Familiar Question

[Hapless Mage]

Do familiars get any additional skill points as thier master levels?

[FrodoOf9Fingers]

No, those are gained as a creature gains hit dice, which familiars never gain any more of. They gain skill points from what their master gains though.

[FrodoOf9Fingers]

IE they gain access to the ranks of a skill that a master has put in to.

[Mathwei ap Niall]

FrodoOf9Fingers wrote:

IE they gain access to the ranks of a skill that a master has put in to.

Which is why a smart master will occasional invest in a skill strictly to benefit his familiar (or craft an item/cast a spell to make the familiar better).

[Midnight_Angel]

Hapless Mage wrote:

Do familiars get any additional skill points as thier master levels?

In my opionion, they do... though probably not the way you think.

Whenever the master's level indicates an increase in the familiar's Int score, they should be able to get the corresponding skill points.

i.e. Master Level 9 results in Familiar Int 10. Since your typical animal (or magical beast, see if I care) Familiar gets 2 + Int modifier skill points per hit die, it should go from 1 skill point per HD to 2 skill points per HD.

The usual animal familiars having one HD, this should net you a total of one skill point at Master Level 9, then one more at Levels 13 and 17.

[FrodoOf9Fingers]

Increases of intelligence does not retroactively give you skills points for past levels (Or hit die), so why would it affect familiars retroactively?

[Midnight_Angel]

FrodoOf9Fingers wrote:

Increases of intelligence does not retroactively give you skills points for past levels (Or hit die), so why would it affect familiars retroactively?

Actually, this was changed from 3.x to Pathfinder. in Pathfinder, increasing your Int modifier will net you additional skill points, as well as another bonus language (on a positive modifier, of course).

[Nefreet]

If your Familiar is capable of speech, you could put that extra skill point into Linguistics and it could learn a new language.

[Hapless Mage]

Does the familiar use the masters check if it is higher?

[Midnight_Angel]

Hapless Mage wrote:

Does the familiar use the masters check if it is higher?

Nope. It uses the master's skill ranks if they are higher.

Bonuses for feats, equipment, statistics, the skill in question being a class skill, and the like are applied based on the familiar.