Ok, so I was in a thread with the original poster going on about how useless the improved familiars were. I'm currently building a Bard who plans on taking the obtain familiar feat from the Complete Arcane and then Improved Familiar to grab a Mephit. I was looking through the entries and I realized that, with a bit of finesse, Mephits were easily the most powerful improved familiar there is. Improved Familiar is basically Leadership Light for DMs that don't like the leadership feat. Here's why:
At 7th level, the earliest you can get one, Mephits are powerful companions. Each has a breath weapon, a few spell like abilities, excellent movement modes, fast healing, great immunities, the ability to speak 2 languages, and a humanoid form which grants them the ability to manipulate items.
Breath Weapon - 1d8 damage in a 15ft cone every 4 rounds is laughable at 7th level, which makes the breath weapon a useless ability. Well, until you notice that roughly half the mephits have the ability to inflict the sickened condition on anyone who fails their reflex save for 3 rounds. The DC isn't great, but it scales with your level (DC 10 + 1/2 your level + 2), starting out at DC 15. Keep in mind that the sickened condition inflicts a -2 to all saves, which translates to Spell Focus/Greater Spell Focus for every school of magic. Total win.
Fast Healing - Some of the fast healing is difficult to activate, but others are easy (like windy areas, underground, or while on fire). This keeps your little guy off the cleric's healing charts, and makes him sturdier than many other options.
Spell-like Abilities - Most mephits gain 2 spell like abilities on top of their 1/day summon. One is 1/hour, the other is 1/day. 1 per hour equates to roughly once for each encounter or every other encounter, and spells like Blur and Glitterdust are great additions to your abilities.
Outsider Type - Outsiders are automatically proficient with all simple and martial weapons, and every Mephit can fly. What's more is that familiars use your base attack bonus, mephits are small (+1 attack), and have a fairly decent dexterity (15) for a companion. All this leads up to handing your mephit a longbow to fire off pot-shots while his breath weapon is on cooldown. A pure wizard/sorcerer, even with her low BAB, will still get some benefit out of this. Especially if she spends some time to cast Greater Magic Weapon, Flaming Arrows, and includes the Mephit in her most recent Haste casting. Eldritch Knights & Bards are generally rocking a BAB of 15+, which makes this even more effective.
So yeah, Mephits are amazing. A lot of this stuff sounds kinda weak, but it's all basically free actions for you as you're doing your own thing. Take advantage of your class feature, and show up those silly nature folk with their bears and tigers- long live arcane magic!
You've got some great idea's there. Why would the DC on the breath weapon scale up? It's constitution based. Other than that I love it. Being able to use the masters skill in place of a creatures is a boon for the bard with the 6+int and UMD/Perception being on the list
The breath weapon is a save penalty which is itself negated by a save. It isn't as good as Spell Focus because it kicks in when you don't need it- it's more effective against enemies with low saves and less against those with high saves.
That said, mephits are pretty hardcore, which I admit I'd never really thought about before (in spite of how long they've been on the Improved Familiar list). An at-will area debuff and martial weapon proficiency make for a mighty fine sidekick.
Save DC of the breath weapon scales because it scales by HD, and a familiar's HD is considered equal to the master's.
Save DC of the breath weapon scales because it scales by HD, and a familiar's HD is considered equal to the master's.
The mephit's description says it's constitution based, not based on hit dice. Also the mephit uses your HD to not get killed by blasphemy but I don't think it's actual hit dice increases. It simply uses the masters for effects.
Save DC of the breath weapon scales because it scales by HD, and a familiar's HD is considered equal to the master's.The mephit's description says it's constitution based, not based on hit dice. Also the mephit uses your HD to not get killed by blasphemy but I don't think it's actual hit dice increases. It simply uses the masters for effects.All racial save DC's are HD based, and most are Con based as well (just like spell DC's are spell level and Casting Trait based.
Also, racial ability saving throws are effects.
Where is the rule on this breath weapon being HD based. It's not that I don't believe you I am just unaware of that being the case. Are you saying it scales up with HD and with CON?
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Universal Abilities: Breath Weapon
Mephit Breath Weapon:
Wizard: Familiar
The same goes for any other abilities,
i.e. Pseudodragon Sleep Poision DC would also scale...
Another good feature of Improved Familiars is that Small-sized Familiars have normal 5' reach which lets them Flank - The only difficulty for multi-class Rogues is the 7th level Spellcaster requirement (or 5th for Small Elementals), though Arcane Tricksters should certainly have no problem.
Universal Abilities: Breath Weapon
Mephit Breath Weapon:
Wizard: Familiar
Another good feature of Improved Familiars is that Small-sized Familiars have normal 5' reach which lets them Flank - The only difficulty for multi-class Rogues is the 7th level Spellcaster requirement (or 5th for Small Elementals), though Arcane Tricksters should certainly have no problem.
Thank you. That is a really nice combo
I've been fond of Lantern Archon familiars, myself; their perfect flight and laser touch attacks can let them trump certain enemy types. But imps and mephits are great familiars for the simple reason they have opposable thumbs. Which means, as mentioned, UMD, or at the very least the ability to pour a healing potion down your throat if you go negative. Give them handy little alchemic toys like tanglefoot bags, while you're at it.
I don't recall whether this holds true in Pathfinder, but in 3.5, acid bypassed pretty much all hardness, meaning an ooze or water mephit is the ultimate lockpick, with their infinite-use acid damage to melt through locks or even walls. Even with the sicken effect, it's not something you want to use in-combat, but a good utility breath can be a great tool.
I remember one time, I had a halfling Tantrist (think Wizard if you don't know) with a mephit familiar/wife. After all, mephlings have to come from somewhere.
I don't recall whether this holds true in Pathfinder, but in 3.5, acid bypassed pretty much all hardness, meaning an ooze or water mephit is the ultimate lockpick, with their infinite-use acid damage to melt through locks or even walls. Even with the sicken effect, it's not something you want to use in-combat, but a good utility breath can be a great tool.
If I recall correctly, all energy types now deal half damage to objects (halves BEFORE hardness).
If I recall correctly, all energy types now deal half damage to objects (halves BEFORE hardness).
Well that's obnoxious and unnecessary.
If I recall correctly, all energy types now deal half damage to objects (halves BEFORE hardness).Well that's obnoxious and unnecessary.
You can still usually get your DM to let fire burn wood :) Just has to make sense. You can't bash down a stone door with acid very well, but sonic might get a bonus.
You can still usually get your DM to let fire burn wood :) Just has to make sense. You can't bash down a stone door with acid very well, but sonic might get a bonus.
Acid isn't traditionally for bashing. It's for melting through inch-by-inch.
You can still usually get your DM to let fire burn wood :) Just has to make sense. You can't bash down a stone door with acid very well, but sonic might get a bonus.Acid isn't traditionally for bashing. It's for melting through inch-by-inch.
Acid isn't an "energy" either and isn't anywhere nearly as damaging as the spells are. It's probably better to think of acid as some noxious liquid rather than actual acid because in-game acid has little in common with real acid.
When the game system had relatively few acid effects it made a lot more sense, now it's just sort of silly. I liked the green dragon's chlorine cloud better than acid.
Acid isn't an "energy" either and isn't anywhere nearly as damaging as the spells are. It's probably better to think of acid as some noxious liquid rather than actual acid because in-game acid has little in common with real acid.
When the game system had relatively few acid effects it made a lot more sense, now it's just sort of silly. I liked the green dragon's chlorine cloud better than acid.
Yeah, the chlorine was much better.
Also more fun to throw a fireball into LOL.
Had to invent a new saving throw when that happened.
Save vs BADABOOM!