Familiar or Cohort as a Rogue?

[EldritchWeaver]

I'm playing an Arcanist and I've been thinking about covering the empty Rogue position of our party via a Familiar or a Cohort. Rogue means for me being able to scout, to detect and to disable traps and optionally taking part in battle. I've collected some points to help me with the decision, but so far they are too general to help me. So I'm looking for a couple builds (or at least sketches of them) to be able to decide at least between Familiar and Cohort.

Familiar Pros:


Sneaking around seems to be easy as, as the improved familiar feat allows access to tiny, flying and even invisible creatures.
Empathic Link provides some ability to communicate longer distances. With Telepathic Link it can even support speech.
Share Spells can provide some boosts, but unfortunately its range is just touch.
Deliver Touch spells is nice, as enemies can't evade such an attack easily.


Familiar Cons:


Skills are depending on my arcanist.
The customizability of a familiar is restricted to archetypes.
Participating in a fight with the lack of HP seems inadvisable.


Cohort Pros:


Sneaking around works at least as good, as a cohort might be potentially a tiny, flying and invisible creature as well, assuming DM permission.
The cohort has full HP and all other benefits of class levels, including full allotment of SPs.
The class can be basically anything (in case the core Rogue is a suboptimal choice - I've read that pre-Unchained Slayer is preferable to Rogue).


Cohort Cons:


No Empathic Link (but via magic items this can be worked around).
No Share Spells.
No Deliver Touch.



Any advice is welcome!

[Secret Wizard]

Get a Figment familiar! You can grant it evolutions that can make him much better at the sneaking thing... plus if he ever gets killed, he just shows up the day after.

[Barstro]

Get a Figment familiar!


If a figment ever strays more than 100 feet from its master, a figment enters an antimagic field, or a figment's master is rendered unconscious or asleep, the figment disappears until the next time its master prepares spells or regains spells per day.
Doesn't seem overly useful to me.

[Psyren]

Doesn't seem overly useful to me.

How often are you going to be more than 100ft. from a trap that you care about?

[Barstro]

How often are you going to be more than 100ft. from a trap that you care about?

Once is enough. But I'm also concerned about the rest of it. Too easy to lose the "rogue" due to low HP, AMF, unconsciousness. If my party used a Familiar in an active roll, it would be subject to area attacks instead of just hand waving it away. 1/4 of a spellcaster's HP might get through a made save.

That's a lot of potential time to be without the "rogue". But if the party plays "9:00am, out of spells, time to rest for the day", then I guess it's fine.

[EldritchWeaver]

Get a Figment familiar! You can grant it evolutions that can make him much better at the sneaking thing... plus if he ever gets killed, he just shows up the day after.

Barstro has good arguments. Also scouting is very limited and looking at the evolutions - there are only the shadow ones which seem to be helpful for sneaking and only 3 evolution points don't seem to give a bang for the buck. Especially as the other evolutions are combat oriented and 1/4 HP counts fighting out.:smallfrown:

[Psyren]

Once is enough. But I'm also concerned about the rest of it. Too easy to lose the "rogue" due to low HP, AMF, unconsciousness. If my party used a Familiar in an active roll, it would be subject to area attacks instead of just hand waving it away. 1/4 of a spellcaster's HP might get through a made save.


That's a lot of potential time to be without the "rogue". But if the party plays "9:00am, out of spells, time to rest for the day", then I guess it's fine.

Thing is, you're comparing it to having a real rogue, which is apparently not an option and therefore moot. What you should be comparing it to is using a real familiar to do these things - in which case the drawback would be far steeper than being without your rogue until you have a night's sleep. Instead, you'd be spending 200gp/level and waiting a whole week to get your rogue back.

[EldritchWeaver]

Thing is, you're comparing it to having a real rogue, which is apparently not an option and therefore moot.

Actually, a cohort could be a full rogue. Still, I'm not sure how much a Figment Familiar is an improvement compared to e.g. a pseudodragon. If the figment dies, then it has been used in an incorrect way most likely. If these deadly situations are avoided, why not go with a normal/improved familiar?

[Psyren]

Actually, a cohort could be a full rogue.

Point, and if a cohort is approved that is obviously the better option. Operative word there being "if." But if your DM approved it, I don't think this question even needs to be asked.


If the figment dies, then it has been used in an incorrect way most likely.

Bad rolls and mistakes due to incomplete intel do happen.