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Post APG I'm beginning to think that familiars might actually be mechanically good and worth more than we think as part of the Witch kit due to the Familiar Master archetype and Witch feats allowing 6-10 abilities on a familiar (more if you select a specific familiar with a feat that reduces their cost) and some new spells and familiar abilities.
Let us count the ways.
1. Remote observation drone. There is now a master familiar ability (share senses, 1 minute of every 10), spell (familiar's face, level 3, duration sustained), and Witch feat (Familiar's Eyes, level 12, indefinite once activated) that allow you to see through your familiar's eyes. The spell and the Witch feat allow you to control the familiar, not just passively observe, so you can direct it and even talk (through mental relay with the feat, directly with the spell) or act through it.
2. Remote offensive drone. The familiar master archetype has the Familiar Conduit metamagic, which allows you to cast a spell and use the familiar as the point of origin as long as you have line of effect to it. Combine with the sense abilities and you can use this to attack things in a room or down a cross corridor that you can't see directly, or outside you can have your familiar fly over enemies who are screened from you by terrain features and spell bomb them from the air. It might draw fire, but you have more durable familiar features than before and if you're a Witch you get it back the next day. (Edit: Familiar's Face has to be sustained and the metamagic requires its own action, so the Witch is the only one who can do this pretty easily and then only at level 12+, although Familiar's Face plus Cackle will let them pull it off as well. That's probably for the best.)
3. Trap trigger/reaction trigger/HP sponge/decoy. Between tough (extra 2 HP per level, a 40% increase!), damage avoidance (evasion on a save), Resistance (pick two energy types), and Lifelink (take a damaging blow that would reduce your familiar to 0 HP) your familiar can be made pretty survivable if you send it into danger to deliberately draw fire. Combine these with flight and speed for the drone options if you expect it to take fire. Focused Rejuvenation also allows your familiar to heal a bit every time you refocus if you don't have enough resources to otherwise heal it. Master's Form and some obfuscation can make the familiar look like a legitimate target on the field if you want to divide enemy attention.
4. Remote delivery/negotiation. With Familiar's Face or Familiar's Eyes you can continuously see and talk through your familiar, allowing you to negotiate with dangerous foes without putting yourself at risk. With the above damage mitigation options, your familiar might be able to escape if things go wrong. For delivery, there's the Thoughtful Gift spell, which when heightened allows you to teleport an item of L bulk to the hands of someone you know well a mile away. Master's Form can help provide the illusion that someone is negotiating directly with you if you apply some disguise or magic to the problem.
5. Scroll/wand/potion/bomb/elixir feeder. The Valet ability allows a familiar in your space to twice draw and place in your hand items that you're wearing. If you give it Valet and Independent I believe it can do this one per round without a command from you, although your GM might reasonably expect you to give it speech and provide guidance ahead of time on what you want when. So drink two potions per round with only one of your actions to draw them, drop a used wand to have a new one placed in it, move and have a scroll placed in your hands just when you need it without drawing it, effectively quickdraw two daggers, darts, or bombs, etc.
6. Touch spell delivery. This standby from the CRB is safer now with enhanced familiar toughness and healing capability, as well as a next day replacement for Witches.
7. Skills. You can give it skills equal to level + casting attribute, allowing some reasonable attempts at things that don't require training. A +5 intimidate check, twice, at 1st level? Why not. A situational Lore for the day? It should be able to recall the basics of whatever the problem is you're currently facing. A rune witch wanting to use the second target of Discern Secrets to give the familiar a free knowledge check? It might know something about a weaker opponent facing you while you recall knowledge about something more dangerous. Partner in Crime also gives it a special reaction to auto succeed on Deception/Thievery aid checks for you.
8. Spellcasting booster. All the old CRB options of a cantrip, extra spell, and extra focus point are still there, plus there's an option to have it replenish an innate ancestry spell or cast itself one spell per day 5 levels below your max. If you're only using it for this sort of passive boosting there's the 1st level Pet Cache spell to stick it in to keep it safe and forget about it for 8 hours.
9. Party spellcasting booster. The Familiar Mascot ability from Familiar Master archetype allows your familiar to share out the master abilities, like focus replenishment, spell replenishment, bonus slot, extra reagents, etc. A martial who picks up an ancestral familiar and dabbles a bit in the FM archetype can share out these abilities that he doesn't need but may be more useful than some extra movement or durability.
10. Specific Familiar options. With enough feat investment these are a way to get extra abilities, most of which are fine, in a package deal and also 1-2 unique ones. The faerie dragon gives a debuff breath weapon once per hour, the imp a reroll one per day (and self invisibility once per hour), and the spellslime can smell your tradition of magic (sorry, illusionist tradition buddies), double focus rejuvenation healing, and immunity to precision/crit damage at the cost of low AC, which I think is a pretty good tradeoff.
For all the reasons you said, I'd agree. A familiar - including the primary class feature familiars with extra abilities - is extremely appealing now.
Post APG I'm beginning to think that familiars might actually be mechanically good and worth more than we think as part of the Witch kit due to the Familiar Master archetype and Witch feats allowing 6-10 abilities on a familiar (more if you select a specific familiar with a feat that reduces their cost) and some new spells and familiar abilities.
Let us count the ways.
1. Remote observation drone. There is now a master familiar ability (share senses, 1 minute of every 10), spell (familiar's face, level 3, duration sustained), and Witch feat (Familiar's Eyes, level 12, indefinite once activated) that allow you to see through your familiar's eyes. The spell and the Witch feat allow you to control the familiar, not just passively observe, so you can direct it and even talk (through mental relay with the feat, directly with the spell) or act through it.
2. Remote offensive drone. The familiar master archetype has the Familiar Conduit metamagic, which allows you to cast a spell and use the familiar as the point of origin as long as you have line of effect to it. Combine with the sense abilities and you can use this to attack things in a room or down a cross corridor that you can't see directly, or outside you can have your familiar fly over enemies who are screened from you by terrain features and spell bomb them from the air. It might draw fire, but you have more durable familiar features than before and if you're a Witch you get it back the next day. (Edit: Familiar's Face has to be sustained and the metamagic requires its own action, so the Witch is the only one who can do this pretty easily and then only at level 12+, although Familiar's Face plus Cackle will let them pull it off as well. That's probably for the best.)
3. Trap trigger/reaction trigger/HP sponge/decoy. Between tough (extra 2 HP per level, a 40% increase!), damage avoidance (evasion on a save), Resistance (pick two energy types), and Lifelink (take a damaging blow that would reduce your familiar to 0 HP) your familiar can be made...
That's a really nice analysis.
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You forgot cuddlebunny.
I forgot Final Sacrifice.
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You forgot cuddlebunny.I forgot Final Sacrifice.
You MONSTER!
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You MONSTER!You forgot cuddlebunny.I forgot Final Sacrifice.
Free action: Cackle!
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Not really.
They're way too restrictive and weaksauce for them to be at all effective. 5 HP per level (worse than an 8 Constitution Elf Wizard), no skills, AC and Saves equal to your own, no ability scores, can't hold/carry anything without encumbering itself at all times, still very easily targeted by enemies, and unless you're a Witch, is easily lost and cripples you for a week or more as a result.
You can add all the special abilities and powers to them all you want. They are still broken and unplayable at a fundamental level that makes them not appealing. The theorycraft shenanigans described above are highly unlikely to not be replicated in actual gameplay.
1. Enemies can very easily see through the familiar, as they are fairly easy to identify compared to other creatures, and when they do, that familiar is toast. RIP your focus powers and master abilities for free spells and focus points.
2. This does nothing to make your familiar immune to the spells you're casting. In short, you're turning your familiar into a suicide bomber. Hilarious, but pointless and also insensitive to the familiar's life.
3. You can have Summon Monster do the same thing. Have a series of traps? Just summon a Troll or another creature with Fast Heal/Regeneration, and send it through. The fact that a lower level Summon spell can replicate what you want a Familiar to do, and do it better than what said Familiar can do, defeats this purpose too.
4. You need much more than just these couple powers to make this work. As a Witch it's more viable since it can just respawn at next preparation. Wizards, not so much.
5. There are magic and mundane items that do just this for you. Plus, considering familiars can't actually carry anything since they do not have a carrying capacity, means this is actually broken and doesn't work.
6. This was invalidated by the time the Core hit, since Reach spell is a thing. If you're going to command your Familiar to run up and hit it for you, why not just use a Reach spell and avoid Attacks of Opportunity altogether? They're more common than you think.
7. There are some useful things with this, I will admit. But again, it's still pretty weak considering the source it's coming from. Outside of Intimidate and maybe a knowledge check monkey, it's pointless for Familiars to have skills since again, they're weaksauce. Plus, this doesn't work when familiar goes boom or poof.
8. A single spell at 3-4 levels below your highest isn't much. By the time it pays off you're well over half your career, and the best thing it gives you is a free Haste, Fear 3rd, or Improved Invisibility. Free cantrips will be pointless too when you have them all memorized, and focus points are only as good as your investment in them. Investing in familiars = not really investing in focus powers, making this investment likewise pointless.
9. There are better feats for those types to take that will be a bigger help to the party than a deadweight like a familiar. Like an Animal Companion. You know, the thing that a Familiar wants to be but can't.
10. The "unique" familiars are both rarity gated and also not worth their added cost. You can't realistically expect to acquire or even work towards acquiring these, which means building towards them or relying on them isn't a wise plan of character creation.
Good spells for offensive drone would be sustained damaging ones. Cast, and on subsequent rounds sustain while ordering your familiar to run away. I like focus spells in general as well so you can do this trick with the master ability to view senses on the same ten minute clock. By the time the combat and your refocus is up, you can do it again.
Interstellar Void: Sustain for a minute to get 10x1d6 cold damage per spell level. An Oracle with an owl familiar or an albatross or similar seems like a cool idea. Pronouncing doom from a distance and not being up in people's faces with
Malicious Shadow: The obvious witch option, a lot of your attacks will miss but you sure can make a lot of them.
Curse of Death: Another witch option, but the ability to end it early with enough saves might make it subpar against foes with decent fort saves.
Vigilant Eye: This one is taking spying options a bit further, you send your familiar, looking innocent, to a location then cast this to keep it indefinitely under observation.
Steal Shadow: For our shadow sorcerer buddies.
Of course you're probably just going to wall of stone the group in half before your party moves in to finish them off.
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they have use, theya re not amazing.
given the DM's i have played for, ones that are not even against familiars btw, i find it better to keep them in your bag and use them as a focus/spell slot battery.
but if you want to risk losing use of most of your feats you've invested into because logic dictated the bad guy swing at the bat or badger or whatever, thats on you.
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A familiar with valet pretty much replaces quick bomber for an alchemist, and works for things that aren't bombs, assuming you have plenty of bandoliers.
Not quite. It's an action to direct your familiar, getting you two fetches. So if you're going to use two alchemical items, it saves you one action, where Quick Bomber would save you two. If you only want to attack once, though, then Valet + Independent does replace it.
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LOL, at level 13 you can have your familiar cast Animal Form if you’re absolutely determined to have it attack something.
And witch’s lesson of life makes a familiar very hard to kill between Spirit Link and Life Boost, which will fully heal a Tough familiar in 3-4 rounds. A three round action would be channel spell, life boost, and command minion. YOLO! (Not true for witch familiars.) Although of course with Spirit Link you probably heal yourself instead of your familiar.
The Valet/Independant Familiar is a no-brainer for an Alchemist. And even for casters, having the scroll you want at hand when you need it is just pure awesomeness. It removes the extra action needed to use a scroll, so scrolls are now as good as prepared spells.
valet is nice because unlike quick bomber it works on any thing you have in easy to grab containers so great for fetching and handing various other stuff to you not just bombs. Also with familiar master alchemists can finally get all the familiar boosts so you can do stuff like have nimble hands/lab assistant/reagent 1 per day and valet eventually.
LOL, at level 13 you can have your familiar cast Animal Form if you’re absolutely determined to have it attack something.
And witch’s lesson of life makes a familiar very hard to kill between Spirit Link and Life Boost, which will fully heal a Tough familiar in 3-4 rounds. A three round action would be channel spell, life boost, and command minion. YOLO! (Not true for witch familiars.) Although of course with Spirit Link you probably heal yourself instead of your familiar.
Also all witches get phase familiar so if your pet just got smacked and you have a focus point you can do a reaction to put it intangible so 5 resist to anything + immune to precision damage.
Helpful analysis! Familiars seem cool to me. And from a pure roleplaying perspective, I think they open up a lot of cool possibilities.
Speaking of familiars: are they mutually exclusive with Arcane Bond, for wizards? I read a comment somewhere that implied that, but I can't find a rule. (1st-edition thing, maybe?)
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Helpful analysis! Familiars seem cool to me. And from a pure roleplaying perspective, I think they open up a lot of cool possibilities.
Speaking of familiars: are they mutually exclusive with Arcane Bond? I read a comment somewhere that implied that, but I can't find a rule. (1st-edition thing, maybe?)
Only if you take the Wizard thesis that grants the familiar. Otherwise they are independent.
Only if you take the Wizard thesis that grants the familiar. Otherwise they are independent.
Got it! Thanks.
It's not mutually exclusive, you still get Arcane Bond except it must be your familiar
A goofy familiar defense: if you're a divine witch who worships Bastet and takes a housecat as your familiar you can use Anathametic Reprisal to reaction spell attack anyone who harms your familiar.
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How is a familiar "all of your class features"?