Sorry, Cuproach makes me smile. That is all.
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So the Gingerbread Witch's (Horror Adventures pg. 72)Familiar is a little baked construct, follows the rules of constructs, and can be easily replaced on the daily.
But how far does this go?If I give my dessert-themed cockroach, Cuproach, the Mauler archetype (Familiar Folio pg. 11), when it increases in size, does it gain an extra twenty HP?
What if I take one that's large sized, like a giant beheaded?
Is that thirty HP?
Hit Points: The familiar has half the master’s total hit points (not including temporary hit points), rounded down, regardless of its actual Hit Dice.
It doesn't say "and modifiers", but both the constitution bonus and the construct size bonus are part of the formula for calculating normal Hit Points. A familiar never get "normal" hit points.
This replaces speak with master and speak with animals of its kind.
It has the shape of the original animal or vermin, but its type changes to construct.
It is a construct, so it hasn't "speak with animals", as constructs aren't animal. Without that ability, it can't take the Mauler archetype.
Can I use the rules in Ultimate Magic when modifying Constructs, give it extra feats, or turn it into a nail bomb filled with sharpened candy canes, or into a ball of gingerbread arms and punch someone like thirty times?
How many Construction points your familiar has? Unless you have a way to give them to it, it has 0 points, so there is no way to purchase abilities for it.
If I take a swarm, which I think I can do with Improved Familiar, does it take longer to make a new one, and can I use the above mentioned modifications to make the swarm a size bigger?
I don't see any swarm in the list of the improved familiars.
Any help is nice, thank you kindly.
Sorry for the negative replies, but it doesn't seem to work.
Oh yeah, Diego is super on point, none of this stuff is legal rules as written, but it is hilarious.
Cuproach. :)
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So the Gingerbread Witch's (Horror Adventures pg. 72)Familiar is a little baked construct, follows the rules of constructs, and can be easily replaced on the daily.
But how far does this go?If I give my dessert-themed cockroach, Cuproach, the Mauler archetype (Familiar Folio pg. 11), when it increases in size, does it gain an extra twenty HP?
What if I take one that's large sized, like a giant beheaded?
Is that thirty HP?Hit Points: The familiar has half the master’s total hit points (not including temporary hit points), rounded down, regardless of its actual Hit Dice.It doesn't say "and modifiers", but both the constitution bonus and the construct size bonus are part of the formula for calculating normal Hit Points. A familiar never get "normal" hit points.
This replaces speak with master and speak with animals of its kind.It has the shape of the original animal or vermin, but its type changes to construct.It is a construct, so it hasn't "speak with animals", as constructs aren't animal. Without that ability, it can't take the Mauler archetype.
Can I use the rules in Ultimate Magic when modifying Constructs, give it extra feats, or turn it into a nail bomb filled with sharpened candy canes, or into a ball of gingerbread arms and punch someone like thirty times?How many Construction points your familiar has? Unless you have a way to give them to it, it has 0 points, so there is no way to purchase abilities for it.
If I take a swarm, which I think I can do with Improved Familiar, does it take longer to make a new one, and can I use the above mentioned modifications to make the swarm a size bigger?I don't see any swarm in the list of the improved familiars.
Any help is nice, thank you kindly.Sorry for the negative replies, but it doesn't...
Unless gingerbread witch specifically stated it loses speak with animals it still technically has it, even if it's unusable and therefore able to trade that ability away
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Unless gingerbread witch specifically stated it loses speak with animals it still technically has it, even if it's unusable and therefore able to trade that ability away
The ability is "Speak with Animals of Its Kind", the Gingerbread Familiar says: "It has the shape of the original animal or vermin, but its type changes to construct. As a construct, it gains 60-foot darkvision and construct immunities, it loses any special abilities the animal or vermin has other than movement speed, and it doesn’t provide the usual familiar benefit (for instance, a gingerbread toad doesn’t provide 3 bonus hit points)."
It is not an animal, so it hasn't the capacity to take that ability, AFAIK. You need a very questionable vision of RAW to say that a construct can take an ability that applies to animals. What kind of animal is a construct?YMMV.
Fancy familiars don't get speak with animals of their kind. Ed: specific to improved familiar - it implies but doesn't prove it's missing from a construct non-improved familiar.
OTOH many modifications to constructs don't require construction points to apply. Those probably do work on a construct familiar if you have craft construct, money and time.
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Unless gingerbread witch specifically stated it loses speak with animals it still technically has it, even if it's unusable and therefore able to trade that ability awayThe ability is "Speak with Animals of Its Kind", the Gingerbread Familiar says: "It has the shape of the original animal or vermin, but its type changes to construct. As a construct, it gains 60-foot darkvision and construct immunities, it loses any special abilities the animal or vermin has other than movement speed, and it doesn’t provide the usual familiar benefit (for instance, a gingerbread toad doesn’t provide 3 bonus hit points)."
It is not an animal, so it hasn't the capacity to take that ability, AFAIK. You need a very questionable vision of RAW to say that a construct can take an ability that applies to animals. What kind of animal is a construct?
YMMV.
it cannot use the ability but nothing states it does not gain the ability. there is nothing stopping an archetype from trading a useless ability away.
a lot of animal companion archetypes trade away multiattack for example, and thats useless to a big cat or raptor|
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Unless gingerbread witch specifically stated it loses speak with animals it still technically has it, even if it's unusable and therefore able to trade that ability awayThe ability is "Speak with Animals of Its Kind", the Gingerbread Familiar says: "It has the shape of the original animal or vermin, but its type changes to construct. As a construct, it gains 60-foot darkvision and construct immunities, it loses any special abilities the animal or vermin has other than movement speed, and it doesn’t provide the usual familiar benefit (for instance, a gingerbread toad doesn’t provide 3 bonus hit points)."
It is not an animal, so it hasn't the capacity to take that ability, AFAIK. You need a very questionable vision of RAW to say that a construct can take an ability that applies to animals. What kind of animal is a construct?
YMMV.
I think you may be confusing the source of the abilities here. The familiar becoming a construct loses special abilities the "animal" has, such as a bat's blindsense (blind sight?, I always confuse the two). However "speak with animals of its kind" isn't an animal special ability, its a special ability/class feature that comes from being a familiar.
Since the gingerbread, or any other template add on type familiar (skeletal for instance), is still shaped like the original animal, "of its kind" would refer to the shape of the beast. A little ginger rat would still be able to converse with rodents at the appropriate level.
By RAW the text specifies what abilities the familiar does lose, nothing extra; by RAI, it seems clear that the shape is what matters. Once you get into non-animal improved familiars, then the animal type or kind goes out the window.
Kind and type are synonymous. It is possible it receives the ability, but it can't use it. Its form isn't its kind.
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Yes or no, is there specifically text that states they do not gain the ability listed on the familiar table
I don't see anything that expressly says that.
GAINING the ability has nothing to do with being able to use it. You can take Twf on a one armed character for instance.
There's a lot of "logical extrapolations" but none of that is stated.
Its a construct. It gains EVERY ability on the familiar table. Even those referencing animals. It just can't utilize them. They still exist if you want to take a familiar archetype and trade them for other things
Same as the detached hand that is able to become a mauler familiar, despite not being and animal it also can trade away speak with animals with an archetype.
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Its a construct. It gains EVERY ability on the familiar table. Even those referencing animals. It just can't utilize them. They still exist if you want to take a familiar archetype and trade them for other things
I agree. Had a similar issue researched once with the Ioun Wyrd familiar [a rare, but not an improved familiar], and that construct has the Speak with Animals of its Kind ability as well, so it can take a familiar archetype that trades it away.
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Theaitetos I fail to see how. I just read the Ioun stats. It says nothing of able to communicate with others of it's kind. It understands but can't speak Common. That's it. Nothing else even implies it has this ability. So I'd like to know where you got that. It says what it is how it's made and what benefits it gives it's owner. Which for the sake of this discussion doesn't even do that.
As always this is really up to the GM to house rule it as he wishes. At my table the answer would be No.
Its a construct. Its a standard familiar. Nothing, anywhere states it doesn't gain the familiar ability.
RAW, not GM interpretation, it gains the ability. "Up to the gm" is a lazy cop out for a losing argument
In order for a familiar to not gain the speak with animals of its kind there needs to be something that specifically states it.
By your logic any vermin familiar won't gain speak with animals of its kind since it's a vermin not an animal
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Theaitetos I fail to see how.
Example: Your Fighter takes the feat Power Attack. In a battle he is hit by an effect that reduces his Strength score below 13.
What will happen:1) Will he lose the feat Power Attack, or
2) will he just lose the ability to use the feat Power Attack?
The correct answer is: 2. He still has the ability, but cannot use it.
It's the same with non-animal familiars: They gain the ability Speak with Animals of its Kind, but they cannot use it.
Archetypes don't care whether you can use an ability though, only whether you have the ability. And as such it can be traded away for an archetype that requires this ability.
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You seem very angry for some reason.
Construct
"Loses any abilities" refers to those based on type e.g. claws. Are you also suggesting that it loses multiattack?
Doesn't provide standard abilities a familiar offers to it's owner
This refers to the abilities that each familiar type gives like alertness or +1 natural armor bonus. It even gives the example of a toad familiar not giving the +3 hp.
So yes a gingerbread familiar can be a mauler
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Text can very rarely convey tone, so let me just say I mean this with zero condescension. Good for you. I think we've all been on the wrong side of a debate before, myself included, and it's always good to acknowledge it. Thank you for your admission, and your contributions to the conversation. If anything I said came across wrong, my apologies. I'll absolutely agree with you that clarity isn't always the top feature of some of Pazio's content. Nothing compared to Rifts or White Wolf though :pI have talked with a few of my gaming group. I am wrong. My opinion is Pazio should have been clearer on this point. It states it loses it's special abilities provides no bonuses to it's master and can't be improved. And it states at the very end it alters the Familiar class feature. All of that together suggests that it's too different for most archtypes offered.
Spermy why a cockroach and the archtype. I'm not judging I'm more curious.
For the familiars, "kind" is defined in the text of the ability:
Speak with Animals of Its Kind (Ex): If the master is 7th level or higher, a familiar can communicate with animals of approximately the same kind as itself (including dire varieties): bats with bats, cats with felines, hawks and owls and ravens with birds, lizards and snakes with reptiles, monkeys with other simians, rats with rodents, toads with amphibians, and weasels with ermines and minks. Such communication is limited by the Intelligence of the
conversing creatures.
For a construct familiar in the shape of a cockroach, his kind are constructs, not vermins. But the ability is limited to speaking with animals, not vermin, construct, or whatever. So the construct can't use it.
On the other hand, the posts in this thread have convinced me that RAW it receive it. It is useless, but it gets it, so it can trade it away to take the Mauler archetype.
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Might not get read but here goes. Buidling a Shaman Healer for a group. The Spirit Animal for all intents and purposes is a familiar. So the question is does it qualify for the Mauler archtype?
I think it doesn't, as the Spirit Animal has a modified form of deliver touch spells and the Mauler archetype swap deliver touch spells with Battle Form. You can't swap modified abilities to get an archetype.