Familiar Skills


Rules Questions


For the Viper familiar: http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/monsters/familiar.html#viper

It lists:
Skills: Climb +11, Perception +9, Stealth +15, Swim +11;
Racial Modifiers: +4 Perception, +4 Stealth

Do you add the racial modifiers into the skill scores (giving a perception skill of 13) or are they already factored in?


I believe they are already factored in.

Climb: +8racial (see climb skill), +3dex? = +11
Perception: +4racial, +1wisdom, +1rank, +3class skill = +9
Stealth: +8tiny, +4racial, +3dexterity = +15
Swim: +8racial (see swim skill), +3dex? = +11

Note that on Climb and Swim I put +3dex as a question mark. This is because if you use strength on those then the viper cannot possibly have those bonuses. I have a feeling that somewhere in some reference tiny and smaller creatures use dexterity for certain strength based stats.

- Gauss

Edit: I found it in the familiars listing. It states: 'Small animals like these use Dexterity to modify Climb and Swim checks.'


Vipers get weapon finesse, they use their dex instead of strength, so your right on that one.

Thanks for the quick answer, makes perfect sense to me :)


Gauss wrote:

Note that on Climb and Swim I put +3dex as a question mark. This is because if you use strength on those then the viper cannot possibly have those bonuses. I have a feeling that somewhere in some reference tiny and smaller creatures use dexterity for certain strength based stats.

It's right at the start of the familiars description that familiars use Dex for Climb and Swim.

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