Improved Familiar to replace a dead familiar for free?

[Unafisher]

Have a couple of Improved Familiar questions relating to replacing a dead familiar with the improved familiar feat.

Question 1: If Improved Familiar gives you a free familiar does that mean you can replace the dead familiar with a new living improved familiar for free or must you still pay the 200gp/lvl?

Question 2: The official errata for dimissing familiar now just says "pay 200 gp". One of my players has taken this to mean that it is no longer 200/level but just a flat 200gp fee. If thats not the case shouldn't they errata the errata to say "per level".

Official Errata:

Sorcerer/Wizard: Can I dismiss my familiar so I may select a new familiar? wrote:

This isn't addressed in the rules anywhere, but yes, you should be able to dismiss a familiar if you want to select a new one. However, you must still wait 1 week and pay 200 gp for the 8-hour ritual. Dismissing a familiar is ending a link between your soul and it, so it should probably take about an hour.

The exception to the above is if you take the Improved Familiar feat, which allows you to immediately replace your familiar with the new familiar, at no cost or time required (it is assumed this occurs during whatever preparations you make while leveling up).

Once dismissed, an animal familiar is just a normal animal of its type (a special familiar from the Improved Familiar feat reverts to a normal creature of its type). Whether or not it wants to remain with you is up to your GM and probably based on how you treated the creature while it was your familiar.

—Sean K Reynolds, 07/14/11

Source

[HappyDaze]

Re: Q1, you do not need to pay any money since you are replacing you familiar - whether it is living or dead - with the new and improved model.

Re: Q2, it should still be 200 gp per level.

[wraithstrike]

My book and the PRD has
"If a familiar is dismissed, lost or dies, it can be replaced 1 week later through a specialized ritual that costs 200 gp per wizard level. The ritual takes 8 hours to complete."

[Dennis Baker]

If you take Improved Familiar you get a new familiar, at no cost.

If yours died at some point, I don't see why you would need to pay for a replacement, dismiss it, then get your improved one.

[Unafisher]

Thanks for the quick replies! I appreciate the clarification.

I've decided to compromise and replace his dead familiar with a dead improved familiar at no cost (I kid, I kid!). He'll enjoy the refund and the gloating.

[Dennis Baker]

Well he is paying a feat so it's not exactly 'free'. The dead improved familiar would be pretty funny though.

[master arminas]

Can you get a cleric to raise dead on a familiar? I know that normally you have a humanoid for the spell to work, but I seem to recall an exception being made in 3.5 for familiars and special mounts. Or am I imagining things again?

Damn those evil voices in my head! :)

Master Arminas

[Benchak the Nightstalker]

master arminas wrote:

Can you get a cleric to raise dead on a familiar? I know that normally you have a humanoid for the spell to work, but I seem to recall an exception being made in 3.5 for familiars and special mounts. Or am I imagining things again?

Damn those evil voices in my head! :)

Master Arminas

Raise dead doesn't have anything in its description limiting it to humanoids only. Having checked the old SRD, it doesn't look like it did in 3.5 either.

I don't see any reason why you couldn't raise a familiar.

[Black Lotus]

Also:
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/r/raise-animal-companion
Nice spell that effects Familiars :)

[Interzone]

Note: If you want a Cythnigot Qlippoth familiar, you will need to get a new normal (tiny) familiar first, as it specifies that it infects/transforms your existing familiar into the Qlippoth.

[Midnight_Angel]

Benchak the Nightstalker wrote:

I don't see any reason why you couldn't raise a familiar.

Ah, but a lot of the improved familiars are outsiders.

Which cannot be raised that easily.

[HappyDaze]

Midnight_Angel wrote:

Benchak the Nightstalker wrote:

I don't see any reason why you couldn't raise a familiar.

Ah, but a lot of the improved familiars are outsiders.

Which cannot be raised that easily.

Who - other than a Witch - would want to raise them? At most a new familiar costs you 4,000gp at 20th level while Raise Dead is always 5,000gp no matter your level. Familiars are like hamsters - you don't take them to the veterinarian when something bad happens to them, you just buy a replacement.

[Jak the Looney Alchemist]

Some of us enjoy role playing our familiars as they seem to all be sentient. Those of us that do will happily pay the extra measly grand.

Nothing wrong with your way. It just isn't done by everyone.

[Dennis Baker]

I just figure that the replacement IS the same familiar only in a new body. He can even complain that it's missing key features of the original.

[wraithstrike]

I paid money to have my dead animal companion raised as a druid. After he saved my butt so many times it felt wrong to not bring him back.

Well I would have paid the money had the game not ended.

[Jak the Looney Alchemist]

That can be hard to do when suddenly you go from a pet fox to a cythnigot at least considering that it kills and eats/infects the previous one.

[Dennis Baker]

wraithstrike wrote:

I paid money to have my dead animal companion raised as a druid. After he saved my butt so many times it felt wrong to not bring him back.

Well I would have paid the money had the game not ended.

That's kind of cool. It would also be a great way to get a cohort...

[Dennis Baker]

Jak the Looney Alchemist wrote:

That can be hard to do when suddenly you go from a pet fox to a cythnigot at least considering that it kills and eats/infects the previous one.

That would be pretty awesome to play out.

Wizard: I will miss you so very much my little furry buddy
Familiar: Wait... what? what do you mean boss, I'm not going anywhere.
Wizard: Well you are technically correct
Familiar: Wait... no I recognize that spell you are casting
Wizard grabs his furry little pet who growls and tries to bit his master

Wizard: Sorry my friend, but you have been holding me back. This will hurt you far more than me.

[Jak the Looney Alchemist]

On my present character I seriously considered grabbing a tumor familiar just so I could infect it with a cythnigot so I could try to play out that scene. I still wonder how the paladin would have reacted.

Which bodes the question is a tumor familiar sentient or not?

[Dennis Baker]

I just want to know if tumor familiars qualify for Improved.

[Jak the Looney Alchemist]

It requires a rather heavy suspension of disbelief that the alchemist grew an imp, but a less substantial one to believe that he grew a dire rat inside of himself.It doesn't violate RAW or anything I could find on it. I figure it shall sit in the sole repository of the dm bailiwick to decide.

Edit: Mine decided that I could with a limited list.

Edit again: Of course thinking on it is it any harder to believe that the alchemist grew an imp than a clone master grew a simulacrum of the ogre from the previous fight? Its a weird slippery slope.

[Dennis Baker]

I was thinking more in terms of prerequisites myself.

"Prerequisites: Ability to acquire a new familiar, compatible alignment, sufficiently high level (see below)."

"As a standard action, the alchemist can have the tumor detach itself from his body as a separate creature vaguely resembling a kind of animal suitable for a familiar (bat, cat, and so on) and move about as if it were an independent creature."

You don't technically gain a familiar, you gain a growth that acts very much like one...

As a GM I'd let it fly, I'm thinking more in terms of whether I feel comfortable doing it with a PFS character where I think there is a little less give and take in the rules.

[Cule]

When my chaotic neutral witch got improved familiar he smacked his ermine on a rock and shared it with his new sprite familiar for dinner.

Now that he is visiting the abyss I've been thinking about upgrading to something more interesting, but I'm not sure how the group (especially the paladin) would react to a quasit.

But only if something bad happens to Dingle.

[Undead Thread]

Five years really flies by in the grave.