Living breathing familiars, or pet rocks?


Pathfinder Second Edition General Discussion

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Liberty's Edge

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Norade wrote:
Arcaian wrote:
It's quite odd to me to phrase this as "familiar scouting rules" instead of what it is - an aim to make the world react consistently.

The rules explicitly call out familiars as not being normal animals. Thus you are 100% making a call to have people treat them as normal animals of their species. Just as you make a call by allowing them to scout for more than a minute at a time.

If we look at the text you're referring to:

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Familiars are mystically bonded creatures tied to your magic. Most familiars were originally animals, though the ritual of becoming a familiar makes them something more. You can choose a Tiny animal you want as your familiar, such as a bat, cat, raven, or snake.

It clearly doesn't make any explicit reference to the creature physically changing. They have 'become something more' - you can interpret that as a physical change for your familiar if you wanted to, but I'd find it highly unreasonable if I were informed that I couldn't have a familiar that looks exactly like a normal animal. I'd say by far the most common familiar in fiction and in previous PF/D&D games is one that looks like an animal - it's a common plot point, not realising the familiar is in fact sapient and not just a standard animal. Given the ambiguity in the text, sure - call it a call, but I think it's certainly a call that's more justified than the opposite. Regardless, the point there is that it's not some established set of house rules about scouting - it's just endeavouring to present a consistent world. Allowing the familiar to scout may be a houserule (depending on your interpretation of the text), but having people treat it like an animal isn't a rule any more than having your NPCs react to someone calling for help is.

Norade wrote:


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This does give an advantage in different situations for different sorts of familiars.
This is pretty much ignoring the issue and pretending it isn't one. The player who decides their cat familiars actually looks more like a jumbled pile of bones stuffed into a cat skin will always be at a disadvantage at your table compared to a player who just took a plain black cat. There is no getting around the fact that your ruling actively punishes a character for trying to make their familiar unique.

The player who decided their cat familiar looks like a jumbled pile of bones will be at a disadvantage for blending in, yes. Surely when you pick that aesthetic, you're aware of the fictional consequences? You've established that your familiar is aberrant and likely necromantic in some way. That isn't to say that they're always at a disadvantage though - if you're trying to convince the necromantic cult that you're a new recruit, that'd be a substantial aid, at my table. Again, this isn't some set of houserules to buff familiars - it's just aiming for a consistent world. You've established a narrative that you have a necromantic familiar, so the standard guards react one way, and the necromantic cultists act another way. Establishing that narrative may even be a net negative to you across the campaign - if I think it'd significantly affect things, I'd have a chat with the player about why they want it, and perhaps try to make up some homebrew content that helps with that. A Unique Familiar that gives them a necromancy-themed ability, perhaps. That being said, I don't think the effect we're discussing here would be substantial enough for that to be required.

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Also, how is a familiar, especially a flying familiar, being used as a scout anywhere in the same league as having an NPC pass along plot information after the party takes time to gather information?

Depending on the contexts, it's likely not be the same extent, and I never said it would be - the point is that if the established fiction allows something, within reason, it should be possible. Perhaps in this situation the flying familiar can't see in their cave, and can only find out that there are two people by a campfire outside, whereas the plot information from the NPC is something that's highly relevant and they would've otherwise had to have chosen between taking the time to find out, or getting something else useful. There are situations one could construct where the expected benefit from these situations are switched, but the point is that if the fiction being told has set up this story as reasonable, it should be possible in the tables I enjoy running and playing in, not necessarily everyone's. If other people want to play it as more of a game, more power to them! A good part of my enjoyment of ttRPGs is the ability for the world to react to my characters in a way that's impossible without the collaborative fiction of tabletop games, and so that's obviously going to be emphasised at the tables I run. If that leads to consistent advantages or disadvantages that are detracting from the table's enjoyment, or if options aren't being picked because of it, we'll collectively figure out the best way to change that :)


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breithauptclan wrote:
Norade wrote:
breithauptclan wrote:
Most likely you are meaning the part about the Improvised activities not being relevant to Minion characters. Yeah, if you have to give commands every round, then you could give commands at a rate of 1 per round and use that as a basis for a new improvised exploration activity. But nothing in that actually says that giving a command to a Minion when not in combat means that the Minion can't follow a particular command for more than 2 actions.
Where do the rules give permission for a familiar to follow those commands for more than two actions?
In the same non-existent place where it says that they can't follow instructions for more than 2 rounds when not in combat.

The only rules we have covering how minions act out of combat are as follows:

-A creature with this trait can use only 2 actions per turn, doesn't have reactions, and can't act when it's not your turn. (This ruling has no text stating that it only applies in combat and thus applies in all situations.)
-If given no commands, minions use no actions except to defend themselves or to escape obvious harm. (What your minion will default to if you aren't feeding it instructions every 6-seconds.)
-If left unattended for long enough, typically 1 minute, mindless minions usually don't act, animals follow their instincts, and sapient minions act how they please. (What your minion will do after waiting 1-minute for your next order.)

So you give your minion a command to scout, it takes a double move, and then looks back waiting for your next command. This is the only course of action that has any rule support.

Liberty's Edge

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Norade wrote:
breithauptclan wrote:
Norade wrote:
breithauptclan wrote:
Most likely you are meaning the part about the Improvised activities not being relevant to Minion characters. Yeah, if you have to give commands every round, then you could give commands at a rate of 1 per round and use that as a basis for a new improvised exploration activity. But nothing in that actually says that giving a command to a Minion when not in combat means that the Minion can't follow a particular command for more than 2 actions.
Where do the rules give permission for a familiar to follow those commands for more than two actions?
In the same non-existent place where it says that they can't follow instructions for more than 2 rounds when not in combat.

The only rules we have covering how minions act out of combat are as follows:

-A creature with this trait can use only 2 actions per turn, doesn't have reactions, and can't act when it's not your turn. (This ruling has no text stating that it only applies in combat and thus applies in all situations.)
-If given no commands, minions use no actions except to defend themselves or to escape obvious harm. (What your minion will default to if you aren't feeding it instructions every 6-seconds.)
-If left unattended for long enough, typically 1 minute, mindless minions usually don't act, animals follow their instincts, and sapient minions act how they please. (What your minion will do after waiting 1-minute for your next order.)

So you give your minion a command to scout, it takes a double move, and then looks back waiting for your next command. This is the only course of action that has any rule support.

If we're talking options that have rule support, I don't really see how asking your familiar to scout the location when it is acting as it pleases , and then convincing them if they need to be convinced, wouldn't be within rule support. It'd require your GM to be willing to decide if your familiar is willing to do so based on how you asked it, but so does making a Request with Diplomacy. I've never seen someone claim that you can't make a Request because it requires GM arbitration.


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Arcaian wrote:
If we're talking options that have rule support, I don't really see how asking your familiar to scout the location when it is acting as it pleases , and then convincing them if they need to be convinced, wouldn't be within rule support. It'd require your GM to be willing to decide if your familiar is willing to do so based on how you asked it, but so does making a Request with Diplomacy. I've never seen someone claim that you can't make a Request because it requires GM arbitration.

Go talk to a cat and convince it to scout for you.

Also, as doing as it pleases is an uncommanded state your familiar will flee at the first sign of danger, as determined by your familiar based on its type. So you might convince your cat familiar to wander in a direction, but it sure won't accomplish much as there is no rules support towards it making any kind of perception or recall knowledge checks while doing as it pleases.


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Norade wrote:
Go talk to a cat and convince it to scout for you.

You do know that real cats aren't familiars, right? They're just cats. Familiars and magic are fictional, so this comparison isn't terribly germane to what's being discussed. Doubly so since we're apparently strictly talking about the rules, and real cats aren't going to follow the rules of, well, anything.


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Perpdepog wrote:
Norade wrote:
Go talk to a cat and convince it to scout for you.
You do know that real cats aren't familiars, right? They're just cats. Familiars and magic are fictional, so this comparison isn't terribly germane to what's being discussed. Doubly so since we're apparently strictly talking about the rules, and real cats aren't going to follow the rules of, well, anything.

Then foes shouldn't treat them like real cats. They should treat them like the dangerous familiars that they are.

Liberty's Edge

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Norade wrote:
Arcaian wrote:
If we're talking options that have rule support, I don't really see how asking your familiar to scout the location when it is acting as it pleases , and then convincing them if they need to be convinced, wouldn't be within rule support. It'd require your GM to be willing to decide if your familiar is willing to do so based on how you asked it, but so does making a Request with Diplomacy. I've never seen someone claim that you can't make a Request because it requires GM arbitration.

Go talk to a cat and convince it to scout for you.

Also, as doing as it pleases is an uncommanded state your familiar will flee at the first sign of danger, as determined by your familiar based on its type. So you might convince your cat familiar to wander in a direction, but it sure won't accomplish much as there is no rules support towards it making any kind of perception or recall knowledge checks while doing as it pleases.

I think the first difficulty there would be talking with a cat. I'll freely admit to coming into this with a bias that familiars would be sapient (because they were in PF1, and they are in most media I've consumed that involves them), but my expectation is that if I'm talking to my cat familiar, they're sapient. In that case, I don't see why it would be any harder to convince my cat familiar to go check something out than it would be anyone else I've got a close connection with. You say that there is no rules support, but it's literally the same creature with the same abilities, just taking actions on its own. This could be handled with as much, or as little, detail (and direct player control) as the GM wants - but it's not like this is unheard of. Animal companions were explicitly like this in all aspects in PF1, and familiars were only 'usually' player-controlled. It really feels like you're making as many assumptions as I am about all of this (which we both have to, because the rules are ambiguous) and then you're pretending that your perspective is somehow based in the rules-as-written as opposed to mine. You've got one interpretation, I've got another; you've not sourced absolutely anything that actually backs up your claims here, because it doesn't exist. There's literally as much rules support for asking your familiar to go check out a clearing as there is the forester who is guiding you there, and in both cases you'd expect the world to react differently depending on what creature goes to look at the clearing.

Edit:

Norade wrote:
Perpdepog wrote:
Norade wrote:
Go talk to a cat and convince it to scout for you.
You do know that real cats aren't familiars, right? They're just cats. Familiars and magic are fictional, so this comparison isn't terribly germane to what's being discussed. Doubly so since we're apparently strictly talking about the rules, and real cats aren't going to follow the rules of, well, anything.
Then foes shouldn't treat them like real cats. They should treat them like the dangerous familiars that they are.

There is a possibility here that familiars don't inherently change their outward appearance from their original animal form, but do gain intelligence that other animals lack. I would strongly suspect that this the most common representation of familiars in media.


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I'm pretty sure that animal companions have the same action rules as familiars but we don't assume they work like robots, and can't do anything outside of combat without commands. So how are familiars different? There's gotta be some logical consistency at least with minions if we can't get clarification from paizo.


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aobst128 wrote:
I'm pretty sure that animal companions have the same action rules as familiars but we don't assume they work like robots, and can't do anything outside of combat without commands. So how are familiars different? There's gotta be some logical consistency at least with minions if we can't get clarification from paizo.

"An animal companion is a loyal comrade who follows your orders."

So it's far more supported by text from the book that an animal companion would actually deign to listen to your request to scout ahead. They also have actual stats, including an intelligence score which can be increased to human average with specialized companion. That's a far cry from a lump of fur with no stats.


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Norade wrote:
breithauptclan wrote:
Norade wrote:
breithauptclan wrote:
Most likely you are meaning the part about the Improvised activities not being relevant to Minion characters. Yeah, if you have to give commands every round, then you could give commands at a rate of 1 per round and use that as a basis for a new improvised exploration activity. But nothing in that actually says that giving a command to a Minion when not in combat means that the Minion can't follow a particular command for more than 2 actions.
Where do the rules give permission for a familiar to follow those commands for more than two actions?
In the same non-existent place where it says that they can't follow instructions for more than 2 rounds when not in combat.

The only rules we have covering how minions act out of combat are as follows:

-A creature with this trait can use only 2 actions per turn, doesn't have reactions, and can't act when it's not your turn. (This ruling has no text stating that it only applies in combat and thus applies in all situations.)
-If given no commands, minions use no actions except to defend themselves or to escape obvious harm. (What your minion will default to if you aren't feeding it instructions every 6-seconds.)
-If left unattended for long enough, typically 1 minute, mindless minions usually don't act, animals follow their instincts, and sapient minions act how they please. (What your minion will do after waiting 1-minute for your next order.)

So you give your minion a command to scout, it takes a double move, and then looks back waiting for your next command. This is the only course of action that has any rule support.

That is not the only valid interpretation of these rules.

Starting with Running Modes of Play: Turns are only defined in exploration mode. And even then, social encounters (one of the types of exploration encounters) mentions that it doesn't follow the same 6 second time format. Encounter mode explicitly says that it doesn't use rounds.

So the Minion rules here:

Minion wrote:
A creature with this trait can use only 2 actions per turn, doesn't have reactions, and can't act when it's not your turn. Your minion acts on your turn in combat, once per turn, when you spend an action to issue it commands.

Are clearly only relevant when running the game in combat encounter mode. Saying that it applies to exploration mode means using terms that are not defined for that mode of play.

For encounter mode and downtime mode, all we have left is this:

Minion wrote:
If given no commands, minions use no actions except to defend themselves or to escape obvious harm. If left unattended for long enough, typically 1 minute, mindless minions usually don't act, animals follow their instincts, and sapient minions act how they please.

Which doesn't tell us anything about how minions behave when they are given commands in encounter mode. Most notably, it doesn't tell us how long the Minion follows those commands for.

It doesn't actually tell us what causes a Minion to be considered 'unattended'. It is probably unattended if it is not following any commands for a minute - that seems a reasonable and obvious ruling. But what about if it is following commands? Does it still become unattended after a minute if not given a new command? The rules don't actually say.

As for the rules on Improvising New Exploration Activities, you have to first establish that you must give commands every 6 seconds before those rules come into play. The existence of a means of allowing a character to give a Minion commands every 6 seconds is not proof that the game rules require it to be run that way.

Lack of rules does not mean that your (or my) interpretation is correct. It means that the rules are ambiguous and undefined and that both of our interpretations are valid.


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Arcaian wrote:
I think the first difficulty there would be talking with a cat. I'll freely admit to coming into this with a bias that familiars would be sapient (because they were in PF1, and they are in most media I've consumed that involves them), but my expectation is that if I'm talking to my cat familiar, they're sapient.

We talk to animals and give them verbal commands all the time and we're pretty sure that they aren't sapient. So this doesn't hold any water.

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You say that there is no rules support, but it's literally the same creature with the same abilities, just taking actions on its own.

Is a familiar even really a creature given that it doesn't have a stat block? I mean, does a familiar just die the first time a Shadow touches it?

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Animal companions were explicitly like this in all aspects in PF1, and familiars were only 'usually' player-controlled.

What do PF1 rules have to do with PF2?


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breithauptclan wrote:
his is the only course of action that has any rule support.

That is not the only valid interpretation of these rules.

Starting with Running Modes of Play: Turns are only defined in exploration mode. And even then, social encounters (one of the types of exploration encounters) mentions that it doesn't follow the same 6 second time format. Encounter mode explicitly says that it doesn't use rounds.

Except that we're explicitly told to use rounds in exploration mode in specific circumstances. So we can 100% use 6-second rounds in exploration mode for anything that requires them.

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Are clearly only relevant when running the game in combat encounter mode. Saying that it applies to exploration mode means using terms that are not defined for that mode of play.

For encounter mode and downtime mode, all we have left is this:

Where are 6-second rounds explicitly disallowed in Exploration mode?

"Time Scale: When the PCs are in exploration mode, time in the game world passes much faster than real-world time at the table, so it’s rarely measured out to the second or the minute. You can speed up or slow down how quickly things are happening as needed. If it’s important to know exactly how much time is passing, you can usually estimate time spent in exploration mode to 10-minute increments."

The text even suggests that you will rarely need to count seconds and that time is only usually measured in 10-minute increments. Nothing here disallows the use of 6-second rounds should they be required.

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It doesn't actually tell us what causes a Minion to be considered 'unattended'. It is probably unattended if it is not following any commands for a minute - that seems a reasonable and obvious ruling. But what about if it is following commands? Does it still become unattended after a minute if not given a new command? The rules don't actually say.

By strict RAW an attended familiar must be held as the only other use of attended in the game refers to items and held items are the only items considered attended. That means anything else is unattended by simple application of logic. So I guess we should all get ready to hold our hireling's hands for 6-seconds out of every minute or have them wander off as if they're toddlers.


Norade wrote:
aobst128 wrote:
I'm pretty sure that animal companions have the same action rules as familiars but we don't assume they work like robots, and can't do anything outside of combat without commands. So how are familiars different? There's gotta be some logical consistency at least with minions if we can't get clarification from paizo.

"An animal companion is a loyal comrade who follows your orders."

So it's far more supported by text from the book that an animal companion would actually deign to listen to your request to scout ahead. They also have actual stats, including an intelligence score which can be increased to human average with specialized companion. That's a far cry from a lump of fur with no stats.

Your point about their actions in combat aren't a good qualifier for your interpretation then. "Follow your commands" is better. Their intelligence score is less relevant though, and with the appropriate familiar abilities you could easily argue that they can become more intelligent than any animal companion. I don't think there's enough of a distinction between familiars and companions for what you're saying.

Liberty's Edge

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Norade wrote:
Arcaian wrote:
I think the first difficulty there would be talking with a cat. I'll freely admit to coming into this with a bias that familiars would be sapient (because they were in PF1, and they are in most media I've consumed that involves them), but my expectation is that if I'm talking to my cat familiar, they're sapient.
We talk to animals and give them verbal commands all the time and we're pretty sure that they aren't sapient. So this doesn't hold any water.

This is an absurdly broad definition of talk, with almost any reasonable definition implying two-way communication. If you want to use this absurd definition, let me rephrase it: to have two-way spoken communication between a magical animal and yourself, I feel it would be more reasonable to assume the creature is sapient to do so. While the rules are ambiguous as to the intelligence of a familiar, that doesn't mean they default to animal-level intelligence - it means the GM has to make an active decision as to how intelligent they are. Given familiars are capable of speech (but not inherently the speech of the creature they came from), can learn to listen in on other's conversations and catch rumours (Snoop ability), can become fully capable in crafting or niche knowledges (skilled), become an academic confidant who assists you with knowledges (second opinion), and the ability to literally make alchemical items themselves (lab assistant), I feel pretty strongly that the intent is that a familiar is sapient. I don't see how a creature could make their own alchemical items and remind you of complicated details about the workings of anything in the universe without possessing a greater-than-animal level intelligence. Given you clearly disagree, please explain what sources have led you to believe that the creature is of animal intelligence.

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You say that there is no rules support, but it's literally the same creature with the same abilities, just taking actions on its own.
Is a familiar even really a creature given that it doesn't have a stat block? I mean, does a familiar just die the first time a Shadow touches it?

Stop moving the goalposts - that's clearly unrelated to the point you're replying to, which is your claim that a familiar on its own has no rules for how they might make a perception check. They clearly do, they have the appropriate stats to make these checks. Their potential interactions with a Shadow aren't relevant. Even if that weren't the case, I don't think you checked how Shadows work in PF2 - they don't care about your STR score/mod, they just give you enfeebled 1 through 4, and if it's three or higher you lose your shadow.

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Animal companions were explicitly like this in all aspects in PF1, and familiars were only 'usually' player-controlled.
What do PF1 rules have to do with PF2?

Because this discussion has been comparing familiars back to PF1 at times, and acting as if the concept of 'a familiar can makes decisions based on what it wants to do, with input from the master' is absurd and makes no sense, despite that being how companions have worked in previous editions of the game (in addition to this one).


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aobst128 wrote:
Your point about their actions in combat aren't a good qualifier for your interpretation then. "Follow your commands" is better. Their intelligence score is less relevant though, and with the appropriate familiar abilities you could easily argue that they can become more intelligent than any animal companion. I don't think there's enough of a distinction between familiars and companions for what you're saying.

Your animal companion would still scout ahead with only 2-actions and no reaction because it is never granted more than that allotment of actions. The difference is that we have rules and stat blocks for these companions and nothing which says that they are transformed away from their base type of animal.


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It still comes down to what the GM allows for a familiar outside of encounter mode combat. That will vary greatly by table.


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Norade wrote:


This is pretty much ignoring the issue and pretending it isn't one. The player who decides their cat familiars actually looks more like a jumbled pile of bones stuffed into a cat skin will always be at a disadvantage at your table compared to a player who just took a plain black cat. There is no getting around the fact that your ruling actively punishes a character for trying to make their familiar unique.

This is such a melodramatic way of phrasing it. The """ruling""" that people react differently to a pile of bones than a regular cat does indeed affect a player who chooses to have a pile of bones as their familiar.

A player is also punished for having a unique personality if they're being extremely rude and abrasive to everyone they meet. A player is punished for drawing a weapon on people and is at a strict disadvantage to someone who keeps their sword on them instead of threatening the guards at the palace.


Onkonk wrote:
Norade wrote:


This is pretty much ignoring the issue and pretending it isn't one. The player who decides their cat familiars actually looks more like a jumbled pile of bones stuffed into a cat skin will always be at a disadvantage at your table compared to a player who just took a plain black cat. There is no getting around the fact that your ruling actively punishes a character for trying to make their familiar unique.

This is such a melodramatic way of phrasing it. The """ruling""" that people react differently to a pile of bones than a regular cat does indeed affect a player who chooses to have a pile of bones as their familiar.

A player is also punished for having a unique personality if they're being extremely rude and abrasive to everyone they meet. A player is punished for drawing a weapon on people and is at a strict disadvantage to someone who keeps their sword on them instead of threatening the guards at the palace.

A unique familiar could as easily be a feathered cat, a bird with a gemstone beak, or any other manner of thing if a cat skin stuffed with animate bones doesn't appeal to you. In all cases these cause strict disadvantages to the player choosing them if, and only if, familiars are allowed to scout and are usually not required to make checks to avoid notice while scouting due to being a "normal" animal

You other examples are just not relevant to the topic at hand.


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They are relevant as other examples that punishes players for choices they make, in a game where you make choices you get different outcomes.

When you choose to not be inconspicuous the outcome is that you aren't inconspicuous.


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Arcaian wrote:
I think the first difficulty there would be talking with a cat. I'll freely admit to coming into this with a bias that familiars would be sapient (because they were in PF1, and they are in most media I've consumed that involves them), but my expectation is that if I'm talking to my cat familiar, they're sapient. In that case, I don't see why it would be any harder to convince my cat familiar to go check something out than it would be anyone else I've got a close connection with. You say that there is no rules support, but it's literally the same creature with the same abilities, just taking actions on its own. This could be handled with as much, or as little, detail (and direct player control) as the GM wants - but it's not like this is unheard of. Animal companions were explicitly like this in all aspects in PF1, and familiars were only 'usually' player-controlled. It really feels like you're making as many assumptions as I am about all of this (which we both have...

Yeah no, familiars and companions in PF2 are a far cry from those in PF1. Just trying to compare a familiar's ability will result in you noticing that PF2 familiars cannot: Attack, activate items, act of their own will even when commanded, get better stats, etc.

PF2 treats all companions, summons, and manifestations (PF2 Eidolons are not summons) as if they are pieces in a game board. Where the player can spend some of their action moving those piece instead of their own.

This is why there is such a huge debate. Paizo wants companions to not be of much help due to all the complaints they got during PF1 about companion creatures. It's why every single time a new way to use familiars in an interesting way or to save action they almost immediately "clarify" that usage is unintended. It's why the 2nd most important rule, behind rule zero, is that "if anything seems too good to be true, it's probably wrong".


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I think familiars have plenty of abilities as written that are worthwhile. Also, the new shadow familiar let's you be the shadow man from Princess and the Frog. That's more than enough to justify familiars to me. I've argued plenty about scouting familiars but I'm willing to concede it may invalidate other PCs. Cool ribbon abilities and being a spell battery is enough to justify them in my eyes. My only caveat being that the witch really needs familiar abilities unique to the class. One day respawns aren't enough and, honestly, character features like familiars and animal companions should ALL be on one day respawns, regardless of class, bc you've made them part of your power budget and not having them gimps you (maybe not as much in the case of familiars, but it's still a major bummer to pay for features that can turn off for a week).


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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Norade, I made this thread with the intent of getting people's thoughts and opinions on how familiars should be run. You've made your stance abundantly clear again and again, to the point that it now borders on bullying others that disagree with you. I will kindly ask you to refrain as that behavior is antithetical to the purpose of this thread.

You've made your case, and it's a strong one. Please allow others to attempt to make there's.


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I use the minute rule. Once it's clear combat is over and the coast is clear, familiars do what they want. You can ask your familiar if you'd like it to do something. That'll then be up to the familiar- generally, I'd expect that to be amicable agreement, but if your cat familiar is scouting a fish market, don't expect it to not take some extra time trying to get some fish. It also depends on the characters- sometimes, it's the familiar who's making the requests, or sometimes they're going to want bribes. That's up to the player.

As for why familiars "seize up" in combat, familiars are both reasonably smart and unable to do much. So, they mostly avoid getting in the way. You don't want your valet familiar trying to hand you a healing potion when you really need to get this last hit in. Out of character, everyone at the table is clear that after PF1, Paizo was concerned about action economy, and there is a good game reason for it to work this way. The in-character explanations are a way to smooth this over and prevent it from being too jarring, and players are welcome to provide their own explanation if they have a more suitable one.


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Ravingdork wrote:

Norade, I made this thread with the intent of getting people's thoughts and opinions on how familiars should be run. You've made your stance abundantly clear again and again, to the point that it now borders on bullying others that disagree with you. I will kindly ask you to refrain as that behavior is antithetical to the purpose of this thread.

You've made your case, and it's a strong one. Please allow others to attempt to make there's.

I don't even think it's a strong one. Rules for encounters, exploration and downtime differ from one another in many ways. Spacing and size comes to mind first....we're not cubes of flesh 5ft on all sides, right? Or are we?

For example, during encounters, if your character has 25 speed and tries to move through a hallway 80ft long, 5ft wide and occupied fully by your ally NPCs, there is no RAW way to walk through that hallway normally.

There are numerous examples of silliness like this in RAW interpretations, minions are no exception. They are written the way they are for balance purposes in encounter mode of the game.

arguing familiars are no more than that in reality and all modes of play is like arguing that it's impossible to fit 2 conscious medium persons in a 5ft square, but you can fit infinite number of dead or unconscious persons in that same space bc RAW works like that


Quote:
Familiars are mystically bonded creatures tied to your magic.

You'd figure they'd be, unless you frequently abuse them or have them die a lot, generally Helpful.

Idk, I run them as NPCs. They're limited in what they can do, but they can be given jobs to do.


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Norade wrote:
Where are 6-second rounds explicitly disallowed in Exploration mode?

Since you asked so nicely.

Norade wrote:
Quote:
Time Scale: When the PCs are in exploration mode, time in the game world passes much faster than real-world time at the table, so it’s rarely measured out to the second or the minute. You can speed up or slow down how quickly things are happening as needed. If it’s important to know exactly how much time is passing, you can usually estimate time spent in exploration mode to 10-minute increments.
The text even suggests that you will rarely need to count seconds and that time is only usually measured in 10-minute increments. Nothing here disallows the use of 6-second rounds should they be required.

You are allowed to break exploration mode into 6 second increments. It would be a kinda silly thing to do. At that point just use a non-combat encounter mode.

But they aren't called rounds.

Running Modes of Play wrote:
Though exploration isn’t broken into rounds, exploration activities assume the PCs are spending part of their time using actions, such as Seeking or Interacting.

-----

Norade wrote:
Quote:
It doesn't actually tell us what causes a Minion to be considered 'unattended'. It is probably unattended if it is not following any commands for a minute - that seems a reasonable and obvious ruling. But what about if it is following commands? Does it still become unattended after a minute if not given a new command? The rules don't actually say.
By strict RAW an attended familiar must be held as the only other use of attended in the game refers to items and held items are the only items considered attended. That means anything else is unattended by simple application of logic. So I guess we should all get ready to hold our hireling's hands for 6-seconds out of every minute or have them wander off as if they're toddlers.

Yeah, I agree with Ravingdork. At this point you are coming across as being overly pedantic in an attempt to win an argument with strangers on the internet rather than actually debating in good faith.


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aobst128 wrote:
I'm pretty sure that animal companions have the same action rules as familiars but we don't assume they work like robots, and can't do anything outside of combat without commands. So how are familiars different? There's gotta be some logical consistency at least with minions if we can't get clarification from paizo.

Who said that they'd be treated differently? You have the same issues.

Arcaian wrote:
I think the first difficulty there would be talking with a cat. I'll freely admit to coming into this with a bias that familiars would be sapient (because they were in PF1, and they are in most media I've consumed that involves them), but my expectation is that if I'm talking to my cat familiar, they're sapient.

#1 in game, you DO talk to normal animals using the exact same mechanism [Command an Animal uses auditory commands for actions]. #2 the idea of a smart/sapient creature that's willing to follow you and does what you say is brutally crushed by the in combat realities of it's action limits: that willing creature is portrayed as a creature that is physically and mentally incapable of following even the simplest command for more than a few seconds. It seems clear that they are strictly limited in an effort to control extra actions.

So IMO, it seems off brand for for them to make a 180 to then give an extra unfettered exploration action where normally you'd have to spend a low-mid level class feat on a specific extra Exploration Activity [like Ongoing Investigation]. Doubling any exploration actions for a single 1st level class/ancestry feat falls well within the 'too good to be true' proviso in the game IMO.


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If nobody wants to listen to RAW and what is clearly RAI given the clarifications we've received about familiars thus far, I guess it's pointless to keep beating at this particular wall. Though I will say any talk of familiars scouting should probably be in House Rules based on how many written and unwritten rules need to be broken to allow for it at all.

PF2 isn't PF1 and anything that might give your character a single extra action in any mode of play is strictly regulated. We all need to either petition Paizo to change it or deal with the reality and limit our discussions in General to things that are textual to the book and not our house rules and hang-ups from past editions.


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Norade wrote:

If nobody wants to listen to RAW and what is clearly RAI given the clarifications we've received about familiars thus far, I guess it's pointless to keep beating at this particular wall. Though I will say any talk of familiars scouting should probably be in House Rules based on how many written and unwritten rules need to be broken to allow for it at all.

PF2 isn't PF1 and anything that might give your character a single extra action in any mode of play is strictly regulated. We all need to either petition Paizo to change it or deal with the reality and limit our discussions in General to things that are textual to the book and not our house rules and hang-ups from past editions.

Let's say all I had was the encounter mode rules- I'd definitely have to agree with your RAW interpretation then. What would I want?

Ideally, I'd want an official clarification that familiars (and more generally minions) act independently during exploration mode.

We have, in the rules text, a statement that minions act independently after a minute or so unattended.

That's good enough for me. It is frustrating to me to have it insistently called a "house rule" that I would interpret this to allow for something like a scouting familiar, or a familiar delivering a message.


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The rules do actually work if you let them. If you start from "How does this thing I want to do work?" instead of "Why doesn't this thing work?", you'll have a lot more fun playing this game.

Silver Crusade

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Deriven Firelion wrote:
It still comes down to what the GM allows for a familiar outside of encounter mode combat. That will vary greatly by table.

I'm just going to reiterate this.

This discussion is going in circles and really getting nowhere at this point.

If you're playing PFS, then expect your familiar to be able to do very little that is not VERY clearly and explicitly defined (eg, master abilities). Take those times it can do more as unexpected extras.

If you're playing a home game, talk with your GM and the group and come to some sort of accomodation. In my experience, the group consisting of a battle cleric, a plate armored fighter and a clumsy wizard is going to be MUCH more willing to put up with familiar scouting mechanics than a group which has a rogue and a ranger.

And, to be clear, ALL the answers from "The familiar can do just about nothing" through "the familiar can do loads and loads" are valid interpretations of the game AND will lead to a more fun game at appropriate tables. Its NOT about stopping the players from having fun. A very limited familiar and a very unlimited familiar can BOTH be negatively affecting the fun of some players at the table. Everybody accusing others of "badwrongfun" (and there are a LOT of those accusations on this thread, usually slightly hidden) is just wrong.


Pathfinder Maps Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

During my group's Age of Ashes campaign, the wizard's hummingbird familiar (named Flit) was used for scouting - very cautiously. It would perch in a tree and chirp if the guards came into view, or fly up the outside of a tower from a bit of a distance to see whether the tower was occupied. The wizard was pretty paranoid about risking Flit, so he was only sent out when it seemed safe-ish.

During one memorable section of caves linked by long tunnels, the hummingbird was the target of a Silence spell so it could fly to the "far" opening of a room and hover in the next hall, keep sounds of combat from being heard by whatever might be in the next cavern along the path. At that stage of the campaign, Prying Eye was used to do scouting, rather than risking Flit.


If you were a player who's familiar was allowed to scout without making roles and do things like chew bowstrings and bootlaces and even set fires if a lit flame is handy, would you call foul if the GM made the next big bad of the campaign a Witch and did these things back to you?


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I would not cry foul over that. If the players have something as an option, the enemies and neutral NPCs should as well.

Hell, doing s%#@ to my players is the main way my group tends to figure out they can do s$+&.


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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Norade wrote:
If you were a player who's familiar was allowed to scout without making roles and do things like chew bowstrings and bootlaces and even set fires if a lit flame is handy, would you call foul if the GM made the next big bad of the campaign a Witch and did these things back to you?

I really wouldn't personally.

If I saw a mouse and discarded it as just that, then that's a choice I made as a player.

If a trusted GM made secret Perception checks on behalf of the PCs against an enemy familiar (the aforementioned ignored mouse perhaps) sneaking through their camp, and later informed everyone that we had all failed secret checks and that our gear had been damaged (or had us wake to screams of "FIRE!") then that would be totally cool with me. Interesting even!

That would be a fun mystery to solve. Imagine a player's surprise when they realize it was the mouse all along!

Now, if that became a regular occurrence regardless of defensive measures taken by the PCs, or if said fire didn't wake anyone, and we all died as a result with no checks or any ability to do anything about anything, then there'd be a bit of upset.


I don't think it would be very hard for a GM to do camp sabotage if they wanted to. You wouldn't need a familiar to do it but could merely use something that has a high stealth modifier or skills suited for the job.


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I'm not sure worrying about the durability of everybody's shoelaces is something I'm interested in running, TBH.

I kind of want to hold the line on "your familiar cannot put poison in the stew", so trying to figure out the limits of "what kinds of sabotage your familiar can engage in' is something I'd want to put the kibosh on.


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If you're using a familiar to scout, it's reasonable to still require a stealth check. The consequences might vary though for failing.


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aobst128 wrote:
If you're using a familiar to scout, it's reasonable to still require a stealth check. The consequences might vary though for failing.

Yeah, I think this is important. If you succeed on the stealth check they won't notice your cat sneaking around the camp. If you fail on the stealth check they will notice the cat, but might not do anything more than tell it to scram (a critical failure might be "they throw a boot at it.")

PCs and PC-things are sufficiently rare in the game world that random NPCs aren't going to be aware of things like "some cats are familiars."


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Norade wrote:
If you were a player who's familiar was allowed to scout without making roles and do things like chew bowstrings and bootlaces and even set fires if a lit flame is handy, would you call foul if the GM made the next big bad of the campaign a Witch and did these things back to you?

I'd still have familiars making rolls while scouting; they often just face lower consequences for getting heard. (In the same way that a polymorphed character would.) They're also going to face more consequences in some situations- if there's a guard dog, for instance.

But yeah, a familiar showing up to mess with stuff sounds interesting; I'm all for it.


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Pathfinder Lost Omens Subscriber

The best defence against familiars is a younger child that has been told they can't have a pet.

Am I wrong?

:>


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Wei Ji the Learner wrote:

The best defence against familiars is a younger child that has been told they can't have a pet.

Am I wrong?

:>

"I'm going to hug him, and squeeze him, and name him George."

Debelinho wrote:

There are numerous examples of silliness like this in RAW interpretations, minions are no exception. They are written the way they are for balance purposes in encounter mode of the game.

arguing familiars are no more than that in reality and all modes of play is like arguing that it's impossible to fit 2 conscious medium persons in a 5ft square, but you can fit infinite number of dead or unconscious persons in that same space bc RAW works like that

My favorite bit of rules wonkiness is still the fact that, by RAW in some editions, it is technically impossible to see the Moon, or the Sun.


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Ravingdork wrote:
That would be a fun mystery to solve. Imagine a player's surprise when they realize it was the mouse all along!

Bonus points if you confront it and it had speech.

"Remember when you were resting for the night and all of your gear was destroyed and in flames? It was me, Peary. I infiltrated your camp at silent scurries to make it seem like it was a leftover torch!"

Accursed memes are accursed.

Liberty's Edge

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graystone wrote:


Arcaian wrote:
I think the first difficulty there would be talking with a cat. I'll freely admit to coming into this with a bias that familiars would be sapient (because they were in PF1, and they are in most media I've consumed that involves them), but my expectation is that if I'm talking to my cat familiar, they're sapient.

#1 in game, you DO talk to normal animals using the exact same mechanism [Command an Animal uses auditory commands for actions]. #2 the idea of a smart/sapient creature that's willing to follow you and does what you say is brutally crushed by the in combat realities of it's action limits: that willing creature is portrayed as a creature that is physically and mentally incapable of following even the simplest command for more than a few seconds. It seems clear that they are strictly limited in an effort to control extra actions.

So IMO, it seems off brand for for them to make a 180 to then give an extra unfettered exploration action where normally you'd have to spend a low-mid level class feat on a specific extra Exploration Activity [like Ongoing Investigation]. Doubling any exploration actions for a single 1st level class/ancestry feat falls well within the 'too good to be true' proviso in the game IMO.

I really don't think it's reasonable to equate giving a command to a trained animal, one which you've spent time teaching it, to having a full-on conversation with your familiar. You can't expect your animal companion to tell you what it saw - just let it be known that it is excited and wants to go in a direction. Your familiar can sit on your shoulder as you make your way through the city, listen in on conversations, and then correct your misunderstanding about the information you were looking for because it heard and understood the snippets of conversation it could catch as you walked through the city. That's a very different level of communication. It can literally do complicated alchemy of its own if you're an alchemist and teach it! I feel pretty strongly that their abilities imply they are intelligent, they're just severely limited come encounter mode. Other people here have mentioned other examples of strangeness in encounter mode specifically. We're happy to gloss over quite a lot of weirdness in encounter mode - I'm happy to say that this is one part of it, and I don't know how one could reconcile their abilities with being animal-level intelligence, personally.

I also don't think this is doubling exploration actions - it's the exact same effect on them as bringing along an NPC ally for the journey. I've never seen someone suggest that befriending a scout and having them along for your journey is too powerful. Your familiar is an NPC if you're letting them decide what to do, so it'd be handled the same way, IMO. I'd not give them an exploration activity, but they could go out and do specific tasks if asked, or help with a problem of everyone's come to a stop. Maybe you run NPCs in exploration mode differently, but if the effect can be replicated by making a friend and bringing them along, it shouldn't be unbalanced. If you're concerned about the balance, you could even ask for diplomacy checks - not in an antagonistic way necessarily, could just be in a "Would you do it for a scooby snack?" sort of way.


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

In regards to familiar intelligence, we know that they are sapient, at least in the official Lost Omens setting. There are a number of published examples that make this clear.

For example, there is a meerkat familiar in Thuvia that teaches university students about insects and alchemy and that regularly has intelligent conversations with humanoids.


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Yeah. At the very least, if you give it speech, it can understand what you're saying and respond in kind. I was a little surprised to find that base familiars cannot understand languages, but as noted, they have a lot of very complicated things they can learn.

Silver Crusade

Arcaian wrote:
You can't expect your animal companion to tell you what it saw -

You actually play characters who can't talk to their animal companions? How strange :-) :-) :-) (between a few ancestral methods of speaking to animals and speak to animal scrolls, lots of characters can chat with their animal companions just fine :-))

Slightly more seriously, great care has to be taken to make sure that Animal Companions don't become significantly worse than familiars. I think that most GMs would make a animal companion that was out scouting have to make stealth rolls (assuming they allowed it at all). Seems unfair if a familiar just automatically succeeded.


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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

I always thought of Animal Companions as the "encounter mode" companion, (and perhaps a steed for overland travel too) and the Familiar Companions as the "everything non-combat" companion.


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Norade wrote:

If nobody wants to listen to RAW and what is clearly RAI given the clarifications we've received about familiars thus far, I guess it's pointless to keep beating at this particular wall. Though I will say any talk of familiars scouting should probably be in House Rules based on how many written and unwritten rules need to be broken to allow for it at all.

PF2 isn't PF1 and anything that might give your character a single extra action in any mode of play is strictly regulated. We all need to either petition Paizo to change it or deal with the reality and limit our discussions in General to things that are textual to the book and not our house rules and hang-ups from past editions.

PF1 had rules lawyers too.

It's not how I play as I'm accustomed to RPGs being far more of a free form game where people didn't pedantically recite rules text to limit the game. Ever since 3rd edition there seems to have developed this group of players who recite rules text and argue about intent and rules as written and all this other stuff that attempts to attribute to the designers ideas that may or may not be something they support.

As much as I think Raving Dork is overlooking what the rules text says in regards to familiars, I do play the game far more like him where I would allow a familiar a lot of latitude to do interesting things if a player wanted to use their familiar in that fashion. I don't use rules text to lock my players down unless it is some obvious misreading or overpowered combination they are attempting.

But I don't need Paizo write out that a player using a familiar during Exploration mode is possible or detail every possible use of them given that should be left up to the DM an player.

Rule designers really can't be expected to cover every use of an ability, power, class feature, or what not in a game where players are encouraged and expected to use all this mish mash of features in a creative and interesting way. It's the DMs job to come up with how that works even if it isn't clearly spelled out for the fun of all involved.


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Ravingdork wrote:

In regards to familiar intelligence, we know that they are sapient, at least in the official Lost Omens setting. There are a number of published examples that make this clear.

For example, there is a meerkat familiar in Thuvia that teaches university students about insects and alchemy and that regularly has intelligent conversations with humanoids.

NPC can do things that PC's can't: as such, an example of an NPC's familiar doesn't mean much.

Arcaian wrote:
I really don't think it's reasonable to equate giving a command to a trained animal, one which you've spent time teaching it, to having a full-on conversation with your familiar.

#1 I wasn't equating anything. Command an Animal is an untrained nature check vs a non-hostile animal: it in NO way requires a trained animal. You can use it on any random untrained animal so if you find a squirrel in a woods that's never seen a humanoid before, you can still give it a try.

#2 I was showing that encounter mode makes familiars REQUIRE constant attention or they don't do anything [excluding independent and avoiding danger] so the amount of intelligence is moot in figuring out it's abilities and in fact points to some inability to take most actions on it's own.

Arcaian wrote:
I also don't think this is doubling exploration actions - it's the exact same effect on them as bringing along an NPC ally for the journey.

It 100% is doubling as it's from a PC's features and it'd only be the same as an NPC if you got an NPC from a feature that you control. For instance Underground Network lets you use an npc but it uses your exploration time and takes an extra feat: it's not giving you an NPC + you do things too.

Arcaian wrote:
I've never seen someone suggest that befriending a scout and having them along for your journey is too powerful.

Maybe because no PC was controlling the scout and making them to things? It's one thing to have a party NPC and another when it's an extension of the PC.

Arcaian wrote:
I'd not give them an exploration activity, but they could go out and do specific tasks if asked, or help with a problem of everyone's come to a stop.

So for instance, if a wizard asked a familiar to scout out someplace, you'd forbid the wizard from doing ANYTHING like Refocus? If not, you'd be allowing multiple exploration activities. Even something benign like keeping watch can act as a Scout activity while the wizard does other things.

Arcaian wrote:
Maybe you run NPCs in exploration mode differently, but if the effect can be replicated by making a friend and bringing them along, it shouldn't be unbalanced.

I 100% treat an extension of a PC differently from a truly DM run NPC entity.

Arcaian wrote:
If you're concerned about the balance, you could even ask for diplomacy checks - not in an antagonistic way necessarily, could just be in a "Would you do it for a scooby snack?" sort of way.

It's not so much that I'm personally overly worried about balance but the makers of PF2 sure seem to and that was my point. I have personally seen others feel familiars where stealing their thunder.

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