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My Pathfinder Society Witch has a Faerie Dragon Improved Familiar (and the Chronicle it requires, of course) - I'm double-checking what I can do with him, based on things I've read around these forums.
Can I:
- Keep the standard Faerie Dragon hit point total if it's better than what half of mine would be?
- Swap out either or both of the feats he comes with (particlarly for the sake of feats like some of the ones here)?
- Swap out his Spells Known (the Faerie Dragon Bestiary 3 entry merely lists what is "normal" for a Faerie Dragon to know)?
Then there's this:
"Hit Dice: 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."
How far does this extend? Should his BAB be as though he has 8 HD (which would be at odds with what it says about BAB - unless familiars with superior BABs would be allowed to keep them)? How about his saving throw bonuses (this is more plausible)? I imagine it increases his Breath Weapon DC. If he uses a staff, does his CL equal mine for the purposes of determining the staff's power? The Big Question: What about his CL (for sorcerer spells and/or his spell-like ability) and concentration bonus? Should he, by chance, get ability score increases commensurate with having 8 virtual HD (I'm assuming one thing he doesn't get is increased spell levels/spells per day/spells known)? A Faerie Dragon has 3 HD by default, so I'm sure it's no coincidence that their CL is listed as 3rd.
Where have you read you can swap out feats and spells known? I was under the impression that those were kept.
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My Pathfinder Society Witch has a Faerie Dragon Improved Familiar (and the Chronicle it requires, of course) - I'm double-checking what I can do with him, based on things I've read around these forums.
Can I:- Keep the standard Faerie Dragon hit point total if it's better than what half of mine would be?
- Swap out either or both of the feats he comes with (particlarly for the sake of feats like some of the ones here)?
- Swap out his Spells Known (the Faerie Dragon Bestiary 3 entry merely lists what is "normal" for a Faerie Dragon to know)?Then there's this:
"Hit Dice: 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."
How far does this extend? Should his BAB be as though he has 8 HD (which would be at odds with what it says about BAB - unless familiars with superior BABs would be allowed to keep them)? How about his saving throw bonuses (this is more plausible)? I imagine it increases his Breath Weapon DC. If he uses a staff, does his CL equal mine for the purposes of determining the staff's power? The Big Question: What about his CL (for sorcerer spells and/or his spell-like ability) and concentration bonus? Should he, by chance, get ability score increases commensurate with having 8 virtual HD (I'm assuming one thing he doesn't get is increased spell levels/spells per day/spells known)? A Faerie Dragon has 3 HD by default, so I'm sure it's no coincidence that their CL is listed as 3rd.
You only get to do exactly what it says in the familiar entry. So, the HP are half the master's hit points and you can't change the feats or spells. The HD just relates to effects like spells affecting the familiar, for example sleep or something like that. Familiars don't really level up with the degree of customization that animal companions get. You just get the the extra stuff listed in the table (NA, Int, etc.) in the familiar entry.
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He has half your hp even if that's lower than a standard faerie dragon.
I believe you can swap out his default feats for familiar feats, as that is a special feature of familiar feats that works no matter what your familiar is.
I see no way to adjust his known spells. If you were that witch archetype that can give your feats to your familiar, I suppose you could give it feats to expand its spell list.
His BAB and base saves are equal to yours if yours are better, just as per a normal familiar.
About the only thing that might go up from his virtual HD is the breath save DC. I'm not sure we've gotten a clear answer on that one. Since this is PFS I would play as if it didn't just to be safe, but feel free and ask your table GM how they handle it, just expect table variation on that point.
If he uses a staff with spells on the sorcerer list, his CL is 3. If he uses UMD for other spells his CL is whatever he gets based on his UMD check.
Best to just give it some useful wands to help you out having to casts stuff - like pro evil, blur, resist energy, invisibility, glitterdust, create pits, cats grace, vanish etc.
I guess pages of spell knowledge would increase its spells known.
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- Swap out either or both of the feats he comes with (particlarly for the sake of feats like some of the ones here)?
- Swap out his Spells Known (the Faerie Dragon Bestiary 3 entry merely lists what is "normal" for a Faerie Dragon to know)?
Nope. The boon isn't to give access to any faerie dragon. It's to give access to a single, specific faerie dragon.
That much never made too much sense to me - I know it sounds that way on the Chronicle, but how do you reconcile that with, for example, multiple people at a single table playing characters who have that Chronicle and are putting it to use? I don't think Riddywhipple is Santa Claus - one faerie dragon can't be everyone's familiar (besides, my Witch got that Chronicle by DMing the Scenario, so he wasn't on that adventure).
As for using staves, he can't. In PFS, the only activatable magic item that a faerie dragon can use is a wand.
I've never heard this before. Where does it say this?
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In the PFS FAQ. There's a clarification posted somewhere on the forums that allows those listed improved familiars to activate wands, but only wands. So while Riddywhipple can equip any passive magic item he wants, he can't activate staves or scrolls. Despite being a sorcerer. Yes, I think the ruling is stupid.
What about Pages of Spell Knowledge (I'm pretty sure that's a yes, since you say "any passive magic item he wants")?
And what's wrong with me saying that my faerie dragon familiar is in fact my old scorpion familiar, albeit evolutionarily hypercharged in a deranged chronomantic ritual I performed on him (if I still can't change his spells known, them's the brakes)?
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As for what's wrong with that idea, is that you are not allowed to reflavor things in PFS, and that boon specifically gets you Riddywhipple, not <insert other faerie dragon here>. Again, that's a rule I'm not fond of, but it still is a rule.
Pretty hard-assed and silly on multiple levels (at least in this case). Source?
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Here's a post that describes what you can and cannot do with reflavoring in PFS, by John Compton, a member of the PFS staff.
Judging by that post (not one iota of which is surprising, nor did I catch anything I thought was much outside "well, duh" territory), what I said sounds legit. I abhor words like "flavor" and "fluff," by the way - it seems like they threatens to take the central core of the game and super-starfish-invert it to become "incidental."
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Kinda? You can say that, but anyone looking will see that your familiar is in fact a normal Faerie Dragon....
Well, yeah - he is now.... ^_^
...and anyone who had played through the Sanos Abduction would be able to recognize it specifically as Riddywhipple.
It seems to me, based on the post, that that need not be the case - it's all just to avoid some yahoo saying "Imma say I'm a Paladin who isn't nice and is driven by vice rather than virtue, therefore I R 4E Blackguard - and by logical necessity, all that comes with it! HAHAHAHA!" (admittedly, I kind of liked 4E's take on the Blackguard - not ideal, but they could been onto something there....).