"Share spells" allows you to throw "caster only" stuff on your familiar. So you throw Alter Self on your familiar, it turns into a small or medium humanoid, and it can wield a wand or other spell trigger item.
So heres the question: Can it use the wand with an appropriate UMD check at that point, or would it also need to know how to speak?
If the former, what are the best ways to get the UMD score up?
If the latter, what are the best ways to grant the ability to activate the wand to the familiar?
Where I'm going with this:
I have a witch character, and I'd intended to do the whole Faerie Dragon Wields a Wand thing, using improved familiar feat, but I just found out today that if I switch familiars I lose all the spells the familiar knows. (totally lame btw) So I'm looking to pull the same trick off with my existing familiar. No, it's not a raven.
"Share spells" allows you to throw "caster only" stuff on your familiar. So you throw Alter Self on your familiar, it turns into a small or medium humanoid, and it can wield a wand or other spell trigger item.
No. I agree that a very narrow interpretation of RAW might suggest that would work, but I can't imagine any GM letting you get away with it.
I have a witch character, and I'd intended to do the whole Faerie Dragon Wields a Wand thing, using improved familiar feat, but I just found out today that if I switch familiars I lose all the spells the familiar knows. (totally lame btw) So I'm looking to pull the same trick off with my existing familiar. No, it's not a raven.
And are you sure about this? Is there an official ruling on it?
I don't see why a GM wouldn't allow it. Fams are intelligent and have your skills. My question is whether ou have to be able to speak Common to use UMD to spoof the trigger.
Extensive searches on the forums seem to indicate that you lose your spells when the familiar dies, and the new one comes with new spells. You'd get to pick, but they only get 2 per spell level plus the patron spell, so switching familiars is a huuuuge setback for a witch, unless you have access to the same spells. And since you can't get a new fam until you dismiss the old one, they never get to talk to exchange the spells the first one has stored. If there's some errata on this, please point me to it. It apparently came up in play test.
I figure if you're in a coven, you can get your fam to teach another fam your stuff, then get your new fam to learn from that one. But access to a coven is very limited in most campaigns, because witches are a side class.
If you have access to a pile of dead spell caster bodies you can blood transcription them to pad your spell spread back too, but how often do have a pile of dead spell casters you can blood drain? For witches in normal campaigns, particularly good campaigns, switching familiars is a huge headache.
Trying to stick to Paizo for solutions.
Here is a funny idea: go Beast Bonded, kill the familiar off, let it inhabit your body and possess a new form as Magic Jar. Won't even need the Improved Familiar Feat, and the fam can take whatever form you find for it to steal.