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When someone grabs the Improved Familiar feat, they are looking for a particular something. Usually it's combat survivability, SLAs, special abilities, and a UMD buddy. In short, extra actions. Many familiars have several of these things, but no one has all of them, and certain choices are seen as clearly superior than the others.
Through several wizard and witch guides, I have seen pseudodragons get a bum rap, usually rating an orange (read as 'meh..' or so so) rating. These guides are amazing and I use them myself, they are better than anything I could put together. I am currently working on choosing an improved familiar and I have come do a startling discovery: Pseudodragons are actually quite good. The purpose of this post is to explain my reasoning and get some feedback from others.
Let's look at what the little dragon does NOT have. The big ones are SLAs and DR. He has no spell-likes, which reduces his versatility at lower levels, and makes it so that he does not have many tricks that you do not have to pay for. Some good examples of SLA-heavy familiars are the little Lyrakie Azata, who has cure light wounds, silent image, and several other useful SLAs.
The other thing he does not have is fast healing or DR. Several familiars have DR of 5 (one even has a DR of 10) that is overcome by magic to chaotic. Many also have a Fast healing of 2, or even regeneration, greatly increase their survivability and reducing between combat healing costs.
The Pseudodragon's statistics are decent but not great. His strength is high enough to carry a decent amount, being a quadruped, and if he is polymorphed, he gains the +4 before the polymorph effects are applied, bringing his base strength to 11. his other stats are good, but not exceptional.
Now, what he does do well...
He is a dragon, giving him great base saves, decent base BAB, and his class skills are fantastic, most pointedly he has UMD as a class skill, which makes up for his 10 CHA. The above Lyrakie is noted as having a 20 CHA for UMD use, which gives a +5, though the little dragon gains a +3 for having it as a class skill, almost as good. He also has a bevy of strong class skills, and his stealth is massive. He can also speak, and has 'hands' so he can use UMD.
He has blindsense. This is worth a section of it's own. He has 60' blindsense. he can see invisible creatures, and then use a glitterdust scroll on them. he can automatically sense ambushes and yell out a warning. He adds an entire layer of protection for the party that is normally very difficult to achieve.
He has telepathy 60'. It's great, he can link the party up, talk to anyone for the party. He can coordinate the party silently. He can act as a translator.
SR. He has a spell resistance of 12, while not great, at the highest levels he has a 5% (natural '1' on a d20) resistance to magic. Just making them roll is enough.
He has a natural attack that has poison. The DC is not great. But the effect puts you to sleep. AKA, dead. If anyone succumbs to his poison, it's a one-way ticket to coupe de grace town.
And another huge one that I'm sure many dont realize, he has reach. Pseudodragons are tiny, giving them a natural reach of 0 ft. His tail gives him reach of 5 ft. This means he can deliver touch spells, aid another, and make attacks with his poison without actually entering someone's hex, increasing his versatility immensely. Having weapon finesse even more increases his ability to land touch spells and attacks
His movement is slow, but he has a long flight speed with good maneuverability. and his immunity to sleep and paralysis is good, and might save his life from time to time.
So, those are my thoughts. Feel free to agree or disagree!
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Also, your character has a goddamn dragon on their shoulder, which is pretty much the end-all-be-all of cool.
I've always considered them among the stronger choices, although the fluff suggests they're rather high-maintenance.
I'm not entirely sure, but doesn't the poison DC scale with your caster level?
Yes it does, because poison is based off hit dice. Unlimited poison I might add.
And let's not forget telepathy! This little dragon is an amazing scout because he can(at limited range, of course) communicate silently with anyone in the party!
EDIT: oh, and unless I'm misremembering the poison, it can put elves to sleep.
I'll agree with most of this, but I think you are overlooking the fact that a familiar uses it's skill ranks, or it's master's skill ranks, whichever is higher. If UMD is something you've invested in, then Any improved familiar will work for that.
Seriously, have you checked their Stealth in wooded areas? +23 is a pretty convincing number. +19 outside of wooded areas isn't all that bad either.
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There are mentions in their ecology of "befriending" Druids or Rangers. Image what would happen if you applied the Animal Companion progression to the little guy, complete with Natural Armor and Stat increases. You would need a *very* understanding (or gullible) GM to pull it off though...
Yes, but since when is feeding sweets to an adorable mini-dragon a bad thing?
I've always considered them among the stronger choices, although the fluff suggests they're rather high-maintenance.
I'm not entirely sure, but doesn't the poison DC scale with your caster level?
Yes it does, because poison is based off hit dice. Unlimited poison I might add.
And let's not forget telepathy! This little dragon is an amazing scout because he can(at limited range, of course) communicate silently with anyone in the party!
EDIT: oh, and unless I'm misremembering the poison, it can put elves to sleep.
I am unsure of this, but I seem to remember that familiars do not truly gain hit dice, but instead they simply are treated as having their master's hit dice so that a random color spray doesn't take it out when you are at level 15.
This idea is supported by the fact that familiars do not gain more feats at every odd level like any other intelligent creature. Just looking at the stat blocks for the iconic witch shows that fact.
He is a dragon, giving him great base saves, decent base BAB, and his class skills are fantastic
Did you know that a familiar doesn't get it's own saves, bab, and skills. There are some caveats, but familiars use their master's saves, bab, and skills.
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@barnes: yes I know that. I was talking about his base stats for his two dragon hit dice. Which give him three base to all saves, 2 bab and good skill points.
As for the hit dice thing... it says they gain hit dice for all effects relating to hd. Does this include the calculation of poison dcs? Its not clear
Poison DC = 10 + 1/2 [i]hit dice[/dice] + Con modifier.
It's based off of hit dice .
Yeah I see your point about Pseudodragon, but Ratling. Now that's an awesome familiar I never see being discussed. Can use all scrolls without UMD, constant Tongues/Spider Climb, 1/day Rat Swarms, and the best part, 3/day Dimension Door that is NOT self only. Ready action to gtfo at the first sign of trouble for you like a boss.
What about the Nosoi? It's a psychopomp, so it helps ensure that the world continues to spin.
It has spiritsense, which means it can detect just about everything within 60ft with pinpoint accuracy, and I'm pretty sure that includes spirits on the ethereal.
It has +17 Stealth, which is alright? Oh wait, it can cast Invisibility (self only) at will.
Plus coolness factor? Yeah, I guess a pygmy dragon alright. But I'll take the songbird in the opera mask (must be made to order I imagine) with perfect handwriting.
I've always considered them among the stronger choices, although the fluff suggests they're rather high-maintenance.
I'm not entirely sure, but doesn't the poison DC scale with your caster level?
Yes it does, because poison is based off hit dice. Unlimited poison I might add.
And let's not forget telepathy! This little dragon is an amazing scout because he can(at limited range, of course) communicate silently with anyone in the party!
EDIT: oh, and unless I'm misremembering the poison, it can put elves to sleep.
I am unsure of this, but I seem to remember that familiars do not truly gain hit dice, but instead they simply are treated as having their master's hit dice so that a random color spray doesn't take it out when you are at level 15.
This idea is supported by the fact that familiars do not gain more feats at every odd level like any other intelligent creature. Just looking at the stat blocks for the iconic witch shows that fact.
I recall this ruling as well. I believe there's a blog post somewhere. It ended up limiting the LoH ability of a certain familiar, for example.
@barnes: yes I know that. I was talking about his base stats for his two dragon hit dice. Which give him three base to all saves, 2 bab and good skill points.
As for the hit dice thing... it says they gain hit dice for all effects relating to hd. Does this include the calculation of poison dcs? Its not clear
I'll defer to James Jacob for this
The rules say: "For the purpose of effects related to number of Hit Dice, use the master's character level or the familiar's normal HD total, whichever is higher."
This means that effects that target HD, such as cloudkill or circle of death or sleep, target your familiar as if it has your level in HD or its racial HD, whichever is higher. It's ACTUAL racial HD do not change at all, and thus it doesn't gain ability score boosts or new feats, nor does the DC associated with its special abilities increase.
To increase those, the familiar's actual HD need to go up. There's not really a way in game at this point to really do this, but that might change at some point.
Since SLAs don't increase, neither do poisons as far as I can tell.
On the other hand, it probably wouldn't be a big problem to allow things like poison to work off master's HD.
On the other hand, it probably wouldn't be a big problem to allow things like poison to work off master's HD.
Isn't that practically the slumber hex on the pseudodragon though?
Heck, it might be worse, since the GM could always throw a bunch of cowardly, noncombatant kobolds to smack that dragon if you put it to sleep, while the poison works until they save or 10 minutes have passed it seems. That is also problematic since a witch could take improved familiar and have a way to target both will or fort with sleep, which could make it hard to design encounters.
Sending out your pseudodragon familiar to sting big baddies at level 7-8 or so, from 5' away, is not necessarily a good strategy. It has half its master's hit points, which amounts to 2-3 hp per hit die.
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I still prefer the Homonculus. Unlike all the other familiars out there this is the ONLY one that can actually increase it's base Hit Die and gain extra feats/skills/increase DC's and add extra powers.
It alone scales with the power of it's Master as the master wants it to scale. Ultimate customization and a host of awesome defenses. The construct type alone makes it better then nearly every other familiar option out there.
As for the class skills value that means nothing. Drop 2 grand on your homonculus to give him an extra feat and take extra traits, boom any skill he wants is now a class skill AND spend the other trait on whatever you want.
Add to that a flat 5 grand cost to increase any ability score it has by 2 points AND since it's untyped you can get it as high as you want. We won't even go into the joy that is rune-carved for amping up the power and usability of your little friend.
Yeah I see your point about Pseudodragon, but Ratling. Now that's an awesome familiar I never see being discussed. Can use all scrolls without UMD, constant Tongues/Spider Climb, 1/day Rat Swarms, and the best part, 3/day Dimension Door that is NOT self only. Ready action to gtfo at the first sign of trouble for you like a boss.
The rat swarm in particular is pretty sweet, since it means, at the very least, an enemy without DR has to make a save every round to avoid being nauseated. Even a 5% chance is going to add up.
Ah, but can your punydragon give me a +3 bonus on Fly checks?
You're just jealous because bats are so crazy useful.
The pseudo dragon beats it six ways from sunday when it comes to stealth, and for purposes of this comparison, the fairie dragon is stuck with the spells it's listed with in the bestiary, as PFS would require. The other consideration is that a familliar using wands becomes a high priority target, since it's going have only half the hit points of it's master, it's a good choice for an early takedown.
I don't really agree...
A faerie dragon has a +17 stealth modifier, compared to the pseudodragon's +19 (+23 in forests). The faerie dragon also casts Greater Invisibility as a SLA 3 times per day. That's pretty stealthy.
The faerie dragon has higher HD, higher AC, better base saves, and perfect maneuverability with its fly speed.
You are correct that the faerie dragon is stuck with the spells known listed in the Bestiary, but that's really a non-issue. The important part about the faerie dragon casting as a 3rd level Sorcerer is that it gets all Sorcerer/Wizard spells on its class list, and therefore avoids needing to make a UMD check for a large number of spell completion items.
Wand-wielding familiars becoming a high priority target is definitely an issue, but again, the faerie dragon can cast Greater Invisibility, which I think mitigates the risk rather significantly.
Alignment restrictions aside, I think the faerie dragon pretty clearly outclasses the pseudodragon. Though that's not to say that either is a bad choice.
Edit: Looking over their stat blocks again...
Faerie dragon also has an advantage with more languages known and a longer range for telepathy.
The pseudodragon does get blindsense, however, which is pretty awesome. I'm not sure that it's enough to offset all of the other benefits to faerie dragons, though.
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Master's alignment is also an issue. One is NG, the other CG, although both are willing to serve someone within one step of that.
How often do you plan your alignment around the improved familiar you want? I've found that it does play a significant role in my decisions. Which I'm not really proud of.
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The rules say: "For the purpose of effects related to number of Hit Dice, use the master's character level or the familiar's normal HD total, whichever is higher." . . . .
In that case, I'll use the interpretation that it applies. That seems just as valid. If you've spent a feat on on an improved familiar, and it's already squishy, there is a weakness already built in to the familiar's poison ability, at least in as far as it targets a fortitude save and bigger opponents have reach and higher fortitude saves already. Many things the poison could effect probably weren't really a threat anyway, like the a fore mentioned kobolds. And other improved familiars... well, they spent a feat on it. Let it be good. Share spells already got downgraded from 3.5.
agreed. if the designers dont want it going off your HD, then it wont. it's still a save or lose attack. and there are ways to make it better. it's already better than drow sleep poison, and that gets used heavily.
Does it? Most of my circle avoids poisons due to cost/benefit ratios. Even at 75gp a pop, it's still a DC 13. What makes drow sleep poison effective?
You're just jealous because bats are so crazy useful.
Possibly.
Level 1
Bat Familiar: Squeek! *Translation-The invisible thing is over there!*
Wizard: What is it, boy? Did Tony fall in the pit?
Level 3
Bat Familiar: Squeek! *Translation-The invisible thing is over there!*
Barbarian: What's he saying?
Wizard: I'm not sure. *Casts See invisibility* Ah, our enemy is over there.
Level 5
Bat Familiar: Squeek! *Translation-The invisible thing is over there!*
Wizard: I know.
Bat Familiar: Squeek-ker-Squeeken. *Translation-You're a bit of a tool. You know that, right?!*
Edit: I will, however, go look up homuculi(?) now, Mathwei ap Niall.
Well, PseudoD's aren't better than *I* think they are, because I already think they're awesome! :-)
24/7 Blindsense is to me more valuable than limited usage Greater Invisibility (that FaeryD's have), just due to action economy of a party and being able to be warned/directed by a creature with Blindsense being over-all more value... Blindsense deals with situations where you would be surprised or tactically disadvantaged, essentially turning action economy back around to your favor (if you know of the the enemy/their location). You need that up 24/7 to have full effect, while you don't need Invisibility up 24/7 (and the limited usages don't allow you to anyways) and you can always use a spell/scroll/wand of Invisibility in most cases you know you need it.
The Reach is awesome, and Enlarging them makes it even better (AoO Sleep Poison!). This is important if you want to use them to deliver touch spells to multiple targets, e.g. allies. Dimension Door is a favorite of mine for that, because the Caster doesn't have to go along if they don't want to (the Familiar counts as them). Although not unique to PseudoD's, the telepathy thing is useful for sorcerors or other non-INT based characters who don't have many bonus languages/skillranks to spend for languages (and still nice to have even if you do have a high INT/many languages).
I wouldn't use JJ's ruling on DC personally, it's not supported by RAW and JJ isn't on the rules team. I believe SKR who is/was on the rules team did comment on that, basically acknowledging that it does work by RAW... I believe he stated that he would approach Sylvanshee's Paladin Lay on Hands ability by allowing the effect to scale but not the limited usages/day... but this ability is not limited usages/day. Even with scaling, the DC doesn't really get super high just because of the creature's CON score - you can spend gear budget/spells boosting it's CON to some extent but no matter what it's not on par with PC abilities.
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Other than PseudoD's, probably my new favorite Improved Familiar are Nosoi. But I've only used that with one character who's trope really ties in with the Nosoi (the character is in fact an Undead-hating, Dhampir Separatist Cleric of Nethys getting the Familiar via Feat), PseudoD's feel much more fitting for most arcane casters.
Master's alignment is also an issue. One is NG, the other CG, although both are willing to serve someone within one step of that.
How often do you plan your alignment around the improved familiar you want? I've found that it does play a significant role in my decisions. Which I'm not really proud of.
Always. But then again you can argue just about any action fits into just about any alignment depending on circumstance, so it really doesn't stop me from playing the way I was going to play the character anyway.
Note: Familiar Alignment limitations apply only when CALLING the Familiar, you could possibly stray after that point... Although the Familiar may be free to leave at any time, it's not under your mental domination or anything, and they have their own free-will and independent agenda.
The Nosoi's TN-only rule was interesting because it provoked me to assess the character and realize he wasn't really going to last as NG even if he started out that way, he would still "fall" to TN just because he's too driven by vengeance and power (even though his object of hatred is Undead who victimize the living, and he doesn't consciously seek to harm others). Planning the character around an eventual "fall" (that perhaps was always latent) was an interesting development. (As a worshipper of Nethys, the alignment shift doesn't matter)
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I've noticed that some of the bestiary entries listing possible improved familiars just say "you can have this by following the rules for Improved Familiar" - which I take to mean that you have to be within 1 alignment step.
Some other critters say "a spellcaster with alignment XY may take me", suggesting that you need to have an exact match.
And in Bestiary 4, we have some critters with "an Evil spellcaster may..." - does that mean any evil or neutral evil specifically?
Do you think this inconsistency is intentional? Does it mean anything?
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Here's my thought. The fairy dragon is great. What is the biggest thing the pesudo dragon has is both blindsense AND reach. for a character that is trying to deliver touch spells, it's amazing. and no SLAs sucks, but it has enough UMD that it will rarely fail it's check. For a straight wizard, i think the fairy dragon is on par with the pesudodragon. for anyone with d8s or 3/4 BAB, the second is better I think (aka magus or cleric with eldritch heritage)
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Level 5
Bat Familiar: Squeek! *Translation-The invisible thing is over there!*
Wizard: I know.
Bat Familiar: Squeek-ker-Squeeken. *Translation-You're a bit of a tool. You know that, right?!*
Your problem is the fact your bat is speaking speaking squirrel.
Maybe it was a Junior Chipmunk before becoming a familiar. It had to be versed in all the woodland creatures.
Worth noting: telepathy is a one way communication, as far as I can tell, not a mind-meld.
