A couple of questions about the Occultist Soulbound Puppet


Rules Questions

Scarab Sages

As a full-round action, you can expend 1 point of mental focus to create a soulbound puppet from a bone, doll, or skull. If you use a bone or a skull, your power builds a Tiny or Small flesh puppet around it that vaguely resembles the original creature from which the bones were taken. If the implement is a doll, the doll comes to life. Treat this as a familiar, using your occultist level as your wizard level to determine its powers and abilities. By using a bone or skull from the appropriate creature or a doll shaped like that creature, you can select any of the familiar choices available to a wizard. You can instead use a humanoid bone, doll, or skull, to give the puppet the base statistics of a homunculus, but without a fly speed or the poison bite or telepathic link abilities. No matter the form, this creature is a construct with an alignment matching your own. You can have no more than one soulbound puppet active at any given time.

The soulbound puppet remains animated for 10 minutes per occultist level you possess.

First: Can I use improved familiar on this, or since I just need the bones of animal I can use any option, including improved familiars?

Second: If I can have improved familiars, am I correct that if the familiar option doesn't have bones I can't use that as a familiar? Example - air elemental.

Third: Do I get the same familiar each time I use that particular implement to create a familiar, or can I customize it each time? Does the familiar carry memories of each time it was made? - Example, okay, going into combat, today you're a mauler archetype. Okay, need some knowledge, today you're a sage.

Fourth: Do familiar levels stack with other class familiars? Would this grant me multiple familiars?

Fifth: Am I correct in assuming that a flesh puppet can fly off the familiar form has flight?

Sixth: Does the familiar have is memories from being alive? If I take a slain foes skull and turn it into a familiar is it co-operative or hostile towards me?


Ruske Bell wrote:
First: Can I use improved familiar on this, or since I just need the bones of animal I can use any option, including improved familiars?

You can't get an Improved Familiar.

FAQ wrote:

Improved Familiars: There are various ways for characters other than arcane spellcasters to gain familiars at this point, and some of those options even grant Improved Familiar as a bonus feat, but technically each Improved Familiar option requires a certain arcane spellcaster level to take it. Does that mean that non-arcane characters with Improved Familiar have a dead feature? How does it work? If it does work, can I take an Improved Familiar as some kind of variant familiar or a temporary familiar like the occultist’s soulbound puppet?

The Improved Familiar description was written back when only arcane spellcasters could have familiars, and it wasn’t sufficiently future-proofed. To that end, you can always substitute your effective wizard level for the purpose of determining your familiar’s abilities for “arcane spellcaster level” to determine the available improved familiars for your character. In general, you can take Improved Familiars for class-granted variant familiars like a shaman’s spirit animal, with a few exceptions: First, temporary familiars like the occultist’s soulbound puppet can’t become Improved Familiars from the Improved Familiar feat, and those class features don’t qualify you to take the Improved Familiar feat. Second, tumor familiars, as lumps of flesh in the shape of animals, can’t become Improved Familiars. In other cases, treat Improved Familiar as if it was an archetype to see if it stacks with other familiar options: since the two things it alters from a regular familiar are that it removes the ability to speak with animals of its kind and it prevents changing the creature type for non-animals, you couldn’t make a familiar that changes the creature type of non-animals or alters or removes speak with animals of its kind an Improved Familiar.

Scarab Sages

Well, that answers that question. Thanks.


Ruske Bell wrote:
Third: Do I get the same familiar each time I use that particular implement to create a familiar, or can I customize it each time? Does the familiar carry memories of each time it was made? - Example, okay, going into combat, today you're a mauler archetype. Okay, need some knowledge, today you're a sage.

The power is very poorly worded, so there's no real way of knowing how it works until a designer opens up about it or until it gets an errata. As it stands, whenever you make it, it's a brand new familiar you can customise. This means you can have a Sage familiar with the right knowledges every single time.

Ruske Bell wrote:
Fourth: Do familiar levels stack with other class familiars? Would this grant me multiple familiars?

Yes, class levels stack, but I think common practice is that you only have one familiar with you. The rules also say this pretty clearly: All familiars have special abilities (or impart abilities to their masters) depending on the master's combined level in classes that grant familiars, as shown on the table below. The abilities are cumulative.

How I understand this, you have one familiar, but all classes that grant familiars add to that familiar's abilities.

Ruske Bell wrote:
Fifth: Am I correct in assuming that a flesh puppet can fly off the familiar form has flight?

Yes. If you make a raven familiar, your raven can fly, speak, and do anything the normal familiar can do as well. Except the Homunculus, as noted in the ability's description (no fly, no poison).

Ruske Bell wrote:
Sixth: Does the familiar have is memories from being alive? If I take a slain foes skull and turn it into a familiar is it co-operative or hostile towards me?

I have no idea, as I don't think it's described anywhere what happens to undead. My guess is death wipes all memories, and using the same animal piece over and over doesn't mean it gets to keep the memories it gets from previous uses. And it's your familiar, so I guess it's bound to obey you. But it's your character, so if you want him to fight you, go ahead, as long as it isn't a detriment to the group.

Also, I am unsure how you get pieces of bone for this. My guess is that you just start with a big bag of bones, otherwise it'll be a hassle to obtain every single familiar piece.

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