Puppet Master Build

[Validorn]

My character concept is an elderly and kind German-themed toymaker/puppetmaster with some type of sidekick (familiar/companion/eidolon/homonculus).

The idea is that he is traumatized by the death of his family as part of some great war and he's not completely accepting of reality and believes that some of his grandchildren still come to visit him.

So the mechanics:

Originally I was planning on Soulbound Puppet with a pure vanilla occultist. The idea being that the puppet would be his 'grandchild' and would do the damage in combat, i.e. "The Puppet Master" while the grandfather jovially watches him 'play'. However, it occurred to me that these puppets function as familiars and therefore cannot wield weapons (for all intents and purposes) which greatly limits its combat performance. If I shifted focus to necromantic servant, I would get much better mileage out of the necromancy implement school and the skeletons could at least wield some equipment but I think it is restricted to chain shirt and scimitar without having penalties. But, as far as I can tell, these remain a bit weak. The later insta-heals and advanced templates help somewhat but I didn't want to focus on swarms of companions.

I also started leaning towards doing a self-contained butterfly sting build where the grandfather would attack with a keen weapon and pass the crit off to his 'grandchild' which would have a scythe or similar x4 weapon. As best I can tell, the main classes that can have humanoid shaped companion with access to feat progression would be a Promethean alchemist or an unchained summoner (same basic stat progression for companion).

I had resigned myself to going the alchemist route but then noticed that they (and the summoner) only get simple weapon proficiencies.

So,

TLDR: Anyone know of a way to set-up a build out of the box to have full martial weapon proficiency and a companion that can use at least one x4 crit weapon and gain the benefit of power attack? Level dip and/or heirloom weapon are the only things coming to mind but hoping for alternatives.

p.s.- The build would need to be street (PFS) legal

Thanks in advance for any helpful advice!

[Chess Pwn]

Eldritch Guardian fighter can share combat feats with their familiar.

[Validorn]

Thanks for chiming in Chess.

That crossed my mind also but doesn't that still fall under the restriction that base familiar's cannot use weapons, even if they technically gain access to martial weapon proficiency?

[Chess Pwn]

Spiritualist maybe might work. But it's looking like Promethean alchemist or an unchained summoner are what you'll need to be if you're wanting weapon use. Maybe wait for improve familiar if those can use weapons?

[Nohwear]

Perhaps Leshy Warden with at least two levels in Edlrich Gaurdian.

[Kris Verschaeve]

Be a half elf

invest 3 levels in hunter or sacred huntsmaster if you go for an AC, or Eldritch Guardian if you go for a familiar, get this feat so your buddy a scythe or pickaxe or what floats your boat...

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/inspiring-talent-teamwork

use anthropomorphic animal to change your "bear" in a teddy bear lycanthrophe (aah ...how sweet) now the bear looses the blanket "cannot use weapons" I think

That's an ugly, clunky multiclass and I am not sure it works

but maybe either the feat or the spell are key to your solution ?

[Validorn]

Thank you for all of the suggestions.

Leshy Warden was an interesting suggestion. It looks like leaf leshies have a weapon in their stat block which should support their ability to use weapons. Druid doesn't fully fit the flavor of what I originally had in mind but definitely seems like it could work mechanically minus the lack of feat progression. Nice find!

I must say the spiritualist is looking more promising on a second read through although I just noticed that it says specifically that phantoms cannot wield weapons... that shuts the door hard on that idea. Easy enough to tweak in a home game but looks pretty concrete for PFS. :(

I looked at anthropomorphic animal a while back as a way to possibly turn a base familiar into a wand caddy but my take away was that it goes heavily into YMMV at best. Weapons on the other hand are called out specifically in the spell and the spell appears to be legal... it would be costly to keep up though as a level 3 spell.

Inspiring-talent is pretty cool but gets complicated by the fact that the master would want an 18-20 weapon for crit fishing and the companion would want a x4 weapon to benefit from butterfly sting. Since it costs a feat slot anyway and would only apply to one weapon, it seems like regular weapon proficiency feats may be stronger in this case. Plus they wouldn't require a specific race.