine as is for other folks! I'd love to hear opinions.

At the moment, ServoShell seems fundamentally just sort of unusable unfortunately. I'm honestly surprised there wasn't an option to acquire a familiar with the Tech trait, just as a nice flavor thing and also because one subclass just straight up doesn't work without such an option. Of course, having access to the robot companions the Mechanic gets would be even better! That would still require an archetype likely, however. I'm hoping this gets rectified eventually, but there was certainly a big oversight with that specific programming language.

Just some minor updates. I'm working on cleaning some things up and altering wording in some areas, which is going to just happen over the month. Additionally, I've added the Dust Bunny specific familiar from Tuesday's comedic article. Though not all content within the article is entirely balanced, I do believe the Dust Bunny is very in line with what to expect and elected to include it as it's a serious consideration one might make for a familiar choice. Also, it's adorable!

A new familiar? In an April Fool's article? I guess thoss things really just do show up everywhere.

I was originally introduced to Paizo via Starfinder funnily enough, but had always known of Pathfinder since 2012 due to my Earthdawn 1e and D&D 4e gaming groups. I eventually transitioned to playing D&D 5e, but PF 1e was always this funny oddity with what I was told had, "Too much math and really weird character options."

Eventually, I heard PF 2e had released and my same friend who introduced me to Starfinder 1e began telling me about it as well, but I was mostly more interested in Starfinder at the moment. Then, of course, they told me the secret passphrase to get me interested in the system entirely "They just added kitsune". I grabbed and read through all the mainline releases out by then and then proceeded to enjoy my few pages of kitsune content. I quickly realized the system had everything I loved about Starfinder and what originally made me excited for TTRPGs I hadn't really experienced since those 4e days. If anything, Pathfinder 2e is what truly got me into the TTRPG space and checking out even more systems from other publishers.

In the end, I didn't even play a kitsune in my first PF2e campaign, I played a kobold! But I have played several kitsune since then.

Annunciation of the Outer Gate is a spell I'm a huge fan of as a lover of all things occult. It's just got some amazing flavour going for it. Otherwise, I've been using Pocket Library a lot since it was printed in Secrets of Magic. I'm quite sad it's suddenly Rare!

When Magus first came out, I made a Laughing Shadow Magus with the Weapon Improviser archetype I dubbed the "Chair Warrior". It was overall pretty mediocre, but still fun. Honestly, overall happy to see the Resurgent Maelstrom Magus, really improves on the idea and makes it a lot more playable, which I appreciate. It's certainly not amazing, but it seems fun, which is what I care about primarily.

I've been sick the past week, so I've been slow writing stuff up in general, but the guide now has the new content from Lost Omens: Rival Academies covered! Additionally, it was brought to my attention AP 208 had a general companion item, so that was added as well.

Mangaholic13 wrote:

TheKazM wrote:

I am relatively new to Pf2e so apologies in advance if this is a very basic question, I am making a Witch at 11th level (to replace a dead Bard) and in this truly excellent and very helpful guide, you've noted "Familiar Master is one of the best archetypes for familiar aficionados who don’t happen to be a witch." Why is Witch excluded?

Because Witches can do some pretty crazy and powerful things with their familiars that the other classes cannot.

For instance, depending on the patron, the familiar can unleash different effects whenever the Witch casts or sustains a Hex.

A good example is the "Stitched Familiar" and "Spirit Familiar" Witch feats. Those give your familiar the ability to ATTACK! Sure, they can only do it once every 10 minutes, but no other familiar can use damaging moves.

But why does that exclude Familiar Master from being one of the best archetypes for Witch specifically? Is it simply that Witch has better options? I am making a resentment Witch so I am more interested in the survivability and maneouverability of my familiar as opposed to damage output.

It's also important to note that Witch gets pretty much all the feats available to Familiar Master already. It's a perfectly fine archetype to take if you don't have anything else in mind for archetypes and you were going to take Enhanced Familiar anyway, but Witch in particular gets no benefit in specific from it.

Glad to hear there's going to be some undead familiar options for the Necromancer in the full release. Was one thing I felt was really missing.

Pre-post edit: found it. Constructs still insta-die at 0 HP after the Remaster, in the "Getting Knocked Out" section on PC 410

Quote:

Creatures can't be reduced to fewer than 0 Hit Points. When most creatures reach 0 Hit Points, they die and are removed from play unless the attack was nonlethal, in which case they're instead knocked out for a significant amount of time (usually 10 minutes or more). When undead and constructs reach 0 Hit Points, they're destroyed.

The Construct f.ability grants the Construct creature trait, so it imposes those rules.

It's completely black and white that all construct familiars instantly die if they are ever reduced to 0 HP. Wow.

(I really, really hate that the Construct trait was truncated and had all the mechanical info deleted in the remaster.)

I should not have to special search AoN to find that yes, constructs still have the insta-death mechanic.

Which means that yes, Alchemists being bizarrely forced to create a construct instead of a living being is a ridiculous nerf that (hopefully) pushes more PCs to archetype out of Alchemist for their familiar. (Or just Archetype into Alchemist and avoid the class entirely)
There's just no excuse for *forcing* such a double-edged trait like that, if it was optional I would have 0 issue with the change.

Not really sure I understand the reason for omitting this issue from the guide, nor why the trait is worth a 3 star rating as an f.ability. Familiars having low HP means that the ability to drop dying and get brought back up is rather dang important to their survival.

Construct screws them from both ends. Not only do they insta-die, but you cannot normally/easily heal them in combat if they are a construct. If your familiar takes chip damage from an AoE save, needing something like Quick Repair Legendary Crafting to even being to make that combat heal practical is an absurd ask.

Your mileage will really vary. I've had no issue with it myself in play and it does offer several handy immunities still. At the end of the day, the goal is to not have your familiar ever take enough damage to reduce it to 0 and having some stuff that makes that goal easier is nice, even if it comes at the cost of in-combat heals, which I've rarely had to worry about in most games outside of witch. It's a perfectly acceptable ability provided you got Crafting handy from my point of view.

HeshKadesh wrote:

There is no benefit stated for taking multiple of the same Ability. If you take Fast Movement twice, you don't get two speeds increased to 40ft, you use two options that provide the same benefit to the familiar.

While the redundant effects rule covers most of those obvious cases, there really does seem to be a rule gap for others like Spell Battery, Spellcasting, etc.

I'll link the rules post on this question here so we don't clog up the familiar thread too much, but if I put myself into a GM mindset, I don't think I'd block a PC from stacking the familiar abilities that seem to fit with this.

I was honestly expecting someone to have found an ability / combo that would make this ruling too balance-breaking to leave alone by now, but it seems to not be an issue from the balance angle either.

I'll add my own two cents here, though I think the thread goes over it fairly well. I treat familiar and master abilities just like class feats, unless there's something saying you can take it multiple times, I'm a no go on that kind of stuff. However, some specific familiars can break that rule, like the Ceru's version of Cantrip Connection providing two spells rather than one.

Cobyslarni is such an interesting yet absolutely hilarious concept for a school full of planar pact makers. Leave it to a fey to make a school all about making deals and effective pacts with other powerful creatures.

New year, new build! I've added a fun and thematic Grandeur Champion of Apsu Shield build to the guide that uses the Poppet's Minuscule Mentee to have your own personal bard for your knight in shining armor.

Otherwise, the guide has also been updated and maintained for a whole year now! This was my first time doing guide writing of this scale for a TTRPG and truthfully, I was quite anxious at the time about how it'd be received. However, folks have been very helpful in aiding me improving it and I've had a number of people messaging me in thanks. So, I want to say thank you to all of you who've commented here or elsewhere! I couldn't have made the guide what it is right now without your help. I look forward to seeing what new familiar options come with 2025!

Ritunn wrote:

It's nice to see Set get the option for Holy and Unholy and some much kinder anathema. I know one of my players was quite sad to see the deity all evil, but it seems he got a more neutral take on his character now!

Now, if only they could all actually have their Egyptian names...

That would be interesting to see! Paizo seems to do a solid job on creating fair representations of cultures and their folklore with 2e, but they do seem to stick to anglicizations for names too.

It's nice to see Set get the option for Holy and Unholy and some much kinder anathema. I know one of my players was quite sad to see the deity all evil, but it seems he got a more neutral take on his character now!

Object familiars have something that I think should be mentioned. Versatile Form is effectively discounted for object familiars, because they get Construct without needing Tough.

It might also be worth mentioning patrons that can sometimes skip Animated. Familiars with long range abilities or ones targeting your own space can ignore it a little better- mostly Paradox of Opposites, Wilding Steward, and Mosquito Witch.

Updated the guide with this information!

With Divine Mysteries soon out, my work for new books is done for the rest of the year (and hopefully for a bit, holy, so many familiar stuff this year). However, in this update, you'll find the addition of the Choir Politic and Paradox of Opposites patrons and their familiars, along with the long awaited remasters of the Baba Yaga, Mosquito Witch, and Pacts (now The Unseen Broker) patrons and their new familiars. Otherwise, there's a new subsection for witch covering object familiars, along with new sections on the Rivethun Emissary archetype and deities for familiar users (which includes the god of familiars and witch, Atrogine, as its only member currently).
Why did I add a section for a single deity that contributes no actual build advice? It is because I must talk about everything directly related to familiars. I also think Atrogine is really cool as a nonbinary deity focused on curiosity and helping out witches, while their familiar helps out other familiars.
Either way, expect the return of a build I'm reworking soon, along with an aforementioned animist build, and other builds I got in mind. Until next time!

Pretty much all the changes I wanted for Exemplar got added! The new ikons added for War of Immortals are also super cool. Especially love Horn of Plenty and Starshot. Otherwise, a fan of all the familiar stuff Animist got too!

Updates for War of Immortals have been made! An Animist section has been added, along with an Exemplar build. I'll add an Animist build later next month. Do enjoy!

Going to be honest, wasn't expecting Animist to have a whole familiar thing to be going on that is about on par with Improved Familiar Attunement Wizard in terms of overall power. However, also pretty busy with exams and work this week, so it may be a wee bit until the guide is updated.
Overall, expect a section for Animist soon, along with a wee bit of coverage on the Seneschal Witch. However, due to the way that class archetype functions, I don't have much to say about it in regards to familiars other than maybe some possible fun ideas with free access to Witch's Charge.

Interesting to see how Mythic Prof scales as you get to higher levels, but I'm very curious about what all these neat sounding mythic destinies will offer!

I've had some Tian Xia characters I've been waiting to fully put together for a while, but the main one was a Yaoguai Cultivation/Flame Druid. Heavily tea themed, started out as a tea plant, has a tea leshy familiar, focuses on using fire/plant magic to grow and make tea, ect.

Though I initially made them for an Abomination Vaults game with the mind to use Yaoguai when it came out, the release of options like the Cultivation Order and Familiar Sage really brought the build together. A minor focus on Crafting to make magical potions and teas given by the Cultivation order. While Familiar Sage provides a nice way to get Enhanced Familiar and some other neat feats like Phoenix's Flight which really brought the idea where I wanted it.

Otherwise, I have a Lady Jingxi/Kofusachi Cleric I really want to play that's all about collecting stories and a Monastic Weaponry Bo-Staff Monk with strong Wukong vibes I'd love to try out.

For most encounters, my group takes a 20 - 30 minute rest if time allows as we typically do 1 - 2 moderate encounters a session. If a severe encounter comes up, it's often the end of session and folks go take their long rest and heal up to full over that time.

Sometimes I may make it known there's a time limit and only offer a chance for a 1 - 2 10 minute rests. However, the groups I run games for often have a medic with Continual Recovery and Ward Medic and then someone with focus healing too, so that's rarely an issue either and they're able to get back up to full.

Over the course of a level is difficult, but my groups tends to level up every 2 - 4 sessions, so with my best estimate, they're probably doing about 12 - 20 rests in that time.

Ritunn wrote:

QuidEst wrote:

It might be worth mentioning the complications of taking Familiar Master+Sage on a character who starts with a familiar. Both of the dedication feats become Enhanced Familiar, so a note to talk to the GM might be worthwhile.

For the fulus, maybe mention skipping low-level fulus with a DC. Their DCs are equivalent to trained with a +0 modifier until higher level, which is pretty rough.

Familiar Ritualist might want to mention the main point of synergy: being able to customize your familiar to the ritual's skill requirements. That also means it probably shouldn't be taken if you have a specific familiar locking down daily ability selection.

These are all good points! I'll make sure to write that in once I can.

... Whoops, looks like I'm wrong on Familiar Ritualist- it replaces the need for a secondary check entirely, which is much better than I thought.

It's no worries! That particular part I didn't end up changing. But yeah, Familiar Ritualist does let you skip the need to make a check for a secondary caster using your familiar which is nifty if you can get rituals.

It might be worth mentioning the complications of taking Familiar Master+Sage on a character who starts with a familiar. Both of the dedication feats become Enhanced Familiar, so a note to talk to the GM might be worthwhile.

For the fulus, maybe mention skipping low-level fulus with a DC. Their DCs are equivalent to trained with a +0 modifier until higher level, which is pretty rough.

Familiar Ritualist might want to mention the main point of synergy: being able to customize your familiar to the ritual's skill requirements. That also means it probably shouldn't be taken if you have a specific familiar locking down daily ability selection.

These are all good points! I'll make sure to write that in once I can.

Guide is now fully updated for all familiar options featured in Tian Xia Character Guide! Additionally, I've added the Weaver of Heavenly Threads build featuring the new Unfurling Brocade Magus and Shikigami specific familiar.
As well, at the request of someone who reached out to me a bit ago, I've added a new section with suggestions for how to build familiars and what specific familiars to take if you don't innately have access to familiars. This is something I'll need to refine further since many abilities are more build specific, but I hope you enjoy it for now.
Lastly, I've added in a subsection called Familiar Feats. This just gives all my thoughts regarding Familiar, Enhanced Familiar, Improved Familiar, and Incredible Familiar in one place. When those feats appear in the guide now for classes and archetypes, you'll be referred to look there for any thoughts that aren't class specific. Otherwise, there are now suggestions for abilities to take for every class in the guide.

Glad this got changed! Was a good bit worried about it and how it'd affect things moving forwards for fan creations, but it all worked out in the end it seems.

The Familiar Sage archetype, 4 new ancestry feats, and 3 new abilities from LO: TXWG have been added (along with some build changes) to the guide! Currently, I'm postponing adding any direct information about specific familiars released in the book into the guide for now (just not enough time today), but you can see my rating for all 5 of them until then. The Shikigami and Tapir Sage are certainly my favourite from the bunch though, so expect a magus build making use of one of the two soon.

Lost Omens Tian Xia Character Guide is coming in and my oh my is there a lot for familiars! New ancestry feats, new specific familiars, new abilities, a whole new archetype! This is taking some time to evaluate all things considered and I want to put together some new builds as well using all these tasty new options (I also have other work to do for my writing job). So, expect an update later this week.

I'd love to hear all of your thoughts on some of the new options in the meantime, however. Especially on the Familiar Sage archetype and the new Kindling master ability. The latter is something I'm unsure of how to evaluate, especially when the Shikigami specific familiar is entirely made for Kindling. Though second opinions always help!

Personally, the way I like to play and the way I like to run things changes around. The kinds of players I'm with tends to change things up too.

When I'm playing, my goal is to make a character that plays to a specific theme that offers good roleplaying opportunities and functions well in combat. So, games where I get enough time to play the build in combat and RP the theme and story I want to do with others is my ideal. I tend to bounce off of games where there isn't a good balance of both, especially if there's too many players less interested in RPing a character and/or playing tactically in combat. Essentially, I want to play with others who feel competent and are invested in telling a story or just playing their characters in interesting and fun ways.

When I'm GMing, my goal is to make sure everyone is enjoying themselves. I'm having the most fun when making interesting encounters that are difficult, but always winnable, and everyone else is having fun beating them. Additionally, I like it when players feel invested in the game, they're excited to tell a story with their character, whether it's a small and short arc or affects the whole campaign in a major way I can build around. I spend a lot of time teaching new players how to play as well, so helping new players understand their character and seeing them do great is always a delight for me as a GM.

Overall, a simple way to put it would be I like it when people take the game seriously in a fashion where they know what they're doing and want to tell a story too. When it comes to GMing for new and inexperienced players though, I have fun when I can help them improve and they discover the cool things they can do with this game!

I decided to take a bit of time to mull over everything, see what I did and didn't like about the updates. However, the update is now out and the guide is fully remaster compatible with the release of PC2! A brief overview of some changes:

- Fey Dragonet got pushed to a 4 star ranking with its lower investment requirement.
- Pipefox got pushed to a 3 star ranking with the loss of an ability.
- Construct got some clarifications in the section where I actually go over it rather than with the Poppet.
- The Blessed Turn, Gumiho's Beloved, and Honey Hawking Healer builds all got updates with the changes to their respective classes and archetypes. The point of each one still remains the same.
- I settled on 3 stars for Item Delivery. It's good, but does require a lot of investment to make great.

Otherwise, I added any new abilities and updated ones that got changed or replaced, and moved the Imp and Fey Dragonet to their new homes in the 7 and 5 cost specific familiar sections. I'm likely to add a new build or two in the coming weeks, along with adding in Lost Omens Tian Xia Character Guide's Familiar Sage archetype and Origami specific familiar (along with whatever else it brings) when that comes out next month! If you have any comments or feedback, please let me know as always.