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Familiars now only grant the wielder an additional cantrip or spell slot, or allow them to deliver touch spells. Considering it takes a class feat to take a familiar now, why would anyone ever do so? I am starting to worry about PF2.
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They can also be a scout/message deliverer. 1 cantrip + flexibility (possibly including another low level spell) compares favorably to a feat granting 2 cantrips.
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Look at it this way: they likely compared it with Wildshape from the druid, which lasts minutes at best (unless you pay a level 10 feat). Given how iconic that is, as a class feature, they didn't want to be responsible for the ennui of an entire class by making familiars too fancy.
Mind you, I find familiars still eminently worthwhile myself.
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I was a little disappointed that it wasn't as useful for spontaneous casters any more. It's not important, I guess, I was just excited to give my sorcerer a little animal friend and then realized I would get extremely little out of the exchange.
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But not much of that is actual felixibility for them because one of the two familiar powers has to apply to the caster unless I'm misunderstanding something. Even LESS flexibility if your familiar has a fly speed.
You don't have to pick any of the Master options if you don't want to. Or you could pick two Master options instead.
Also, fun thing you can do with a Gnome Paladin: pick a familiar, and from level 1 you can send your badger friend to go heal your other friends while you hold the line, since Lay on Hands qualifies as a spell that a familiar can cast for you.
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I have mixed feelings about the familiar. I like how modular it is. It allows everyone to pick what type of familiar they want for flavor reasons. No picking the green sting scorpion with you university wizard just because you want the initiative bonus. That said the familiar doesn’t have much to offer. My suggestion would be to add a familiar bonus to the familiar. Let the player choose the bonus and main mode of movement. This things would be static and unchangable after character creation. Then still have the other abilities that players can choose from.
That's leads to everyone picking the same but jus because it's the best, and likely a fly speed, so it's the same problem of PF1 familiars.Not necessarily, there are other useful familiar abilities, like scent. And when you can use a familiar ability to grant flight, the flying familiars don't become a no-brainer like in 1st edition.
Something needs to change, it can't stay the way it is now, where taking a bird familiar is just dumb.
Familiars with an inherent fly/climb speed should probably be somewhat faster than the 25' any familiar can get (and still be eligible for the +15' ability) to make up for the lack of flexibility. Not sure what to do about familiars with built-in scent or darkvision, those are hard to incrementally improve.
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It's silly that a rat familiar can fly as well as a raven familiar. You basically never want to pick a bird familiar because it limits your options. Beside that I like the things you can do with familiars. They even can speak. That's pretty awesome.
RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16
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familiar modifiers - why would its acrobatics, perception and stealth be based on your caster ability? Yours aren’t, so why would theirs? They should have good enough dex from being Tiny to have a perfectly fine modifier in those, and Wis from being an animal for perception. Why have them never benefit from their own ability modifiers or any item bonuses? Magic should affect them like anything else.
familiar and master abilities - fly shouldn’t be one, it’s either something an animal with wings has or doesn’t have. Your toad familiar shouldn’t be able to just fly because. If you want that, cast fly on it like anyone else would need. Same thing goes for climb speed or swim speed. Master abilities are simply better than familiar ones. This shouldn’t be a choice between them. They should be level dependent and just get them as you level up. Same for other abilities - none of the familiar abilities are all that special - and they should be things all familiars get as you rise in power. As written, familiars simply become spell batteries, which really isn’t giving them the benefits they should provide from historic versions of the game.
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In the most historic versions of the game, familiars were a trap your GM tried to trick wizards into subjecting themselves too. Until Pathfinder, they had always been a giant liability, and until 3rd edition before it there were little, to no real benefits to having a familiar at all.
That said... I think Paizo should broaden the familiar and companion options considerably. Notably I'd like a poison option for the various venomous animals you can take as a familiar. I would also like to see Enhanced Familiar broken off from the Wizard & Sorcerer lists and made a cross-class feat (like archetype feats but without the dedication mechanics) that simply required you have a familiar of some sort.
My Pet peeve is that they have an attack modifier, yet no damage. I mean, they are obviously not combat pets, but sometimes you want to sick them on your opposites pet just because.
The attack modifier is for delivering spells.
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Familiars seem perfect to me, at present.
I doubt everyone will use the same options. I can see some folks picking up darkvision when going into a dungeon, flight when outside, talking when detailed info is needed, cantrip when a bit of extra flexibility is needed, etc.
Its a fun, flexible utility option that is not meant to be hyper offense or super game changing. So, some people may grab one. Others may not.
Paizo has done a fantastic job here.
They need to fix the rules for minions. By RAW you can't actually use your familiar to scout because you need to spend an action each round telling it what to do. Which means you either need to shout at it (not really conducive to scouting) or go with it (which defeats the whole purpose).
I'd also prefer if the base abilities for familiars was 2 for the familiar and 1 for the Master. So you can get a talking owl familiar if you want, while still getting some sort of mechanical benefit from it.
Don't you get an empathetic link to your familiar? If you are spending actions to communicate through it, I'd definitely let you silently command the thing at a distance.
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Honestly, in exploration mode animals/familiars should just do the last thing you commanded them to do until commanded otherwise. With the high tension of combat making them nervous and needing more direction (as I assume the system was created for combat balance).
Actually, this shouldn't be limited to exploration mode. If you've got an attack dog (not an animal companion, just a regular old attack dog), and you command it to attack, it's going to keep attacking until the target is dead, prone and unresisting, or until you command it to stop (or possibly flees). Just like a wild, untrained animal doesn't need someone to command it to keep attacking prey or a threat until it stops.
It makes complete sense to need to spend an action to give a NEW command to an animal or familiar, but not to have to tell it to keep doing the previous one every round.
The empathic link is good enough for some decent scouting.
I would be like, "You ordered your familiar to scout the valley. You sense intense fear from it after about 30 seconds as it headed west. Do you recall it with sympathetic feedback or use forceful emotion to ask it press on?"
If you gave it the speech ability, it will give you details on return. If not, you will know roughly where the bad juju is. Seems pretty good for something you can get as a low level class feat or a racial feat.
It's silly that a rat familiar can fly as well as a raven familiar. You basically never want to pick a bird familiar because it limits your options. Beside that I like the things you can do with familiars. They even can speak. That's pretty awesome.
If your rat is flying at all that is pretty damn magical and having it be as fast or faster than a bird using more natural means of flight seems totally reasonable.
One nice thing about familiars this go round oddly enough is they really don't have any offense unless they are trying to deliver a touch spell. So most creatures should naturally just ignore them because they are really not a threat compared to their master or other members of the party. Always hated people trying to blast my witches familiar because they knew killing the familiar would hurt bad.
Familiars now only grant the wielder an additional cantrip or spell slot, or allow them to deliver touch spells. Considering it takes a class feat to take a familiar now, why would anyone ever do so? I am starting to worry about PF2.
I think what they have done with familiars is a good start.
I like that they cost feats to improve.But I do think that they could be a bit better. Their benefits seem a little bit weak to be worthwhile.
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Familiars seem perfect to me, at present.
I doubt everyone will use the same options. I can see some folks picking up darkvision when going into a dungeon, flight when outside, talking when detailed info is needed, cantrip when a bit of extra flexibility is needed, etc.
Its a fun, flexible utility option that is not meant to be hyper offense or super game changing. So, some people may grab one. Others may not.
Paizo has done a fantastic job here.
As long as you don't pick a bird.
You could choose a chicken if you want a non-flying bird. ;) I mean, you're not getting flying for free just because you chose 'bird'. Otherwise, all familiar would be parrots and the Wizard's Academy would look like a Pirate convention.
I like how familiars can just be an alternate power source for a caster, or a scout and friend. Even something seemingly insignificant like letting it speak common can be big. You now have an envoy to go into rooms and talk to monsters that may or may not want to kill you (and if you want to arm it with a touch spell, so be it).
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Why even bother giving them a form at all? Except for the birds which must have "flight" as an ability, they are basically all the same because they can all have the same abilities from the same list.
They may was well just be amorphous blobs.
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My next familiar, if I ever get to play, will be a tiny blue slime with a happy face.
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You could choose a chicken if you want a non-flying bird. ;) I mean, you're not getting flying for free just because you chose 'bird'. Otherwise, all familiar would be parrots and the Wizard's Academy would look like a Pirate convention.
I don't know. I didn't see this in 1e with Greensting Scorpions(and the other initiative boosting Familiars, so I don't think we'd see it in 2e.
However, as it is now, the iconic Raven familiar is pretty much gone because it lacks flexibility.
Get Improved Familiar if you want that.
The iconic cat familiar works fine. As does the iconic rat familiar.
If anything, more options are viable now and there are fewer go-to options.
Thats a good thing in my book.
I like how familiars can just be an alternate power source for a caster, or a scout and friend. Even something seemingly insignificant like letting it speak common can be big. You now have an envoy to go into rooms and talk to monsters that may or may not want to kill you (and if you want to arm it with a touch spell, so be it).
I'm not sure a talking animal with negatives to diplomacy rolls is going to be more effective than tying a letter to a brick. Sending it in armed with a spell sounds cool as well, but isn't this strictly worse than using the reach spell feat?
It is a cute RP thing though.
Something I loved in the last edition was the eldritch guardian fighter archetype. Paired nicely with a Mauler familiar in combat. I'd like to see something like this in the new edition.
Get a bird familiar, amputate its wings. Easy, now your familiar doesn't have a baked in disadvantage because of its species.
Get a bird familiar, amputate its wings. Easy, now your familiar doesn't have a baked in disadvantage because of its species.
Silly, there's no such thing as amputation, that would require rules for attacking specific limbs. Stabbing your familiar over and over won't deprive it of flight, you'll just piss off the local druid's chapter.
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For a bird, you want a kiwi: little spotted kiwi, 10" tall, 2-4 pounds and flightless.
I'm not sure a talking animal with negatives to diplomacy rolls is going to be more effective than tying a letter to a brick. Sending it in armed with a spell sounds cool as well, but isn't this strictly worse than using the reach spell feat?
Familiars have a range of 1 mile, whereas the Reach feat is only 30 ft. Plus, the sheer confusion from an enemy getting hit by Leng's Sting with a kitten is worth it!
Also, doing the math? A familiar for a spellcaster with an ability flaw will have a better bonus than its master for untrained check in its flawed ability.
For a bird, you want a kiwi: little spotted kiwi, 10" tall, 2-4 pounds and flightless.
Penguin is a bird, and should have no flight but a swim speed, no?
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I'm not sure a talking animal with negatives to diplomacy rolls is going to be more effective than tying a letter to a brick. Sending it in armed with a spell sounds cool as well, but isn't this strictly worse than using the reach spell feat?
Familiars have a range of 1 mile, whereas the Reach feat is only 30 ft. Plus, the sheer confusion from an enemy getting hit by Leng's Sting with a kitten is worth it!
Also, doing the math? A familiar for a spellcaster with an ability flaw will have a better bonus than its master for untrained check in its flawed ability.
The familiar touch spell delivery ability requires that the spell be delivered that turn. They spend their two actions to move and attempt to deliver the spell, and if they fail to do so, the spell has no effect.
Agreed on the second part I guess, if your party is entirely dwarves without training in diplomacy, then a familiar will have 1 better bonus to diplomacy than the dwarves.
I'm getting quite a chuckle reading through this thread while remembering the D&D 3.5 familiars.
In all of my time playing 3.5 I don't think any wizard/sorcerer character ever actually created a familiar. None of us could ever see them as anything other than a liability.
I'm getting quite a chuckle reading through this thread while remembering the D&D 3.5 familiars.
In all of my time playing 3.5 I don't think any wizard/sorcerer character ever actually created a familiar. None of us could ever see them as anything other than a liability.
It all depends on how you use them. The primary familiar roles are: scout, messenger, combat (flanking buddy, touch delivery, and bomber), and mount. (If your familiar isn't doing any of these things, then it's a pocket familiar: you have it for the bonuses it gives you and largely forget about it otherwise, i.e., it's always "in your pocket"). The scout and messenger roles have the least risk, the combat roles carry the most, and the mount depends on whether or not your GM targets mounts. :)
You choose your familiar based on what role you want it to fill, and there are also archetypes and feats in the Familiar Folio that let you specialize.
I'm sorry if this has been explained somewhere else, but under Master Abilities, the first two regard preparing an additional cantrip and spell, with the requirement of being able to prepare cantrips/spells. Does this mean sorcerers are ineligible for this? Or does the mention of daily preparations under the heightening descriptions mean... preparing? And if sorcerers CAN take these abilities, does that mean an additional cantrip known and an additional spell slot?
For a bird, you want a kiwi: little spotted kiwi, 10" tall, 2-4 pounds and flightless.Penguin is a bird, and should have no flight but a swim speed, no?
The point is to get a bird that isn't FORCED to spend an ability on flight: As such, picking up a bird that is forced to take a swim speed is a lateral move. ;)
I think the Familiar rules could use just a little less abstraction. Something like the rules for a summoner's eidolons, with a list of reasonably useful base forms and modifications, would be more fun.