Questions about familiars (PF)

[skypse]

Hello Giants! I hope you are having a lovely summer and a completely different one than me who I am stuck at work and boiling in my sweat and my endure elements spell (air condition) is out of order.

Yesterday night I had a very interesting discussion with a friend of mine who DMs a game, about wizard familiars. It turns out that I couldn't find anything in the rulebooks that would discredit his opinion, so I thought I should ask here since you are the most educated individuals in this earth regarding Pathfinder rules.

First topic of discussion was whether or not familiars take feats. I thought that a familiar takes feat as it progresses, at the same rate as a druid's animal companion, but using the wizard's HD instead. He says that a familiar never takes any feats other than the ones animals of its type already have.

Second topic was about turn order. I've always thought (and played/ruled as such) that a familiar/animal companion/mount etc. act on the same initiative turn as its master. He seems to believe that those creatures have their own initiative count and should play according to that.

So what is true after all? What are your opinions and are there any official rulings on these topics?

[Feint's End]

Your friend is right in both cases.

Familiars don't gain feats since they don't actually get hd like an animal companion. The only are treated as having half the owners health.

Similarly what makes you think they'd have the same initiative count as their owner? It's a reasonable houserule if they both have the same bonus to speed up the combat but there is nothing in the rules implying this is RAW or even RAI. So of course they have their own separate initiative count.

Hope those answered your questions.

[skypse]

Your friend is right in both cases.

Familiars don't gain feats since they don't actually get hd like an animal companion. The only are treated as having half the owners health.

Similarly what makes you think they'd have the same initiative count as their owner? It's a reasonable houserule if they both have the same bonus to speed up the combat but there is nothing in the rules implying this is RAW or even RAI. So of course they have their own separate initiative count.

Hope those answered your questions.

Makes sense about the feats, I never actually thought of that aspect, I was only looking at the HD increase of the wizard. As far as the initiative goes, I always felt like they should be playing on the same initiative so they could communicate and act together just like a mount would. I can totally see the cheesiness in having a huge initiative bonus on your summoner just to get your 50 STR eidolon play first, but I don't see the harm in playing with your familiar on your own turn. Especially late game where the familiar's initiative won't ever increase, in contrast to everyone and everything else, you end up having your familiar go always last which means that it can't delay/pass its turn to play with the wizard on the next round, and you are in a huge disadvantage by having your wizard delaying his turn to play with his familiar. This is not balance, this is #^%#$& up :D

Same for animal companions although they get stronger as the game progresses which leads me to the following question: I am a ranger, I have a wolf animal companion, I reach level 7 with boon companion and the wolf becomes large. I buy an exotic saddle, I've taught it the tricks it needs to know and I use it as a mount. Since it is being used as a mount, it should now act on the same initiative count as me right? All good. First round, I dismount from the wolf. When does it play? Just because I dismounted it, it can now play directly after me? How is this different from it playing on my initiative count from the beginning? All I did was use a move action and now the 8 initiative the wolf would have rolled is irrelevant?

[noob]

The main interest of the familiar is its ability to be duplicated so for example it can be good if you are a halfling spirit binder who have a familiar with a BBA of 1.5 times his level or even better if he take feats increasing its master level and then he use PAO for making it a powerful base creature for some hours then he cast duplicate familiar multiples times and have lots of super cool allies(but who are frail sadly).
Because of its ability to be duplicated easily the creators of pathfinder try to avoid making too much powerful familiars because you can have three of them with some casts of the good spell.

[Psyren]

Makes sense about the feats, I never actually thought of that aspect, I was only looking at the HD increase of the wizard. As far as the initiative goes, I always felt like they should be playing on the same initiative so they could communicate and act together just like a mount would. I can totally see the cheesiness in having a huge initiative bonus on your summoner just to get your 50 STR eidolon play first, but I don't see the harm in playing with your familiar on your own turn. Especially late game where the familiar's initiative won't ever increase, in contrast to everyone and everything else, you end up having your familiar go always last which means that it can't delay/pass its turn to play with the wizard on the next round, and you are in a huge disadvantage by having your wizard delaying his turn to play with his familiar. This is not balance, this is #^%#$& up :D

Oh no, the poor wizard! :smalltongue:

Joking aside, many GMs do let the familiar and wizard act together for simplicity's sake. RAW is that they roll separately though, and a companion only gets to share your initiative if you mount it or delay to match their count. The most likely result is that a companion will delay until your count since they're dutifully waiting for instruction, unless there's an obvious threat of course.



Same for animal companions although they get stronger as the game progresses which leads me to the following question: I am a ranger, I have a wolf animal companion, I reach level 7 with boon companion and the wolf becomes large. I buy an exotic saddle, I've taught it the tricks it needs to know and I use it as a mount. Since it is being used as a mount, it should now act on the same initiative count as me right? All good. First round, I dismount from the wolf. When does it play? Just because I dismounted it, it can now play directly after me? How is this different from it playing on my initiative count from the beginning? All I did was use a move action and now the 8 initiative the wolf would have rolled is irrelevant?

Mounted Combat says that a mount acts on your initiative. If you dismount, it's not a mount anymore and those rules don't apply.

Again, for simplicity I recommend just letting them act on the same count all the time, and again, the quickest (and most plausible) way to do this by RAW is to have the companion delay.

[skypse]

Oh no, the poor wizard! :smalltongue:
I know right!?!?


Again, for simplicity I recommend just letting them act on the same count all the time, and again, the quickest (and most plausible) way to do this by RAW is to have the companion delay.

Yeah but what happens if the familiar ends up playing last? You can't delay AND pass your round so you would play your familiar after the wizard who went first which means that you are stuck playing your familiar last all the time no matter what.

[Psyren]

You can't delay AND pass your round

I don't see why not. It just means they do nothing that first round, and change their initiative result to that of the wizard on the next round.

Worst case scenario, have them ready an action to do X when the Wizard does Y instead, that will move their initiative count up to the wizard's also.

[skypse]

I don't see why not.

Delay: By choosing to delay, you take no action and then act normally on whatever initiative count you decide to act. When you delay, you voluntarily reduce your own initiative result for the rest of the combat. When your new, lower initiative count comes up later in the same round, you can act normally. You can specify this new initiative result or just wait until some time later in the round and act then, thus fixing your new initiative count at that point.

Ready: The ready action lets you prepare to take an action later, after your turn is over but before your next one has begun. Readying is a standard action. It does not provoke an attack of opportunity (though the action that you ready might do so).

According to these two, you can lower your initiative to go last, and you can ready an action before your next round can begin. You can still make some smart plays if your wizard goes first, but if that's not the case, then there is no way you can have them play together.

[Psyren]

From your own quote:


Ready: The ready action lets you prepare to take an action later, after your turn is over but before your next one has begun. Readying is a standard action. It does not provoke an attack of opportunity (though the action that you ready might do so).

"After your turn is over but before your next one has begun" can be in the following round, so long as you aren't going first in that second round. And if you are going first, you can simply Delay before you Ready to go behind someone else; problem solved. Using these two can let you move your initiative to wherever you want and thus act with your familiar, and it can do the same with you if necessary.