Quick question about Familiars as plot drivers

[Dragonflight]

I'm building a winter witch for a game I'm going to be playing in. I've got the character built, but part of her backstory is that she's the daughter of a dawn piper who spent a night with an arctic shaman, thus creating this girl who's got a natural affinity for winter and built-in resistances to cold.

All that is well and good. But she needs a familiar. Despite dawn pipers being in the list of possible familiars, the GM feels that the class is just too overpowered to be an acceptable familiar. So, now I'm stuck for ideas. The character needs more than just a pet creature. This entity is her link to her mother back in the fey dimension, and gets instruction from her.

I'd originally come up with the idea that part of her task was to help the dawn pipers filch pieces of the material plane, sending them back to the fey realm to stitch together something for themselves. But without access to the dawn piper creature, this gets harder. She was created by the piper to advance their ambitions and act as their agent. The familiar needs to be an essential element in that chain.

Anyone have any ideas?

[Leitner]

Well, a couple of questions. Do you mean this dawn piper? https://www.aonprd.com/MonsterDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Dawn%20Piper
I assume you must as it is a fey that seems to work for your theme.

Where do you see the dawn piper is on the list on possible familiars? I don't see it in either the base familiars or the improved familiar list.

I would agree with your GM that the dawn piper is egregiously overpowered for a familiar. Even the creatures under the improved familiar feat are mostly CR 2ish. Not to mention how unbalanced it would be at level 1 to have a creature with a 6d6 aoe attack every 1d4 rounds. That is so far past broken that the term does not do justice to the concept.

That being said, if all you are after is the creature for plot reasons I don't think it would be hard to just grab any random familiar and ask your GM if you could reskin it to be a "dawn piper". Heck you could even make it a figment familiar and pretend when it is gone that it has disappeared to the first world for new orders or what not.

EDIT: I know witches can't normally get a figment familiar. But if we are already doing some modifications this doesn't seem implausible to me.

[Azothath]

seems like you have diverted from RAW.

Familiars are a feature of the witch class and a liability at mid to high levels. The best thing to do is to use an archetype to make them extra HPs and never bring them out. You are probably thinking about taking the Improved Familiar feat at 5 or 7th level.

At 1st level you might use Familiar options artic fox or ermine.

It is your GMs choice on how to drive a plot. Having a familiar as an authorian source isn't unknown.

[Dragonflight]

Thanks for the suggestions! The game adapted the Forgotten Realms, so it's probably safe to say it's deviating somewhat from PFS-standard gameplay.

That said, the GM loved the idea of the figment familiar. We've adapted the character so that she's like Drusilla from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She's got this exotic pet-thing, which isn't a recognizable creature, demonstrates unusual movement abilities (because it's a projection of her imagination, and doesn't have to limit itself entirely to what's actually possible, right?) And she treats it like a cross between a favored pet and a divine messenger of her extraplanar fey mother.

But since no one ever actually *sees* this extraplanar mother figure, there's no guarantee she's not just insane, and projecting her insanity in the form of the familiar. Now, since it can't store spells, this raises a whole new list of questions. Namely, where is she getting her magic from, if the thing she's playing fetch with and tying little bows on is just a figment of her imagination?

There's a lot of room to develop that kind of opportunity, so I think that's where we'll take it. Thanks again for the suggestion!

[Meirril]

/sigh. Give the witch a Stone Familiar as part of the witches initial equipment. But to use said Stone Familiar the PC has to perform an hour long ritual each day (which results in a person sized chunk of the plane immediately visibly disappearing) or she isn't able to access her spells.

People in town might not take too kindly to 3'x3' blocks of ground disappearing. Witches already have a bad reputation.

[Cevah]

You could use the feat Companion Figurine along with a Silver Raven like figurine that they don't know how to use. Instead of creating a live magical animal, it create a separate image (the figment). This way, they have a normal familiar for spells (meditating while holding the figurine), and still have the figment for its uses.

This costs a feat and a skill point, but the gain is a familiar that works as GM and Player want it. The figurine could be a legacy item from the Dawn Piper. With less handwaved rule oddities, it will be easier to mechanically use. [It is also cheaper than the stone familiar mentioned earlier.]

/cevah

[Weirdo]

Dragonflight wrote:

But since no one ever actually *sees* this extraplanar mother figure, there's no guarantee she's not just insane, and projecting her insanity in the form of the familiar. Now, since it can't store spells, this raises a whole new list of questions. Namely, where is she getting her magic from, if the thing she's playing fetch with and tying little bows on is just a figment of her imagination?

There's a lot of room to develop that kind of opportunity, so I think that's where we'll take it. Thanks again for the suggestion!

Are you looking for further suggestions for where she's mechanically getting the spells from, or is that a plot hook you and the GM are setting up as part of character development?

Not all GMs enjoy using the witch's familiar a liability, and if you don't abuse the fact that the figment is indestructable (ie don't send it into risky situations) being lenient about the mechanics in favor of story is just fine.

Especially since if the GM wants they can cause story complications for your character with this setup. :)

[Avaricious]

Improved Familiar allows you to take Sprite as your familiar, unlocking at Level 5, with another Sprite at Level 8. Winter Witch the archetype specifically states that feat can allow you to take other familiars not on its list so long as they are not fire-type. It could be a Dawn Piper in a symbolic way with the Sprites' stats, and the DM could roll with it.

The downside is the Dawn Piper you describe is beyond the scope of even this feat. The Improved Familiars typically cap out at CR2; that Dawn Piper is CR5 and not on that list, or even the Witch's base familiar list.

That's the realm of a class that has access to Animal Companions (Druid, Paladins, Rangers, Hunters, etc... heck even Wildblooded Sorcerers with Sylvan Bloodlines).

I digress. My recommendation is to invest in Improved Familiar, select the Sprite, use its stats and just call it a Dawn Piper as both are FEY and not Fire Type. This should satisfy the DM that it is balanced and still meets the qualifications for a Witch's Familiar.

This isn't PFS however (essentially: whatever that DM actually feels is within their comfort zone to run), feel free to negotiate whichever boon you can with your DM. If a player approached me with a request for a CR5 Familiar through Improved Familiar as a Tax feat, I'd let it slide so long as some other Player with a Familiar in the party doesn't get left in the dust, and I don't have to make concessions to other players with existing Animal Companions to suddenly demand their T-Rex become the direct analog with its Bestiary entry and not its Animal Companion stats (as an aside: I do believe eventually the Animal Companions actually overcomes their Bestiary equivalents, with the added benefit of being able to fit indoors).

If its flavor -let it roll!

[Mysterious Stranger]

It sounds like you want your mother as your familiar instead of it being a link to your mother. It makes more sense for the familiar to be less powerful than your mother. Take any familiar and the backstory is that it was sent by your mother. If you are starting high enough level take the feat improved familiar and get a fey themed familiar. The backstory is that when you take the feat it reveals its true form.

Fey are notorious for being tricksters so it is also possible that your familiar is actually something more powerful, but pretending to be something less powerful. In game terms your familiar grants you what it should, but in reality it is holding back its full power. This will allow you any backstory you want without giving you an unfair game advantage.