for the zoog to perform meaningfully in combat. The ritual takes 8 hours to complete. A variant of the Round feel, more compact. Small-sized familiars threaten the areas around them like Small creatures, and can be used to flank enemies, though both familiars and their masters are often loath to use such tactics, as the result is often a dead familiar. Recent Changes When your familiar delivers a touch spell that deals energy damage of a type other than your chosen energy type, your familiar can choose to alter the spell so that half of the energy damage dealt is of the spells original type and the other half is of your chosen energy type. Speed: Changing a creatures movement types or speeds is usually to be avoided. small bonus to saves and AC, but the aura can be easily replaced with some (and therefore bigger than the octopus), its Grab ability is worthless. At 20th level, this bonus also applies against curses. Share your form with others In a lot of ways they function more like a remote-controlled robot than like an independent creature. It also Most charm-like effects make the target friendly to youthe target has to follow your requests only if theyre reasonable, and has its own ideas about what is reasonable. For a lower-level cohort or a non-adventuring follower, the gift of a second chance at life is something very treasured and earns you great respect and devotion. The silvanshee also has Pounce for some weird Curious about Familiars in Pathfinder Second Edition? able to improve the poisons usefulness by applying it multiple times. many improved familiars. You might feel silly talking as both your character and your cohort, but more comfortable having a dialogue with your cohort when its played by someone else (this also keeps the cohort from blindly doing whatever you say). useful abilities. It cant fly, and it cant manipulate items. no notable special abilities. The Doru can fly, and can see in any type of darkness. The stirge attacks as a melee touch attack, so it can charge into melee and The cacodaemon is roughly equivalent to the quasit and the imp, but without There is a fantastically long list of wonderful options (see Improved Familiar Options, below), many of which can be very capable combatants. On top of all of that it can cast spells from scrolls as if it languages effects. can therefor threaten squares, carry tiny riders, and attack into adjacent Master gains a +3 bonus on Diplomacy checks. So all familiars start off on this level playing field, and if you want your familiar to have flight or blindsight (not currently available) or opposable thumbs, you have to buy it using the familiar abilities. If your familiar naturally has an ability from the list of Familiar Abilities, that ability is locked in and you are unable to change that decision. Regardless of the cause, when a companion dies or is lost, you need to replace it. feet, and with telepathy they can silently alert you and your party to the Linguistics. have a lot of trouble getting enemies to fail their saving throws. Conversely, giving a player full control over the actions of two characters can slow down the game. Between Speak with Animals and Truespeech is can act as a The classic look for the Archives of Nethys. One of the freshest ideas in the second edition of Pathfinder is the addition of character reactions. The GM must keep track of a cohorts tactics and motivations and how those affect it in combat while keeping her own knowledge of the monsters separate from the cohorts knowledge; otherwise, the cohort will outshine the PCs with superior tactics. translator to most creatures. In effect, they are trustworthy NPC contacts (Trust score 4; see Contacts). In effect, youre trading customizability for the additional capabilities provided by the Specific Familiar which you choose. Be sure to check the Does it have behavior quirks like not letting anyone touch the druid when shes sleeping, even allies trying to wake her? Consider some of the Advanced Method options for making more significant adjustments to a creature. you access to essentially metagame information on a regular basis. Archaeopteryx Your familiar doesnt automatically follow you about, so having your familiar on the ground means that youre comitting actions every turn to simply command your familiar to follow you. Rather than these followers all being spread thinly across every possible settlement in the campaign, its more likely that many of these individual followers know each other well, possibly by working together, spending time at the same temple or academy, or being members of the same family, and you should expand these clusters of followers in an organic way. its attacks are garbage, and its only redeeming quality is Scent, which you Your choice of base animal is a surprisingly important part of your familars capabilities. quietly in the dark. It cant fly, its only abilities (for instance, an owl has a fly Speed), you must select that ability. The raktavarna is a really interesting creature. 3 actions to summon, then 1 action to Augment it, 1 action to command, leaving you with a single action left which is not useful to a wizard. Eidolons: Outside the linear obedience and intelligence scale of sentient and nonsentient companions are eidolons: intelligent entities magically bound to you. Even if you dismiss the follower aspect of the Leadership feat as baggage, a follower is going to pay attention to what you do, and if this hero-worship grows tarnished from neglect or abuse, that very same follower provides an opportunity for the GM to demonstrate how bad will among the common folk can negatively affect an adventurers life (see the Reputation section of this chapter for more information). The linguistic complexity comes from the fact that they've worded it so that it implies the familiar's abilities come from it's species' physical traits. The informant might have news about mysterious disappearances or volunteer to keep an eye on your rival. Master gains a +1 natural armor bonus to AC. If the master and the familiar are in contact at the time the master casts a touch spell, he can designate his familiar as the toucher. The familiar can then deliver the touch spell just as the master would. Animal Companion: Advancement choices for an animal companion include feats, skills, ability score increases, and tricks. For Master Ability descriptions, see the Familiars Page on Archive of Nethys. | Gods and Monsters SRD with no reason to get into combat it isnt very useful. They have hands and can speak, so At 20th level, it can inflict demon fever instead. paying the 500gp material component cost. The cythnigot has darkvision and constant detect law and Its natural For a cohort or follower with character levels, these kinds of spells give the character one or more negative levelsa price worth paying if the alternative is death. might be appealing for melee casters and polymorph builds, but Im not certain Those with an inherent connection to magic often attract creatures who feel a similar instinctive pull toward magical forces. If your Leadership score improves, just add new followers rather than advancing existing ones. In either case, the familiar uses its own ability modifiers. The vipers big appeal is its poison. manipulate items and speak, which may allow it to use magic items. Im not a fan of Touch Telepathy, but otherwise this is a great familiar for use as a scout. It has Scent, and the +3 to Diplomacy checks is nice, but Through a special familiar, your patron grants you versatile spells and powerful hexes to use as you see fit, though you're never certain if these gifts will end up serving your patron's larger plan. The spirit oni is a decent flyer, and it can turn itself invisible at will. Once youve got the stats worked out, use the examples above to decide what ability your familiar grants its new master. shadows or darkness, Master gains a +3 bonus on Diplomacy checks, Master gains a +3 bonus on Sleight of Hand checks. a bat with no wings). Survival bonus is very hard for most spellcasters to use. PF2E Core Rulebook pg. These special abilities apply only when the master and familiar are within 1 mile of each other. a druids wolf companion might have been saved by a famous ranger, fought in an orc tribes arena, or escaped a wizards experimental lab. During your daily preparations each day, you are allotted two (or more with certain feats and class features) ability slots to determine your familiars capabilities. Apparently Paizo no longer saw fit to provide stat blocks for single rats and housecats. It has Though the snapping turtle is technically stronger, both turtle are bad The process of making a vermin into a familiar grants it an Intelligence score and removes the mindless trait. I have no idea what these things are, but theyre disgusting. perception checks until mid levels, even with the +3 bonus to Spot from having perception bonus, so if your party is good at perception the rat is a better such poor Strength those attempts wont go very far, but with a high BAB Doing so requires that you have at least the required number of abilities. abilities to speak of. A familiar grants special abilities to its master, as given on the table below. With +16 stealth and the There are new feats intended for Animals. A follower should be more than an acquaintance or an employee. If you want a lobster, you can use the king crab, perhaps reversing its land and swim speeds to represent its quick movement underwater. When you select the Leadership feat, you and the GM should discuss the cohorts background, personality, interests, and role in the campaign and party. If this is a problem, the GM should suggest that another player help run the companion or ask you to give up the companion and alter yourself to compensate (such as by choosing a different feat in place of Leadership, taking a domain instead of a druid animal companion, or selecting the companions option for a rangers hunters bond ability instead of an animal). A rat makes a fine guinea pig, and a weasel makes a great stoat or ermine. As a familiar its unremarkable, but the +4 bonus to initiative makes it So, it's far from perfect, and "bird" covers a lot of ground - it'd be fair to argue that owls have darkvision while hawks don't, and neither of them has blindsight, while bats should. A Props: Physical props can help you, the other players, and the GM remember companions. they can use magic items, but their abilities are all terrible. All such familiars can speak the elemental language associated with their respective elemental plane.48, The following more exotic familiars are mostly associated with pirates and nautical spellcasters, but are not exclusive to them.49503, In addition to the normal array of familiars, Besmara allows birds, blue-ringed octopus, king crabs or monkeys.16, Some vampires and dhampirs may call a vampiric familiar.5253, Some spellcasters choose their own hand as a familiar after making a mutually acceptable bargain with some form of spirit, ghost or outsider to possess their hand. to the imp consular. In terms of game mechanics, there is no difference between any of these options, and you should work with the GM to find a replacement method that is appropriate to the campaign. Even the +2 bonus to Will saves is bad because Most spells require 2 Actions to cast, so youll need to get your familiar positioned the turn before using Familiar Conduit, which can be difficult if targets move around at all. against weak enemies. That's the base, as you've noted, and the actual animal you choose is little more than set dressing. situations. Throw it into combat and hope that enemies are dumb enough to waste actions attacking it. At 20th level, the familiar can move through water as though under the effects of freedom of movement while using this ability. The desperate stable-boy follower can approach you about money to pay off his fathers gambling debts to a crooked bookkeeper. A witch must commune with her familiar each day to prepare her spells. The familiar can sprout draconic wings, granting it a fly speed of 30 feet with average maneuverability for a number of minutes per day equal to 1/2 your caster level (minimum 1). Allowing another character to play the companion also gives the group additional roleplaying opportunities. Followers are a little more complex because there can be so many of them and they dont usually adventure with you. It can also cast commune once per week without the 500gp material has a constant Tongues effect, removing the need for your party to invest in and makes it much easier to rely on your familiar as a Scout. It cant actually do anything except move around and maybe deliver spells if you have the Familiar Conduit feat, but beyond that its basically useless. Ratfolk get exactly one feat which grants access to a familiar, then nothing else related to familiars. I was worried when I didn't see anything, but having that open-ended aspect is nice. Though its easy to treat followers as a single, nameless group, a smart player realizes that they dont have to group together. MrWagner ORC 3 yr. ago Yeah, they aren't meant to do anything in battle really, so they are basically a tiny pet with some perks. Your destination for buying luxury property in Grenoble, Auvergne-Rhne-Alpes, France. a more powerful familiar can speak with other animals of its kind, and if left to roam, it could pick up interesting news about a town or an army camp. What are its goals? Of course, intelligent companions using speech can bypass some of these limitations (such as telling a cohort theres an invisible rogue in the corner). flies, it can see in magical darkness, it has DR and fast healing, and it has Can you still use Commanders Strike if the only attack available to forego is an attack against an ally? The Though the target of a charm effect considers you a friend, it probably feels indifferent at best toward the other PCs and wont listen to requests from them. Just because a follower is low level and youre not doesnt mean the follower stops being a person with needs, fears, and a role to play in your heroic story. The GM can create a middle ground, such as requiring you to put ranks in Handle Animal but not requiring you to make checks, or reducing the action needed to command an animal, but these decisions should be made before the companion joins the group. The Granted Abilities entry lists normal familiar and master abilities that familiar has. Familiars also take a full week to replace if they die, so be cautious about protecting them. In other words, a familiar follows the template described in the familiars section regardless of what they are - they have your saves and AC, 5 * your level hit points, size tiny, low-light vision, and either a land speed or swim speed of 25 feet. options. Cure light wounds is always useful, but at 1/day it Like anything in Pathfinder 2e, how effectively you can use an option depends heavily on how you build your character. will. Fortitude saves is also great for arcane spellcasters who typically have poor Your familiar must have the resistance ability to select this. It costs way too many actions for a very mediocre creature. If youre entirely in control, the companion acts like a subsidiary PC, doing exactly what you want just like a true PC. So, yeah, the implementation fails to support the intention, assuming my supposition is correct. For example, dogs, elephants, and even gorillas lack the proper physiology to speak humanoid languages, though they can use their limited vocabulary of sounds to articulate concepts, especially if working with a person who learns what the sounds mean. Cookie Notice If playing a companion goes well, the GM may create a one-shot spin-off adventure in which all the players play companion creatures instead of normal PCs (perhaps because the PCs are captured, incapacitated, or merely sleeping), returning to the normal campaign when that adventure is completed. appealing. | Five Torches Deep SRD Detect Magic and Speak With Animals running, which offers some utility In general theyre GM-controlled companions. invisibility, it also makes a great Scout, and spiritsense allows is to locate The best answers are voted up and rise to the top, Not the answer you're looking for? useful long after other familiars spell-like abilities stop working due to You should decide what feat it learns, subject to GM approval, although the creatures higher intelligence might mean it has its own ideas about what it wants to learn.