How would you go about not getting your emissary familiar butchered trying to make use of divine guidance in combat?

[noble peasant]

The character will be a magus this will be in melee quite often and I don't want the familiar getting hit a bunch from provoking.

I mean the easiest answer would be don't use it in combat but I was curious if there was a way to not have that happen.

[burkoJames]

familiar moves out of square one turn, next turn casts guidance and 5 ft step in to touch the magus?

[Mark Seifter]

I'd say the top two possibilities are either

1) Use the SLA defensively to avoid AoOs and hope nobody prioritizes a guidance-ing mini creature over a bigger threat (aka a PC)

or

2) Guidance a different character in a less threatening position on the battlefield

[graystone]

noble peasant wrote:

The character will be a magus this will be in melee quite often and I don't want the familiar getting hit a bunch from provoking.

I mean the easiest answer would be don't use it in combat but I was curious if there was a way to not have that happen.

Have the familiar cast from full cover? Take one Familiar satchel. Familiar touch you though airholes. Done.

[RickDias]

Mark's actually on to a pretty good idea; having the Familiar help your allies out is the sort of thing that will make you pretty popular at the table and reduce the risk to said Familiar.

Some GMs are jerks and will go out of their way to target a Familiar regardless, but one that's mostly staying in the back and playing a low-risk support role usually goes over pretty well in my experience. GMs like to see team play, and your fellow players always enjoy little boosts.

[ElterAgo]

Invisibility or even just Vanish. Casting Guidance won't negate it.