As of Ultimate Wilderness, the Tumor Familiar is prohibited from taking the Protector Familiar archetype, possibly because Fast Healing 5 and Shield Other on the same body was considered unreasonable.
Is this a terrible change that renders both the tumor familiar and the protector archetype wholly useless? Is this reasonable game balance that now makes other archetypes viable choices for your tumor? What are some other things you can do with a tumor familiar, and what are some other uses for the protector archetype? Let's redirect the discussion from the Errata Thread to here.
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TBH I like the idea of a Tumor Familliar as-
An Emissary (Your Deity has sent you a disgusting growth, which gives you advice)
A Mauler (Your can send out your growth to mess stuff up, it gets huge all of a sudden, and if it gets hurt too bad it can merge with you to heal up)
A Sage (You have a vestigial twin that knows things you don't.)
On a d8, d10, or d12 chassis I don't see why a cute little hedgehog that sits on your shoulder and increases your AC/takes hits for you isn't a viable use of the protector archetype, either. Like I wish the Protector Archetype were compatible with the Greater Elemental Whispers familiar.
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Does hedgehog increase AC? I thought they granted a bonus on Will saves.
It's Will Saves (which is something a bloodrager with a familiar might really want, for example) but the Bodyguard feat allows it to effectively increase your AC with the Aid Another action in place of an AoO (and it gets combat reflexes too.)
its not viable because the enemy gunslinger can just full round your familiar and kill it then byby familiar and byby familiar bonuses that cant happen with the tumor the tumor cant be targeted separately from you, if your familiar is on the board doing things its fair game to target in combat which is why all non tumors go into the familiar box and are never seen again once the campaign starts, unless you are playing a nature shaman with the mauler familiar cuz then your familiar isn't squishier then the party wizard
I feel like how aggressively your GM targets familiars is liable to vary a lot from table to table. From my experience, the most common standard is that unless your familiar is taking actions in combat that cause harm to antagonists, the antagonists tend to ignore the familiar. So the Gunslinger is probably not going to shoot the hedgehog on your shoulder when it could just shoot you instead.
Plus, once you get to level 11 the Protector Familiar is going to have more HP than any other familiar can, so is less susceptible to gunslinger barrage than other familiars.
Sure, a GM who actively targets your familiar is bad if you have a familiar, but this is sort of an argument against "the entire Witch class" or "a Wizard without an Arcane Bond" more than anything else. Most familiars in the game are, after all independent creatures and not tumors.
Using the spell Merge with Familiar (Sorc/Wiz, Witch, Shaman, lv 2) from Ultimate Wilderness you can just meld with a non-tumor familiar with you and it cannot be targeted. It is the same as the tumor familiar trick for protecting the familiar, but without the tumor.
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I want to make a hypochondriacal Alchemist with a Figment Tumor Familiar.
"I have a tumor."
"No, it's all in your mind."
I would rather this was done by restricting what the tumor can do while attached. If it comes up at my table I will likely HR in that direction.
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A) Is the tumor familiar good without the protector archetype? Yes. It still has all the benefits of a familiar and can recover lost hit points out of combat.
B) Is the protector archetype still good? Yes. It still pairs well with the fast healing of the life shaman, and does very well in a party with a good channel positive energy user.
Figment tumor is pretty good too. It was just in the shadow of the protector familiar. Combine it with the die for your master feat and it can save you from taking a big hit once per day.
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I want to make a hypochondriacal Alchemist with a Figment Tumor Familiar.
"I have a tumor."
"No, it's all in your mind."
Since Figment and Sage stack, you can have an imaginary tumor that is an expert on medicine (and a bunch of other stuff you know nothing about).
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I want to make a hypochondriacal Alchemist with a Figment Tumor Familiar.
"I have a tumor."
"No, it's all in your mind."
Until he realised tumor familiar wasn't on the list of alchemist discoveries an investigator could take, there was a player in my game who was doing this.
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Alchemist: "This is my tumor."
The tumor, who has ranks in medicine which the alchemist hasn't: "Don't listen to him, he's delusional."
Contributor
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Until he realised tumor familiar wasn't on the list of alchemist discoveries an investigator could take, there was a player in my game who was doing this.I want to make a hypochondriacal Alchemist with a Figment Tumor Familiar.
"I have a tumor."
"No, it's all in your mind."
It works on a whole another level. ^_^
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Wow. This is a thing? I thought the OP was kidding, making a big deal out of some really obscure errata about some extreme corner case ruling that would never even occur to anyone.
Then the thread goes on and it's serious input from various different people who apparently are frequent partakers of killer tumor familiars and have weighty opinions on how that should synergize with different game options.
Welcome to Pathfinder folks.
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Wow. This is a thing? I thought the OP was kidding, making a big deal out of some really obscure errata about some extreme corner case ruling that would never even occur to anyone.
Then the thread goes on and it's serious input from various different people who apparently are frequent partakers of killer tumor familiars and have weighty opinions on how that should synergize with different game options.
Welcome to Pathfinder folks.
It was way more popular and common than you seem to think.
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I want to make a hypochondriacal Alchemist with a Figment Tumor Familiar.
"I have a tumor."
"No, it's all in your mind."
I love this!!
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that is a hilarious concept- i must steal thatAlchemist: "This is my tumor."
The tumor, who has ranks in medicine which the alchemist hasn't: "Don't listen to him, he's delusional."
Remember to make your imaginary tumour a parrot, raven or thrush - that way they can talk to other people.
Also, have the alchemist insist that it's a malign tumour that is going to kill them all.(The imaginary tumour is not amused.)
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True, a talking figment tumor is hilarious, but it's also incredibly useful. It's one of the ultimate scouts, because it can't permanently die and it can give you useful reports on what it sees.
Remember to make your imaginary tumour a parrot, raven or thrush - that way they can talk to other people.
Also, have the alchemist insist that it's a malign tumour that is going to kill them all.
(The imaginary tumour is not amused.)
True, a talking figment tumor is hilarious, but it's also incredibly useful. It's one of the ultimate scouts, because it can't permanently die and it can give you useful reports on what it sees.
Now I'm thinking of Kyubey being a familiar and wanting everyone to give up their souls, and this demonic thing is staring at you every time you wake up in bed.
It's one of the ultimate scouts, because it can't permanently die and it can give you useful reports on what it sees.
It's only a close-range scout, though.
Your tumor vanishes if it's ever more than 100 feet away from you. (Have your alchemist shout "I'm healed!")It usually comes back when you next prepare spells, so here it should come back when you prepare extracts.
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I’m glad of the change. Handing Bloodrager an extra 50% health as a replenishing pool was a silly combo, and I got annoyed at seeing it pushed as the only choice for a tumor familiar.
Figment hedgehog tumor attached at the base of the skull that is actually the one running things. When it disappears due to the host sleeping, it’s burrowing into their psyche to reinforce its hold over them.
Remember to make your imaginary tumour a parrot, raven or thrush - that way they can talk to other people.
Also, have the alchemist insist that it's a malign tumour that is going to kill them all.
(The imaginary tumour is not amused.)True, a talking figment tumor is hilarious, but it's also incredibly useful. It's one of the ultimate scouts, because it can't permanently die and it can give you useful reports on what it sees.Now I'm thinking of Kyubey being a familiar and wanting everyone to give up their souls, and this demonic thing is staring at you every time you wake up in bed.
I’m glad of the change. Handing Bloodrager an extra 50% health as a replenishing pool was a silly combo, and I got annoyed at seeing it pushed as the only choice for a tumor familiar.
Figment hedgehog tumor attached at the base of the skull that is actually the one running things. When it disappears due to the host sleeping, it’s burrowing into their psyche to reinforce its hold over them.
Plus, according to ancient Greek medicine, this is how periods happen!!
(This is a quip about ancient Greeks being wrong and sexist not about women actually having their brain eaten by hedgehogs during that time)
Wow. This is a thing? I thought the OP was kidding, making a big deal out of some really obscure errata about some extreme corner case ruling that would never even occur to anyone.
Then the thread goes on and it's serious input from various different people who apparently are frequent partakers of killer tumor familiars and have weighty opinions on how that should synergize with different game options.
Welcome to Pathfinder folks.
The old Tumor/Protector build allowed Alchemists and Bloodragers to effectively DOUBLE their HP. This was a needed change, but folks aren't happy with it, for obvious reasons.
Disabling while attached doesn't solve all the things, the familiar can still soak up lots of damage and then heal it for free out of combat. They just really wanted to remove the free healing of a PC, and it was either stop tumors from being protectors or stop protectors from having fast healing.
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Wow. This is a thing? I thought the OP was kidding, making a big deal out of some really obscure errata about some extreme corner case ruling that would never even occur to anyone.
Then the thread goes on and it's serious input from various different people who apparently are frequent partakers of killer tumor familiars and have weighty opinions on how that should synergize with different game options.
Welcome to Pathfinder folks.
Actually, this thread stems from a few people, myself included, asking Lady-J to take her complaints to it's own thread instead of derailing the Ultimate Wilderness: Potential Errata thread with discussion.
Disabling while attached doesn't solve all the things, the familiar can still soak up lots of damage and then heal it for free out of combat. They just really wanted to remove the free healing of a PC, and it was either stop tumors from being protectors or stop protectors from having fast healing.
Of those two options, stopping tumors from being protectors was the clear call since if you want to take extra item slot and buy a ring of regeneration for your hedgehog buddy, then that is a significant investment with almost no effect on combat (it mostly saves on CLW wands) and not the thing you want to prohibit as a GM/Dev.
extra item slot and buy a ring of regeneration
Boots slot and boots of earth.
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Dear god, yet another hardcover full of nerfs.
There were like two. The Tumor Familiar can't be a Protector anymore, and Snowball now has "Spell Resistance yes". Both were due.
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That sounds like a good solution. I am happy that they took aim this time.
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Oddly, the tumor familiar that I have on my bloodrager / alchemist in a home game is NOT a protector. My alchemist experiments on himself and others. The bloodrager bloodline allowed him to have a monkey familiar that sprouted dragon wings so that he could state to others... DON’T MAKE ME RELEASE THE FLYING MONKEY!
(Once it became a tumor familiar, my friends then joked about just where I was pulling that monkey from. Really, this became my rudest character ever, and a welcome change of pace from my usual bards.)
No, my tumor familiar is a valet. He helps me make potions, and feeds them to me and keeps the place clean. You need to have a clean lab, after all.
Hmm
As far as "doubling hit points" that is misleading. If you aren't going to risk the familiar you only get about 50% of your max health split during a single combat. Otherwise, it runs the risk of dying (without extra shenanigans, like regeneration).
Misleading? Not really. Calling it "functionally limitless DR/5" or "DR(50%) with a cap" doesn't communicate the end result as neatly. FH5 is nothing to shake a stick at, especially not for an alchemist. Calling it anything LESS than a 1.5x HP multiplier is misleading, and I've certainly seen alchemists sponge their full HP into their tumor between rests.
Tumor familiar, snowball, vine strike, wolf savage, plant immunities, thundercaller, that's 6; any other nerfs in UW?
I heard the Brachiation Kineticist talent got changed.
The Occult Origins text is
You can gain a climb speed equal to your base speed, which you can also use to swing from tree to tree in heavily forested or jungle areas, or from wooden supports.
The Ultimate Wilderness text is:
You can gain a climb speed equal to your base speed when moving through forested terrain.
So I guess the difference is that you no longer have a climb speed if there's no trees around (e.g. you can't climb up buildings). For my money, Brachiation wasn't an especially strong choice for a 3rd level utility for a phytokineticist before the book came out, I'd take Kinetic Restoration or warp wood or greater elemental whispers (if the GM okays it) instead.