Hey All; I was wondering if there was any way to convert the Mauler Familiar from PF1 into PF2 with current resources (specifically for Society play). Recently had a little bit of emotional turmoil and thought making a pet-themed character might help a little with that. I understand that "Pet" builds usually use Animal Companions, but the Mauler Familiar has always held a special place in my heart from Pathfinder 1e.
Are there any options (other than going Animal Companion instead of Familiar) to have a combat-focused familiar (for other than just delivering touch spells)?
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No, combat buddy is explicitly not a familiar’s role in this edition. You can get a specific familiar with special abilities, but if you want an animal friend that makes Strikes, you want an animal companion.
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You will probably be able to better replicate the feeling of it with a Summoner multiclass instead of a familiar, but we are still a few weeks+ out from Secrets of Magic shipping. No way to get a familiar that can Strike in 2e, at the moment.
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An animal companion with a Collar of Inconspicuousness might get kinda close? If they spend most of their time as a tiny animal and become large only for fights it will look like the signature Mauler shapeshifting, it just won't use the familiar mechanics and doesn't come online until level 8.
All I'm hearing is more reasons PF1 was better than PF2, lol
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Getting tied to the name of the mechanic (familiar) rather than what you actually want to get out of it is silly.
Not really. A familiar isn't just an animal it is linked to your soul and is intelligent. It is fine that 2E decided not to have combat familiars but if it is something that someone wants to do that the system doesn't allow than obviously the system that does will look better to them.
Personally I don't like 2E familiars they are boring and do next to nothing mechanically. For people who like them thats fine but they are a pale shadow to their 1e counterparts. And I am not talking about weird 1E builds that made a familiar as good as a character.
IMHO, the change in familiar roles is at least in part due to the decision to make PF2 characters more reliant on their own powers rather than carrying around a menagerie of minions. So we have:
- familiars don't fight at all, with a few marginal exceptions like spell delivery.
- summoned critters are far lower in power than before, and cost an action every turn to keep running.
- even animal companions have suffered a modest decrease in raw combat power, and also cost an action from their master most of the time.
- all other minions (like animated objects from a ritual) are well below the level of the master, making them mediocre combattants, and cost an action to maintain.
It's almost as if PF2 were designed to force potential minion masters to give up more than they gain, and rely on their own innate powers and teamwork, rather than replacing their party members with over-powered summons and other minions.
So to the OP, if you want to have a pseudo-"mauler familiar" get a companion through Beastmaster. Anything else is a very ambitious and rather extreme homebrew which gifts you with a power that other PCs simply don't get.
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It's almost as if PF2 were designed to force potential minion masters to give up more than they gain
I agree with almost all of your post. But minions are still a quite effective use of resources for a great many characters (NOT overpowered or mandatory or even clearly optimal, but also NOT giving up more than they gain).
Its nice to have an automatic flank buddy, or a mount to give you greatly enhanced mobility, or something useful to do with your third option.
They are exactly where they should be. They're often a very attractive option, competing with other very attractive options for limited resources.
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All I'm hearing is more reasons PF1 was better than PF2, lol
If what you want is unfettered freedom to make any character, yeah, PF1 is probably better. If you want to actually play a functional cooperative game, PF2 is better. If I am reading your post correctly, you don't have a game lined up to play the character-- it is the building itself which you're gonna use to process feelings. So yeah, PF1 will probably serve you better.
That said... You're asking for a really really specific option that was published 8 years into PF1's life cycle. We are two years into PF2-- we don't even have the magus yet. I don't think it is reasonable to expect PF2 to have EVERYTHING PF1 has yet, especially when there's already something so close to the concept in existence. And there will be a soul linked option by the end of the month with the summoner.
Also, there is a 10th level spell that can turn your familiar and 9 other creatures into a herd of mastodon, which is pretty cool.
I don't think it is reasonable to expect PF2 to have EVERYTHING PF1 has yet.I don't think they're planning to put everything from 1e in 2e. They want to make some new stuff (Inventor) rather than just porting everything over and likely think a good chunk of it can be replicated close enough with various archetypes. There's also probably a chunk of content they think was a mistake the first go around.
Absolutely. But a late era splat book ability with very little blue sky between it and animal companions isn't gonna be high priority even if they do want to convert it.
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Not sure what the purpose of the Mauler Familiar would be, given that in PF1 it was just to jank access to animal companions for wizards without actually giving them animal companions. In this edition your wizard can just have an animal companion.
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The captian hit the nail on the head.
All I'm hearing is more reasons PF1 was better than PF2, lolIf what you want is unfettered freedom to make any character, yeah, PF1 is probably better. If you want to actually play a functional cooperative game, PF2 is better. If I am reading your post correctly, you don't have a game lined up to play the character-- it is the building itself which you're gonna use to process feelings. So yeah, PF1 will probably serve you better.
That said... You're asking for a really really specific option that was published 8 years into PF1's life cycle. We are two years into PF2-- we don't even have the magus yet. I don't think it is reasonable to expect PF2 to have EVERYTHING PF1 has yet, especially when there's already something so close to the concept in existence. And there will be a soul linked option by the end of the month with the summoner.
Also, there is a 10th level spell that can turn your familiar and 9 other creatures into a herd of mastodon, which is pretty cool.
Throwing the whole system out over such a small thing, with everything else it has to offer, is just silly.
I know it has been stated but it needs repeating. Other options, that are functionally the exact same, exist and summoner is out at the end of the month. Just flavor an animal companion a little differnt.
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The only reason Mauler was made in the first place was so that Familiar users weren't just left in the dust after Summoner, Animal Companions, then the Unchained Summoner came along and proved for a fact that the best PC was actually just a temorary goon cheesed stats and attack routines, it was brought in to help make up the distance between the base Familiar and the insane powercreep that other minions got as the system matured. In 1e most any character concept was EASILY outclassed by the specialist's minions, be they AC that can be replaced easily, Eidolons that at WORST die for less than 24 hours, or Summoned creature spam that was a practically endless well to pull from with access to EVERY creature ability in every Bestiary at their fingertips.
This kind of powercreep isn't going to be anywhere NEAR as prevalent in PF2 because the system itself is fundamentally built on a foundation that doesn't allow crazy out-of-control math, bonuses, stacking benefits, and essentially unfettered power gaming.
That said I think that there IS room for a kind of Familiar that provides ZERO Master or Familiar Ability Benefits (your Familiar IS what it IS and doesn't get to learn to fly or help you refocus) in exchange for having a moderate amount of HP, higher AC, and a competent attack to-hit and built-in Striking Rune damage dice.
Just my 2c.
I think there's room for familiars which polymorph into battle forms in PF2, but I don't think that room lies in becoming pseudo animal companions. The closer an option gets to becoming an animal companion, the more reason that option should just be an animal companion option IMO.
I'd like to see a spell or focus spell that transforms the familiar into a monster competent in combat, and which acts sort of like a summon spell that can be used faster or has stronger stats than a typical summon (since it would be less flexible). Or possibly a spell similar to the claw cantrip in Secrets of Magic, but a stronger attack where the familiar becomes an attacker for a single burst of damage and reverts back to the familiar. That said, this isn't really like the Mauler in 1e anymore, but I do think it's significantly different from having an Animal Companion. Also is veering towards the realm of homebrew since nothing like this has been announced.
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I think there's room for familiars which polymorph into battle forms in PF2.
I don't think I agree. Right now familiars are just too easy to get (an ancestry feat or a single class feat or just part of your class). It is going to be way too hard to balance that.
We're already pushing the original design space with a mount for a Sprite. And, in my opinion, THAT is too powerful if you assume the independent familiar rule overrides the mounted combat rule (it's NOT game breaking but it IS more powerful than a single ancestry feat should be).
I think there's room for familiars which polymorph into battle forms in PF2.I don't think I agree. Right now familiars are just too easy to get (an ancestry feat or a single class feat or just part of your class). It is going to be way too hard to balance that.
We're already pushing the original design space with a mount for a Sprite. And, in my opinion, THAT is too powerful if you assume the independent familiar rule overrides the mounted combat rule (it's NOT game breaking but it IS more powerful than a single ancestry feat should be).
Perhaps. You can get around familiars generally being too easy to access by making the abilities to polymorph the familiar for combat behind barriers. If it's a spell, that spell needs a bigger investment than a single ancestry feat and might need to scale with level. If it's a focus spell tied to the witch class and/or familiar master, you can balance the spell around other focus spells.
As an aside, I do think I should not have used the words "battle form" as I didn't mean battle forms in the sense of the battleform rules, but more in the sense of changing the familiar's shape so they can do something directly in combat (like the upcoming cantrip I alluded to, which is single-target damage through transmutation). Battleforms, in the sense of animal form style spells, probably aren't the place to balance this ability. It slipped my mind that battle forms are a specific rules term.
Well, there is the Spellcasting ability. At character level 13 you can have your familiar cast 2nd level Animal Form and transform itself.
Which wouldn't be available to someone who gets a familiar through an Ancestry feat or similar.
I don't think I agree. Right now familiars are just too easy to get (an ancestry feat or a single class feat or just part of your class). It is going to be way too hard to balance that.
I think you're really overselling it. I mean 'combat pet' is basically an animal companion and we already know that's just worth feat too. So we're mostly just looking at a third feat that lets you glue them together in some limited capacity.
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I don't think I agree. Right now familiars are just too easy to get (an ancestry feat or a single class feat or just part of your class). It is going to be way too hard to balance that.I think you're really overselling it. I mean 'combat pet' is basically an animal companion and we already know that's just worth feat too. So we're mostly just looking at a third feat that lets you glue them together in some limited capacity.
Animal Companion
1) Costs quite a few feats to keep effective2) For most characters, has the opportunity cost of consuming your first archetype.
I don't think I agree. Right now familiars are just too easy to get (an ancestry feat or a single class feat or just part of your class). It is going to be way too hard to balance that.I think you're really overselling it. I mean 'combat pet' is basically an animal companion and we already know that's just worth feat too. So we're mostly just looking at a third feat that lets you glue them together in some limited capacity.Animal Companion
1) Costs quite a few feats to keep effective
2) For most characters, has the opportunity cost of consuming your first archetype.
In addition the feats you're spending are class ones while familiars can start out by using class features or ancestry feats instead of class feats.