First off, the player in my game who brought these questions up said he already searched around and couldn't find any answers, so I'm taking him at his word as I post this. So if the answer already exists, I apologize.
Two questions.
1. Can a shaman take improved familiar to augment his spirit animal?
2.How does an animal spirit change when the shaman gains the true spirit ability.
animal spirit reads
By communing with the incredible powers of her spirit, the shaman forges a cherished bond with one specific servant of that spirit—known as a spirit animal. A spirit animal is a creature chosen by a shaman to serve as a conduit, allowing her to more fully access the magic of her spirit on a daily basis. The shaman’s spirit animal also grants her special powers. This ability uses the same rules as the wizard’s arcane bond class feature and is treated as a familiar, except as noted below.
A shaman uses her level as her effective wizard level when determining the abilities of her spirit animal. A shaman can select any familiar available to wizards to serve as her spirit animal, although her spirit animal is augmented by the power of her chosen spirit. Once selected, the spirit animal cannot be changed. Although a shaman’s spirit animal uses the statistics of a specific animal, it is treated as an outsider with the native subtype for the purposes of spells and abilities that affect it.
The bold part would make me think improved familiar has no interaction with this ability. Or does this mean the appearance of the animal spirit remains unchanged, but it can still gains the abilities of the improved familiar.
true spirit ability reads
Companion Animal (Su): The shaman’s spirit animal takes the form of an animal companion of her choice, using her shaman level as her effective druid level. The animal retains all the special abilities and the Intelligence score of the spirit animal, but also has the statistics and abilities of an animal companion. If the animal is dismissed, is lost, or dies, it can be replaced in the same way as a normal spirit animal.
How the above reads to me, the spirit animal retains it's int score, and still gains any benefit listed in the special ability column of familiar, but everything else is based off the animal companion table, including hit points, saves, atks, etc. It would lose the familiar armor class adjustment, for example.
Someone mentioned a familiar always has half the hit points of its master, but the wording above felt like it would supersede that rule.
here is the quote from official paizo FAQ on the improved familiar portion of this question. It specifically refers to shamans by name in the answer:
Improved Familiars: There are various ways for characters other than arcane spellcasters to gain familiars at this point, and some of those options even grant Improved Familiar as a bonus feat, but technically each Improved Familiar option requires a certain arcane spellcaster level to take it. Does that mean that non-arcane characters with Improved Familiar have a dead feature? How does it work? If it does work, can I take an Improved Familiar as some kind of variant familiar or a temporary familiar like the occultist’s soulbound puppet?
The Improved Familiar description was written back when only arcane spellcasters could have familiars, and it wasn’t sufficiently future-proofed. To that end, you can always substitute your effective wizard level for the purpose of determining your familiar’s abilities for “arcane spellcaster level” to determine the available improved familiars for your character. In general, you can take Improved Familiars for class-granted variant familiars like a shaman’s spirit animal, with a few exceptions: First, temporary familiars like the occultist’s soulbound puppet can’t become Improved Familiars from the Improved Familiar feat, and those class features don’t qualify you to take the Improved Familiar feat. Second, tumor familiars, as lumps of flesh in the shape of animals, can’t become Improved Familiars. In other cases, treat Improved Familiar as if it was an archetype to see if it stacks with other familiar options: since the two things it alters from a regular familiar are that it removes the ability to speak with animals of its kind and it prevents changing the creature type for non-animals, you couldn’t make a familiar that changes the creature type of non-animals or alters or removes speak with animals of its kind an Improved Familiar.posted July 2016 |