neither familiar nor bonded object?


Rules Questions


Do the rules state that a wizard MUST take a familiar OR a bonded object, or, can they choose to have neither? Both seem to have serious drawbacks...


You make the choice at 1st level and cannot change it. If you take bonded item, you have to have the bonded item to cast spells without having to make a concentration roll. But nothing says that a character that choose familiar for his arcane bond actually has to have a familiar. There is no reason they could not dismiss their familiar and not summon a replacement. Other than having to replace a familiar if it is killed or dismissed there are no real drawbacks to having a familiar.


There are archetypes that replace the choice. In theory you could choose familiar and then just abandon it.


I think a GM can home rule in your favor.

You can choose the familiar option then dismiss it.

You can choose a bonded object amulet and just keep it in your spell component pouch or wear it over your Aegis of Recovery (so your BondObj isn't active). The object gives you a spell you know on demand once per day... that is a great ability.

The Exchange

The only time the bonded object can be a drawback is if you are playing in a campaign where the GM loves to steal/sunder your gear. In which case the spell component pouch is usually a far more tempting target.

Getting thrown in jail and having to escape without access to your gear can be a fun challenge once in a campaign. But if the GM keeps trying to deprive you of class abilities - that's just being mean and not good storytelling.

Liberty's Edge

Some bonded object is more prone to being damaged or stolen: staves, wands, and weapons.
Those are the likely targets for the sunder maneuver and for attempts to "repossess" your valuable items. Rings and amulets are items that normally the opponent loot from your dead body.
The drawback of rings and amulets is that they use up a body slot, the benefit is that they can be enchanted without the required feat.

Choosing the bonded object and not using it is a big drawback, as you risk spell failure.

As others have said, choosing the familiar as your bond and never calling him is perfectly fine.
Losing the familiar has practically no consequences.


OK thank you! I will carefully consider all of this. I am not rolling a 1st level wizard, I am adding a level of wizard to my fighter/rogue. She's an antiquities dealer who wants to join the Pathfinder Society and she is the type who would want to have things like light, detect magic and identify herself if she's alone. (She's human and can't see in the dark.) She would add stuff like jump or expeditious retreat to her repertoire. She's got a +1 mithril chain shirt of spell reistantce (13) and her spell failure chance is only 10%. Plus now she can carry and use arcane scrolls. I don't want to really mess with having a familiar on top of these new abilities. If she chose bonded object the logical choice would be her +1 rapier but if she loses that she's really got a problem...

Liberty's Edge

Note that the familiar doesn't need to stay near you. Your character probably owns a house and even at 1st level a familiar has an intelligence of 6, so you can choose a familiar that is a pet and that will stay at home when you are away. Be it a cat, a raven, or any of the familiars that are common company animals, it seems a nice addition for the character, without added problems, unless your GM likes to target your character's family and friends.


Consider the chronomancer archetype for wizard. At first level the only change is to swap arcane bond for a couple small buffs.


The other thing to consider is that a familiar starts with a 6 INT. That means the familiar is f fully sentient creature. Most familiar will also have at least average WIS. A cat starts with a 12 WIS as do many others. Get a familiar that can fly and have it act as a lookout for your character. Having a trusted lookout is a good deal for any rogue character.


The bat familiar might be obvious in the day, but it has blindsense 20, which makes it an amazing guard when you are sleeping or an amazing scout when you are underground.


LoL, targeting a bonded object is a dumb strategy. Killing an equipped familiar is wiser. Neither of those is likely unless you use your familiar in combat. In Org Play it is extremely rare and never heard of going after a bonded object.


Sarjenka wrote:
... I am adding a level of wizard to my fighter/rogue. She's an antiquities dealer who wants to join the Pathfinder Society and she ...

Advice

sounds like you are not in Org Play.
IF you took Magical Knack trait then you have 2 decent options; 1) diviner Wizard with bonded object(amulet){sch:!E,!N} and do Aegis of Recovery at half cost. 2) Arcanist selecting Dimensional slide and you'll need 2 levels and GM approval that the trait stacks with the ability as that will give you a decent 'slide'.
Other options aren't as good. Wiz univ, Transmuter Wiz are other choices.


"Org play?" Not sure what that means, just playing Pathfinder with our friends. It also never occured to me to give a familiar a wand which probably sounds kinda dumb. When we started the campaign it was "just Core rules" but since then the GM has allowed other material in. I just thought this forum was a good place to look for advice for this stuff.


Sounds like you are new to Pathfinder. The forums are excellent places to look for advice.

One thing on Pathfinder is that for the most part multiclassing is usually a bad idea, especially for a spell caster or other class that has a lot of level-based class abilities. Taking a single level is not so bad, but trying split your levels between multiple classes usually makes the character weaker than other characters. Fighter/Rouge is not as bad as other combinations because most of the class abilities on those classes are not level based. Sneak attack is about the only major thing that is level dependent, and the increased BAB of the fighter actually makes that more reliable.

If you are only looking to gain access to a few cantrips and be able to use arcane scrolls, you might want to consider bard instead of wizard. Take the Archaeologist Archetype and you trade away bardic performance for a luck bonus that affects nearly everything. It will also give you +1 with a knowledge skill and the ability to make knowledges checks untrained. You have good will saves and reflex saves and get 6 skill points per level. You will need a CHA of at least 11 to be able to cast 1st level spells. Bards can also cast spells in light armor with no chance of spell failure.


the Rules forum is for explaining the rules.
You want the Advice forum for advice.


«smiles» Jaana is both the rogue and the tank in the party. She's got a Dex of 18 with Feats like Weapon Finesse and Combat Expertise. Super-light mithril chain shirt, small shield, and rapier, all magical now. Her Strength is 14 and none of her abilities are below average. When I took Rogue, the Game Master [my wife] said I could swap Knowledge(History) for Knowledge(Local) as a class skill because of her backstory. She's incredibly stealthy too and great at traps, more than a straight-up fighter would be. She can read and speak Ancient Thassilonian. I try to max out her AC and utilize Acrobatics and Mobility. Now, at Fighter(4)/Rogue(2), with Combat Expertise and a potion of Cat's Grace I can get her AC up to 27. She's one Feat away from Whirlwind Attack. I'm having so much fun with her because my main is a cleric/sorceress; this is the first time I have really gotten into playing a fighter. A decision to add one level of wizard would be in this character's personality but not really the best choice in terms of min/maxing.

I checked out Archaeologist, hmm maybe, I do like that she would have 0% spell failure that way. Expeditious retreat for sure, would have to think about the other? (We've mostly kept it to Core Rulebook spells but if the rest of the group doesn't mind...) However her CHA is only 11 whereas her Int is 13. I do love the luck bonus buff though, might speak to the GM about this. I do appreciate the advice! :)

Liberty's Edge

If your group commonly uses multiclassed characters, you could try the Fractional Base Bonuses optional rules.
That way you lose less in BAB and saves, while you don't stack the saves that have a +2 at the first level. The end result is smoother and more similar to a single-classed character progression.
Bard vs Wizard is a hard choice, the bard has plenty of advantages, but a problematic limit: he can't change his spells.
From the description of your character a wizard (possibly a diviner) seems a better fit to me.

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