The creature in the pouch has total cover from everything outside of the pouch - doesnt this include the PC itself?
Yes.
this familiar is very active in combat with the bodyguard feat
If it's in a pouch with total cover from everything, including its master, I wouldn't let it use bodyguard. Probably not shield master, but definitely not bodyguard, which involves flinging yourself around.
Basically, familiar pouches/satchels are for familiars who stay the heck out of combat, not for those who are part of it.
The cheesy solution is to make a hole in the satchel and then sew the hole to your clothes. So the familiar can always touch you.
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It would be great if this works. I’m looking at a protector Familiar that I’d almost never use for bodyguard.
The flip side of the argument, though, it that the Familiar has total cover, so you actually can’t make a touch attack against it or target it with a beneficial spell, so why would it work the other way around?
I actually thought there was a magical version of the Familiar satchel, but I can’t find one.
There’s an item in Blood of the Coven I’ll probably pick up for my characters with familiars. Bloodstone Collar. 3 uses for 900 gold. Let’s you prevent your Familiar from dying by taking excess damage. The Familiar wears it in the neck slot (which for PFS means swapping the familiar’s starting feat for Extra Item Slot). Definitely seems worth it on my faerie dragon, and probably worth it on a protector to keep them from dying from a failed save or massive attack.
within PFS your familiar has to be in the "active pet" role otherwise it can not engage in interactions.
I believe the bodyguard feat requires the creatures be adjacent AND be able to make an attack of opportunity (threatened squares).
In melee combat, you can help a friend attack or defend by distracting or interfering with an opponent. If you’re in position to make a melee attack on an opponent that is engaging a friend in melee combat, you can attempt to aid your friend as a standard action.so Aid Another means you can't do it from a pocket. Opponents will have cover bonuses. Time to cast Long Arm and share it with your little buddy. Another round and a spell lost to empower some cheese... 8^)
The threatening requirement is removed for Protector archetype familiars.
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I actually thought there was a magical version of the Familiar satchel, but I can’t find one.
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Hosteling armor or shield?
Thanks for all the responses!
While many of you have been referencing the bodyguard ability, i am specifically concerned with the "shield master" abilty:
Shield Master (Su)
At 5th level, whenever a protector or its master takes hit point damage, as long as the protector and its master are touching, its master can split the damage evenly between them as if under the effects of shield other.Can this be performed from inside the total cover of a familiar pouch?
Okay, I'll get off the fence and say No, on the grounds that "touching" is a subset of "could make a touch attack on," which you can't do because it's got total cover.
I'm not dwelling on the realism of touching someone through fabric or full plate, just the mechanical question of whether you can make a touch attack. If you can, you might be touching. If you can't, you definitely aren't.
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I actually thought there was a magical version of the Familiar satchel, but I can’t find one.
...Hosteling armor or shield?
I think he's thinking of D&D 3.5, which had a slotless extradimensional satchel that magically supplied the familiar with food, water and air (and, I assume, cleaned up after them).
Also, thanks, I didn't know that pendant had a greater version...
If it's in the open, it's still a 50% hit point battery for most cases. If someone attacks it directly, that's still damage that someone else didn't have to take. The only real benefit from the pouch is that the familiar can't be hit by an area attack, which aren't super rare, but aren't super common either, and you can pre-plan against a lot of them.