Research Fail

[Than]

I've been going over the Dread Necromancer's Handbook (http://community.wizards.com/bleak_academy/wiki/Dread_Necromancer/Features) class features page and it states a Familiars special abilities like poison save DC scale with the master. The claim of 10 + 1/2 master's level + stat seems outrageous simply because I cannot find anything to support this claim. Am I blind or is the handbook writer crazy?

[Urpriest]

I've been going over the http://community.wizards.com/bleak_academy/wiki/Dread_Necromancer/Features (Dread Necromancer's Handbook) class features page and it states a Familiars special abilities like poison save DC scale with the master. The claim of 10 + 1/2 master's level + stat seems outrageous simply because I cannot find anything to support this claim. Am I blind or is the handbook writer crazy?

It's very straightforward.

Familiar Basics

Use the basic statistics for a creature of the familiar’s kind, but make the following changes:
Hit Dice

For the purpose of effects related to number of Hit Dice, use the master’s character level or the familiar’s normal HD total, whichever is higher.


Poison

When a character takes damage from an attack with a poisoned weapon, touches an item smeared with contact poison, consumes poisoned food or drink, or is otherwise poisoned, he must make a Fortitude saving throw. If he fails, he takes the poison’s initial damage (usually ability damage). Even if he succeeds, he typically faces more damage 1 minute later, which he can also avoid with a successful Fortitude saving throw. The Fortitude save DC against a creature’s natural poison attack is equal to 10 + ½ poisoning creature’s racial HD + poisoning creature’s Con modifier (the exact DC is given in the creature’s descriptive text).

The creature's racial HD are treated as equal to the master's character level, and its special abilities are based on racial HD.

[Than]

So I'm blind (familiar's racial HD = master) and looking in the wrong place (didn't look up poison itself specifically). Thanks Urpriest.

I also fixed my bass-ackwards URL fail.

[Rubik]

So I'm blind (familiar's racial HD = master) and looking in the wrong place (didn't look up poison itself specifically). Thanks Urpriest.Unlike psicrystals familiars don't actually have HD = master's. They're just treated as though they do for effects based on HD. There doesn't seem to be much difference until you start thinking about things like HD-related bonus feats.