Eldritch guardian + Arcane strike

[Jose Hernandez 622]

Hi,

A friend of mine asked me a question about a build that he wanted to make (to play with me, how nice, I got one more), something close to beast tamer master but with a familiar and a animal companion. His idea for a 12 level build was 8 eldritch guardian and 3 level hunter and a level of Wizard between them.

The debate was: Can the familiar (Mauler) use Arcane strike? The rules from EG says that the familiar get any combat feat that the EG has... ignoring the prerequisites. Arcane Strike is a combat feat, thus the familiar can have it but, can the familiar use it since technically the familiar does not have a caster level?

I know that, at best, it can only be used to do 1 point of magical damage with the build. What would happen with a Fighter 4, Magus 5, Hunter 3? Will it have a +2 because of the magus or +1?

I searched in the forums but nothing says about that interaction.

Kind regards,

[Chess Pwn]

familiar's never gain caster levels and they wouldn't use their master's.

[Jose Hernandez 622]

Thanks :D,

That solves perfectly the magus and co. cases. What we argued before was that the familiar, because it is kinda magicalish in nature, can "reasonably" gather a bit of magic and be able to use the feat at its lowest. Reasonably in the same regards as a monkey familiar can use weapons because of its opposable thumbs, but not a fox familiar.

Would that hold any candle in PFS game, or there is a thread, faq or rule that proof or negate the idea?

Kind regards,

[Chess Pwn]

so to get the first bit of damage the feat says nothing about every losing it. The reason is is because of the feats pre-reqs. But if you gained the feat pre-req free then you have it and it works and it is stuck at 1 damage.

[Jose Hernandez 622]

Perfect,

The reason my friend wanted the feat was for the part that makes magical all weapons,for the reductions. The option was that, getting INT and CHA to 13 for the evolution feat or growing natural attack to get the feats that make natural attacks magical and silver. We could not figure out the last one so we opted for what seems the less wasteful.

Kind regards,

[Snowlilly]

Chess Pwn wrote:

familiar's never gain caster levels and they wouldn't use their master's.

That depends on the familiar.

Quite a few improved familiars have caster levels.