I'm playing a witch and since I'm approaching level 7 I've been looking at feats. Depending on how the other players feel, my GM is allowing me to take the Leadership feat to make my familiar into a cohort-familiar with the Medium class and 'human' race.
Currently my familiar is a homebrew creation. It is a skull inhabited by one or more spirits and functions similarly to the Gravewalkers Poppet in that it allows me to cast touch spells at range. In addition to this it also grants a number of SLAs: Unseen Servant, Sentry Skull(the familiar is the sentry) and Speak With Dead. Now I think I've got a pretty good deal here so I'm having a harder time deciding if I should take the Leadership Cohort-familiar option then I would were it just a regular familiar.
The cohort-familiar would most likely be be a level 5 human medium. The cohort would not be present all the time. The idea is that my familiar spirit remains inside the skull until it manifests in human form; with its form being one of the spirits that the medium can channel. I intend to use this cohort for utility and not combat; it is still my spell book after all. My reasoning behind the medium is that it feels thematically appropriate, it's flexible, it shouldn't impede on other players.
If it helps the other players are a Fighter, a barbarian, a chained rogue, a druid and a sorcerer. There used to be a ranger but she stopped playing to to time restraints.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Your familiar, especially if it is not an improved familiar, already seems fairly up there on the power level. Depending one what vulnerabilites/immunties are part of the 'spirit in a skull' maybe way up there.
Personally I think your GM is fairly crazy to give you that, and giving it the ability to transform into a full cohort of your level -2 (while still being able to go back to the skull and all of the protections that entails) is even more crazy.
You don't really say how you are planning to use the cohort, other than 'utility' but with a party that large I'd be concerned about stealing another players thunder.
So, I guess if you want more power I think this is a great deal for your character. I'm not sure it will make a better game though, and for that reason I probably wouldn't take it.
You raise some good points that touch upon why I haven't immediately said yes to the Leadership feat. The familiar itself is pretty much inanimate object and can only interact with things to the extent that the Unseen Servant spell allows. The GM gave it to me as he didn't want me to take my original choice of a raven. He was planning to give our wizard a raven familiar that could transform into a butler/steward (the wizard left shortly after I joined).
By 'utility' I mean things like crafting (e.g. scribe scroll) or aiding non-combat skills. Other than myself the group is very combat focused and we could do with shoring up our non-combat skills and abilities. Being a very generalist class in a system that rewards specialisation the medium seems to me to be under powered, this coupled with the -2 levels should prevent the cohort from outshining any other players. Of course this could all be moot as I will be seeking the approval of the rest of the group first. I do appreciate that other players could feel that I'm 'stealing their thunder' but tbh the only player who got like that (the abjuration wizard) already left because I joined with a witch (I eventually found out he wanted to be the sole arcane caster of the group but never he mentioned this to anyone). If I don't go for this feat I would likely take Extra Hex for Water Lung.
Are the other characters getting similar GM perks? I just mention that because your familiar and the wizards familiar seem to have gotten some pretty nice free benefits.
The reason I ask, is some GMs are especially intrigued and inspired by arcane magic. This isn't a bad thing per se, but if it leads to giving 'free' stuff to arcane casters it can lead to trouble, especially in a game where 9-level arcane magic is already considered the most powerful option. If your GM isn't giving out similar free stuff to all players I suggest you talk to them (you are the best one to do that, since currently you are the one benefiting, so it won't look like whining.)
You are starting to move into the levels where arcane casters begin to dominate. Your character being the one that provides all the solutions where magic is the best answer by itself can lead to your character dominating the game and the other players just being there to kill stuff for you. Adding in your character (via your cohort familiar) being the one that provides all of the solutions where skills are the best answer is certainly going to exacerbate that.
I'd suggest to the players and the GM that the other characters get something to shore up those missing non-combat skills and utility. Maybe not something that costs them feat, but if each player got some sort of benefit/special bonus equal to how cool your current familiar is above the baseline then that should take care of pretty much all of the non-combat skills and other utility things your party might need.
Of course some players just want to kill things and are perfectly happy with someone else taking over anything that isn't part of combat, if all of the other players are this type, then that certainly changes things.
Yes. The human sorcerer has a magic fire horse, the the half orc fighter has a pair of ancestral blades that grow in power as he does and the gnome rogue is a werewolf. I don't know what the GM has planned for the druid and barbarian.
Typically the GM is amicable to hand out perks and class/race rule changes so long as they are interesting, make sense or fix something about original rules. Case point would be my human raised half orc witch with Hedge witch/Herb witch archetypes. When I mentioned that the Herb witch makes you take the Cauldron hex, granting a +4 bonus to craft alchemy but lets you use herbalism in place of alchemy he very quickly suggested to change the bonus to herbalism. The next change was to the Hedge witch archetype; I love it thematically but losing your level 8 hex for the awful Empathic Healing sucks (even more so when you have the Herb witch's Remedies). Fortunately I was able to persuade the GM to let me take the Witch's Bounty major hex in its place. He allowed this because he agreed that Empathic Healing was terrible, Witch's Bounty while flavourful seems much less powerful than other major hexes e.g. Weather Control or Retribution, and most importantly it made sense with my characters backstory. The final change was to the orc weapon proficiency race trait; it made no sense that my human raised spellcaster character who had never picked up a long sword let alone an orc weapon should be proficient. In its place I took Poison Use because the Herb witch fluff mentioned using poisons but doesn't grant any poison use features.
I can make suggestions to the GM and the sorcerer player but not the others. Oh and I do believe we'll be getting a stronghold at some point.