I am currently gming ROTR, and a player who runs a alchemist brought a question to me. He has a tumor familiar and wants to know if it can cast fire breath. His argument was that his extracts made any spell an alchemist could cast have an effective range of personal. Thus, any spell he could "cast" should be usable by the familiar.
My initial response was no. Fire breath does not have an explicit range of personal nor a target of you, and it is not a touch attack spell. Reading the spell carefully though, it certainly has an implied target of you and he may have a point.
Can anyone clarify?
There's nothing to clarify. The spell must have a target of "you". Fire breath doesn't have a target. Ergo, you cannot share it with a familiar. Range is irrelevant to the share spells rules. As for deliver touch spells, fire breath is not a touch spell, ergo you cannot deliver it via a familiar.
The fact that the range is not personal is a good enough reason to say no.It also seems to function like a touch spell..i.e.discharging.The spell does cling to the caster....so it wouldn't be a stretch to consider it sort of personal.
But do you want a fire breathing tumor in your game?
Not particularly, but I wanted to make sure my response wasn't just reflexive. If there was a mechanical reason it could work, I might have allowed it from fairness. Blahpers reasoning matches mine though so I feel justified in a denial.
If he has the infusion discovery, the familiar could drink the extract itself to breathe fire.
If he has the infusion discovery, the familiar could drink the extract itself to breathe fire.
This is true. There's no limitation on which extracts can be made into infusions and used by others--assuming the tumor is capable of actually imbibing anything. Since it would have wings as a bat and a bite attack as a cat, and so on, I'd hazard that a detached tumor may be able to imbibe, but I'm not sure about an attached one.