Timeshadow's page

To me, it reads that you can un-manifest it without worry since it's not carrying stuff. IMO, it's suggesting that it can't keep items when it vanishes. I don't think it's saying anything past that.

For instance, an Eidolon can provide a distraction, grabbing an item and running past some guards while the rogue sneaks past the guards. Once inside, the rogue un-manifest it, where it vanishes right in front of the guards [and drops the item] and the rogue can re-manifest it when needed.

Even better why use actions to unmanifest just have you or your Eidolon move so it's out of range then it auto unmanifests.

One of my favorite spells for "creativity" is shrink item. If I have a wizard able to cast this I will inevitably have a pouch of shrunken 600lbs stones to use in miscellaneous situations. Need a pressure plate held down. "Boulder" Need a quick barricade for a door "Boulders". Need cover from ranged enemies "Boulders". So many simple uses for big rocks and of you add 4th lvl shape stone to the mix you can have a pouch of 600lbs marbles/perfect blocks with very little difficulty and things start to get touchy.

Yes, but the fire damage would only be 4d6. The second 4d6 ray would essentially be wasted.

Until you get spellswipe at lvl 8.

Also casters have some of the greatest problem solving abilities in the game.

Need to carry several 10'x10' fragile statues over rough terrain with no wagons? Shrink item is your friend.

Need to patch a dam or reinforce a city for siege? Walls of stone are permanent.

Need to listen in on an important meeting inn another part of the castle? Clairaudience does the trick.

Want to leave some traps for enemies you know are following? Glyph of warding.

Theses are just a few examples and none of them are to far out of the box. Entire plots and be circumvented with intelligent spell use. Really no other "class" ability can do this as well.

Wile other non caster classes can do out of the box problem solving magic makes things happen for those who are not committed to just hulk smashing their way through life.

For one non weapon, item I would allow a player to suspend it from a short rope or sling allowing it to be drawn with one action and dropped(back to hanging/slung) as a free action.

So I was wondering if anyone had any advice on this build?
Leshy(Leaf) Fighter Barber

Str:18
Dex:12
Con:14
Wis:16
Int:8
Cha:10

Feats: Risky Surgery, Grasping Reach, Sudden Charge

Skills: Athletics, Surgery Lore, Medicine, Nature, Stealth

Start with Chain mail, get full plate ASAP
Great Axe and a few javelins.

I'm thinking of going Cleric dedication at 2nd to get shield and light cantrips as well as Survival and religion. I'd also get battle medicine at 2nd lvl.

3rd lvl fleet and increase medicine to expert

4th lvl sweep fighter feat

Damage should be pretty good with d12 as a fighter and d10 with reach(grasping reach) I'd be a competent healer out of combat right out of the gate with a +6 medicine (+8 with risky surgery) and after 2nd I can even heal in combat if there is am emergency.

I think the concept of a tree that chops down people could be fun and as a "Barber" he can also trim/prune people as well (manscapeing anyone).

Are there any major holes in the build? Something I missed?

Also at 5th with Axe mastery if I use sweep and crit both targets how much damage do I do with a +1 striking great axe

is it 2d12+4 +2d12 for Sweep to both of them or just one of them or what? The extra +1 for sweep applys to both targets and with a fighter's high to hit there should be a good chance for crits.

I am often in the group that forgets to give hero points so instead I usually give 2 at the beginning of each session and 3 if I know there is a "Boss" battle. The funny thing is now my players get super worried when I give them 3 Hero points lol sometimes I give them 3 just to mess with them :-)

I would say CN at best with whims of both good and evil.

If you could create a barrier or brace to block a passage or door.

You could make banners or decorations for an event

A mat to cover a pit trap (you could even make it proper colors like stone or rock colored)

Lots of rope

A temporary plug or patch for a leaky boat

at higher lvls then stone blocks

A replacement wheel for your wagon

If you have a solid time-frame you could turn a wagon you "fixed this way into a scary booby trap as the wheel or Wheels just vanish wile moving at high speeds.

If your GM allows you to dismiss your own spells with a duration even better for most of the above suggestions.

Ready make keys

I just thought this would be great for making a mold. It can be done quickly to do any shape required then filled with moltin/liquid meterial that can be solidified then poof after an hour of setting no muss or fuss to remove.

The Raven Black wrote:

Why the buckler? You can combine unarmed attacks with an ordinary shield just fine.

In the example given the grab would involve the one hand. The next attacks would have to be shield bashes, not unarmed. It might be relevant.

Note: Unarmed does not have to be with fists you can use any body part therefore you can use a shield as much as you want with unarmed no sheild bashes needed.

Most weapons don't use battle oracles but when they do they tend to be magical intelligent ones that are up to no good.... :-)

I think an appropriately sized hamster wheel and a brightly colored ball would be the minimum investment needed to keep them "alive".

Also prison is an experience a scary one but it might be novel enough to keep a gnome going for quite a wile.

It is good for characters who want mounts that are not animal companions just for the movement benefits wile travailing, having a mount that will fetch things or stay put when left or even defend itself is a good thing. Train a few guard dogs to watch the camp. (Obv if a creature of the party's lvl showed up the dogs are toast or will run away) There are RP reasons as well and it gives a reason to use nature to earn income training animals to sell.

Nefreet wrote:

Tempest_Knight wrote:

1+ does not equal 1. (We can agree on that simple math precept, correct?)

Hypocrite much?

I've linked to and quoted that unarmed strikes (the focus of this discussion) take 0 hands.

I hope we can agree that 0 ≠ 1, right?

Show me the data bar for any other unarmed strike...

Core Rulebook, pg. 283 wrote:

An unarmed attack uses your body rather than a manufactured weapon. An unarmed attack isn’t a weapon, though it’s categorized with weapons for weapon groups, and it might have weapon traits. Since it’s part of your body, an unarmed attack can’t be Disarmed. It also doesn’t take up a hand, though a fist or other grasping appendage follows the same rules as a free-hand weapon.

So... You can hold something and still make an unarmed strike... it does not say 0 Hands.

By the RAW you need 1 hand to 'wield' an unarmed strike.

Firing a Bow requires 2 hands: RAW

Unless you have the required 3 hands, you aren't able to make an unarmed strike while you fire a bow...

So are you telling me that an armless person cannot make an "unarmed" attack.. I know a certin black knight that will completly disagree or at worst call it a draw

Rules Quote:

When you and an ally are flanking a foe, it has a harder time defending against you. A creature is flat-footed (taking a –2 circumstance penalty to AC) to creatures that are flanking it.

To flank a foe, you and your ally must be on opposites sides or corners of the creature. A line drawn between the center of your space and the center of your ally’s space must pass through opposite sides or opposite corners of the foe’s space. Additionally, both you and the ally have to be able to act, must be wielding melee weapons or able to make an unarmed attack, can’t be under any effects that prevent you from attacking, and must have the enemy within reach. If you are wielding a reach weapon, you use your reach with that weapon for this purpose.
--------------------------------------------------------------

So once a target is flanked the penalties apply. As long as you are "capable" of making a melee attack on the target and have an ally in position it takes the -2AC. It doesn't matter how you attack the target once it is flanked as long as you continue to fill all the flanking requirements.

So if for example a Lizardman or a goblin with a bite attack was using a bow he would get flanking bonuses with his bow because he could still bite wile both hands were being used by the Bow.

If yes then I 100% say anyone can do this with a kick/headbutt/elbow UA attack (you do not need an open hand to kick/headbutt/elbow someone).

Honestly if I were GMing this player I'd just let him learn an arcane version of the spell as one of his lvl up frebees at the cost of banning from using a same lvl type summon EG lose access to Summon dragon to gain access to summon fiend. It allows the player his flavor without imbalance. Both are 5th lvl summons

Personally I am in the camp that yes they keep all abilities when shifted cause I think a Gauntlet or sword or dagger that can cast spells is cool though I also say if the shifting rune is removed from a weapon it reverts to it's original shape.

So with just the Witch Dedication, the familiar would have two ability slots at level 1-5, three at 6-11, four at 12-17, and five at 18+. And you could fill any of those slots with either Familiar Abilities or Master Abilities.

Familiar master gives familiar or (enhanced familiar if you already have one. So at low lvls they are on par 2 abilities.

both have access one way or another to enhanced familiar so we will discount that.

lvls 6-11 Witch dedication gets +1
Familiar master gets access to mascot and Improved Familiar that witch dedication doesn't. (Also remember a non spell caster can take this to get a familiar they normally can't access wile the dedication makes them a caster) Improved makes it easier to qualify for a special familiar effectively giving 2 extra abilities.

8th lvl master gets access to mutable familiar
10th lvl incredible familiar for effectively 8 familiar abilities (6 plus the 2 less needed to qualify for a special familiar)

At lvls 12-17 Witch dedication gets their 4th ability
At 18th they get their 5th ability for a total max of 7 with enhanced familiar.

So I'd say Familiar master is not too far off though if you spent class feats on witch dedication/witch feats in the same amount the dedication is a touch more powerful but multi-class feats are generally quite powerful and dedications are more for flavor than for power so take it as you will.

Honestly I think familiar master should get extra abilities like a witch or Familiar thesis wizard considering the "cost" but it won't prevent me from taking it for my rogue who wants an animal accomplice. :-)

I 100% would have the weapon morph back to normal if the shifting rune was removed. This pritty much solves the majority of the "resale" issues.

So I'm looking forward to the day I build my Ratfolk Rogue.

I want him to take the rat familiar so I can give it hands and the new Partner in crime ability to get Aid bonus for all my Thevery and Deception rolls (Free reaction to do so) and ASAP likely with my first general feat take ratspeak so we can talk as well.

Then I want him to take beastmaster for a Giant Rat animal companion (I have this in another post) also we should be able to speak. Lots of Roguie, Ratie, reeving to be had :-)

I am suprised he dosen't have a bit in his discription about keeping his hands/paws clean wih a name like Pr'all and the curent state of things (In case you don't know his name sounds like a common cleaning product for hands)

I do this as well. For some reason several players in my game have gotten the nat one curse. Roll a nat 1 then hero point and roll another nat one then on their second attack roll yet another nat one. They come in threes like that and it has happened far more often than stisticaly probable (like 6-7 times in the last 3 sessions on average twice per session). After the 3rd nat one and recently after the 2nd I have have given hero points out cause Damn!!! I have even allowed once for the player to use a 2nd hero point on the same roll after doing this twice in a row (he then proceeded to nat 20 and smash face, darn perverse dice).

It can be very frustrating for a player to consistently roll badly but eventully it wears off and they get a streak of luck (which I make sure to point out with an cool discription so the memory of the moment sticks). I also make sure the strings of bad luck that result in failyer are discribed well usually by having an outside "unlucky" thing happen to explain the bad rolls again with a good "fun" discription so it is not bringing the player down ie he didn't do wrong it was just fate/an accident that it happened that way.

Well, when it comes to lore it is indeed a little fishy.

Instead of either rolling Religion or Society when encountering a vampire count in Ustalav you could just conveniently come up with Lore (vampire nobility of Ustalav) and phish for the easier check.

Astrophysics? Yep.
Biology? Covered.
Quantum mechanics? Ask your question.
What is the air speed of an unladen swallow? Yes.

African or europiean?

I like the idea of just taking the disrupting rune and retooling it for other species Example:

Lyanthrope Bane Standard - Item 5 - 150gp
A Lyanthrope Bane weapon pulses with silvery energy, dealing an extra 1d6 damage(of weapon type) and counts as silver to Lyanthropes.
On a critical hit, the Lyanthrope is also enfeebled 1 until the end of your next turn.

Lyanthrope Bane (Greater) Item 14 - 4300gp
Increase the extra damage to 2d6.
On a critical hit, instead of being enfeebled 1, the Lyanthrope must attempt a DC 34 Fortitude save with the following effects.
This is an incapacitation effect.

Critical Success It’s enfeebled 1 until the end of your next turn.
Success It’s enfeebled 2 until the end of your next turn.
Failure It’s enfeebled 3 until the end of your next turn.
Critical Failure It’s destroyed.

RAW you cannot have an animal companion make 3 actions without the ranger feat "Companion's cry". Though I would allow (as a house rule) any "mount" to take actions as a regular mount IE it works together with it's rider shairing their action pool.

This aside using Companion's cry to give a companion you are mounted on 3 actions only costs 2 actions from the master so you could take 3 strides and still have an action to spair.

Fortune effects don't work on downtime activities.

Asssurance is a fortune effect.

That's intresting I never noticed that. Odd I never though of Assurance as a fortune effect or "luck" based I though of it more as being so practiced at that skill that you could garentee a ceertin minimum result.

You can have bone or antler studs or even cerimic at higher lvls it could be glasssteel or dragon bone ect.

From what I can see so far I think the OP is far to concerned with DPS and combat for a scoundrel rogue. Not that DPS isn't important but it's not the first prority I think of for a scoundrel rogue. As mentioned before Scoundrels should be the party face and very much skill monkeys. They should be all about having the right skill most of the time and being able to do the "face" thing for the party wether it's lieing to the guards or intimidating an enemy or convincing the murchent to give a discount. Also multiclassing or going into an archtype dedication can give some nice flavor.

I really like the idea of a lizard man dragon style monk, so how about:

Ancestry: Lizardfolk: Frilled(for threatening approach)

Starting stats: Str 18, Dex 14, Con 12, Int 8, Wis 12, Cha 14

Highest Str for hit/Dam to really make use of that taill strike

14 Cha is a good starting point without loosing out on AC

Tail whip Ancestral just fits too well and the natural claws give a slashing option on your flurry.

I'd consider multi into Barb dragon instinct or maby Sorcerer primal for funzies. Your high str also qualifys you for intimidating presence feat once you get expert intimidate and you don't need intimidating glair due to your "frills"

From my read through I would say drop duplicate (mandatory) skills from the classes. As far as I can see you get both attribute bonuses at first lvl but since the Basic rule book says you can only increase an attribute once per step then you cannot increase the same attribute with the two class core stats. That said there are many classes that allow a choice so just take 2 different attributes. If you decide to dual with two classes that have the same attribute like Cleric/Druid then you loose out....but honestly the dbled spell slots and metric ton of other abilities kinda makes up for it.

At levels 1-3 before you get expert it will underperform in most cases but after you get expert and lvl 4 it hits 18+ which accounts to anything with a +8 or under ref/fort save and there are a good amount of those as long as they are at even or lower lvl to you. Also it allows for climbing most normal walls/cliffs ect with ease. Yes you are never gonna smash a boss with it but ass a 3rd action option or a sure fire jump action it's very useful. At lvl 7 you can hit Master and then you are dinging anything with a +13 ref/fort or less and can just waltz up cliffs/walls. If you ever get one of the feats/ancestries that boost success to crit success for climbing like vine Leshy or the Cliffscail Lizardfolk it can be cool as well.

I see nothing wrong with that. It's just ether the wizard noticing that the fighter's trip didn't work or even the fighter just saying dam this guy is agile when he fails and using that knowledge. Now if a player says "hay don't use that spell use this one that creature is weak to this" when none of the characters have encountered one or made any recall knowledge rolls that I'd tell the speaking player that he is unaware of that info and the player told I'd tell to use what he would normally have used. If this happens a few times I'd likely just straight up change the creatures to prevent this unless the players change their ways.

Where Assurance shines is for the Halfling wizard with a Str of 8, or really any time you have a character you want to be decent at a skill but don't have the correct attribute for it.

10 5th lvl wizards

One casts invisibility sphere to cover the group. They all approach from a flank with a 5th lvl ranger or scout who has Silent allies and was also effected by invis sphere. Once in range say 300' or so they all cast "Widened" Fireballs for two rounds for a total of 20 fireballs that each have a 25' blast radius utterly devastating the opposing archers (even if there are 20 lvl 5 Fighters among them) each ball covers a 50' radius and they can overlap them quite a bit with 10 at a time.

On the 3rd turn they all cast personal invisibility spells or whatever to cover their retreat back to the main lines.

Ched Greyfell wrote:

Squiggit wrote:

The second use of the hero point allows you to use it to "avoid death."

It seems kind of mean spirited and contrary to the written intent of the mechanic for a GM to let someone spend a hero point, stabilize, then rule that they immediately drown.

That's just my 2c tho.

Avoid death for how long, tho?

You're avoiding death while in the middle of a situation that will just cause death again.

Can they avoid death, take a nap, and get their spells back after a good night's sleep in the lake?

I wouldn't say it's a matter of how long. The hero point gets the hero out of that particular situation. It's the GM's job to figure out how.

"Oh look, the hero landed in some reeds and gets to not drown."

Or maybe

"Some fishermen who heard the commotion helped the hero while his pals fought off the baddies. Now they are wondering if the heroes can help them do XYZ."

Hm, the player doesn't lose their hero arbitrarily and the GM has an adventure hook to boot.

Fishermen catch an adventurer with a plot hook.......

"Look Salty Bob. You just gotta know how to use the right bait and where to toss in your line. I've caught 3 Paladins and a wizard just today".....

So most times this come down to the difference between exploration mode and encounter mode.

Until the encounter starts you are in exploration mode and the situation is being described by the GM.

As you said your fighter/Rogue is approaching a door and hears the orcs on the other side (you are using the seek exploration activity).

When you are told the situation and decide to enter encounter mode you are given options for initiative.

You roll the appropriate skill for initiative and there you go.

For stealth if you beat the creature's perception DC you are not detected by the creature until you do something that makes you detected.

So if you got a lower initiative than the opponent but were still hidden the opponent depending on the situation will ether do nothing wasting it's turn or if it thinks there is something going on it can take seek actions to try to find you or maybe take defensive actions.

In the end it's not really punishing the most aware person as that person acts first on the next round. It does give attackers a chance to take out the high initive person before he can act but that's the same if he had rolled low so no issue there. As I mentioned above if one or two enemies are going first, then the player, then one or two other enemies the player has the option of delaying till all the enemies have gone but it gives no advantage unless he can kill them all in one attack somehow or strike and move back into stealth somehow as now all the enemies will be going before the player in the 2nd turn.

The only issue I see here is the fragility of certain magical shields that have powers that make you shield block to use them. These should be given sturdy shield stats comparable to their level (or the next lowest version of sturdy from them).

I would also agree that a "destroyed" magical shield should still keep it's magical properties for another 50% of it's HP allowing it to be repaired with the proper tools and skills and a broken or damaged magical shield should auto repair itself after a nights rest.

I would have made a secret Perception Check for the lead player and/or anyone using the "Seek" action. If they succeeded they would have noticed sounds of digging up ahead giving the party a chance to change their actions to stealth or whatever. If they failed the check just the sneaky guy could roll stealth the others would have to roll initive as normal. I might give the diggers a penalty to their ini roll if they were very engrossed in what they were doing and making a lot of noise.

Remember way back in 2nd ED when we got the Monster manual binder and could just add in the expansions as we got them, put them in any "order" you wanted or take out a few monsters for an encounter.... Of course then you got the holes ripped on frequently used pages or the rings of the binder got messed up after frank stepped on it.....

Good times ... lol

Ravingdork wrote:

This is my spell wand. It is made of sharp slender metal, is balanced, and can serve as a dagger in a pinch. The handle also happens to be threaded. This is my spell staff. See the notch at the end? When the wand is screwed into the staff, it functions as a spear. I call it the "dagger-staff spear-wand."

So you have a player that wants to do something creative and a little out there. What's more, the player is really passionate about the idea and, if you're being honest with yourself, it actually sounds kind of cool. However, you have concerns about balance or how it might impact the draw of more traditional options. After all, why doesn't everyone have a dagger-staff spear-wand?

What do you, as a reluctant GM, do? And don't say you just say "no." Denial without explanation tends to upset players, and upset players tend to upset GMs. This is a discussion about diplomacy; we're looking for a happy ending for all parties here.

(The dagger-staff spear-wand is merely an illustrative example meant to promote discussion. You needn't focus on that alone.)

First off, I wholeheartedly agree with your philosophy. It really is sound GMing advice: don't say no, say "yes, but..."

That said, PF2 is unfortunately entirely incompatible with this philosophy. I still consider myself new to gamesmastering PF2, but I have already on multiple occasions found myself saying yes, only to be bitten by the fact that what I allowed as an improvised action, exists as a feat in the game.

That is, you might allow a creative player to do this thing, but you are probably invalidating a feat down the line, perhaps a feat for a completely unrelated character class, perhaps one only available ten levels later.

In other words, Paizo has reserved the right to wring every single ounce of crunch out of their rules construction, to the point where there really isn't much space left for improvisation.

Everything not allowed by the rules will be covered by a feat if not already, meaning...

Even if it is covered by a feat I would allow a player to try to do it just with a hightened difficulty.

I would love this, and I'm a huge fan of X-Com 2 style grid + action + turn based idea.

There are some heavy armors that can be not made of metal. Dragon scale or plate armor are the first to come to mind. If a spell/ritual makes glassteel a thing in 2nd back in D&D there was anknekeg plate armor. It all depends on your GM and the release of further. Light and Med armors no problem as there is already Hide/leather/studded leather and even scail if the GM is feeling generous. Or you could have some types of bone armors.

Looking into it a bit I've found currently there are rules for Darkwood and dragonhide armors both are lvl 12 for standard, lvl 19 for high grade with no low grade options. So depending on your GM you might be able to convince him to allow you to get darkwood or dragonhide armor for your druid or companion of nearly any type including heavy armor like half or full plate though its gonna be very costly unless you have a generous GM and you can get someone to make it from materials you acquire during your adventures. (As a GM myself I'd likely be fairly lenient in cases like this but your mileage may vary).

Rysky wrote:

If fireball doesn’t hurt the book because the backpack is blocking it then it would protect the familiar as well.

Fireball doesn't hurt the book because you can't attack attended items specifically. Whether or not it's in a bag doesn't matter: your armor and backpack don't take damage from fireballs either after all.

Creatures don't have any such protection.

But if the bag is unaffected and the items inside are unaffected ....I would guess most GM's would rule the familiar inside the object that is unaffected is also unaffected.

EG: I have a wax document seal in my backpack. I am fireballed and survive. Is the wax seal destroyed? 95% of GM's would say no it is not unless the player was informed beforehand that this was going to be a thing so they could act appropriately and maybe store it in a small waterproof bag inside a water skin of cold water.

Same goes for the Familiar I would say 95% of GM's would say it is unharmed and the 5% leftover "should" inform their players that items/creatures in their packs are not safe so they can try to make other arrangements to make them safe or not take a familiar if that's too much risk.

So this thread is getting a bit long in the tooth so I'm gonna try to do a summary of what we have covered so far.

Is a Familiar worth it?

Cost: a first lvl feat/Class feature/Racial Feat

Pros:
A cute RP sidekick.

An extencion of the character's reach/presence.

Bonus abilitys dependint on choices you make every day (many of which are easily worth a feat themselves).

Expandable with a 2nd lvl class feat or continued Class feature support.

Cons:
Relatively fragile and could be easily killed requiring the player a week to get another wile being deprived of above Pros.

Some animal/creature templates for Familiar take up all your "power" options leaving you with a mobile, perceptive, flying familiar that gives only the first 2 "Pros" unless you invest deeply into class features/extra feat.

Not as "good" as PF1 familiars.

If used with some "features" leaves them exposed.

In debate/up to the GM:

How often their fragility will come into question?
Is a familiar safe in a players pack when they are hit by an AoE?
How autonomous can they be out of combat?
Can they use/carry things?

In the end it's up to the player to decide if the Pros outweigh the cons after being informed by their GM how they will be treated in most cases.

Personally I believe they are very worth it so much that I will likely have a familiar any chance I can get one in game that fits with my character concept, but that's just me.

If a minion is not given any commands for I think it's a minute it acts on it's own with it's own intelligence/instincts to defend itself or flee.

AS for Stealth it gets spellcasters lvl plus caster ability mod so 4+lvl most cases that's a good stealth score. Also if a guard sees a cat or a bird he is not gonna immediately cry "familiar" and go kill it.

But you can protect your familiar as easily as your spellbook can you not? Even if for some reason it's not safely on your person in your pack or other safe haven it can be told to go somewhere and hide or come back to you or whatever. If your spellbook is in your pack and your pack for some reason gets taken from you your spellbook can't escape anc come back on it's own... a familiar might and likely would. They have stealth and could be easily overlooked.

But you really don't have to. As has been stated if you just want the "benifits" of the fimiliar then take your little cricket familiar and put him in a metal box with some fluf to cushon him and never take him from your renforced beltpouch. You now have access to an extra cantrip and a focus point. Take the extra feat and alchemest dedication after lvl 5 and now you get an extra 1st lvl spell and an extra reagent with next to no risk to yourself. Heck Im sure you could even convince your gm to let you take a pet rock as ppl have joked about earlier in the fourms.

If you always look for the worst that's what you will find. Try being a glass half full kinda guy and just enjoy this flexable feat or not and just don't take it if you feel it's not worth the risk.

In the end Darksol if you don't care for what a fimiliar offers you don't need to take the feat and your wizard/sorc/druid ect will be fine. Fimiliars are not what they used to be but nether is the game.

You can ether take the benifits that have been pointed out that obvously you seem to want access to along with the "risk" of loosing said familiar occasionally or not and take another feat and still do fine.

Depth vs versatility is all good when that's all your trading.

But it's not all your trading in this instance. You are trading consistency and depth for liability and versatility. Half the things you can have a familiar do either takes you out of range for the other features it can do as well or makes it a potential target.

I think if you could gain it back with your daily preparation instead of a week that would be a much easier pill to swallow.

Name me one 1st lvl class feat that gives as many options and oppertunities as a fimiliar?

There needs to be a downside or everyone and their dogs would have a fimiliar it would be auto take.