looking for a prestige class


Advice


Is there a prestige class out there that advances familiar progression and arcane spell casting? Bonus points if it gets bonus feats, good fort save, communes with spirits or counts as fighter for what feats it can take.


Eldritch Knight, maybe.


Evangelist does that for 9/10 of its levels. Eldritch Knight doesn't advance a familiar's abilities but it fits most of your other requirements.


A Witch with the Winter Witch Archetype can take the Winter Witch Prestige Class which grants full progression for all Witch Class Levels, (inc. Familiar progression), except 1 Level of Arcane Spellcasting. You can regain the most of the 1 lost Spell Level with Favoured Prestige Class and Prestigious Spellcaster if you have the Feat spaces, (this also helps out the Evangelist PrC) - you get the Caster Level progression but Prepared Arcane Spellcasters do not learn Spells from Level up from these Feats.

One awkward workaround for Familiar progression, (opening your needs up to just advancing Arcane Spellcasting) :

Familiar workaround:
* At Character Level 1 take the Feat Iron Will.
* At Character Level 3 take the Feat Familiar Bond.
* At Character Level 5 take the Feat Improved Familiar Bond -> your Familiar can have full progression (based on your H.D.).
N.B.: Selecting Human grants you a Bonus Feat that can hurry this up to Character Level 3.
N.B.: If you are in a home game that allows Templates, any that grant additional H.D. would actually advance your Familiar faster than your Class Level.
N.B.: If you only take 1-4 Levels in a PrC you can take the Feat Boon Companion to regain that lost Familiar progression - one Feat instead of three.


Ice witch would have been perfect but sadly the character is not a witch, its a spirit whisperer wizard with a 2 level dip in eldritch guardian fighter. The evangelist prc wont work unfortunately as there are no deities.


Searching quickly, I've found the Diabolist allows your familiar to continue advancing with you. The only downside to me though, is this class is evil.


Rivethum Emmisary gives your familiar spirit animal abilities, deals with spirits in general, and lvs up spellcasting.

Stargazer lvs up your familiar and spellcasting.

Daivrat and Souldrinker replaces your familiar and lvs up casting.

Chernasardo Warden (Forest Warden) gets a partial Aligned class feature, aka it advances the aligned class at select lvs. It does gain bonus feats in exchange.


Hmmm, from that list the only ones that would work would be Stargazer(if the dm thinks looking at stars doesn't need a deity) or the spirit channeler emissary the question now is which one to pick.

The stargazer boosts spells more and has some pretty good class mechanics while I really like the spirit channeler's class abilities though it loses out on casting, their animus class ability is useless and they have more difficult to obtain prerequisites but the evolution points will let me stack an aligned dr on top of the dr5/adamantine.

This is a really tough call.


Wouldn't Eldritch Knight progress the Familiar of an Eldritch Guardian Fighter? The Eldritch Knight levels count as Fighter levels, do they not?


That only works for feat prerequisites.


Stargazer is definitely associated with a deity though an obscure one - 'Deity: Must worship Pulura.' There's background in the writeup on AoN about how some anti-demon stuff in the prestige class derives from the Worldwound swallowing up Sarkoris where Pulura's worship was centered, which may mean more to Golarion experts.


VoodistMonk wrote:
Wouldn't Eldritch Knight progress the Familiar of an Eldritch Guardian Fighter? The Eldritch Knight levels count as Fighter levels, do they not?

Unfortunately not I went over that several times just to make sure since it was my first choice but alas it does not work that way :(


Maybe I am too lenient as a GM...

If you wanted to take two levels of the one Fighter archetype that gets a familiar, and 7-8 levels of Magus for 3rd level Arcane spells (with Magus Fighter Training and Imp. SpellCombat) for prerequisites into Eldritch Knight...

I would let it all stack/count, because it literally doesn't hurt anything to allow it to work how they want it to in order to get the character they want to play.

People get so caught up in the wording of things that they seem to forget this is a fantasy game.

Literally, what is so broken or unbalanced if you let the levels count as Fighter levels to continue the progression of your stupid Familiar?

It takes 5-7 levels in an Arcane spellcasting class to get 3rd level spells, anyways, so it's going to be 7-9 levels before you enter Eldritch Knight anyways.

Oh no, Spell Critical at level 19-20, with a Familiar that shares your Combat Feats, and you have SpellStrike and Imp. SpellCombat... that sounds exactly like what an Eldritch Knight is supposed to be.


BENSLAYER wrote:

One awkward workaround for Familiar progression, (opening your needs up to just advancing Arcane Spellcasting) :

There is a much less awkward method to get your familiar to advance. Eldritch Heritage[arcane] gives you a familiar with progression equal to your level-2. If you're a human you can take the trait Focused study which gives you skill focus at 1st level and several other levels. While normally you would be 2 levels behind taking two levels in fighter with eldritch guardian gives you 2 levels which stack with your level-2, effectively making it just equal to your level.

not only is this less feat intensive but you actually net some extra skill focus feats which you could spend on spellcraft or whatever else is a useful skill for your character.


VoodistMonk wrote:

Maybe I am too lenient as a GM...

If you wanted to take two levels of the one Fighter archetype that gets a familiar, and 7-8 levels of Magus for 3rd level Arcane spells (with Magus Fighter Training and Imp. SpellCombat) for prerequisites into Eldritch Knight...

I would let it all stack/count, because it literally doesn't hurt anything to allow it to work how they want it to in order to get the character they want to play.

People get so caught up in the wording of things that they seem to forget this is a fantasy game.

Literally, what is so broken or unbalanced if you let the levels count as Fighter levels to continue the progression of your stupid Familiar?

It takes 5-7 levels in an Arcane spellcasting class to get 3rd level spells, anyways, so it's going to be 7-9 levels before you enter Eldritch Knight anyways.

Oh no, Spell Critical at level 19-20, with a Familiar that shares your Combat Feats, and you have SpellStrike and Imp. SpellCombat... that sounds exactly like what an Eldritch Knight is supposed to be.

While I do like the idea, magus won't work because I need that one very specific wizard archetype for the familiar to get the ability I want for it.

As for weather or not spell critical would come into effect if EK could progress the familiar it wont, the only spells I'm planning to run are buffs and status removals no offensive spells at all since the build I'm focusing on doesn't boost mental stats much and I will likely only have a 14 base casting stat but my con will be 20.

Basically the whole point of the character is to make sure the familiar stays alive, while the familiar will be a mini 3 inch tall animal companion. Because I think the concept would be fun. There will also be party buffs in there somewhere as well.

Lantern Lodge

Evangelist?


Which familiar ability do you need? The familiar's hp, saves, skill bonuses, and maybe attack (not sure of that one off the top of my head) all advance as yours do, familiar-granting class or not.


Darigaaz the Igniter wrote:
Which familiar ability do you need? The familiar's hp, saves, skill bonuses, and maybe attack (not sure of that one off the top of my head) all advance as yours do, familiar-granting class or not.

The ability needed from the wizard archetype is dr5/adamantine and the ability I need scaling for is str scaling for the familiar I'll be taking the mauler archetype also the increased natural armor will also be nice.


Quick question would you be able to get a counterpoised familiar with improved familiar just like how you can get a fiendish or celestial familiar?


Pathfinder Starfinder Society Subscriber
BENSLAYER wrote:

A Witch with the Winter Witch Archetype can take the Winter Witch Prestige Class which grants full progression for all Witch Class Levels, (inc. Familiar progression), except 1 Level of Arcane Spellcasting. You can regain the most of the 1 lost Spell Level with Favoured Prestige Class and Prestigious Spellcaster if you have the Feat spaces, (this also helps out the Evangelist PrC) - you get the Caster Level progression but Prepared Arcane Spellcasters do not learn Spells from Level up from these Feats.

One awkward workaround for Familiar progression, (opening your needs up to just advancing Arcane Spellcasting) :
** spoiler omitted **...

Since the Evangelist prestige class does not have an explicit Spells per Day mechanic, the Prestigious Spellcaster feat is useless for getting back the caster level you lose at 1st level in that prestige class.


doomman47 wrote:
Quick question would you be able to get a counterpoised familiar with improved familiar just like how you can get a fiendish or celestial familiar?

Does anyone have any info on this?


Does 1 lv really matter when you get so much from Evangelist?


If you need only four levels out of the PrC, then Boon Companion will work with any of them.


Improved familiar options include resolute and entropic creatures as well as fiendish/celestial ones. Counterpoised seems reasonable...but I haven't seen it mentioned anywhere.

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