Animal Companions as Familiars?

[Doc Midnight]

There is no mechanism for it, but let’s say a Witch takes the Beastmaster dedication at level 2, for example - are there mechanical issues or is it overpowered to let her animal companion also serve as her familiar? So one creature is both her combat buddy and magical battery/scout. Thoughts? Has this been covered in another thread? Couldn’t find one.

[breithauptclan]

It is most assuredly a houserule. But that isn't always a dealbreaker.

There are several problems with combining the two pet types. Mostly with the stats. HP is calculated differently between the two. So are skills.

Other things are only defined fully for one type or the other. The familiar doesn't really have any attacks, while the animal companion does. The animal companion doesn't get any familiar abilities. However, some of those familiar abilities will cause problems. Mostly Skilled. If you take Skilled with a skill that the animal companion also has a defined value for, which one wins?

So probably the best bet would be to run it like a dual class character. It gets the better of whichever stats are defined for both types. Just be aware that similar to the dual class character, the animal companion familiar is going to end up more powerful than either of the two parts separately. And may have some strange synergies that cause it to be more powerful than a separate animal companion and familiar.

Some synergies that I can think of off the top of my head:

Independent would let the animal make one attack per round on its own. Since the support ability only requires one action, that could end up rather powerful.

Spell Delivery along with HP and armor could make for quite the gish.

For that matter Spellcaster on an animal companion could end up broken. Having the animal companion being the source point of a Bless spell could be more powerful than expected.

Damage Avoidance on a melee brawler could end up more powerful than expected too.

Flier. At level 1 having a flying martial character would be unexpected and unbalanced.

[Gortle]

The only animal that does qualify as both is a Corgi. It's explicitly allowed as a familiar, and as a size small canine it qualifies for an animal companion as well. Yeah but you are well into GM special creation area....

[pauljathome]

One option to consider would just be aggressive reflavouring.

Take what is mechanically nearly completely an animal companion. Say a cat.

Reflavour it from a leopard to a large Maine Coon house cat.

From a roleplaying perspective it is smarter than a normal companion.

That alone may be sufficient.

Maybe allow some minor changes. I can't see any issue, for example, with NOT increasing its size when it becomes Mature.

If you want to go a bit further, perhaps allow it, on a case by case basis, to access familiar powers. Fir example, I'd allow Speak with Master or Accompanist.

But make sure that the GM
a) Oks everything
b) everybody agrees ahead of time the GM gets to change their mind if an unexpected synergy shows up (yeah, I know this is basically always the rule but I find it avoids bad feeling to be very up front ahead of time that things may change)

[Doc Midnight]

Thanks for the replies. I mainly threw this out there as a thought experiment, both as a GM and a player. This is exactly the kind of input I was looking for.

I like the idea of trying them as “dual class” companions.

@breithauptclan, thanks for pointing out some possible OP synergies. Not sure the “flier” familiar ability really breaks anything on its own: birds are available as animal companions at level one and I think if I were to implement this at some point I’d keep the rules for familiar abilities, where if the base creature has an ability available they have to use one of their familiar abilities for that (e.g. flier). Although maybe a flying ape would be problematic… (but fun!)

@gortle, thanks for the reminder about Sprite Corgi’s.

[Krugus]

That's an easy one, give the familiar a battle form it can polymorph into a few times a day that lasts a minute when it "morphs" when it does it loses all of its familiar abilities to gain the battle form abilities.

One of the cards in my homebrew deck of many things grants a player a Familiar with a battle form or if they have a Animal Companion then the Animal Companion gains the ability to shrink and become a tiny Familiar like creature but can't attack but gains Familiar abilities instead.

[Kendaan]

Phase Familiar would also be a problem, if the AC/Familiar belongs to a witch.

[Makarion]

Gortle wrote:

The only animal that does qualify as both is a Corgi. It's explicitly allowed as a familiar, and as a size small canine it qualifies for an animal companion as well. Yeah but you are well into GM special creation area....

Apologies for the thread necromancy. I just was working through the same question for a question.

It's worth noting that druids with the Eagle domain can get a Hawk familiar, whereas druids with the Feather subdomain can get a Hawk (or any other bird) animal companion.

[QuidEst]

Makarion wrote:

Gortle wrote:

The only animal that does qualify as both is a Corgi. It's explicitly allowed as a familiar, and as a size small canine it qualifies for an animal companion as well. Yeah but you are well into GM special creation area....

Apologies for the thread necromancy. I just was working through the same question for a question.

It's worth noting that druids with the Eagle domain can get a Hawk familiar, whereas druids with the Feather subdomain can get a Hawk (or any other bird) animal companion.

That's PF1, and this is the PF2 forum, so I think you've got the answer for another situation!