I'm slowly... SLOWLY... getting an idea I had for a character refined, but I wanted to ask a few questions pertaining to his build that'll help me nail down some more specifics.
1 - Let's say I have a plague patron familiar on a beast-bonded witch, an it's capable of using weapons (such as, for example, a monkey using a knife via simple weapon proficiency). Since it can inflict filth fever once per day with a natural attack, it qualifies for the infectious weapons feat (which can be granted to it via the beast-bonded class feature transfer feats), which reads:
Benefit: Creatures damaged by your ranged and melee weapon attacks have a chance to contract disease, as though they were damaged with your disease-spreading natural weapon.
It makes no mention of expending the actual ability it's rooted from, should the ability have a certain number of uses per day. Does this mean I could have my familiar freely spreading disease to everything its (literally) grubby weapon can poke?
2 - I'm trying to exploit charging as much as possible, and since this character is a kobold, I plan to utilize kobold ambusher (which allows me to take -10 penalty to stealth rolls to stay hidden when charging or running rather than -20, and gives me no stealth penalty to move normally while hidden). As such I want my stealth pretty dang high so I can more easily utilize this feat. This brings me to a question of possible conflicting bonuses. If I take both skill focus (stealth) (which gives me +3/+6 to stealth) an stealthy (which gives me +2/+4 to stealth and escape artist), will both bonuses stack thanks to being untyped? Or, since both are similar bonuses that are both granted by feats with very similar wording, would the skill focus bonus just override the bonus from stealthy?
3 - From my understanding, a witch's familiar is a patron familiar when it's picked. But what about if you take witch levels on a character who has levels in a different class that grants familiars, such as wizard or shaman? Will the original familiar just gain the blessing of the patron and be granted its patron ability, or would you have to completely replace the familiar with a brand new one granted specifically by your patron? (I realize this is more of a GM call since it effectively just alters the PC's story - and potentially eats some of their time and GP - but I'm mostly curious what the RAW answer would be here).
4 - Similar to above: if a game begins at a higher level than 1st, would the PC above be able to, say, take a bloodline familiar as a bloodrager at 1st, take a witch level for his 2nd level, and just start off with a patron bloodline familiar? Or would he have to negate 400 gp from his starting wealth to compensate for replacing his familiar at 2nd (again, curious of the RAW answer, since this seems to again be largely a GM call).
1)
The last part of the description says that it functions as your disease-spreading natural weapon, so if there are any limitations on uses per day, it should be the same whether or not you have the feat.
Benefit: Creatures damaged by your ranged and melee weapon attacks have a chance to contract disease, as though they were damaged with your disease-spreading natural weapon.
Emphasis mine.
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2)
Untyped bonuses stack, as long as they aren't from the same source.
Bonuses are numerical values that are added to checks and statistical scores. Most bonuses have a type, and as a general rule, bonuses of the same type are not cumulative (do not “stack”)—only the greater bonus granted applies.
The important aspect of bonus types is that two bonuses of the same type don't generally stack. With the exception of dodge bonuses, most circumstance bonuses, and racial bonuses, only the better bonus of a given type works. Bonuses without a type always stack, unless they are from the same source.
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3)
Welp, no mention of replacing your familiar or paying any cost in the description of the Spirit Animal class feature.
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Levels of different classes that are entitled to familiars stack with shaman levels for the purpose of determining any spirit animal abilities that depend on the shaman's level. If a shaman possesses such levels in other classes, her spirit animal always uses the shaman rules for spirit animals, not those used by familiars of other classes (such as witches, wizards, or sorcerers with the arcane bloodline). If the shaman has witch levels, her spirit animal also serves as the conduit to her patron and stores her witch spells. The shaman's spirit animal is treated as a familiar for the purposes of all spells, effects, and abilities that affect familiars.
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Emphasis mine.
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4)
Well, if you could retrain your HP to the maximum HD without cost at character creation, then everyone would have already done it.
You make the choice, you pay the price.
I think you may have misunderstood my third question; it was pertaining to taking the patron familiar option for a witch, not the spirit abilities of a shaman or for taking shaman levels while you already have witch levels. It's a little confusing I guess because the rules for taking a patron familiar are under the page for wizard familiars. Here's the text for it:
Witches' familiars are often tied to their patrons, enhancing and reinforcing the spellcasters' connections to the sources of their magical might. Just as a sorcerer can gain a bloodline familiar, a witch can gain a patron familiar by choosing one at 1st level in place of her standard familiar. A patron familiar acts in all ways like a standard witch's familiar, with the addition of the special ability indicated below according to the witch's patron. In addition, the witch gains her patron spells 1 level later than she normally would—gaining the patron spell she'd normally receive at 2nd level at 3rd level instead, and so on.
The bolded part states that the choice must be made at 1st level. However it's the "in place of her standard familiar" part that gets muddied when my character already has a familiar via another class (such as a wizard via arcane bond, a magus via magus arcana, or a fighter via the eldritch guardian archetype). It doesn't specifically state that I have to lose my original familiar as the improved familiar feat does, but it implies that my standard familiar is replaced. The question I has was clarification on that: do I have to lose my original familiar, or does it just go, "Oh you have a patron? You want to apply the patron familiar abilities to your familiar? Poof, now it can use patron familiar abilities."
The answer to that also affects the fourth question, but I kinda figured it would be a literal case of "paying the price" if I do indeed have to sacrifice my first familiar to have my familiar take on patron familiar abilities when I choose them with my first witch level. Honestly in such a case I'd rather lose the 4 HP than the gold (which I was wrong about; as per witch rules it'd actually be 500 gp per witch level). Actually, that brings about another question:
Say I'm a 10th level wizard and 1st level witch, and my familiar is killed. Normally, to replace it, I'd need to wait a full week, then perform a ritual costing 200 gp per wizard level. However, witch rules cut the time down to one day, but instead cost 500 gp per witch level, and according to the rules stated for a witch familiar, since he has a witch level, he has to use the rules for a witch familiar. The thing is, each familiar ruleset states a specific class to take the cost of the ritual from, and this is pretty clearly not an ability of the familiar itself. That means there's three possible costs for the ritual, assuming the above case of a wizard 10 witch 1 character:
- 500 gp (assuming class levels don't stack to determine the cost, seeing as a familiar replacement ritual isn't a familiar's ability)
- 2,000 gp (assuming class levels don't stack to determine the cost, but I'm forced to take the greater potential cost, which would make me use wizard levels for the cost)
- 5,500 gp (assuming class levels do stack to determine the cost, meaning I'd count my witch level as 11 for the purpose of determining the ritual's cost)
Anyway, thank you for helping me out here. This'll help me a lot in determining my late-game feats with the character I have planned.
Bah, that's kinda what I was afraid of. The plan I had was to use a kobold with a wallaby familiar, and confer proficiency in kobold tail attachments to it via the eldritch guardian's share training class feature. It has 6 Int due to being a familiar, and it obviously has the physiology to use a kobold tail attachment (and is even the same size as a kobold), so there shouldn't be any reason it can't use it. But then, there is the "natural inclinations" passage regarding intelligent animals on the familiars page:
An intelligent animal is smart enough to use tools, but might lack the ability to manipulate them. a crow could be able to use simple lockpicks, but a dog can't. Even if the animal is physically capable of using a tool, it might still prefer its own natural body to manufactured items, especially when it comes to weapons. An intelligent gorilla could hold or wield a sword, but its inclination is to make slam attacks. No amount of training (including weapon proficiency feats) is going to make it fully comfortable attacking in any other way.
So this sort of implies that, unless my familiar started off with a tail swipe attack, it's not going to be inclined to use tail swipes (and by extension tail attachments). So I can see the PFS side of this as well. However, as per the aspects of control, I can command the familiar to act a certain way since it's a sentient creature, and as long as it's within my best interests, the creature will be more likely to comply. I suppose that part's all down to if the GM allows me to control the familiar or if they choose to control her themselves.
Using this only for non-PFS may be just as well, considering the ruling on the plague patron ability, as well. It's still usable so long as my wallaby's charge is one used via coordinated charge when either an ally or I charge, though if the former that's gonna require a bit more teamwork with my allies, while the latter is going to cut down on my potential damage that turn. Honestly, the wording implies to me that the disease becomes part of the attack, but as you said, it could just as easily be interpreted as a standard action so I'll err on that being the case.
It's also nice to know that I'd be able to take the cheaper replacement cost for the familiar ritual while still taking only a day of mourning time, and that I'm not gonna have to sacrifice my eldritch guardian familiar "off-screen" to apply patron abilities to it. The only thing I'd lose if it dies beyond what a wizard would lose is my witch spells, which aren't at all important considering I'm only taking a one level dip into witch here. Considering the above ruling regarding plague patron, however, I'm honestly considering ditching the witch level altogether and taking filthy weapons instead. There's only two feats being conferred via transfer feats, with infectious weapons being one of them, and with this, I only need to sacrifice two skill ranks and a hex that will probably never hit anything later on in the game to get a similar function multiple times per day that I could ready before a battle even starts, and has a stronger effect if I critically hit (giving me a case to also take the improved critical feat and a spike tail attachment on the wallaby and myself), and I'd be getting an extra feat to boot. I'd need to spend a week mourning, but... quite honestly after looking over things the whole idea of dipping witch is really losing its luster.
Well anyway, now I'm getting more into advice territory so I'll save that for another time. Thanks for the answers, folks~