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Working backwards:
-Is this worth a focus point?
This depends on what else you have that costs a Focus Point, and what your familiar is capable of. It's basically trading a Focus Point for an action, and since you can get Focus Points back between fights (usually), this seems pretty good.
-It allows my Familiar to act without me spending an action to control it?
Yes, but it also removes the traits from the action you would normally use to control it, which could save you from someone's reaction.
-so it works for one turn then I can't use it again?
Correct, but you can use it again if you have more Focus Points to spend on other rounds.
-How does this ability work?
As a free action on your turn, your patron grants your familiar its two actions, and you lose a Focus Point. (this was simply included for completeness. I think you understand the ability fairly well)
Cheers.
A slight, but important, distinction is that it's not "as a free action on your turn" but "as a free action when your turn begins".
That's imporatnt for 2 reasons,
A third even more technical reason the distinction is important is that you can only use one reaction or free action with a trigger that has the same trigger. And 'the start of your turn' is a fairly common trigger. You couldn't use both Patron's Puppet and Unleash Psyche on the same turn.
As for usefulness and preferences between Patron's Puppet and Phase Familiar:
I find that generally Phase Familiar is a bit more powerful. There are some Patron themes and particular Witch builds that would favor Patron's Puppet though - ones that want the familiar moving around a lot (I think Starless Shadow Patron with Familiar of Stalking Night being one of the most obvious).
As for the usefulness of focus spells in general: As was mentioned, focus points can be recovered after the battle. And you can - by getting other focus spells - have up to three of them at a time. If your familiar is out of position, then they wouldn't be able to use their abilities effectively. And if you are short on actions (which is very common for most characters in combat) being able to move the familiar into position and/or do its thing - without costing you an action of your own - can be quite powerful in certain situations.
I typically take Phase Familiar and Independent to get the best of both worlds. Other than being limited to one action and potential opportunity costs, Independent also doesn't have any drawbacks like taking up my one free action at the start of my turn or locking me out of my other hexes for the round.
A couple other considerations.
-You can only cast one hex per turn, so this locks you out of using your other hex options, which are often what you'd want that extra action for. (Though you can sustain hexes you already cast with that action.)
-There are two alternate action economy hacks available at low levels: the cackle hex (also counts as your one hex per turn) and independent familiar ability. Both are great. But once your familiar starts getting two action options, like Spirit Familiar or the Euphoric Breath of the fairie dragon, Patron's Puppet value increases significantly.
-It is a decent option to have when you don't need your other hexes, and it lets you get a focus pool of 3 points by level 2. It only competes with phase familiar, which gets even wonkier with hex restrictions. And if your familiar is being damaged that often you may want life link as a reaction instead.
-They value will vary from patron to patron. Generally, you want to be activating your patron's unique familiar ability every turn. Starless Shadow probably needs to use Shroud of Night to do this, at least initially, so hexes that compete with your cantrip have less value. But the Inscribed One has a hex cantrip that you won't necessarily want to use every turn, so the value of Patron's Puppet is higher. Most other patrons fall somewhere in the middle, but they will all appreciate an option to trigger the familiar ability without spending actions. As noted, it gives you a pretty nice work around for 1 round durations for Ongoing Misery.
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Phase Familiar seems awful to me because it blocks such a low amount of damage compared to the benefits of Life Boost which everyone seems to take. Sure, reaction vs action, but c'mon.
Patron's Puppet is much better at level 8 when Spirit/Stitched Familiar feats come on line, allowing you to no action the single target blast.
PP is also good with the familiar spell casting ability (can't remember the name, it's not in PC1 so probably from ACG or the Bazaar book), you can no action have it cast a two action spell (of admittedly low rank). With quickened spell feat this will later let you and your familiar get three two-action spells off in the same round.
With quickened spell feat this will later let you and your familiar get three two-action spells off in the same round.
Kind of makes me wonder why anyone would ever play a wizard in this day and age.
I typically take Phase Familiar and Independent to get the best of both worlds.
I haven't seen anyone take the phase familiar hex since witches got an option of starting hexes.
Because a wizard could cast up to like 6 top level spells as opposed to 3 for witch.With quickened spell feat this will later let you and your familiar get three two-action spells off in the same round.Kind of makes me wonder why anyone would ever play a wizard in this day and age.
Yeah, but the wizard doesn't have any decent focus spells. A witch could deliver a rather potent damaging effect through their familiar twice an encounter without ever touching their spell slots.
Once a wizard has used their 6, they lose a lot of steam. The witch on the other hand probably doesn't need to tap their top 3 until round 3 of most any given encounter, meaning they get a lot more mileage out of their offensive abilities before petering out.
At best, the wizard can still claim increased versatility when the stars align.
Yeah, but the wizard doesn't have any decent focus spells.
Hand of the Apprentice and Force Bolt are pretty good 1 action focus spells they get at 1st level. Force bolt's auto damage can ensure knocking out enemies with a few hp left and can be cast after a 2 action spell. Hand of the Apprentice is a 500' range and can toss 1d12 weapons with it [Orc Weapon Familiarity, for instance gives proficiency with a great axe]. Add to that that it's not exactly hard to pick up focus spells through archetypes and I don't see how witches beat out wizards because of focus spells.
With quickened spell feat this will later let you and your familiar get three two-action spells off in the same round.Kind of makes me wonder why anyone would ever play a wizard in this day and age.
Well, for one, witches are even more complicated than wizards. Positioning the familiar and choosing it's abilities, leveraging all the one action options. or no action hexes and sustain options, They are also complicated thematically since their best options tend to be a bit sinister for the average heroic party. And fitting the patron into the story in a meaningful way can be hard on a GM.
I'm writing a guide to the witch meta that covers all this stuff. Hopefully I find the time and motivation to finish it soon. I have some especially fun ideas about patron agendas.
They are also complicated thematically since their best options tend to be a bit sinister for the average heroic party.Personally I don't see a problem in sinisterness. But I do see a problem in general: why what a character does complies with patron's interests? Either miraculously every witch ever has a patron that's interested in what the char got into, or the entire premise is wrong, and patrons actually mostly don't care.
Yup, I've thought a lot about this. You have a few options.
- Make the patron the driving force of the plot. They might hire the entire party, or even be the villain. But hanging your plot upon a single PC is usually a bad idea because if that player leaves (or their PC dies) your plot comes crashing down.
- Have the witch join the party under the direct orders of the patron. This doesn't necessarily work for starting AP hooks, but is a great way to bring in a replacement PC. Much better than the old "you meet a new person in a tavern who joins you for the lulz."
- Have the patron assign concrete tasks with opaque purposes. Tasks which can done concurrently with the story quest, and won't derail. I had a witch who gave out finger bones to people as gifts. It started as a weird gag to freak NPCs out, but it is actually a great example of a shady patron assignment. My favorite example was from Rude Tales of Magic, where the patron gave the warlock a bag of coins to place on the eye's of the dead. For a Pathfinder patron, you probably don't tell your player what this does, exactly, or you feed them a long which may or may not be true.
The argument for Phase Familiar over PP.
Puppet being limited to the start of the turn is an actual problem for the patron abilities that have conditionals. The one time most likely for the preconditions to have been broken by movement, ect, is quite literally at the start of the Witch's turn, after everyone else has had their actions. So P Puppet is mandated to happen at the worst time, lol.
Especially when some options like Stalking Night familiar require adjacent foes, P Puppet may only be burning a focus point for a single extra familiar action (because who is not taking Independent).
Aside from that downside to P Puppet, Phase Familiar has a very real upside.
The hex is itself a Reaction, and there is no requirement on the familiar abilities to only function during the Witch's turn. How important that is varies with the potency of the familiar ability.
For Stalking Night, the no-save Frightened 1 is very, very good. Even if the familiar is being shot at range, if the adjacent+obscured conditions are there, then the familiar can put Frightened 1 on a different adjacent foe. Resentment can actually double up on boosting a single effect. Restored Spirit can cause the familiar to give themself temp HP right as they are hit in the first place, a shoe-in for Phase F.
No joke, I can see times where a Witch might call out for an ally to intentionally include a familiar in an attack to get that trigger of the ability, especially if there's a 1 duration Slow about to expire.
Meanwhile, the Wilding familiar's ability... is not as relevant for the consideration of Phase Familiar.
The "turn start" requirement is still restrictive enough to get in the way of some familiar ability use, as it must fully complete before the Witch does anything.
If the Witch needs/wants to be involved in the ability condition at all, such as by throwing up concealment, then using PP is outright incompatible that turn (only 1 hex per turn).
The comparative flexibility of Independent, and even the Command action, versus P Puppet mean that there are situations in which, even without considering the extra spend of a Focus point, the Witch will avoid using P Puppet so they can first Stride (familiars are often shoulder-mounted) cast a spell, ect.
And the Reaction hex nature of P Familiar is still something that PP wholly cannot do. When a big AoE hits the whole party, those Flamekeeper Witches will be able to react and put the THP exactly where it's most needed.
I'm not saying P Familiar is an outright superior choice, but that, especially with the variety of patron familiar abilities, P Familiar really can be a better fit for a lot of players/PCs.