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I can see why the dimension door spell received a debuff, but the idea that you can't take your familiar with you seems...well...awfully cold-hearted to me. Shouldn't familiars be an exception to the rule?
I would make them so... mostly.
They'd have to be in pet rock mode I'd think.
They'd have to be in pet rock mode I'd think.
I don't know what that means. Like, in your pocket or on your person or something? (If that was your meaning, then I agree.)
They'd have to be in pet rock mode I'd think.I don't know what that means. Like, in your pocket or on your person or something? (If that was your meaning, then I agree.)
Exactly, if they aren't a combatant during this hypothetical fight, and they're chilling in your backpack, why not let dimension door work?
I they're out scouting/delivering touch spells, probably gonna need to spend some actions telling them to hang on.
Sort of against the rules I guess, but not really a big deal with published options.
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They'd have to be in pet rock mode I'd think.I don't know what that means. Like, in your pocket or on your person or something? (If that was your meaning, then I agree.)
"Pet rock" is my term for a familiar that is literally a rock and so you can't be forced to spend your familiar bonus point giving it flight and darkvision because you wanted a bat. Instead its a rock that gives you spell battery and familiar focus and is a rock.
Can we perhaps rules lawyer our way out of this dilemma?
While a familiar is indeed described as a mystically bonded creature, the question is, is it a creature in the sense of the rules?
creature An active participant in the story and world. This includes monsters and nonplayer characters (played by the Game Master) and player characters (played by the other players).
As it also has the minion trait and will never act on its own unless given commands or to preserve itself, a case could be made that a familiar is indeed no active participant in the story and world.
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Yeaaaaah, I don't think there's a way to rules-lawyer yourself into familiars not being creatures.
However, I would still rule that you can bring your familiar along when you D-Door.
"Fluffy, wait out here, I will be back in a bit" is far more valuable for the familiar's lifespan than any spell.
How is waiting outside the door alone any less dangerous?
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No, because this is a case where I'd cite the First Rule and move on with my life.
No, because this is a case where I'd cite the First Rule and move on with my life.
Is the First Rule not to take a familiar? Or was that 'no one talks about fight club'?
No, because this is a case where I'd cite the First Rule and move on with my life.Is the First Rule not to take a familiar? Or was that 'no one talks about fight club'?
1. The pen is mightier than the GM. :P
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I am against this extreme RAW reading that punishes PCs. Just don't do it. Hand waive it. The RAW police aren't going to drag you off to prison for moving your familiar with you when you dimension door. the game is supposed to be fun.
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The first rule of Pathfinder is that this game is yours. Use it to tell the stories you want to tell, be the character you want to be, and share exciting adventures with friends. If any other rule gets in the way of your fun, as long as your group agrees, you can alter or ignore it to fit your story. The true goal of Pathfinder is for everyone to enjoy themselves.
I guess when a wizard uses Dimension Door to get out of a jam, he's just going to have to get used to say "I'm sorry little one" before poofing out.
And if the familiar is a creature with eyes he has to also get used to the possibility that his familiar might feel betrayed seeing his master reappear off in the distance.
That could be awkward if it gets out of the fight and gets back to you.
One of the devs made note of this issue several months back on the boards. He expressed a visceral response himself about how it needs to be addressed, even rectified if possible, though he refrained from making any rulings or even suggestions.
But for now, at least in PFS2, life's rough if your master likes Dim-dooring to flee dangerous situations.
The one familiar I had, I often had flee beforehand! Gave the cat wings more for safety (and cuteness) than any advantage to me.
Would not have gotten for other than RPing reasons.
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extreme RAW reading
It's not really 'extreme' though.
D door takes all of your inventory with you. Put it into your inventory and poof away with fluffy in tow
Edit: whoopsie! Forgot the weird cancellation clause at the end. Wow, they really did seal up this spell nice and tight, didn't they
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I am against this extreme RAW reading that punishes PCs. Just don't do it.
Extreme? It's pretty straight forward reading: "If this would bring another creature with you—even if you're carrying it in an extradimensional container—the spell is lost." It even points out extradimensional container so great pains have been taken to avoid someone trying to find loopholes for it. IMO, the extreme reading is that familiars aren't creatures...
What GM is going to waste any time tracking a couple of ogres trying to chase down a cat familiar when the PC's are fighting an ancient dragon?
What tracking? the familiar can't attack back [has do damage to roll] so it's just free damage from the ogres... Even if there isn't any damage, there isn't a guarantee it's still there after a min: "animals follow their instincts" so that cat might have gone off to chase some rats down a corridor somewhere...
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Dimension door doesn't force you to leave your familiar to die, the fact that you didn't think through the implications when the party rogue said "I think the next room is the dragon's lair" is what forced your wizard to leave his/her familiar to die.
I also think that "left for dead" and "three rounds of movement from where you were to where you are" aren't exactly the same thing.
extreme RAW readingIt's not really 'extreme' though.
But it is though.
1) it is an absurd effect2) ignoring it does nothing to boost a PCs power
3) enforcing it just punishes the PC
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However, I would still rule that you can bring your familiar along when you D-Door.
Thank you for your kindness and generosity.
*Runs off to find a way to abuse it.*
In case it wasn't clear, this was meant to be a tongue in cheek forewarning.
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The RAW is clear, familiars get left behind. I wouldn't call it extreme at all to interpret it that way, and even well-meaning GMs or players reading the rules would easily come to that conclusion. They could even imagine that it's specifically to prevent some kind of trickiness that they can't see.
The fact that myself and many GMs would modify it to allow bringing the familiar along doesn't mean that people who run it as written are out of line or unfair.
There's no point in trying to make people who have a problem with a rule feel bad about not house-ruling along with everyone else.
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"Should?"
Interesting.
/insert 2cp
I think it's a bit silly to enforce having them left behind, possibly quite limiting but I don't know if this was intentional or not, likely it wasn't something that was considered much like... well lots of Familiar stuff.
It is what it is for the time being though.
I'd like to see a whole Companions Chapter in the APG to be quite honest with tons of new options, rules, and clarifications for ALL manner of Companions be the Familiars, Animal Companions, Mounts, Bonded Animals, or even Hirelings/Followers. Give me a nice MEATY 48 page Chapter on this stuff. Throw in rules to help better define all of these creatures, the Minion and Mounted Traits, and give us statblocks for everything. I think new options for Familiar and Master Benefits would probably be the best "Silo" for them to add fixes to these things as well as a universal Improved Familiar General Feat which can GRANT a proper statblock and combat functions to the previously ill-defined "base" Familiar. Even unique Magic Items that can help solve these problems which are affordable by the time you can cast Teleportation effects.
Just my opinion though.
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An idea, maybe:
A bit of errata or new rule that says that you can carry your familiar with you and, while being carried in such a way, you can choose to treat your familiar as an object (of L bulk) instead of a creature.
That fixes both the DD problem and the 'a random fireball killed my familiar' problem simultaneously.
But it is though.
Nope.
Your points are reasons why it's probably a good idea to houserule. But to call something an "extreme reading" of the rules suggests that the interpretation itself is tortured or malicious. That simply isn't the case. We're asking about taking a second creature along with you and the spell goes out of its way to shut that down.
It's a good houserule, but the RAW is pretty straight forward too.
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extreme RAW readingIt's not really 'extreme' though.But it is though.
1) it is an absurd effect
2) ignoring it does nothing to boost a PCs power
3) enforcing it just punishes the PC
That's all pretty subjective. The spell, on the other hand, is very clear- it only moves the caster.
There are two very easy options:
if you don't want the spell to fail, don't have a familiar.
or
if you don't want to leave the familiar behind, don't take the spell.
Given how hard Dim-Door was hit with the nerf bat for 2e (much shorter range, line of sight only), it isn't exactly a go-to spell anyway. There are much better spell options for mobility, several of which are 1st level.
One of my gaming groups always worried about clauses like that disrupting their gut biome. Same group also proposed various dimdoor tricks for disinfecting people of plague/diseases.
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1. Be a necromancer with an undead familiar
2. Kill your familiar
3. Use Dimension Door
4. Raise your familiar
There, problem solved! ^^
1. Be a necromancer with an undead familiar
2. Kill your familiar
3. Use Dimension Door
4. Raise your familiarThere, problem solved! ^^
Just add a week of downtime for a new familiar into the cost of casting the spell. ;)
1. Be a necromancer with an undead familiar
2. Kill your familiar
3. Use Dimension Door
4. Raise your familiarThere, problem solved! ^^
Or:
1. Command Animal "When you see me over there, run to me as fast as you can"
2. Use Dim Door
3. Wait three rounds
1. Be a necromancer with an undead familiar
2. Kill your familiar
3. Use Dimension Door
4. Raise your familiarThere, problem solved! ^^
Or:
1. Command Animal "When you see me over there, run to me as fast as you can"
2. Use Dim Door
3. Wait three rounds
Well if the familiar can climb, fly, swim, ect to the location [the spell isn't limited to flat ground] and isn't hit by a random area attack and the wizard spends an action every round to command it to keep running...
]Well if the familiar can climb, fly, swim, ect to the location [the spell isn't limited to flat ground] and isn't hit by a random area attack and the wizard spends an action every round to command it to keep running...
Which is the same situation you'd be in if you commanded a familiar to flee combat in a situation where you don't use dimension door.
]Well if the familiar can climb, fly, swim, ect to the location [the spell isn't limited to flat ground] and isn't hit by a random area attack and the wizard spends an action every round to command it to keep running...Which is the same situation you'd be in if you commanded a familiar to flee combat in a situation where you don't use dimension door.
Why would you EVER let your familiar out of it's backpack: in there it can't be targeted:
Line of Effect
Source Core Rulebook pg. 304
"You usually need an unobstructed path to the target of a spell, the origin point of an area, or the place where you create something with a spell."
Your backpack blocks attacks like a champ. You're just wasting your time letting a fimiliar out and spending actions on it... :P
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The spells dimension door and teleport have been sort of pointlessly broken since (at least) 3.0e The number of creatures you can take with have always started at fewer than a party, and have always been worse for groups with familiars and animal companions.
The number of different ways we've dealt with that at our table are... many. Everything from cheap paired magic items that let a familiar "bond" with someone wearing the other half to hand-waving pets to having people climb into extradimension spaces... we've had to work around the spells wording.
Paizo chose not only to not fix that with 2nd edition, but effectively make it worse in some cases.
Shrug.
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I can see why the dimension door spell received a debuff, but the idea that you can't take your familiar with you seems...well...awfully cold-hearted to me. Shouldn't familiars be an exception to the rule?
To be fair, there were rules that allowed this to happen in PF1, something called Shared Spells if I remember. This was a feature of Familiars, Animal Companions, etc., which let their "owners" apply spells cast by themselves onto themselves to also apply to them if they were in the same square or adjacent to the "owner."
Conveniently, they are absent in PF2. Sounds to me like this was an intended consequence of having a familiar/animal companion IMO. Especially since they went out of their way to describe familiars as not having ability scores, not benefitting from item bonuses of any kind, and so on, with animal companions having their own rules separate from familiars.
With APG coming around the corner soon-ish, that Witch better have thought through using Dimension Door and leaving their familiar to die being a worthwhile sacrifice to live and fight another day (with what little power they can muster afterward). Also, inb4 "They're going to fix those shenanigans," because even if they are supposedly going to (which I doubt they reasonably can without drastically changing Familiar rules as they stand), Witch now becomes an exception to the general rule, which creates a whole slew of other problems.
If you ask me, Darksol, all familiars really need is clarification on carrying capacity and expanded familiar options (such as a bond that allows spell sharing and the like).
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Dimension door doesn't force you to do anything.
Without dimension door, your options are
1# Stay with your familiar
2# Move away and hope your familiar can catch up in time
With it, your options are
1# Stay with your familiar
2# Move away and hope your familiar can catch up in time
3# Move away and hope your family can catch up in time, but with magic
You still have options 1# and 2#, so you are not being forced to leave your familiar to die.
(Additionally, unless your familiar has the spell delivery ability, there is little reason for it to be in the combat area in the first place, unless you got ambushed or forgot to tell them to hang back)
But, in response to the more constructive version of the question "Should dimension door be changed to allow a familiar to be brought with you" I would say yes, as it seems pretty harmless to allow a familiar you travel with the character.
Additionally, I would propose an action that repositions your familiar to your side as a free addition to the familiar rules (with the proviso that anything the familiar is carrying is left behind). I think that spending an action to avoid a week of downtime is a pretty fair trade.
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Dimension door doesn't force you to do anything.
Without dimension door, your options are
1# Stay with your familiar
2# Move away and hope your familiar can catch up in time
This isn't quite true with #2. A familiar confined to your backpack moves with you as you move so there is no need to catch up. Dimension Door creates a difference as it then forces the familiar to move to you which wastes your actions to grant it movement where is different movement spell, like fly, allows you to bring it along without any actions wasted on the familiar.
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A bit more seriously, we can guess why Dimension Door got hit so hard with the nerfbat. DDing in a bunch of martials into melee range of an enemy, followed by them all taking a full attack, was basically the most damaging spell a wizard could cast.
Pathfinder 2 familiars have been drastically revised, to be basically "don't think about making it fight". It's very far from being an independently acting warm body on the field. It's stats are derived from yours but weaker, and it feeds off of your actions. Under those circumstances, I think it's reasonable to treat it more as an extension of your own body and allow it to come along when you use DDoor as long as it's within touch range.
Note that if we do get (but I don't expect to get) more combat tuned familiars, that those wouldn't be kosher to DD along.
If you ask me, Darksol, all familiars really need is clarification on carrying capacity and expanded familiar options (such as a bond that allows spell sharing and the like).
They also need the ability to actually attack on their own (can't defend themselves against threats if they can't actually attack anything, basic math principles would suggest familiars automatically die due to a lack of ability to change that probability). Plus have their own ability scores, since as you said, other rules depend on them.
Expanding familiar options which cost ability slots would only work if they provide a form of power creep both parties (Paizo and the consumer) find acceptable. Improving the base Familiar would be more ideal, but it's really a problem of player versus developer expectations. In short, the developers expectations aren't "Let the familiar be a significant part of your combat" like it potentially has been in PF1.
I miss the days when familiars could suplex same-level goblins into submission and participate against weaker enemies so that the heroes could appropriately face the bigger badder enemies without distraction. This is an appropriate way both Familiars and Animal Companions could be meaningful parts of the story without taking away from the heroes' spotlight. But overcautiousness of nerfing things to the ground when other rules keep things in check ruined that concept.
One of my gaming groups always worried about clauses like that disrupting their gut biome. Same group also proposed various dimdoor tricks for disinfecting people of plague/diseases.
I guess you should also become very very hungry after casting dimension door, since you are leaving back all your dinner...
One of my gaming groups always worried about clauses like that disrupting their gut biome. Same group also proposed various dimdoor tricks for disinfecting people of plague/diseases.I guess you should also become very very hungry after casting dimension door, since you are leaving back all your dinner...
That's not what your gut biome is.