Shared Spells for familiars / mounts / eidolons / animal companions

[Jeremiah Carde]

There has been a lot of threads and none of them have directly answered this question.

There are ways to add an animal companion outside the normal classes that grant animal companions/mounts/ect...

Here are some examples:

1. Cleric with the animal domain gets an animal companion

2. Kineticist with the Elemental Whispers, Greater gets a familiar

3. Any class that obtains the the Animal Ally feat

4. VMC and choose Druid as the secondary class

Now here are the direct text from the PRD for both of them.

Familiar: Share Spells: The wizard may cast a spell with a target of "You" on his familiar (as a touch spell) instead of on himself. A wizard may cast spells on his familiar even if the spells do not normally affect creatures of the familiar's type (magical beast).

Animal Companion: Share Spells (Ex): The druid may cast a spell with a target of “You” on her animal companion (as a spell with a range of touch) instead of on herself. A druid may cast spells on her animal companion even if the spells normally do not affect creatures of the companion's type (animal). Spells cast in this way must come from a class that grants an animal companion. This ability does not allow the animal to share abilities that are not spells, even if they function like spells.

Eidolon: Share Spells (Ex): The summoner may cast a spell with a target of “you” on his eidolon (as a spell with a range of touch) instead of on himself. A summoner may cast spells on his eidolon even if the spells normally do not affect creatures of the eidolon's type (outsider). Spells cast in this way must come from the summoner spell list. This ability does not allow the eidolon to share abilities that are not spells, even if they function like spells.

I did not post the mounts or paladin bonds since they function off of druid class levels.

Here are my questions:

Let us start with the Kineticist first. He gains a familiar with the utility. All of the abilities of the Kineticist is a spell-like ability or a supernatural ability. Can he share his spells with his familiar?

If the answer is no, then here is another question:

If a Cleric chooses the Animal Domain and obtains a animal companion can the cleric share spells with the animal companion? What if the cleric chooses spells that are not on the druid spell list?

Here is another question:

Let us say an Arcanist decides to choose the feat Animal Ally and gets an animal companion, can the Arcanist share spells with the animal companion?

Lastly, what if an Arcanist decides to VMC with druid or summoner as their secondary class can they share their spell list with their companion?

These are tough questions because you have Paladins, Anti Paladins, Rangers, and other classes that grant an animal companion and uses their level as druid levels but these classes will not druid spells necessarily or summoner spells.

Thanks

[Nixitur]

Jeremiah Carde wrote:

Let us start with the Kineticist first. He gains a familiar with the utility. All of the abilities of the Kineticist is a spell-like ability or a supernatural ability. Can he share his spells with his familiar?

It's a bummer, but no, as you pointed out, they're not spells.

Jeremiah Carde wrote:

If a Cleric chooses the Animal Domain and obtains a animal companion can the cleric share spells with the animal companion? What if the cleric chooses spells that are not on the druid spell list?

Yes, they can, regardless of whether the spell is on the druid spell list. Both the spells and animal companion come from the cleric class.

Jeremiah Carde wrote:

Let us say an Arcanist decides to choose the feat Animal Ally and gets an animal companion, can the Arcanist share spells with the animal companion?

This one's a bit tougher since the animal companion doesn't come from any class at all which doesn't fit with the description of Share Spells for animal companions. You're also not granted any spells by "a class that grants an animal companion". So, going strictly by RAW, the answer is no, although it strikes me as a bit odd.

Jeremiah Carde wrote:

Lastly, what if an Arcanist decides to VMC with druid or summoner as their secondary class can they share their spell list with their companion?

Definitely no on Summoner as the description specifically states that the spells have to be on the Summoner spell list. However, they don't need to be granted by the Summoner class, so any spells that are on the intersection of Sorcerer/Wizard spell list and Summoner spell list can be shared with the eidolon using VMC Summoner.

I honestly have no clue on VMC Druid. What class are you granted the Animal Companion by? The most logical choice is Druid, but since you're not granted any spells by that class, I think you may not be able to share any spells with it, not even the ones that are on the intersection between Sorcerer/Wizard and Druid spell list.

Although I must admit, I don't quite know what the writers mean with spells that "come from a class". I assume they mean "granted by that class", but it could also mean "are on that class' spell list" which makes a huge difference. If the latter is the case, then you could share the intersection between the spell lists using both Animal Ally and VMC Druid.

Edit: Wait, this is even more complicated than I previously thought. If "come from a class" means "are on that class' spell list", then you could also cast spells on the intersection between Ranger and Sorcerer/Wizard spell list because the Ranger class also grants an animal companion. And possibly even Cleric because of the Animal domain.

[Jeremiah Carde]

For the kineticist utility I find it rather dumb that they provide the ability for the class to obtain a familiar with no ability to share any of the abilities of the class. Hopefully the provide an errata or even a feat that will allow these abilities strictly for the kineticist since this is something they get as an ability.