Can a Bird Familiar carry a bomb ?

[Shaheer-El-Khatib]

Hello everyone.

One of my player want to make an alchemist and asked me this : Could he use his Familiar to transport (and drop) bombs ?

Looking at the rules :

- The errata allow Familiar to use 2 limb as it were hands (I guess one medium hand) so it can definitely grab the bomb.

- For Tiny creatures 1 Light Bulk object is considered 1 Bulk (so the bomb is 1 Bulk for our bird).

- Tiny creatures have 1/2 the standard Bulk limitation. But since Familiar doesn't have Strengh score I can't calculate it.

In the bestiary the viper has a Strengh of -3 so I used that for my assumption.

That means the Familiar would be Encumbered at (5-3)/2 = 1 Bulk.

So with only the bomb he is not encumbered but just barely.

Can he fly ?
How would you handdle the "attack" when he let the bomb fall ?

[Fuzzypaws]

Unfortunately, familiars not having stats makes basic stuff like this difficult to adjudicate. Logically, the familiar should be able to carry the bomb and drop it, handled as a regular thrown attack from the familiar's position but without any of the bonuses or multipliers an Alchemist might get to bomb attacks. But as for its attack bonus.. *shrug*

Maybe just assume basic untrained proficiency at the Master's level with no stat modifiers. So an attack bonus of level - 2.

[Shaheer-El-Khatib]

It makes sense.

Another thing he asked : could the Familiar carries 2 bombs ?

I Said no because for what I understand about the errata is that the Familiar combine two limb to allow himself to manipulate things like he has one medium hand.

[Draco18s]

Just tried to do a little research into how much weight a crow can carry. Best I could get was a news article where a crow swooped into someone's backyard and made off with a 1.5 pound puppy.

On the idea that Bulk is 10 pounds and a Light is 0.1 Bulk, looks like a crow's carry weight is at least 1 TinyBulk.

[Fuzzy-Wuzzy]

Shaheer-El-Khatib wrote:

Another thing he asked : could the Familiar carries 2 bombs ?

I Said no because for what I understand about the errata is that the Familiar combine two limb to allow himself to manipulate things like he has one medium hand.

No, it says

update 1.1 wrote:

Page 287—In Familiar Abilities, add “Burrow Speed of 5 feet, allowing it to dig a Tiny hole” and “Can use up to two of its limbs to take manipulate actions as if they were hands”.

That is, each of the affected two appendages gets to be a Tiny hand; they aren't restricted to acting as a single Medium hand. So it could definitely carry a Light object in each hand. Whether it can carry one bomb, let alone two, depends on its carry capacity, which I have no opinion on.