Is there a way for a wizard to add more theses to his résumé? I've got a character who is just begging me for both Improved Familiar Attunement and Staff Nexus. :-)
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Only via GM fiat.
But the familiar master archetype will get you a familiar that you can pay more to enchance more. So perhaps your character is really just after the extra class feats from Free Archetype.
If your GM is full on RAW, Witch Dedication also gives you a progressing Familiar like the Wizard Thesis's one. It's often raised as an error but the APG errata hasn't removed the issue.
It doesn't need to be addressed as it gives you a familiar with 1 ability rather than 2.
Not by following RAW. I also agree that it's RAI so I don't understand why they haven't erratad it.
Yeah, I feared maybe the archetype dedication feat said something like "you gain a witch's familiar," that could lead someone to conclude that means you gain everything under the class' Familiar class feature entry, but it only says "you gain a familiar."
That's the exact same language as Animal Accomplice.
And "a familiar" is defined in its own section of the CRB with two abilities and no progression. The dedication subtracts one ability.
So I would see it as a long stretch to say it's RAW because the text "you gain a familiar" exists inside the Witch Archetype Dedication that this somehow means you gain the Witch class' unique Familiar class ability.
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It doesn't need to be addressed as it gives you a familiar with 1 ability rather than 2.Not by following RAW. I also agree that it's RAI so I don't understand why they haven't erratad it.
This is false. The written rules say a familiar with one ability less than normal, not a family with one ability less than a boosted progression.
Yeah, I feared maybe the archetype dedication feat said something like "you gain a witch's familiar," that could lead someone to conclude that means you gain everything under the class' Familiar class feature entry, but it only says "you gain a familiar."
That's the exact same language as Animal Accomplice.
And "a familiar" is defined in its own section of the CRB with two abilities and no progression. The dedication subtracts one ability.
So I would see it as a long stretch to say it's RAW because the text "you gain a familiar" exists inside the Witch Archetype Dedication that this somehow means you gain the Witch class' unique Familiar class ability.
If you don't quote the whole sentence. It says : "you gain a familiar with two common cantrips". The only Familiar ability that is a repository of your spells is the Witch Familiar ability. And before even explaining how the Witch Familiar is such repository it says "Your familiar gains an extra familiar ability, and gains another extra ability at 6th, 12th, and 18th levels."
So, there's no real debate unless you consider that Witch Dedication doesn't allow you to cast spells...This is false. The written rules say a familiar with one ability less than normal, not a family with one ability less than a boosted progression.
There's nothing like "normal" number of abilities or "boosted progression". Unless you find such a line, normal is what the ability refered gives you, not what another ability gives you.
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You cast spells like a witch.
How?
Using your familiar as a conduit, your patron provides you the power to cast spells.
Choose a patron; you gain a familiar with two common cantrips of your choice from your chosen patron's tradition, but aside from the tradition, you don't gain any other effects the patron would usually grant.
At 1st level, choose your patron's theme, which determines your spellcasting tradition,a skill, a special cantrip you gain, and a spell added to your familiar.The patron themes can be found here.
None of that says you modify the familiar rules from CRB pg. 217-218 except this:
Your familiar has one less familiar ability than normal.
So you don't need the Witch classes modified Familiar rules to make the archetype work. Witch Spellcasting grants use of a familiar as a spellbook, which is granted by the archetype.
The witch archetype grants you spell casting like a witch. Witch spellcasting is via a familiar. I quote the class feature Witch Spellcasting: Using your familiar as a conduit, your patron provides you the power to cast spells
So that line of argument from SuperBidi is not compelling as you do get witch spell casting fine even if your familiar is different
However, because you are already in the context of a Witch, I don't think you can say the familar granted is not a witches familiar, and the sentence Your familiar has one less familiar ability than normal is open for interpretation as a Witch Familiar or another Familiar. It is ambiguous.
I for one believe that Witch Dedication nets you a familiar with two abilities (the normal three for a witch's familiar, minus one per the archetype rule).
Thanks. I'd lost track of that reference. The archetype feat could still do with clarifying errata though.
The witch archetype grants you spell casting like a witch. Witch spellcasting is via a familiar. I quote the class feature Witch Spellcasting: Using your familiar as a conduit, your patron provides you the power to cast spells
So that line of argument from SuperBidi is not compelling as you do get witch spell casting fine even if your familiar is different
This line doesn't give you Witch spellcasting at all, it's just descriptive text. The rules that detail Witch spellcasting are in the Witch Familiar paragraph, and the first paragraph gives you extra abilities. If you don't apply these rules you can't learn new spells nor prepare them (besides your first cantrip) so it makes the entire Witch Dedication unusable.
Witch Dedication gives you a Witch Familiar with one less ability than normal. This is quite straightforward for a rule.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AvMW-JqgMw
Logan Bonner says it is a normal familiar; not witch familiar. He is a game designer for Paizo, so his opinion carries more weight if you are looking for what was intended by game designers.
I 100% agree it's not RAI. Still it's RAW. Developers' words are not erratas per se. And unfortunately, they haven't added it to the APG errata...
This line doesn't give you Witch spellcasting at all, it's just descriptive text.
That is a terrible empty argument. As soon as you start ignoring CRB text based on an arbitrary criteria like that you have lost any claim to RAW.
The rules that detail Witch spellcasting are in the Witch Familiar paragraph, and the first paragraph gives you extra abilities. If you don't apply these rules you can't learn new spells nor prepare them (besides your first cantrip) so it makes the entire Witch Dedication unusable.
Not so. The dedication gives you witch spell casting. Which requires a familiar and obviously gives you everything required for witch spell casting. That it cascades into multiple sections does not make it false.
Witch Dedication gives you a Witch Familiar with one less ability than normal. This is quite straightforward for a rule.
It is just one of two possible readings.
That video is why I think you don't get it back for a week. Which is rough if it's what lets you prepare your spells.He stated "it's a normal familiar guys".
At this point I don't know how he could have make it more easier for those few who played it as it was a witch familiar.
He could have said it doesn't get extra abilities as it levels and it is not replaced when it dies. The important stuff.
Why is it that people see one meaning and don't see that other meanings are possible?
Not so. The dedication gives you witch spell casting. Which requires a familiar and obviously gives you everything required for witch spell casting. That it cascades into multiple sections does not make it false.
No, you can't take a bit of rule here and there and mix and match them. If you don't have a Witch Familiar, you don't benefit from what is written in the witch Familiar entry. If you do have a Witch Familiar you get everything from it.
If you don't apply the Witch Familiar text box you end up with no ability to learn new spells and no need for your Familiar to prepare your spells each day. Ok, I hadn't thought about this interpretation. I find it very weird but why not. I still feel it's not RAI, but maybe it's what the dev want to say with "normal Familiar", that it's not really linked to the Witch Dedication besides this sole thematic sentence: "Using your familiar as a conduit, your patron provides you the power to cast spells."
Why is it that people see one meaning and don't see that other meanings are possible?
As a side note, that's super hard. I got one discussion about the Inventor Construct where one sentence could be read in 2 different ways. It took me a long discussion before finding the second meaning and ultimately decide that it was the most logical one. Every time I was reading the sentence, I was reading one way but not the other.
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He could have said it doesn't get extra abilities as it levels and it is not replaced when it dies. The important stuff.That video is why I think you don't get it back for a week. Which is rough if it's what lets you prepare your spells.He stated "it's a normal familiar guys".
At this point I don't know how he could have make it more easier for those few who played it as it was a witch familiar.
Indeed, he could have just as easily meant a normal witch's familiar rather than a normal Core Rulebook familiar, based on that quoted text.
Why is it that people see one meaning and don't see that other meanings are possible?
Confirmation bias.
Not so. The dedication gives you witch spell casting. Which requires a familiar and obviously gives you everything required for witch spell casting. That it cascades into multiple sections does not make it false.No, you can't take a bit of rule here and there and mix and match them. If you don't have a Witch Familiar, you don't benefit from what is written in the witch Familiar entry. If you do have a Witch Familiar you get everything from it.
Emphasis mine.
So... that also includes:
Your familiar starts off knowing 10 cantrips, five 1st-level spells
And
Each time you gain a level, your patron teaches your familiar two new spells of any level you can cast, chosen from common spells of your tradition or others you gain access to.
And I think most people agree that is not included in the familiar granted by the Witch archetype.
If you don't have a Witch Familiar, you don't benefit from what is written in the witch Familiar entry. If you do have a Witch Familiar you get everything from it.
It doesn't say everything from the familiar entry, it says familiar, and witch spell casting. You get what it says nothing else. That is a well established game principle.
So... that also includes:
Your familiar starts off knowing 10 cantrips, five 1st-level spells
No, because "you gain a familiar with two common cantrips"
And
Each time you gain a level, your patron teaches your familiar two new spells of any level you can cast, chosen from common spells of your tradition or others you gain access to.
No, because "but aside from the tradition, you don't gain any other effects the patron would usually grant."
If you don't have a Witch Familiar, you don't benefit from what is written in the witch Familiar entry. If you do have a Witch Familiar you get everything from it.It doesn't say everything from the familiar entry, it says familiar, and witch spell casting. You get what it says nothing else. That is a well established game principle.
So you can't learn new spells besides the ones you get from your feats, if your Familiar dies you definitely lose all your spells with no way to get them back and the sentence "you gain a familiar with two common cantrips" is weird when speaking of a normal Familiar as they don't have cantrips.
If, on the other hand, you consider that you have a Witch Familiar the rules become clear and nice, perfectly applicable and logical despite the fact that your Familiar has too many abilities (which is a balance issue but not a rule one).You can apply both of them, but the ones considering it's a normal Familiar don't really make sense.
So... that also includes:
Your familiar starts off knowing 10 cantrips, five 1st-level spellsNo, because "you gain a familiar with two common cantrips"
No, because "but aside from the tradition, you don't gain any other effects the patron would usually grant."And
Each time you gain a level, your patron teaches your familiar two new spells of any level you can cast, chosen from common spells of your tradition or others you gain access to.
But that text isn't in Patron it's in Familiar, and you argued that you get everything in Familiar. You can't pick and choose which things you take from the Witch's Familiar entry in order to argue that you get extra familiar abilities by virtue of needing the Witch's Familiar entry to cast spells but not really everything just the parts of everything that justifies my argument.
Which seems most parsimonious? That they gave a character a generic familiar with the statement "You gain a familiar" and hand waved the entire explanation that the familiar acts as a spellbook to save word count or that the familiar you get is a familiar with the extra abilities that come only from the Witch Class class feature "Familiar" without explicitly saying that but also not all of those sentences that they also didn't explicitly clarify.
There's a completely separate section--separate and agnostic to all Class entries--of the CRB that defines what a familiar is, which lots of feats of different sorts grant. The Witch Class class feature "Familiar" grants you a familiar and enhances that base creature. The Witch Archetype Dedication does not grant the Witch Class class feature "Familiar."
But that text isn't in Patron it's in Familiar, and you argued that you get everything in Familiar.Each time you gain a level, your patron teaches your familiar two new spells of any level you can cast, chosen from common spells of your tradition or others you gain access to.No, because "but aside from the tradition, you don't gain any other effects the patron would usually grant."
That's a strawman.
Which seems most parsimonious? That they gave a character a generic familiar with the statement "You gain a familiar" and hand waved the entire explanation that the familiar acts as a spellbook to save word count or that the familiar you get is a familiar with the extra abilities that come only from the Witch Class class feature "Familiar" without explicitly saying that but also not all of those sentences that they also didn't explicitly clarify.
Both features are called Familiar, so the question is not "Does it explicitly say you get a Witch Familiar?" but "Which familiar is the book referring to?".
If you consider it's a normal Familiar, you can't learn spells and you lose all of them without being able to get them back if your Familiar dies.If you consider it's a Witch Familiar you get a few extra Familiar abilities.
Pick your choice.
And "They handwaved explaining the rules" is hardly an argument in a debate about RAW. I can use it also if you want: "They handwaved stating that it's a Witch Familiar because we are in the Witch Dedication." Works fine. I think we can both defend the legitimacy of our reading.
How did a discussion about Wizard Theses morph into one about the Witch Multiclass Archetype?
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How did a discussion about Wizard Theses morph into one about the Witch Multiclass Archetype?
Familiar is only a Class Feature in the Witch Class. A familiar is an creature with it's own set of rules. Everywhere "you gain a familiar" is listed references that creature. A witch's familiar is no different than a gnome's familiar from the ancestry feat. The Witch Class has a class feature titled "Familiar" that grants extra powers to the base familiar.
The Witch Class' class feature titled "Familiar" lists a whole bunch of things after it says "you gain a familiar." However, rather than seeing in the archetype feat's statement "You cast spells like a witch" as encapsulating all the rules around Witch Spellcasting, you see "you gain a familiar" and conclude that you also gain the benefit of the Witch Class class feature "Familiar," but only the lines from it that support the familiar is more powerful, not the lines that make no sense in context of an class archetype dedication.
Also, you state this in defense of why the witch archetype's granted familiar dies not also provide the additional spells per level (though I argue the true reason is that you gain none of the Familiar class feature):
No, because "but aside from the tradition, you don't gain any other effects the patron would usually grant."
Why does that not apply to the extra familiar powers granted by the patron to the familiar?
though as it's a direct conduit between you and your patron, it's more powerful than other familiars.
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Before the video (why do these rules clarifications get buried in videos and not put in the faq or online rules source) I agree it was ambiguous, but it's pretty clear from that they don't want you using a witch familiar. The issue of spellcasting mechanics can be sussed out and inferred from the text so I'm not sure that's a huge problem either.
What does feel really needlessly cruel though is having your spellcasting ability tied to a super fragile creature that takes all your spells known with it if it dies and can't be replaced (and therefore can't prepare spells) for a week.
As a game design choice it feels kind of mean spirited to put that on someone for the crime of picking witch dedication instead of something else.
...
We are running in circle. I find your interpretation to be incoherent and you bring houserules to correct it. Mine is perfectly coherent, you can apply it without adjusting anything. That's why I consider mine to be RAW. But anyway, outside PFS, that's not really important as there are few environments asking you to follow RAW to the letter.
Returning to the original question, no, you can only have one thesis as a wizard.
IMHO it's a shame to waste it on a familiar, given that there are so many other ways to get one.
I would hands down always pick the Spell Substitution thesis, because there is no other way tp hot swap spell slots with only 10 minutes' work.
Some folks prefer the Spell Blending thesis, to have one more top-level spell slot, and I'd still take that before the Familiar thesis.
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Is there a way for a wizard to add more theses to his résumé? I've got a character who is just begging me for both Improved Familiar Attunement and Staff Nexus. :-)
The best you can do is be Staff Nexus, and take a lot of familiar feats via the Familiar Master Archetype. 2-3 feats should be enough to do whatever you want with a familiar. Given that Wizard class feats are not that compelling you should have enough space for it.
Thanks for a sensible answer, Gortle. :-)