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So, i have a lvl 2 LESHY Kineticist [Wood] that I've been jokingly saying has a Bee/Wasp or other insectoid flying/crawling about his being. Now that he's lvl 2, he can access that feat. But i've never really played a wizard or any class [in PF1 or 2e] that dealt with utilizing a familiar, and trying to understand 2e Familiar rules is confusing me.
so, help me out. Would a Kineticist benefit from a familiar, even if it is primarily flavor and how to set one up.
Thanks.
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Maybe the Magnificient Menagerie Familiar Guide will help you to parse the rules, especially the "How familiars work" section.
In my opinion, you don't need rule elements for flavor, you need them if you want to use a familiar to influence the outcomes of the game, be it in exploration, in combat or in social encounters.
You could use a familiar as a scout, for example, or to help you with skill checks or do them on their own.
Without further investments, your familiar will have two abilities, and if it should be able to fly that would consume one. If you want it to scout, it should probably be able to communicate its findings, it will need speech or touch telepathy, or maybe share senses to let you see through it.
Two abilities is not a lot, but you can change them with your daily prepreations. If you want more, you would have to invest more feats for familiar master archetype or the like.
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A flying familiar is especially helpful for scouting purposes, as they tend to be less conspicuous than PCs. They're great for utility purposes, if you're a little creative. Delivering a letter, fetching something from a distance, and so on.
Default familiars have two abilities, I believe. You select these abilities from a list, and any abilities the creature would innately have, you have to choose first. So a parrot familiar would have the Speech and Flying abilities, for example. A monkey would have manual dexterity and a climb speed. If you have leftover abilities, you can give them other abilities as well, so you can have a talking bee, or give it darkvision. Important to know is that you can swap out these abilities each day, so you can have a talking bee one day, and one that resists fire the next. Discuss with your GM if you want your familiar to have specific abilities, but don't have the "slots" for it.
There are also "Master abilities" that allow you to do something, such as access to an extra cantrip, or look through your familiar's eyes. These work the same as the normal familiar abilities, in that you select them each day, just that they give you an extra ability, rather than your familiar.
There are feats and classes that increase the number of abilities your familiar has. The Witch starts with four abilities instead of two, and Enhanced Familiar does the same.
You can have specific familiars with special abilities if you have a certain number of abilities. For instance, a Mood Cloud requires you to have 3 abilities (so only available to Witches or if you take Enhanced Familiar), and comes with two of these abilities "pre-installed."
Familiars don't act in combat by default. You can give them a command as one action to give them two actions. The Independent ability gives them one free action each turn. They're (usually) not designed for combat, as they have terrible HP and no attacks. A familiar uses your AC and saves as its own AC and saves.
If you want an insect familiar, this is how I'd set it up:
- Give it the Flier ability for 25 fly speed. This one is mandatory.
- Give it one other ability of your choice. Independent, Manual Dexterity, and Speech are generally good ones, but depending on what you want, you can give it other abilities.
That's it! You now have a flying insect familiar! If you want to give your familiar more abilities, take the Familiar Master dedication, or ask your GM if you can take Enhanced Familiar as a class feat.
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The Witch starts with four abilities instead of two
Only three are selectable. The fourth one is permanently chosen by the Patron. But that detail should not be very important in this case for a Kineticist.
Several of the familiar master abilities are designed for use for a spellcaster and would have no effect on a Kineticist. Cantrip Connection, for example, would not grant an additional Cantrip. But many master abilities will continue to function properly, as will all of the abilities that affect the familiar itself.
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Okay, let me be a little more specific- unlike PF1, there isn't a "this creature can be used as a familiar" list that i can find for 2e, so actually *creating* the familiar is what's confusing me.
Let's say i want to stay within the "flying insectoid" theme- would the familiar itself even have a stat block? Flying/Shared Senses for scouting would be all it would used for.
If the creature itself is naught more than 'extra appendage' as added utility to the class itself, i wish that were more clear in the rulings. Thanks all.
Familiars use pet statistics: https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=5186
They're basically pets with special abilities, per the familiar rules: https://2e.aonprd.com/Familiars.aspx
"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 gain the Pet general feat, except that your pet has special abilities. Common choices for familiars include bats, cats, foxes, ravens, and snakes."
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My opinion, familiars aren't worth it unless you're going to spend several of your character resources on making them worth it.
The class feat that grants you a familiar on its own doesn't make it good.
I was recently building an earth kineticist and was debating about it, but decided that Geologic Attunement was a better choice.
But I would totally have a Gluttonous Geode as a (decorative) pet.
Having seen it in action it still probably wouldn't be my personal first choice. But it has exceeded my 'going in' expectations, and I know the player is quite happy with their choice.
As long as the player is happy, that's what matters most.
Considering the amount of choices available to a Kineticist, I probably wouldn't take it.
If I got free archetype on a character, I might consider taking the familiar archetype....but it's still doubtful since there are better ways I could spend it.
Having a familiar to scout is not without value, but I still have a hard time spending even a single class feat on it.
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Considering my character is a Wood Kineticist, he's options at lvl 2 for a feat are limited. a familiar for flavor's sake is not a wise idea, but i've never been one to really min/max a build. True, Hardwood Armor for defense, or Versatile Blast for the potential poison early are probably better options...
im not seeing people defending the choice of taking a familiar for the kineticist, so i'm gonna close the topic. thanks all.
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If you want a bird familiar to sit on your leshy woody kineticist for RP reasons...as long as that makes you happy you don't really need any other justification.
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It needs no more defense than "you want it". It's your character. Are there more viable and optimized feats, yeah, pretty easily, but it's your character.
That said, if you just want a little bee buddy that buzzes around you, that's flavor, like Claxon said, or you can pick up the general feat "pet". which is basically a familiar with no master abilities, and you can only prepare one familiar ability per day. and I think the list of available familiar abilities is more limited.
...im not seeing people defending the choice of taking a familiar for the kineticist, so i'm gonna close the topic. thanks all.
The big problem with kineticist's familiar is that most of its abilities are made to interact with spells, items or alchemy what leaves to kin's familiar basically the skills abilities what's pretty limited set of options.
The only interaction with kineticists that familiars have is that you can switch it to summon an elemental -4 levels bellow of you once per day or 2 in a day if you want to sacrifice your familiar (what usually means that you need a week in downtime to get another familiar or get the familiar via witch archetype once that your patron is able to provide you a new familiar everyday to allow you to prepare your spells).
Also the action economy of kineticists are pretty complete what usually leaves the player without free-action to control the familiar. This is not a problem if your familiar only accompany you in exploration/downtime to use it only for its skills or just want to use it as sacrifice to summon elementals.
That's why many of use have so little suggestions to you to use a familiar and sometimes just recommend to get a pet instead.
I will agree it's much easier to stomach the idea of spending a general feat for Pet than a class feat (to me).
When it comes to general feats, I honestly have a hard time thinking of ones I want besides Canny Acumen, Fleet, and Incredible Initiative. So it's easier (to me) to throw in something like the Pet feat for a non-combat little friend.
A familiar can be handy for rounding out kineticists rather than boosting their main focus.
Sensory and movement abilities are great for scouting, as stated above, but they also have some skill-related abilities such as Threat Display, Snoop, Skilled Familiar+Second Opinion, Partner in Crime, Ambassador, and Accompanist - and kins generally need all the help they can get with skills.
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Agonarchy makes a really good point. Kineticists suffer from SAD (single attribute) dependency almost as much as other classes from MAD. Because they can focus almost everything into Con, and maybe a little into strength if they want the armor impulses, or dex if they go without, They don't They often lack intelligence, which means they also lack skills, and unless they're using Dex as their secondary focus, Their main two modifiers don't really improve any skill (except athletics) So using the familiar to help improve that situation is not a bad idea.
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I may just get the Pet feat eventually, as gaining a familiar is more of a feat-sink than beneficial. One real bonus i can see of Pet vs Familiar is the Familiar gets my Con bonus to it's limited skills.
my Leshy is a sentient mobile knot of roots and he isn't much of a social or tactful butterfly, so i've never expected him to excel in social environs. He's more likely to be quiet and pass himself off as someone's familiar or companion.