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I am using a Blood Sentinel protector familiar, together with a Benevolent Armored Coat, the Anthropomorphic Animal spell and Shared Training to share a couple of teamwork feats, to greatly boost my character's AC. My character is a "tank" of some sort, having incredible AC, dealing decent damage to keep the enemies interested in trying to attack him, but not high enough to eclipse the proper damage dealers, while also protecting them. He's the rock of the party, not the one finishing off the enemies, not the one casting amazing spells, but the last one standing when everything goes bad. And to do so, he needs some help from his friend.
We are at 15th level, so the familiar has full HPs, making it quite resistant to raw damage, but it can be easily obliterated with a simple Dispel Magic. Being a Small-sized familiar, while in humanoid form and fully armored, it can easily pass for a regular cohort, so I am not afraid of it being constantly targeted with Dispel Magic, but it's the occasional blind Greater Dispel Magic, or that one divination Wizard with Greater Arcane Sight that worry me. So far it has worked perfectly, but being one Dispel Magic away from seeing my character's AC almost halved, and his whole role nullified, is not great.
Do you have any suggestions on how can I protect his familiar in these circumstances, so that it can keep protecting him?
A few considerations:
- The familiar makes great use of Aid Another to Bodyguard, so Invisibility is not really an option. Greater Invisibility would work, but it lasts very little time, it is easily fooled by See Invisibility (unless I also invest into Nondetection/Mindblank or similar spells) and I do not think it is the best option.
- Apart from Bodyguard and providing passive bonus to AC through some teamwork feats, it does not do much. The teamwork feats are, if relevant, Lastwall Phalanx, Extend the Bulwark and Harrying Partners.
- As said, we are at 15th level, we have reliable access to Cleric, Wizard and Druid spells, and my character is fairly good at UMD, so any spell can help. Preferably lasting longer than rounds per level.
- Expensive items are on the table, both because of the high level, and because this familiar is indeed integral part of my build. The familiar has humanoid shape via Anthropomorphic Animal, so magic items slots should not be a problem.
Tenacious spell by feat or by metamagic rod might help against dispels.
Mirror image (via share spells) is an effective short term defence. Stoneskin & related spells are less effective but longer term.
Alright, so there's basically three different ways that the Blood Sentinel could be dispelled.
1 Targeted Dispel on the familiar/object.
2 Targeted Dispel on the spell.
3 Greater version's Area Dispel (results in 1).
#2 is a real problem, but the other two can easily be solved by spamming cantrips on the familiar. If there's 20 other spells up and running in addition to Blood Sentinel then you only have to worry about someone specifically targeting the spell.
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Considering Protector archetyped familiar requires you to trade out Alertness, and Blood Sentinel doesn't get Alertness... not sure it matters.
Thank you for pointing that out, I had missed it. My character can still get a "normal" familiar, albeit only as a 1st level one, meaning that it would have only half of the master's HPs, but at least it would not be prone to be dispelled.
Greater Magic Aura should work against Arcane Sight in general, but not sure about the Greater version (since it doesn't specifically call it out). Alternatively, just use Greater Magic Aura to make them show up with... as many spells as you care to name (essentially just hand your GM a printout of 100 spells). That gives them a wealth of options to targeted dispel, the vast majority of which are fake.
How does Greater Magic Aura work in this case? Say that my familiar has Anthropomorphic Animal on and I use Greater Magic Aura to make it look like it is actually under the effects of Alter Self. Do both spells show up? Can I choose to hide Anthropomorphic Animal and show only Alter Self?