| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I don't think you can normally use leadership to improve an familiar. That's more if you wanted a cohort in addition to your familiar.
BTW: A familiar is not meant to be as strong in combat as an animal companion. It's something else altogether. The familiar can do other stuff.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Not sure if it works by RAW but I have a hard time thinking that many GMs would object to it...especially when the alternative is taking the Feat and having yet another body on the field to lengthen combat rounds in a game that already has a Familiar and an Animal Companion.
In the D&D 3.5 game I played, my Wizard had a familiar, upgraded to a Pseudodragon, then I took Leadership and gave him levels of Bard. It worked out very well, in fact.
|
I feel that your GM is likely too generous with your Cleric's Ape Companion (maybe things like does not need Handle Animal checks, uses weapons and normal armor, this kind of not-RAW things), which is why your "by the RAW" faerie dragon seems less than relevant.
In any case, talk to your GM about your feelings about your familiar and your proposed solution.
If I was the GM, I would be wary about a single creature having the benefits of both a Cohort (ie, levels in PC class) and a Familiar (Share Spells, shared Skill levels and so on).
Still I would want to give you some benefit for not getting another creature to take into account.
So I would allow you a cohort based on the faerie dragon from the Bestiary for HD, HP, Attacks, Saving Throws and Skills. And you could improve it with PC class levels according to your Leadership score. It would still grant you its special bonus, if any, and it would benefit from all the Familiar abilities shown in the CRB table, as modified by the Improved Familiar feat.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
the poor little dragon is rapidly getting out-classed. The clerics Ape animal companion is lethal in comparison.
As well it should be - Animal Companions are (usually) combat critters, while Familiars tend to serve as secondary casters or skillmonkeys.
So.. a viable idea, or not?
Viable, but why would you? If you get the Leadership feat, you might as well get a whole new Cohort and keep the Faerie Dragon.
Anyone have any other suggestions?
- Decide what you want your Familiar to actually do. If you decide it's supposed to be a melee combat asset... go back to step 1.
- Equip and modify your Familiar to best suit the envisioned role. Faerie Dragons are actual Sorcerers, and so they can use Arcane wands - just make sure they're ranged spells. Give them a wand or magic item to change shape into something more useful should the situation dictate it. A Necklace of Fireballs or somesuch would be nice too. And you have no idea what havoc can be reaped when your Familiar is invisible and has access to a Magic Jar spell...
Craft Construct.
This feat is reaaaaaaally good. But its prerequisites are not worthy the cost (except for a Magic Item crafter who plan to take most creation feats).
|
|
apes have armor slots and can wield items, they just lack proficiency.
To get the proficiency, the Ape needs to spend feats and have at least INT 3. An Animal Companion does not have that many feats to spend.
Armor for animals is called Barding and it is somewhat more expensive than regular armor.
Concerning attacks with weapons, the FAQ blog on intelligent animals stated : "few animals would choose to use an artificial weapon in place of the natural weapons that have served them all their life. It's what they were born with, after all, and virtually no amount of training will change that. In the end, the GM should feel free to restrict such choices if he feels that they take away from the feel of his campaign. The rules themselves are left a little vague to give the GM the latitude to make the call that's right for his campaign."
If you have a very lenient GM who would allow INT2 animals to take any feats, allow Apes to use humanoid weapons and armor as is, who would not require Weapon Proficiency for just wielding a weapon (even with a -4 non-proficiency), nor require Handle Animal checks for controlling the Companion, the end result will be a FAR more powerful Ape Companion than with a GM who is stricter on the RAW.
I would be really interested in knowing how the Cleric's Ape became as lethal as the OP mentioned.
There is some argument over which familiars can use wands due to physical limitations and such, and some restrict the practice purely to human like familiars (Imp, Lyrakie, Mephit), but your GM seems fairly generous with such details from the ape example. The fact that faerie dragons have UMD as a skill in their bestiary is nice supporting evidence.
Another favored tactic I have heard about would be to give it a throwing weapon to drop on opponents while everyone else is busy. This is a great early strategy with flying familiars since there are relatively few options for enemies to reach them. Magic stone can do in a pinch, especially when you are captured and without equipment, but acid flasks and other splash weapons are preferable since they are touch attacks (remember, it has about the same BAB as you are if you are a pure caster) and can catch multiple enemies. Plus acid can be useful in countering some special abilities, so having your inconspicuous little critter handle it will help things along.
Over all, if I compared familiars and animal companions, the latter would be a weapon while yours would be a wondrous item. Familiars are intelligent (sometimes more so than your martial characters), so you can give them complex instructions and tasks such as scouting or stealing an item when no one is looking. Since it understands language, you can use it as a spy or have your party play Lassie with yes or no questions if you end up in a well even if it cannot speak.
One solution might be to make your faerie dragon a cohort instead of a familiar, assuming (as seems to be the case) that you and your DM can agree on a level equivalent for it. The next time you gain a level, you take the Leadership feat. The faerie dragon is transformed as it becomes your cohort, with as many sorcerer levels as are needed to cover any resulting level gap.
You no longer have a familiar, and those benefits are lost. The next step is to either acquire a different familiar or retrain your arcane bond class feature to get a bonded object instead.
"Trickster" spells are often the best a caster can be throwing. Grease, silent image, ghost sound and the like never go out of style, so you won't be hurting there. I'd probably swap out the sleep spell faerie dragons come standard with, though. At your level it can't be cast on much...it'd be flavorful for the little guy to use it on late-night kitchen raids or when spying, though.
Buy your little sorcerer some magic items. Nothing says fun like him reading a scroll of command undead and hijacking one of the BBEG's fast zombie goons or having him set you up for success by using a wand of ill omen on someone before you drop a nasty save or die spell on them. Pages of spell knowledge, runestones and wands are all good picks. He'll make a dandy invisible bomber if you equip him with a wand of stone call or something similar, and a wand of summon minor monster is just the thing to conjure up skunks during bar brawls or a weasel to run up an opposing caster's robes.
Express your concerns to the GM and see if you can't get a level bump for your dragon, too. 2nd level spell access is nice.
I have the Valet archetype on my familiar, which lets me get more utility out of teamwork feats. Since I'm running an eldritch-knightish wizard (wizard//luring & strategist cav) in a gestalt campaign, my bodyguard-archetyped, man-eating horse is getting the lookout and escape route feats, as am I, and the valet archetype grants them to my familiar as well. All of us will chain off of the horse's "act in the surprise round" ability that he picks up from the Bodyguard archetype and we'll be AoO-proofed via the escape route feat as well. There's a feat called allied spellcaster that's nice for those with Valet familiars as well.