Is choice of familiar important, or flavor?

[Pendent]

I'm picking my familiar for an official PFS level 1 witch, and I am terribly afraid of gimping myself with my familiar choice.

The ones I have it narrowed down to are:

***Raven -- can speak, add +3 to Appraise
***Hedgehog -- +2 to Will saves (seems useful. Since most of my hexes are Will saves, I assume those will show up a lot later from monsters too). Plus, I love hedgies ^_^
***Greensting Scorpion -- +2 Initiative. Initiative is always a good thing, especially for a 6 hp caster with no armor.

From the optimization standpoint, the scorpion would seem to be the best, although there is something to be said for flight and speech.

So is this a hugely important choice? Or is it almost entirely a flavor kind of thing?

Thanks for your time and knowledge.

EDIT: Or rat--+2 Fort saves sounds good as well.

GAH!

[LazarX]

It's mostly the latter. All of the familliar choices are viable, you just have to choose what sings the most to your character's soul.

[Miranda Silva]

It really depends on your GM and gaming group.

My wife has gotten great use out of her Owl familiar, using it to retrieve items that are out of reach for example.

[Pendent]

Raven seems very flavorful, but has a lame bonus and is cliche.

The scorpion has an awesome bonus, but I just can't see my character communing with an invertebrate.

Rat was flavorful, but no flight and can still be squished.

Fox sounds cool (I'm a dog person), but seems like a lot of witches would choose it because it is new and is pictured with the iconic witch.

So I went with the hedgie. :) The hedgehog is fun, sort of witchy in an English way, and probably not all that common.

Thanks!!

[Mergy]

As with all things, keep it as a balance between the two. The familiar is a massive part of the Witch class, so you don't want to pick one that you won't enjoy having. At the same time, you have the opportunity to shore up a weakness by having your familiar cover a weak save, or increasing a skill that you may want an extra bonus for.

Personally, I would look at a third category as well: 'Is the familiar going to be easily accepted by society, and will I also be able to hide it in times of danger?'

For this reason I'd say certain familiars are out for me, like goat and pig. One of my personal favourites, until improved familiars that is, is the toad. It's small and easily concealed, it's iconic, and +3 HP really makes survival less of a nightmare until I can trade him for one of the improved ones.

[tetrasodium]

Mergy wrote:

As with all things, keep it as a balance between the two. The familiar is a massive part of the Witch class, so you don't want to pick one that you won't enjoy having. At the same time, you have the opportunity to shore up a weakness by having your familiar cover a weak save, or increasing a skill that you may want an extra bonus for.

Personally, I would look at a third category as well: 'Is the familiar going to be easily accepted by society, and will I also be able to hide it in times of danger?'

For this reason I'd say certain familiars are out for me, like goat and pig. One of my personal favourites, until improved familiars that is, is the toad. It's small and easily concealed, it's iconic, and +3 HP really makes survival less of a nightmare until I can trade him for one of the improved ones.

I Agree with most of this up until the trade for imp familiar bit (not that it's a bad idea).. You can't just pop your familiar in & out of existance like Vasrsuvius does in order of the stick as a witch. Hedgehog is probably a good choice for every reason mergy said. You can dote on and love your "hedgy" without raising any serious eyebrows or *slam!* "sorry, not sure how that bug got in here... glad I was able to get it before it stung you sir/miss" type problems, it's easy to conceal safely on your person, and offers a decent bonus that will always be useful (depending on the type of bonus it gives to will save)