Evolved Familiar and eidolon prerequisites


Rules Questions


I've been working on how to beef up familiars for combat use, and I came across Evolved Familiar.

So, clearly the thing to do is as follows

a) be a Small character
b) get a goat familiar (highest Strength familiar)
c) enlarge the goat, hopefully permanently
d) take Evolved Familiar twice, once for the claws evolution (hooves if you're feeling, I dunno, more flavorful), and once for pounce.

Here's the trouble. Can a familiar take an evolution that 'makes sense', even if it doesn't technically qualify for the evolution? The pounce evolution says the eidolon must have the 'quadruped base form', which doesn't apply to a familiar, even a quadruped, because it doesn't have any base form at all. Similarly, a goat couldn't take hooves or claws, because it doesn't have the limbs evolution, even though it's got a number of fine limbs that don't have any sharp bits on the end of them.


I'd allow one out of common sense, but you can't take a feat twice unless it says you can. Also, why do you need to be small?


Hmm.

You can take Evolved Familiar more than once.

A Small character can ride a Medium-sized goat, which opens up all sorts of other shenanigans.


Claws and hooves yes, pounce no. Look at the examples given in Evolved Familiar:

Evolved Familiar, UM wrote:
Benefit: Select an evolution from the list of 1-point evolutions available to a summoner's eidolon. Your familiar has this evolution. The familiar must conform to any limitations of the evolution. For instance, no familiars can benefit from the mount evolution and only familiars with wings can take the wing buffet evolution.

The mount evolution requires the quadruped or serpentine base form. Since there exist four-legged and serpentine familiars, and mount is off-limits to them, we can conclude that familiars cannot meet base form requirements, which bans them from evolving pounce.

Wing buffet requires the 2-point flight evolution, which cannot be chosen with Evolved Familiar, but the feat description allows familiars with wings to bypass that prerequisite. This suggests that evolutions that require an eidolon to evolve a particular appendage can be selected for familiars that possess those appendages naturally.


What it suggests to me is that the GM is expected to use their head when deciding what evolutions are allowed to familiars. A familiar who already has wings has no need for an evolution that grants wings in order to qualify for wing buffet. The bolded statement was worded as examples, not exemptions.

Normally no familiar could benefit from the mount evolution because no familiars are large enough to carry a standard PC. But if the latter limitation could be somehow overcome, there's no real reason the familiar couldn't take the evolution. The feat description wouldn't bother to mention this because mentioning such exceptions is out of scope and would bloat the rules text.

I'd say that a goat could take pounce on the basis that it is a quadruped.


On review, I think you're right about the mount example. I had read "can benefit" and "can take" as equivalent, but they're not. It probably is saying that familiars of the appropriate shape can take mount, but wouldn't get much use out of it without some polymorph assistance.

So, the pounce evolution should indeed be accessible to a goat.

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