Alright, so I have a player as a Witch, from a mostly frozen world and an ice coven. The player is interested in having a polar bear as a familiar
As long as you're house ruling, I would consider just re-skinning an existing familiar to make it a bear. Pig, maybe.
Having a small familiar (rather than tiny or smaller) means a mini on the grid, which means a valid target for enemies. While it can threaten and might have better combat stats, it's usually a really bad idea for a witch to use it that way.
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Druid Animal Companions are an order of magnitude better in a fight than a Familiar. Like, "add another Fighter to the party" better.
Giving a Witch one is simply not gonna be workable on anything approaching a blanced basis...and so Bears are pretty much out. Unless she wants to re-flavor her Witch as a Druid, of course. Which is no bad idea, really. I can think of few Witch concepts that can't be made to work as a Druid instead.
Assuming the player is not amenable to that, I advise looking into other arctic animal options: Arctic foxes and various birds leap immediately to my mind.
+1 to Pigbear.
take a Pig, call it a bear.
Alright, so I have a player as a Witch, from a mostly frozen world and an ice coven. The player is interested in having a polar bear as a familiarAs long as you're house ruling, I would consider just re-skinning an existing familiar to make it a bear. Pig, maybe.
Having a small familiar (rather than tiny or smaller) means a mini on the grid, which means a valid target for enemies. While it can threaten and might have better combat stats, it's usually a really bad idea for a witch to use it that way.
Technically, a tiny familiar is a valid target anyway, isn't it? Unless it's small enough that the master has stowed it as equipment.
I'm considering porting over the familiar pocket spell for this reason.
One of my characters had a cat familiar with standing orders to hide the instant hostilities broke out. I'd have loved to have the old familiar pocket spell.
Technically, a tiny familiar is a valid target anyway, isn't it?
Technically, yes. However, most does probably aren't going to go out of their way to target a pet that's doing nothing obvious when there are bigger threats to face. I generally run that if the familiar/pet/companion isn't doing anything (other than perception/knowledge checks) then it's not really active in combat. It should still make saves and stuff if appropriate, but the orcs aren't going to go after it rather than the armed party members.
Bears as familiars presents either a problem in game balance (since they are overpowered as familiars) or else as verisimilitude (if you nerf them to be familiar powered, they are a pretty silly bear).
Take an arctic fox. Flavorful, consistent with familiar rules and really a much better witch familiar concept than a bear anyway.
Or a penguin. Heh... while penguins and polar bears don't coexist on earth, who's to say if they coexist in the PF world?
Or a puffin. Puffin's are an awesome bird, sort of like a penguin crossed with a seagull....
+1 to Pigbear.
take a Pig, call it a bear.
+2, and you can use the Evolved Familiar feat to give it claws.
+2, and you can use the Evolved Familiar feat to give it claws.+1 to Pigbear.
take a Pig, call it a bear.
Thats a really good idea.
I had a similar request, a catfolk witch that wanted a cheetah for a familiar.
What I did was, I required them to take 'improved familiar' at 1st level. They did so, and we handled it thusly...
Level 1 - 3 : Cat familiar (tiger cub)
Level 4 - 6 : Small Feline stats (Druid)
Level 7+ : Medium Feline (Druid)
All we used was the stat bloc for the druid AC, not the AC powers. It kept 1/2 the witch's HP, hit dice equivalent, etc...
(...)
Level 7+ : Medium Feline (Druid)
(...)
It's really the medium sizing (and further up-sizing) that I see as a potentially serious problem, just starting with a small sized witch that can then ride the familiar (already an option with reduce person and a small familiar but at least limited in use ...).
wouldn't it be more acceptable to just have the witch take the Eldritch Heritage Feat (requiring Skill Focus) in the Wildblood Sylvan Bloodline and get an animal companion if they are so attached to the polar bear?
I'm assuming its not a PFS game so the worst thing is the witch would have a familiar and an AC ... make the familiar a snow hare.
It's really the medium sizing (and further up-sizing) that I see as a potentially serious problem, just starting with a small sized witch that can then ride the familiar (already an option with reduce person and a small familiar but at least limited in use ...).(...)
Level 7+ : Medium Feline (Druid)
(...)
You can do that already with improved familiar and a small caster, why should the witch be any different?
You can do that already with improved familiar and a small caster, why should the witch be any different?It's really the medium sizing (and further up-sizing) that I see as a potentially serious problem, just starting with a small sized witch that can then ride the familiar (already an option with reduce person and a small familiar but at least limited in use ...).(...)
Level 7+ : Medium Feline (Druid)
(...)
I mean I'm border-line O.K. with a small witch (or any other class) with a small familiar, they are not optimal mounts for the "tiny" rider. But I see a permanently medium sized familiar as a (sorry for the choice of words) bigger issue...
I also couldn't find any Improved Familiar of medium size or did you refer to small size with it?
I meant, you can get a medium familiar with any familiar (Improved Familiar for a small familiar, assuming you don't start with a fox or pig), and then permanency an enlarge animal on it, or put an item with permanent enlarge animal on it. I should have been more specific though, I neglected to mention you needed to use the spells.