Can you get a fungus leshy familiar?

[ohako]

Sooo, say you’re a LN cave druid wild shaped into an ooze. You’ve got a killer offense, but one big defensive hole is that you’ve got no hands with which you might activate a wand. And while you certainly could rely on your teammates for that chore, oftentimes they’ve got better things to do.

So, the obvious thing to do would be to have a hand-having familiar on hand to use wands and such. Bonus points is for stuffing it into an open polymorphic pouch that’s subsumed, unmelded, inside your oozy body. An arbiter inevitable is out, because it’s too heavy for the pouch (and, well, might not like living inside an extradimensional space inside an ooze). A homunculus works (as long as you give it a ring of eloquence), but that’s an extra 4000gp for the privilege.

1) Is there any way to get a fungus leshy as a familiar? It works, it fits, and it seems thematic for a cave druid.
2) Aside from that, is there any way to get, say, a leaf leshy as a familiar without being a leshy warden?

[Joyd]

A small note - technically, as written, the Polymorphic Pouch doesn't work when you shift into an Ooze. It gives a list of creature types that it works with that doesn't include Ooze. It's a reasonable allowance, though. If dropping the pouch part of the idea lets you take an Arbiter, that's that problem sorted.

(I don't know where you're planning to get a familiar from, exactly, so if any of this doesn't make sense, let me know.)

If you want a Leshy buddy that isn't necessarily strictly your familiar, you can create a normal one using the rules for creating Leshys. The process is a bit obnoxious, but can be made more reliable with a Leshy Mulch Manual.

Another good option might be a Poppet Familiar. They don't use the Improved Familiar rules, so they're easy to overlook, but they seem to hit all of the requirements you have for your familiar. You can get one with the Poppet familiar feat. They explicitly weigh only six pounds, and don't seem to have the sort of will that would make them mind living in a sack, and are crafted from natural materials.

As a DM, I would gladly allow somebody to take a Leaf Leshy (or perhaps even a better Leshy) as an improved familiar. It's clearly not as potent as most of the other available options, and in your case the only thing stopping you from taking one of several available options that would accomplish the same thing (like a Mephit) is your alignment. This depends on your DM, however.

[ohako]

Joyd wrote:

A small note - technically, as written, the Polymorphic Pouch doesn't work when you shift into an Ooze. It gives a list of creature types that it works with that doesn't include Ooze. It's a reasonable allowance, though. If dropping the pouch part of the idea lets you take an Arbiter, that's that problem sorted.

The creature types that let you keep the pouch are the same types that say you meld your gear when you wild shape. So either

a) I'll stick an arbiter into a bag of holding strapped to my oozy self (the bag is cheaper, and arbiters are harder to kill)

or

b) since cave druids turn into an ooze 'as if it were a magical beast', then the pouch stays unmelded just like it's supposed to

Joyd wrote:

(I don't know where you're planning to get a familiar from, exactly, so if any of this doesn't make sense, let me know.)

Feats. Familiar Bond and Improved Familiar. I don't actually need all the extra familiar goodies you'd get from Improved Familiar Bond, so I can skip that. I just need something that has actions to spare for the occasional wand. Which means I do need it as a familiar, because to make this work you need

a) a familiar with useful hands (so, an improved familiar, usually)
b) a familiar that can talk
c) many ranks in UMD, because familiars aren't usually spellcasters

You know what I'll do? I knew I needed a ring of eloquence anyway, so instead of wearing it myself, I'll just give it to a homunculus familiar, who can crack wise and be a face while riding around in an extradimensional space either strapped to or inside an ooze, while my actual character can stay in ooze form all the time. Maybe I'll even give it a little tiny suit of full plate or something.