I was thinking about a familiar, but the question applies to any minion that you could set to doing a repetitive task.
I realize the DCs involved might make this question moot, but I figure we can burn that bridge when we come to it.
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Well, yes and no. On paper, nothing forbids a Minion to craft or Earn Income. The dice rolls will certainly stay quite low, but if it's not a problem then you can go with it. Of course, the task needs to be one the Minion can make, so the GM has a word on that.
But... You have to direct them constantly. Minions can't really act on their own, you have to constantly give them orders for them to continue working. Even Independent on a Familiar would give only a limited amount of actions to the Familiar and shouldn't allow it to work in a timely manner.
Now, if you like sitting in your workshop and commanding your minion constantly, it can be funny.
As a side note, Eidolons don't have this issue and should be able to work on their own. There's still a question as to whether you can also work in the meantime, as you share your actions with your Eidolon. But if you only want the Eidolon to work while you are resting, it should be possible.
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My advice would be to step back from rules technicalities and approach this question from a narrative/everyone having fun at the table perspective.
If you are a player, then this is 100% a question for your GM and really whole table. If everyone is fine with you making choices for your familiar/minions based on down-time utility, and that will neither be unbalancing, nor a complete waste of your character resources, then it will probably be fine, although resolving it is just largely going to be GM fiat.
If you are a GM, and you know your players are thinking this way, start off by examining how much it will even matter. Way too many APs either don't give much downtime, or do in theory, but players feel compelled to push past it in a fashion that you might be looking at something like a week's worth of downtime over a whole 3 book Adventure Path. If that is the case, you have to decide if trying to arbitrate that is worth anyones time, as well as wether there is really any balance concerns from just letting it happen to make your players happy. But if it results in one player trying to convince everyone else to spend months between adventure beats, while other players want to move on, it is probably not worth the hassle of entertaining. If all the player decide to dump character building resources into it, well then it probably is something worth figuring out, and as a GM, you just modify your campaign to let that downtime stuff be a source of party income, erring a little towards letting it tip the scales in the party's favor over just collecting wealth from the encounters as it is clearly a part of the game that they all want to make more significant.
In the end, any table only has so much time to get together to play. Downtime roleplaying can be a fun part of that, and it can also be a frustrating part of that if it takes away from the pool of time you have for running encounters/etc. so it is always a bit of a dance for the GM to balance. Personally, I would be much more inclined to let a player get an aid bonus from a minion participating in down time than giving them a whole separate downtime activity to monitor, mostly to avoid one player taking up twice as much time in play when we are resolving downtime activities. And if everyone in the party wanted to get into setting up one or more organizations to continue doing downtime activities while the party was out adventuring, I would probably tell them I would look into it between sessions and see if it was worth doing in the campaign I was running or not before giving them their answer.
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Being worried that letting a familiar do exploration or downtime skill checks would be imbalanced is a bit strange. Assuming that I even have 'Skilled' for the skill needed, that means my bonus is level + master's casting attribute bonus. No proficiency bonus. I also can't get skill feats to improve ability.
So my ability to do an exploration skill like crafting to repair a shield or Treat Wounds is going to be worse than any other character that puts in even a modest effort into it. The only reason that would ever be desired by the party is if literally no other character was capable of doing the task instead.
Downtime activity like Earn Income is a bit different. Even bad Earn Income is better than nothing. So letting both master and familiar do Earn Income is probably a bit imbalanced. But Earn Income is tuned pretty low already anyway, so allowing the imbalance isn't really going to hurt anything in the long run.
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my bonus is level + master's casting attribute bonus. No proficiency bonus. I also can't get skill feats to improve ability.
So my ability to do an exploration skill like crafting to repair a shield or Treat Wounds is going to be worse than any other character that puts in even a modest effort into it. The only reason that would ever be desired by the party is if literally no other character was capable of doing the task instead.
The Remaster did possibly remove your ability to do Trained-only actions of skills, such as Treat Wounds, no matter if you have 'Skilled' or not. That may be an oversight though.
For Treat Wounds, as long as I boost Intelligence to +5, then a nat-1 would only downgrade to a regular Fail result when we are at level 10, so you would no longer have a risk of dealing damage for the attempt. It would still be healing only 2d8 HP on a Success and 4d8 HP on a Critical Success and lock out any other Treat Wounds for an hour afterwards.
The Remaster did possibly remove your ability to do Trained-only actions of skills, such as Treat Wounds, no matter if you have 'Skilled' or not. That may be an oversight though.
It is crazy to me that remaster has apparently introduced so much ambiguity.
For Treat Wounds, as long as I boost Intelligence to +5, then a nat-1 would only downgrade to a regular Fail result when we are at level 10, so you would no longer have a risk of dealing damage for the attempt. It would still be healing only 2d8 HP on a Success and 4d8 HP on a Critical Success and lock out any other Treat Wounds for an hour afterwards.
Weirdly, this just makes me want to weaponize incompetence by having an unskilled Familiar attempt to Treat Wounds of a helpless enemy!
It's never gonna be worthwhile , but it is funny to me...... You have to direct them constantly. Minions can't really act on their own, you have to constantly give them orders for them to continue working. Even Independent on a Familiar would give only a limited amount of actions to the Familiar and shouldn't allow it to work in a timely manner.
I wanted to have my familiar repair my gear, forage for herbs,manufacture ammo, weave hammocks,bake cookies etc.
Even at 1/3rd the pace, I figured they could be doing X while I am doing Y.Can a familiars scout, if you have to be pulling it's strings constantly?
Can they even stand guard?
Can they eat without receiving orders?
Do they even need to eat, or is that just me assuming something not present in the text?
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Yes, they can eat or sleep or whatever. When they don't receive orders, they do as they see fit. But on the other hand, they can't really guard, scout, without near constant guidance. After 1 minute, they go back to whatever they want to do.
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It is crazy to me that remaster has apparently introduced so much ambiguity.
The Remaster did possibly remove your ability to do Trained-only actions of skills, such as Treat Wounds, no matter if you have 'Skilled' or not. That may be an oversight though.
Technically it is not actually ambiguous. It is most definitely removed. What is uncertain is if that removal was intentional or not.
Originally, the rule for Familiars: Modifiers and AC said, "It can't make Strikes, but it can use trained skill actions for skills for which it adds your spellcasting ability modifier."
In Player Core, the definitions for Modifiers and AC are moved to the Pet feat. And a Pet definitely doesn't have the ability to use trained actions of skills. And probably shouldn't.
But Player Core definition for Familiar doesn't add that back in. And that is what may be the mistake.
So the Remaster didn't add ambiguity here. It added a nerf to Familiars. Which is strange for the Remaster when they tried so hard to make everything either unchanged or improved as far as balance is concerned. Familiars really didn't need nerfed in what they are able to do outside of combat.
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Am I missing something?
I do not think there is any reason that minions/companions are allowed to do PC downtime actions. Those are specifically things PCs can do.
I have no reason to think it would be allowed to substitute a minion in place of a PC.
I'm not even sure where in the rules it would be to state that minions/companions can use exploration mode actions. Skilled just ups the modifier, as it does not mention actual Trained, it does not grant even that.
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Am I missing something?
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
Do you see any rules that specifically forbid minions from doing those things?
Do you think that PCs are the only creatures in the in-game universe that use those exploration or downtime activities?
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Do you think that PCs are the only creatures in the in-game universe that use those exploration or downtime activities?
Yes. Absolutely.
Can NPCs craft things? Work to support themselves? Research topics that interest them? They most certainly they can. What they cannot do is use game mechanics specifically intended for PCs.
If an NPC wants to craft something, the GM need only describe it happening. If they need to work, and it is important to the plot to know their income, the GM declares those details. They don't make Recall Knowledge checks; they either know something, or they don't, as decided by the GM. A GM might choose to use existing PC game mechanics to guide their decision, but the bottom line is that they don't have to.
Despite players having some agency over them, familiars and other companion creatures (except perhaps the summoner's eidolon) are ultimately NPCs, and so many of the downtime and exploration rules designed for use by PCs simply don't apply to them.
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Yes, they can eat or sleep or whatever. When they don't receive orders, they do as they see fit. But on the other hand, they can't really guard, scout, without near constant guidance. After 1 minute, they go back to whatever they want to do.
This is why my familiar is a beaver, and I sell small dams.
"Just sit here, lil' buddy, right next to this burbling creek."Not that I make money off of him. I wouldn't want to steal the fruits of his labors; he's a hungry scamp who loves his silk blankies.
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This is why I said, if you are a player, this is really a conversation for your GM. Your GM is going to be the one to decide if having your familiar contribute to your downtime activities is just an element of flavor, a slight bonus, or a potentially doubling of your productivity, not the rulebook.
As a GM, you can choose a number of different approaches to make it meaningful, but consider it in relationship to your whole table and not just what one character is trying to exploit. Downtime is already something that is (and should be) largely in the realm of GM fiat as far as availability of jobs, research materials, crafting resources, ect. Not to mention just how much time the players will actually get to commit to downtime. Even if they decided your familiar or minions could do downtime work to support you, and they let you have an army of constructs programmed to do one repetitive task forever, if the campaign never returns to where the minions are, the whole point is moot anyway.
Technically it is not actually ambiguous. It is most definitely removed. What is uncertain is if that removal was intentional or not.It is crazy to me that remaster has apparently introduced so much ambiguity.
The Remaster did possibly remove your ability to do Trained-only actions of skills, such as Treat Wounds, no matter if you have 'Skilled' or not. That may be an oversight though.
I think the missing proficiency rank is unintentional, because NPC creatures have the same problem. Or maybe NPCs (and familiars) simply lack proficiency ranks and ignore requirements to be trained.
Suppose a 4th-level party is traveling in hostile kholo territory and makes no effort to [urk="https://2e.aonprd.com/Actions.aspx?ID=2407"]cover their tracks.[/url] I can imagine a kholo patrol consisting of a Kholo Sergeant and three Kholo Hunters coming across their tracks and following them. The sergeant has Survival +10 and the hunters have Survival +5, so they have the bonuses for tracking. But Track is a Survival Trained Action, and nowhere on the kholos' stat blocks does it declare them trained in Survival. They simply have good bonuses.
Can a Centaur Herbalist with Medicne +7 and a Healer's Toolkit in their equipment Treat Wounds? A 3rd-level PC with Wis +3 and trained in Medicine would have a +8 bonus to Medicine rather than a +7, so I cannot even assume training due to a high bonus. Nevertheless, the Healer's Toolkit strongly implies that the centaur can Treat Woulds.
Am I missing something?
I do not think there is any reason that minions/companions are allowed to do PC downtime actions. Those are specifically things PCs can do.
I have no reason to think it would be allowed to substitute a minion in place of a PC.
I'm not even sure where in the rules it would be to state that minions/companions can use exploration mode actions. Skilled just ups the modifier, as it does not mention actual Trained, it does not grant even that.
Part of the problem is that minion in the dictionary means "a servile dependent, follower, or underling," and is often used in that sense in talking about campaigns, such as "an encounter with a boss and four minions." The minion trait has not shaken off that meaning of minion. A hireling is a minion in the dictionary sense, but would that person have the minion trait? Yet perhaps the minion trait applies only to familiars, animal companions (including plants, constructs, and undead), and summoned creatures.
The Player Core definition of minion trait says, "Minions are creatures that directly serve another creature." In my last place of employment, some people were called "direct reports," because they directly served under a particular manager rather than in a less direct team member or contractor role. Thus, the definition does not rule out human minions. Later sentences describe how the minions take actions during a turn after given a command by their leader. The last two sentences in the first paragraph are, "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." Thus, sapient minions, for example summoned intelligent creatures, are possible.
In game design the minion trait is to limit the power increase from having an animal companion or a summoned creature. The PF2 designers could have made rules that animal companions are weak at combat and can barely hit an opponent, but that would be less fun. Reducing their actions to two per turn that cost one action by the PC means that an animal companion can hit just as well and just as hard as a PC of that level but add only 33% more damage rather than 100% more damage. Familiars are a stranger case, since they do not fight in combat.
Let's assume that minion trait applies to animal companions, summoned creatures, and familiars, but not to hirelings and loyal retainers.
Minions do have to act in exploration mode. For example, a steed ridden by its champion has to be able to walk during exploration mode. If a druid has a bear animal companion, does the druid have to carry the bear because it cannot act to walk during exploration mode? If a ranger has a dog animal companion (falls under Wolf category), then could the ranger roleplay the dog using its scent ability to track another creature? Track is a Survival trained action, but the dog (Wolf) is trained in Survival. All the actions listed under Survival skill are exploration and downtime activities, and I would appreciate the dog using its training.
Back in my PF1 Iron Gods campaign, the party recruited the NPC Val Baine. She was the daughter of the missing wizard the party had been hired to find, and they decided that she deserved a chance to search for her father herself. And after the first module, they kept Val in the party. I decided to build Val as a good crafting assistant to the many party members who loved crafting. That meant that she had to spend skill points in 6 different crafting specialities, because PF1 had different skill lines for crafting alchemical items, armor, bows, mechanical items, tools, and weapons.
One feature that boosted all crafting checks was a Clockwork Familiar's Advice ability: "Advice (Ex) Clockwork familiars have an innate understanding of how things work, granting their masters a +2 bonus on all Craft and Use Magic Device checks." In addition, she gave her clockwork familiar Sparky the Valet archetype for Able Assistant ability: "Able Assistant (Ex): A valet’s master treats the valet as if it had the Cooperative Crafting feat and shares Craft skills and item creation feats with the valet." Thus, I happily imagined Val building armor in her workshop with Sparky assisting beside her. Or sometime Val and Sparky would cooperative craft with another party member. Sparky did not craft independently, but it boosted Val's crafting checks and speed. Val never risked Sparky in combat and she added clockwork as a 7th crafting specialty in case Sparky was damaged.
Thus, PF1 familiars could contribute during downtime. PF2 familiars, in contrast, have no special crafting options that I know of. The PF2 Clockwork Familiar has nothing resembling Advice ability. Valet is merely a familiar ability to hand items to its master.
What can PF2 familiars do during downtime? I typically think of them as class features that have their own body, so as a GM I prefer that familiars and animal companions stay near their partners. If the partner were searching for a job to Earn Income, the familiar might open up new options, such as, "Of course I can watch your flock of sheep. My fox familiar is as good as any sheep dog." But I don't see the familiar earning income independently, not even a familiar who can talk.
As for a familiar performing crafting, at this time PF2 has little support for two people working together on the same crafting project. The Craft activity is written with a singular you. Communal Crafting feat blatantly limits itself to assistance from another PC, not from an NPC (though an NPC with Communal Crafting could accept assistance from a PC). Cooperative Crafting feat requires the Aid action from the assistant. And Aid is a reaction. Minions are denied reactions except in special cases. That leaves the familiar crafting alone, perhaps in the same workshop as its partner. Since it lacks Alchemical Crafting or Magical Crafting feats, the familiar wouild be limited to mundane items. Such limited production does not seem important, and as a GM I would say, "Sure, your monkey familiar is sewing up and supplying a canvas Healer's Toolkit while you brew up your elixirs in the same room."
The issue is that just because something or someone is under a PC's command, that does not mean that they are capable of the same actions as their leader/master.
The Player Character may be a well studied Wizard, but the PC is an exceptional mortal, always. They have invested Training and Skill Feats into the ability to Craft their own spell scrolls.
There is zero reason to think that a minion somehow gains the abilities & skills of their master via some unsaid transitive property.
Without magically gaining the abilities of their master, there's 0 foundation for minions to be able to Craft, or perform any PC downtime activity.
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If PCs desire some extra labor for PC-specific activities, that's the entire purpose of the Services rules for hiring/requesting NPC help.
For help with things like Crafting, that's likely the purview of the Hirelings mechanic.
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Minions/companions being "able to act" has nothing to do with them somehow magically assimilating the abilities and capabilities of their master.
With 0 reason for minions to be able to do what their very-special PC master can, the idea that this is up for a RaW debate is genuinely baffling to me.
(Houserules ofc can do whatever they find fun at their table)
Minions/companions being "able to act" has nothing to do with them somehow magically assimilating the abilities and capabilities of their master.
Your statement in comment #9, "I'm not even sure where in the rules it would be to state that minions/companions can use exploration mode actions," mislead me into thinking that your argument was that the rules for minion trait define their actions only in encounter mode.
The issue is that just because something or someone is under a PC's command, that does not mean that they are capable of the same actions as their leader/master.
The Player Character may be a well studied Wizard, but the PC is an exceptional mortal, always. They have invested Training and Skill Feats into the ability to Craft their own spell scrolls.
On the other hand, animal companions are a kind of minion, and they have trained skills.
Proficiencies: Your animal companion is trained in its unarmed attacks, unarmored defense, barding (a type of armor for animals), all saving throws, Perception, Acrobatics, and Athletics. Animal companions can’t use abilities that require greater Intelligence, such as Coerce or Decipher Writing, even if trained in the appropriate skill, unless they have a specialization that allows it.
,,,
Skill An additional trained skill your companion has
A Cave Pterosaur is trained in Thievery, though limited to Palm an Object or Steal only. It could earn income through petty pilfering. Many other animal companions are trained in Survival. They could be sent out to hunt game to sell in the market. An inventor's construct companion could gain the Wonder gears initial modification that trains it in Intimidation, Stealth, and Survival. With the additional Miracle Gears revolutionary modification, it could use those abilities intelligently, so under favorable circumstances it could earn income.
I easily imagine a Construct Companion Type that would be trained in Crafting, though I don't know of one yet.
There is zero reason to think that a minion somehow gains the abilities & skills of their master via some unsaid transitive property.
Why not? Player characters gain abilities and skills out of their class from an unsaid transitive property from their level. More levels means more skills.
Scene from The Order of the Stick: On the Origin of PCs by Rich Burlew, page 52:
HALEY: Well, if you're serious about increase your power more quickly, there is a workaround. Be an adventurer.
VAARSUVIUS: You jest.
HALEY: Nope, Adventuring is like the H.O.V. lane to power. You need other people in your party, but once you get that going, you just zip.
VAARSUVIUS: Preposterous! I hardly think I will learn more lurking in dank basements and thwacking monsters than I would by staying in my library and studying. It is not as if I will be on about the countryside when I spot a rabid hydra, which I will summarily dispatch and then think, "My gods, killing that reptilian horror gave me the most insightful revelation about the quantum nature of reality!"
HALEY: Wanna bet? Like two weeks ago, I'm on an adventure where we're fighting kobolds. Nothing but kobolds as far as the eye can see, in their little cramped caves. I get back to town, and BAM! I'm better at picking locks. I didn't even see a lock on the entire trip!
VAARSUVIUS: But that is ridiculous! There is no causal link between kobold target practice and the illicit manipulation of locking mechanisms.
Without magically gaining the abilities of their master, there's 0 foundation for minions to be able to Craft, or perform any PC downtime activity.
True, Pathfinder 2nd Edition lacks a transitive ability to copy a master's skills onto the familiar. Instead the Familiar rules give the familiar abilities independent of the master's abilities.
The rules for Pets say, "Modifiers and AC Your pet’s save modifiers and AC are equal to yours before applying circumstance or status bonuses or penalties. It uses 3 + your level as its modifier for Perception, Acrobatics, and Stealth, and just your level as its modifier for other skill checks. It doesn’t have or use its own attribute modifiers and can never benefit from item bonuses." The rules for Familiars increase that modifier to your spellcasting attribute modifier + your level. And the familiar ability named Skilled can add another skill beyond Perception, Acrobatics, and Stealth.
Skilled: Choose a skill other than Acrobatics or Stealth. Your familiar’s modifier for that skill is equal to your level plus your spellcasting attribute modifier, rather than just your level. You can select this ability repeatedly, choosing a different skill each time.
The familiar has a potential familiar ability that can give it a skill. The master of the familiar does not have to have that skill. A witch's cat familiar is more likely to be good at Survival skill than the witch herself. In theory, the witch could hire out her cat to clear a house of mice with its Survival skill, while the witch and the homeowner sit down in the parlor for tea.
I’d lean towards the minion can help but not lead. The wolf companion can help track game but can’t hunt for money by themself. The fox familiar can take notes for you while you experiment but isn’t a scribe for hire. You’ll need a really good explanation for why they’re doing something profitable solo while you wander off doing something else.
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I think I get the idea.
I think a lot of the things people think familiars can do are because of the flavor text/lore from the entire lineage of the game.
The very fact that Earn Income is an game mechanic rather than a thing one role plays should be a clue the clueless , like, myself.
Because of the emphasis on balance in this system , any meaningful action your character can initiate will probably be a class feature with a mechanic that can go with it.
If you want to do something, never look at the common meaning of words used to describe your class feature.
Independent and Skilled mean only what the entries say, not what common usage implies.
In practice,build the best you can, to simulate the character you want to play, but discover the limits of your character at a given table by asking.
Accept "No" gracefully,
I hope that most GMs will allow Players to describe the interaction of Minions with their PCs pretty freely, at least in ways that have no mechanical impact.