Improved Familiars and Cohorts

[Neal Litherland]

So, I had a ridiculous idea. It's already been approved by my ST, but I'm wondering if there's anywhere in the books that I've missed which have talked about this particular instance.

So, we're playing Curse of the Crimson Throne, and my character is a Magus/Rogue who rescued the pseudodragon from the gang lord. Majenko, his name is given as. He's become sort of an intricate part of the party, and I was going to use the Improved Familiar feat and Familiar Magus Arcana to make him my own bosom companion. However, I'd also like to make him more useful. He's been participating in combat, and it struck me he's probably gone up at least a few levels as a result (he is not yet my familiar, just a friendly NPC who hangs out and fights). That led me to the logical conclusion of taking Leadership at 7th level, treating him simultaneously as a pseudodragon cohort (a magical beast with character levels who follows me) as well as undergoing the familiar binding ritual (making him connected to my character in closer ways than before).

Is there some rule against this? It's tricky math, going through and making sure that the familiar rules and in place and over-riding the cohort rules in the cases of things like HP and BAB, but it's not overly tricky. Is this just a bit of ober-cheese, or is this discussed somewhere?

[BigDTBone]

I don't think there are any rules against it, but there are certainly no rules for it, meaning you will have to get with your DM and figure out the exact bonuses to apply and where.

I would say that taking Improved Familiar is not necessary. That's why you are taking leadership, and using your arcana. Also, I see nothing cheesy about it. Sounds like fun!

[williamoak]

See, if you where trying to do this with a FULL dragon, I might call it cheesy. But with a pseudodragon, could be cool. I would follow BigDTBone's reccomendation to use leadership instead of improved familiar.
There are (slight) rules for this: the monstrous cohort rules. It would need quite a lot of leveling to be effective though. What do you expect his levels to be? Rogue, Fighter, Sorcerer?

[Neal Litherland]

Improved Familiar is required to take a pseudodragon as a familiar, same as if I was a wizard or a sorcerer, sadly.

Majenko is likely going to be taking rogue levels, since the character he's been adventuring with is a rogue/magus. Most effective thing to do with him, and it means that he has skill ranks of his own, rogue tricks, and when he and Egil fight as a unit there's pretty much an automatic flank.

The idea came about mostly because I wanted to increase the DC of his sleep sting, and because I wanted to give him fly-by attack as a way to make him more effective, and to make the bad guys actually chase him rather than leave him as a sitting duck after attacking or delivering a touch spell on my behalf. Sadly the stats of your average pseudodragon aren't great for anything except a rogue or a very few other martial classes. But I can justify all of my low-level followers also being pseudodragons, so I'm going to establish an information network like nobody's business.

[spalding]

Realize that as your familiar he will use your BAB, skill ranks and base save throws if they are better than what he already has.

That's going to advance him a lot already -- his HP is the only place I would really see him sag since he only has 1/2 your HP.

As an alternate to taking him as an improved familiar I would suggest taking him as a cohort then making him a dragon disciple off of sorcerer.

Seeing a tiny dragon become a huge dragon then breath whatever on your foes while still having spell casting is going to be fun.

[DM_Blake]

Neal Litherland wrote:

and when he and Egil fight as a unit there's pretty much an automatic flank.

Maybe. There is a weird/awkward reading of the RAW here.

Tiny creatures don't flank. In the combat section that describes creatures smaller than "Small", all it says is "They also cannot flank an enemy".

However, this sentence follows a couple previous sentences which say "Creatures that take up less than 1 square of space typically have a natural reach of 0 feet, meaning they can't reach into adjacent squares. They must enter an opponent's square to attack in melee." Note the bolded word: "typically".

So now we have a possible conflict. Typical tiny creatures have a reach of 0' and cannot reach into adjacent squares" is followed by "They also cannot flank an enemy".

Pesuedodragons have 5' reach with his tail stinger. In this regard, they are not "typical" and they clearly can reach into adjacent squares. They only "must enter an opponent's square" if they want to use their bite. This implies that they can flank just like everything else with a 5' reach.

However (again), the final sentence "They also cannot flank" says nothing about the reach of the tiny creature. It only says "They" which is, syntactically, a reference to "tiny creatures", not a reference to "typical tiny creatures with 0' reach".

So, if we follow simple syntax, it appears that tiny creatures cannot flank even if they have natural reach greater than 0'.

However (for the last time), I think RAI was for this final sentence to only refer to the typical tiny creatures with no reach. At least to me, that way makes more sense.

Long story short, check with your GM to make sure your GM reads it favorably for you before you assume that you and your rogue pseudodragon are able to flank together.

[Samasboy1]

To add somethings to DM_Blake.

Threatened is defined as "the space you can make a melee attack into."

Flanking is defined as "your opponent is threatened by an ally on the opposite side/border."

Also the "They" in the last sentence "The also cannot flank" could be read as a reference to "Typical tiny creatures" from the preceding sentence rather than "tiny creatures" generally.