pfs witch dedication

[TiwazBlackhand]

Hey I've done a few searches and all I'm finding is arguements with no answers, so is there a PFS specific ruling on how the familiar from the Witch dedication works?

Specifically "Your familiar has one less familiar ability than normal."
A> Your familiar only gets 1 ability ever unless you take a special feat.
B> It's one less than an actual Witches familiar, which gets bonuses, so 2, but it never goes up because you're not leveling as a witch.
C> It's a Witches familiar minus 1 and it does scale with your level so 2, 3 @6th, 4 @12th, & 5 @18th
D> There's no official PFS guidance and it's up to the whim of your current session GM.

[HammerJack]

Nope. No special campaign rule. (Special campaign rulings on rules questions like that are not actually very common).

[Nefreet]

TiwazBlackhand wrote:

D. There's no official PFS guidance

Yeah this would be a rules question.

The only guidance we could give you here would be to 1) bring up the question to your GM before game starts, and 2) plan your build conservatively.

[Blake's Tiger]

Having read likely the same discussion threads as you, the conclusion that I came to are this:

The default familiar has 2 abilities.
The witch class feature grants a familiar extra abilities based on witch level.
The witch dedication grants you "a familiar" (not "a familiar like a witch" or "as the witch class feature" or even "a witch's familiar"), which I interpret to mean a default familiar, and deducts one ability from that familiar.

Therefore, a familiar from the witch dedication has a paltry one ability. Trust me, I wanted to come to a different conclusion, but I could not.

So Nefreet's advice is the best: discuss it with your GM (briefly and accept their ruling) and plan conservatively. Sometimes you may have two abilities and sometimes you may have one, depending on the GM.

[Andrew the Warwitch]

Of course, unless the Witch's familiar is a powerful creature....one doesn't really put a familiar into play anyways. They are essentially just a living conduit for a witch to be able to cast their spells.

[Blake's Tiger]

I wouldn't say familiar/master abilities are useless.

[Tomppa]

Just want to point out that normally spellcasting dedications give you 2 cantrips. Witch gives you 1 which you can swap out, plus familiar with "one less ability than normal", plus one trained skill.

Wizard gives you 1 skill and 2 cantrips which you can swap out
Sorcerer gives you 2 skills and 2 cantrips
Oracle gives you 2 skills and 2 cantrips
Bard gives you 2 skills and 2 cantrips

If witch dedication gave you familiar with 2 abilities, it would be strictly better than wizard: You could pick extra cantrip as one ability, and the other whatever you like, resulting in
1 skill, 2 cantrips, and a familiar with 1 ability left. That 1 ability could be "skilled", to get level + int to a single skill of your choice per day.

If it's strictly a familiar with 1 ability, it seems more in line with the rest of the spellcasting dedications: You have less stuff overall, but you have the flexibility to pick and choose what that "last thing you get" is, on day-to-day basis, for 1 skill, 1 cantrip, and 1 free floating ability.

The answer is likely A, probably not B, and definitely should not be C.

[Cordell Kintner]

Wish they would change it to specify a specific number of abilities, rather than "one less familiar ability than normal". Just say "Your familiar gains only 1 ability, and does not gain more like a witch normally would."

But the existence of the line in Basic Witchcraft, "Your familiar no longer has one less familiar ability than normal." leads me to believe it's 1 until you get that feat, then it's two. You don't gain additional familiar abilities with the archetype.

[Blake's Tiger]

It might be intended to work with the Enhanced Familiar feat, where you'd have 3: one less than the normal 4.

[TiwazBlackhand]

Since people are talking about this again, I've flagged it as wrong forum.

If a mod sees this, please move it up to rules.