What equipment can a familiar benefit from?
I started out thinking of mutagens but any item, magical or mundane, could be interesting.
Items that grant carrying capacity,attacks, defenses, spellcasting, skills or skill boosts could all be useful.
If your patron is Baba Yaga, your familiar might BE a useful item.
I like Hand of the Mage or a Lifting Belt, what would you give your familiar?
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I don't think they can benefit from anything. I'm pretty sure they're forbidden from activating items or receiving item bonuses.
There's a list of familiar/animal companion items in the CRB, page 604.
Barding, two types of collars, and some horseshoes. Companions have to invest them which requires your help and the companion has an investment cap of 2 items.
Honestly none of them seem terribly good for familiars, they really seem to be focused on Animal Companions/Special Mounts.
And the existance of ANY items designed for Familiars/animal companions means they can use items, including magical items.
There are also several abilities for familiars that let them interact and do special things - poison receptacle, lab assistant, and spellcasting.
Regardless, I'd think for using a lot of items, you'd need to give them the right abilities. Giving a familiar a "Hand of the Mage" for example - it allows casting the "Mage Hand" spell, which has Somatic and Verbal requirements for it's casting. So to use it, your familiar has to have the "Manual dexterity" and "Speech".
Your other example - "Lifting Belt", specifies that you need 2 hands when activiated, which means it still requires "Manual Dexterity" from the familiar. And, as it takes 2 actions to activate, and minions only get 2 actions when commanded, you lose a full turn of use out of it.
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I don't think they can benefit from anything. I'm pretty sure they're forbidden from activating items or receiving item bonuses.
I believe that you are correct about those limitations. Companion Items would seem to be their only options.
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They can't get item bonuses.
Familiars
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It doesn’t have or use its own ability modifiers and can never benefit from item bonuses.
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They can't activate items.
Companion Items
You might want to acquire items that benefit an animal or beast that assists you. These items have the companion trait, meaning they function only for animal companions, familiars, and similar creatures. Normally these are the only items a companion can use. Other items may qualify, at the GM’s discretion, but an animal can never Activate an Item.
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Note that the errata also limits them to Companion Items except by GM ruling.
Companion Items
You might want to acquire items that benefit an animal or beast that assists you. These items have the companion trait, meaning they function only for animal companions, familiars, and similar creatures. Normally these are the only items a companion can use. Other items may qualify, at the GM’s discretion, but an animal can never Activate an Item.
So normally they wouldn't even be able to use non-companion items that don't require activation or grant item bonuses.
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Ahh - I'd missed the errata modifications.
Ignore my above post, it's mostly wrong!
Thanks for the clarification.
Familiar Abilities are what give them carrying capacity, defenses, spellcasting, and skill boosts could all be useful.
Also, Familar Conduit, kinda.
And the companion items are all stuff you activate.