Witches lose all their spells after a baleful polymorph?

[Seraphimpunk]

so, I screwed the pooch and failed both my saves for Baleful Polymorph. Looking over the spell, i lose all ex, su, and sp abilities from my class: this includes my familiar (ex) as a witch.

party members saved me, and got a friendly druid to dispel magic the effect.

But i'm stuck now, it appears as though i have to replace my familiar, since i lost nearly all my class abilities in the half-day or so that I was stuck as a rabbit. I'm 7th level, so I need to spend 3,500gp in a ceremony to replace my familiar, and i lose all the spells I had before. I only get to take 2 spells of ever spell level, plus the bonus spells for my patron.

It happened in a PFS sanctioned mod, so there's no GM hand waving. I'm just double checking that i'm this far up s+$#'s creek. I've never seen a module go after an purposely destroy a wizard's spellbook. if they die and come back, they've still got their book. But when a witch dies or gets baleful'ed, it seems they defacto have their spell books destroyed ? Anything to counter this before i spend the 3,500gp? Does my familiar stay a familiar for a day after I lose him or is he immediately stripped of his status/abilities? It was an improved familiar too.

[Selgard]

From the Witch description:

If a familiar belongs to a witch that has died, it only retains its knowledge of spells for 24 hours, during which time it is possible to coerce or bribe the familiar into teaching its spells to another, subject to GM discretion.

That at least /implies/ that the familiar would keep your spells for up to 24 hours after you got hosed.. but you didn't die either. so, blech

Thats about the closest I can come to helping you out.
seems particularly harsh in light of the witch's familiar, I do agree with you there. dayum.

-S

[Carbon D. Metric]

As long as you can get the polymorph removed, and can manage to keep your familiar in your proximity then all of the creatures abilities should be replaced, including the spells it knows once you get dispelled.

[Randy Lockard]

The Balfule Poly does not do that. The spell reads:

If the spell succeeds, the subject must also make a Will save. If this second save fails, the creature loses its extraordinary, supernatural, and spell-like abilities, loses its ability to cast spells (if it had the ability), and gains the alignment, special abilities, and Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma scores of its new form in place of its own. It still retains its class and level (or HD), as well as all benefits deriving therefrom (such as base attack bonus, base save bonuses, and hit points). It retains any class features (other than spellcasting) that aren't extraordinary, supernatural, or spell-like abilities.

It does not say you lose your spells...just your spell casting abilities (as long as you are not YOU). Your familiar should be available to you again after you reverted back.

[Seraphimpunk]

"it retains any class features that aren't extraordinary, supernatural, or spell-like abilities"

Familiar is an Ex ability for the Witch. So it looses that class ability. aka. my familiar becomes a normal animal.

That's the part that concerns me.

[Quandary]

based on the rule for dying, that it retains spell knowledge for 24 hours after you are DEAD MEAT (no class abilities functioning), i would say that that also applies here... I would say that the rule about spell knowledge/24 hours after death should reasonably apply to ALL familiar bonuses/effects (hps, etc), but I don't think those really matter one way or another for your concerns (the spells).

Ideally, your allies kept the familiar with them, by diplomacy/animal empathy, or force/imprisonment/sleep, but even if they didn't, once your Class Feature is working again, your Empathic Link and other abilities should make it feasable to re-unite with it again... Not much different than if your Familiar happened to get separated from you by a large distance during a module, if it's not actually dead, you still have the Familiar as far as PFS is concerned.

I would say that as long as you can get your Familiar Class Feature 'turned back on' within 24 hours, you shouldn't have any problem whatsoever re: spells, you shouldn't need to pay for a new familiar ceremony.

[Seraphimpunk]

yeah, by itself its an int 9 celestial goat. with ranks in everything i have ranks in. its not a dumb cookie. On the spot, I just didn't know if it would become an int 2 celestial goat on the spot once it lost its connection with my character. Kind of a grey area. And Witches as a character class were introduced after the core rules, so some fuzzy interaction w/ older spells happens now n then.