Getting the Abilities you want for your Familiar.

[The Ronyon]

I noticed that most choices of animal familiard tend to "waste" Familiar and Master Abilities.
Most tiny animals have special senses or movement abilities, so you don't have the opportunity to choose lab assistant, manual dexterity,lab assistant, speech, or kinspeech without getting Enhanced Familiar.

The solution is to find a tiny animal that can't do anything.
Can't fly, burrow, swim or climb.
Doesn't have special speed or senses.
Super bland, so you can put your magical mark on it.
A Kiwi bird is the best I have come up with.
It does use it's sense of smell to find prey, but not at any distance to speak of.

Would you let a talking Kiwi bird with "hands" at your table?
It's kinda goofy and limiting

So I'm thinking, will Alchemical Familiar allow me to make a small animal to order?
A tiny version of the master ,an imitation Sprite that is mute,a creepy baby,a copy of my head with a slug foot and that spits out extra reagents and sees in the dark,a tentacle, a floating eye...

You get the idea.
Obviously these "animals" don't exist, but the feat does say you are making them.
The more outlandish ones will draw negative attention.
For my purposes, a tiny animal that could talk and manipulate objects, but not do any thing else extrordinary, would be ideal.

What would you allow at your table?
What do anything most people would allow?

I'm hoping to be able to make a tiny and mute version of the master with Sprite wings.
Or maybe it could talk and Ill just dress it in fake wings...

[ofMars]

So familiars have to be tiny animals, and a problem I've run into is that there's only one tiny animal that has stats in the bestiary. It's a snake, and it naturally already has scent and a climb speed. In games I'm running I'm planning on changing that rule to if it has any number of the familiar abilities, it only gets one other ability, or however many more abilities if you have a way to improve your familiar. haven't had a chance to play that yet, though. I hope this will be covered in future errata

[Dragorine]

I'd be fine, as a DM, letting a player take traits away from a familiar that it has innately if it were a trait they didn't want the familiar to have. IE:Clipped raven wings. If you wish to give your raven flying in the future the wings would still be clipped...it could just fly with the use of its familiar powers.

[Paradozen]

As a GM I'm happy handwaiving the requirement to keep familiar abilities static. You are a magician, your familiar is a magical companion, neither have to be bound by the mundane. Maybe the familiar can shapechange with a special ritual. Maybe they came under your care after an injury they never fully recovered from. Maybe you are more clever than I for why the puffin can't fly.

For those with other GMs, another animal to consider is a rock desert dwelling tortoise. No swimming, burrowing, flying, super sniffer, super speed, special eyes, whatever else.

[graystone]

Rabbit/Arctic Hare: looking at the PF1 stats, it only has lowlight vision: no special move or other sight. Hedgehog too.

[Gisher]

My conversation with James Jacobs on this topic.

James Jacobs wrote:

Gisher wrote:

James Jacobs wrote:

Gisher wrote:

Are stats for familiars in here anywhere? I can't seem to find them.

They aren't in the Bestiary at all. Familiars function differently in this edition; see pages 217–218 of the Core Rulebook for rules on how they're created.

I realize that, but it seems that we do still need to know the baseline stats when picking Familiar Abilities.

CRB2 wrote:

If your familiar is an animal that naturally has one of these abilities (for instance, an owl has a fly Speed), you must select that ability.

It is pretty obvious which animals have flight, but I'm not so clear on some of the other abilities like Scent.

And do they lose their natural attacks when they become Familiars? If not then we need those stats.

The rules for creating familiars are very much intended to give the familiar's owner greater flexibility.

Taking senses as an example: All familiars have low-light vision. If you want it to have scent, that needs to be one of the abilities you grant it, whether or not a "monster" version would have scent or not. You don't get scent for free.

Moving on to movement; your familiar has either a land speed of 25 or a swim speed of 25. If you pick a hawk as a familair, it makes sense that you'd choose Land speed 25, but you don't gain flight for free. "Flier" is an ability you have to select for it from the two abilities afforded you for the day.

Familiars are based on real-world animals, so the game expects us all to use that knowledge as to whether or not a familiar can fly. You COULD build an owl familiar that couldn't fly simply by choosing two other abilities (say, damage avoidance and darkvision), but thematically, that would suggest you don't really want an owl.

Familiars don't have their own attacks. In 2nd edition, they're not intended to be combat buddies; that's the role of an animal companion, not a familiar. In time, as we expand the game, we'll eventually expand options as well, and that might include the option of giving them attacks, but as of the base game, familiars don't have attacks—again, because they're not intended to be combat buddies in that way.

So it seems that if you want a snake familiar, for example, you are free to ignore the fact that Bestiary snakes have a climb speed, a swim speed, and the scent ability.

[The Ronyon]

I was excluding the tortoise and the hare(see what I did there?) because I assumed they both would get burrowing.
They both do burrow, but not perhaps not at speeds measured in seconds.
It's nice to see flexibility at the tables.
The prevailing wisdom seems to be GM fiat in the players favor.

I'm still interested in the idea of a "custom" creature whether through Alchemical Familiar,or just because a flying snake isn't mechanically any different than a raven.
A puppet master with a marionette familiar might be first my choice.

[Fuzzy-Wuzzy]

That's a good quote, Gisher, and I like it better than RAW, but I think it falls under the oft-stated principle "JJ is not a rules guy." RAW is clear that your owl must and does have a fly speed that you must spend one of its abilities on.

[Gisher]

Fuzzy-Wuzzy wrote:

That's a good quote, Gisher, and I like it better than RAW, but I think it falls under the oft-stated principle "JJ is not a rules guy." RAW is clear that your owl must and does have a fly speed that you must spend one of its abilities on.

Yeah, an owl that doesn't fly seems pretty silly because it's an obvious gross physical ability. But if we needed to know all of the stats for common animals then you would expect them to have included such in the Bestiary. A viper has a swim speed and the scent ability, but I don't have to assume that a corn snake familiar would have those. Similarly I wouldn't think that a house cat familiar would have darkvision even though lions do.

[PossibleCabbage]

I mean, the owl familiar has to fly because "how is the owl getting around without flying- they don't walk so well". But you're fine in declaring "this particular lizard doesn't climb or swim especially well."

[Ezekieru]

Yeah, not feeling good about the limitations of the familiar having to be some type of Tiny animal, and you having to sacrifice the few precious abilities you have to use to make sure they has all of their natural abilities.

Combining that with the other more vague rules about how they interact in Exploration and Downtime modes, and I really don't wanna bother with them vs an animal companion. At least I know I can leave an animal companion alone and they'll be smart enough to go do their own thing.

Those in charge of the bigger changes in the errata should really re-address the familiar quite a bit. Maybe up the total abilities to 3 so you can have 1 more to accommodate a single required unique movement speed, or just make the need to have the animal have their natural abilities negated by the very nature of their magical selves.

[NemoNoName]

I'm going to have a tiny air-breathing Octopus, as it's obviously Magic(TM).

[mrspaghetti]

I don't remember reading that it has to be something in the bestiary. I just made one up that fit my concept, which didn't have any abilities.

I think this is being overthought. If you want something as a familiar and you don't want to choose something as an ability that's innate to it, then it just magically won't have that ability until and unless you choose that ability again. So it's a "special breed" of crow that looks exactly like a regular one but can't fly, etc. Except on days you want it to.

You don't really need to explain it, familiars are magical, as is their bond with their master.

[The Ronyon]

A gingerbread man would totally rock.
A Vancian sandestin would be nice

I suppose a raven with clipped wing feathers is the best I could hope for organized play, but that's pretty good.

[Zwordsman]

Hmm if you can "make up" familiars. Could you make a mameshiba?
because I would love to play a Leshy Alchemist, who attacks with seed pods at range,and has a mameshiba familiar. Basically I could RP the mameshiba by talking in Japanese. It'd be gibberish to the other players but my Leshy could pretend it understands the nonsense. And it'd be a good way for me to practice speaking Japanese haha.

As a sidenote...

is there a way to turn a Familiar and Animal Companion into one entity? Because that might be a fairly interesting way to get things to work for the OP's idea about restrictions on abilities. Since animal companion itself provides an animal, and a familiar requires an animal.
Though they are different sizes...

But is it a possible concept? I would love that if so.

[The Ronyon]

Mameshiba is my kind if cray-cray.
Perfect for a familiar that grants extra spells and or fast focus recovery.

I wonder if a familiar could reliably make the check to Command Animal?
If a tiny familiar can command an animal for you, it increases in utility.
Command Animal is Vs. Will DC.
4 or 5 seems to the about average for domestic animals.
Eagles and giant centipedes and have a notably low Will DC of 2.
A fast talking meerkat familiar riding a trained wild boar would be hilarious.
Unfortunately, I don't think an actual animal companion can be command by anyone but their PC.
What do y'all think?

I think familiars can use all kinds of skills with your only your level as their bonus.
What skill uses have low enough DCs that having a familiar attempt them wouldn't be waste of time?
I can see them as a secondary caster for some rituals.