I came across this question while looking up the bard archetype duettist.
Duettist gives you a familiar and at 4th level it gains Performing Familiar (Su):
At 4th level, a duettist's familiar learns how to create supernatural effects with its performances, just like its master. The familiar can use any of its master's bardic performances, but only the familiar or the duettist can have a performance active at any given time, not both.
How does the familiar's performace work? Does it use your Perform skill or its own? (yeah, I know, familiars use your skill points. But not always, and they use their own ability modifiers)
How is the DC of performances calculated? With the bards Cha mod or the familiar's? Most familiars have real sucky charisma ...
There are plenty of feats relating to bardic performance. Like Discorant voice and Lingering performance. If the master has one of these, can the familiar's performance benefit from them?
It just says the familiar can use the master's bardic performance, not feats or other effects (such as skill bonus modifiers) that might augment the bardic performance ability.
You're probably right.
But I want to make sure and the ability says:
At 4th level, a duettist's familiar learns how to create supernatural effects with its performances, just like its master.
Isn't it possible to read that as the familiar using your stats and abilities for bardic performance?
I'd imagine that "just like its master" line is meant to stop people from trying to choose a type of Bardic performance the Bard doesnt have, like one from a specific archetype.
I'd imagine that "just like its master" line is meant to stop people from trying to choose a type of Bardic performance the Bard doesnt have, like one from a specific archetype.
Seems unlikely, given that the next sentence deals with what performances the familiar can use =)
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It just says the familiar can use the master's bardic performance, not feats or other effects (such as skill bonus modifiers) that might augment the bardic performance ability.You're probably right.
But I want to make sure and the ability says:
At 4th level, a duettist's familiar learns how to create supernatural effects with its performances, just like its master.Isn't it possible to read that as the familiar using your stats and abilities for bardic performance?
It's possible. But, also possible to read it as the familiar needs to have the feats or Charisma in order to use them, just like its master.
Personally, I think that whole line is for flavor.
I'm pretty sure "just like its master" just means that you use the same rules text as Bardic Performance, with the familiar counting its bard level as it's master's bard level.
I'd imagine that "just like its master" line is meant to stop people from trying to choose a type of Bardic performance the Bard doesnt have, like one from a specific archetype.Seems unlikely, given that the next sentence deals with what performances the familiar can use =)
Fair enough. I wasn't actually looking at the duettist archetype when I wrote the response, totally should have been.
It just says the familiar can use the master's bardic performance, not feats or other effects (such as skill bonus modifiers) that might augment the bardic performance ability.You're probably right.
But I want to make sure and the ability says:
At 4th level, a duettist's familiar learns how to create supernatural effects with its performances, just like its master.Isn't it possible to read that as the familiar using your stats and abilities for bardic performance?
It's possible. But, also possible to read it as the familiar needs to have the feats or Charisma in order to use them, just like its master.
Personally, I think that whole line is for flavor.
Yep, generally, lines structured like "At Xlevel, she learns how to/discovers the secrets of/some other descriptive verb explaining slightly in-world about picking up the ability..." are flavor overviews of the ability in the following sentences.