Circumstances for a cat familiar to be able to use wands

[Es337]

I'm joining a Pathfinder session soon starting as a 4th level Witch with a Celestial Cat (improved) familiar- which is for the purposes of having my ideal roleplaying character for the session.
Although I'm almost definitely sacrificing a lot of optimization potential with this setup, I'm wondering under which feat, gear and spell (etc.) circumstances could I put into play for my familiar to consistently be able to use wands and such. I'm not sure if things like Leadership+Awaken would remove the Familiar aspect either (which would make my character a pretty terrible witch..).

Any ideas? :3

[CyberThread]

Unsure..... but my gut instict says screw this rule twisting, and just ask your DM to allow you to use the flying cat from forgotten realms.

[ngilop]

Yes awaken no longer makes them familiars or animal companions.

that said why do you want you cat to use wands?

seems kind well odd to me

and if your going to have a wand slinging kitty, then how not optimized can you be considering now you are fffectively 2 characters in 1.

[prufock]

Note: I am not as familiar with Pathfinder, so I'm basing this on 3.5. If these things work differently in PF please disregard.

Wouldn't a celestial cat be able to do this by default? It's spell trigger, meaning you need to hold it in whatever passes for a hand (claw?) and speak a single word (celestial creatures get Int at least 3, so they get a language). The cat would need a Use Magic Device check of 20 to activate it, which should be possible (familiars use your ranks and their own ability scores).

[Psyren]

Wands can be held in "whatever passes for a hand." For a cat this would mean their mouth, since that is how they carry things. The bigger problem is the "single word that must be spoken" - your first problem is that cats can't speak, and your second problem is that their mouth is occupied carrying the thing. Your final problem is that cats (even familiars) don't have spellcasting ability, so they can't use the spell-trigger activation normally. (Witch familiars store your spells, but can't actually use any of them.)

I'm not saying this is impossible (you could probably pull it off through shapeshifting of some kind, most notably Monstrous Physique, though that still doesn't solve all the problems) but there are a lot of hurdles to clear to make this work.

[Es337]

You know I completely forgot that cats, celestial or not, can't use magic devices as mentioned above. Having to add a workaround to that makes this poorly planned build seem even less likely, so I think I'll just work on the simpler approach of passing on touch spells instead to try and improve my normal witch plans a bit.

I'll ask about having a tressym with my DM as it was mentioned though! Thanks for the help ^^

[Ettina]

My DM allowed me to give my tibbit spellcaster the Natural Spell (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Natural_Spell) feat, which allows you to replace verbal and somatic spell components with movements and sounds consistent with an animal form, and use items that were melded into your form by shapeshifting.

[Lord Vukodlak]

You know I completely forgot that cats, celestial or not, can't use magic devices as mentioned above.
Sure they can just cast tongues on them first.

[Arbane]

You know I completely forgot that cats, celestial or not, can't use magic devices as mentioned above. Having to add a workaround to that makes this poorly planned build seem even less likely, so I think I'll just work on the simpler approach of passing on touch spells instead to try and improve my normal witch plans a bit.


I'd advise against using your familiar to deliver touch spells. You generally want to keep your fuzzy spell book AWAY from melee. (If you carry your familiar around, casting Burning Gaze on it could be amusing - you now have a cat-turret!)

If you're good, try a Silvanshee (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/outsiders/agathion/agathion-silvanshee). You need to be higher than level 4, though...maybe it could 'upgrade' when you level up?

[Psyren]

Sure they can just cast tongues on them first.

Tongues specifically does not confer the ability to speak on creatures that cannot do so already.

[Es337]

I'd advise against using your familiar to deliver touch spells. You generally want to keep your fuzzy spell book AWAY from melee. (If you carry your familiar around, casting Burning Gaze on it could be amusing - you now have a cat-turret!)

If you're good, try a Silvanshee (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/outsiders/agathion/agathion-silvanshee). You need to be higher than level 4, though...maybe it could 'upgrade' when you level up?

I certainly wouldn't want to get my adorable book disfigured.
These ideas are definitely something I'm going to look into though. Thanks for the suggestions :3

[Arbane]

I certainly wouldn't want to get my adorable book disfigured.
These ideas are definitely something I'm going to look into though. Thanks for the suggestions :3

Glad to help - I had a lot of fun playing a Witch.

[Lord Vukodlak]

Tongues specifically does not confer the ability to speak on creatures that cannot do so already.

Actually no, read again
"Tongues does not enable the subject to speak with creatures who don't speak"
If I am the subject of tongues then I can't speak with creatures who don't speak such as celestial cat familiars, HOWEVER if the cat is the subject of tongues then the following applies "the spell tongues grants the creature touched the ability to speak and understand the language of any intelligent creature" The celestial cat could then speak with people other then its master, however it couldn't talk to other cats unless its' master is a high enough level for "Speak with animals of its kind"

[hoborobot]

not sure if this applies but in one of our campaigns one of the players is playing a pony sorceror, and since they (have got no thumbs) he uses mage hand on wands. perhaps this will help?

[Raven777]

To solve the hands problem, you can always Alter Self (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/a/alter-self) the familiar into any small or medium humanoid through its Share Spell (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/wizard/familiar) feature. Though the best course of action, long term, is to crab an Improved Familiar with spell casting. Faerie Dragon (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/dragons/dragon-faerie) comes to mind.