Familiar on a Spy Monkey? (build help)

[bean illus]

I love skill monkeys and spies and '5th wheel utility' characters. Just love 'em. But i've never played with optimizing a familiar onto one. I read a post here recently that piqued my interest. It reminded me of familiars skill synergies with their caster. I immediately wondered how i might 'optimize' a character around that.. . .

I first thought of Factotum/Chameleon, till i was reminded that both of them have RAW problems. I still wonder if Facto can/should be used, but am also open to other ideas.

So i found a few things that might be fun to play with. . .

Check Complete Arcane, pages 18 and 71. Those allow Warlocks to qualify for classes like Mindbender that require an Arcane Caster Level based solely on Spell Like Abilities. From that, it's easy to extrapolate that a Factotum could do the same. - JaronK

When you play a Chameleon, you start it at ECL 6 and you finish at ECL 15, because you don't want to lose caster levels

Uncanny Trickster and Legacy Champion both advance Chameleon casting

Extra Familiar, Dragon #280. I don't have stats for that one, if someone can tell me about it. This idea came to me before i found the feat. (I would also be interested in an animal companion/etc at the same time as a familiar.)

One of the most obvious combinations is Facto3/Beguiler17, because of the skill access and 8th level spells. Obviously Wizard 17 gets 9ths but has MUCH less skill access. I was actually surprised to see how few casters and prcs are intelligence based (i'm probably missing things).

but i wonder if you folks have ideas and/or want to help me play with this?

I would like the build to have detection and non-detection, debuff, utility, disguise and of course insane skill access and maybe some damage in there somewhere, lol.

Let's start with Human, 32 point. I'm going back to research, and i'll check later to see what the forum has suggested.

[Darrin]

Extra Familiar gives you... (Wanna guess?) another familiar. It can be the same as your first familiar (except the bonuses don't stack) or a different kind. There are two interesting features: first, your familiar-based feats count for your new familiar, so you can take advantage of things like Improved Familiar; and second, you can take this feat more than once.

So you can double up with twin shocker lizards that can charge each other up. Or you could build a Pokemon army.

Also, consider: there's a variant in UA to trade your familiar for an animal companion, and an ACF in the Cityscape Web Enhancement to trade your animal companion for an urban companion, which is more durable than a typical familiar: 75% of your HP, no XP loss if it dies (24 hours to replace), and it starts with speech (hello command words and spell triggers).

[bean illus]

Extra Familiar gives you... (Wanna guess?) another familiar. It can be the same as your first familiar (except the bonuses don't stack) or a different kind. There are two interesting features: first, your familiar-based feats count for your new familiar, so you can take advantage of things like Improved Familiar; and second, you can take this feat more than once.

So you can double up with twin shocker lizards that can charge each other up. Or you could build a Pokemon army.

Also, consider: there's a variant in UA to trade your familiar for an animal companion, and an ACF in the Cityscape Web Enhancement to trade your animal companion for an urban companion, which is more durable than a typical familiar: 75% of your HP, no XP loss if it dies (24 hours to replace), and it starts with speech (hello command words and spell triggers).

Thanks, that's good stuff. I'm still reading, and wondering if there are prestige classes to look into.

[ben-zayb]

Optimize familiars, you say? This (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?409650-Junkyard-Wars-XI-Magical-Darkness-Improved-Familiar-Wizard) might be a relevant link. Check out my entry (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=19184664&postcount=94) in particular, which utilizes an intelligent familiar, combined with Able Learner, plenty of shared skill points, and Share Spell'd Divine Insight spams.

[bean illus]

Optimize familiars, you say? This (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?409650-Junkyard-Wars-XI-Magical-Darkness-Improved-Familiar-Wizard) might be a relevant link. Check out my entry (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=19184664&postcount=94) in particular, which utilizes an intelligent familiar, combined with Able Learner, plenty of shared skill points, and Share Spell'd Divine Insight spams.

Thanks for the tips. I've read those, and several other articles, and am getting some ideas. It seeming more obvious that it's not really an optimized build, and i'm having some trouble even finding a way to do damage (umd).

What i'm searching for now is, how to best boost the effect (CL and DC) of beguilers illusions/etc. If battlefield control is what we get, than we need to attack will saves. Any ideas? I figure i got maybe 2-3 feats to up CL/DC, and of course maybe items..

[Ruethgar]

For a Skill Monkey, an Awakened Advanced Monkey is a good option. ECL 0, 5 magical beast RHD means you can get early entry into all sorts of things. Of course any sane DM would shoot it down(or at the very least count the advancement against you) but it would allow you to have a monkey with monkey familiars all wielding wands. A not on the Familiar to Animal Companion ACF, it is at 1/2 level so presumably the Urban Companion would be at 1/2 level as well seeing as you are only trading a half of a class feature for it. Wild Cohort is the typical go-to for getting an animal companion-like feature. If you are a Gnome, Animal Friends can be quite useful with the Steal trick, especially if you awaken your friends simultaneously. The extra HD do not remove them as your friends but does give them the ability to spy for you more effectively and be able to take a little more damage. If you use Fine creatures with high speeds, they should have fractional HD allowing you to get 8 or so from one iteration of the feat without much trouble.

[bean illus]

For a Skill Monkey, an Awakened Advanced Monkey is a good option. ECL 0, 5 magical beast RHD means you can get early entry into all sorts of things. Of course any sane DM would shoot it down(or at the very least count the advancement against you) but it would allow you to have a monkey with monkey familiars all wielding wands. A not on the Familiar to Animal Companion ACF, it is at 1/2 level so presumably the Urban Companion would be at 1/2 level as well seeing as you are only trading a half of a class feature for it. Wild Cohort is the typical go-to for getting an animal companion-like feature. If you are a Gnome, Animal Friends can be quite useful with the Steal trick, especially if you awaken your friends simultaneously. The extra HD do not remove them as your friends but does give them the ability to spy for you more effectively and be able to take a little more damage. If you use Fine creatures with high speeds, they should have fractional HD allowing you to get 8 or so from one iteration of the feat without much trouble.
An Awakened Advanced Monkey Familiar? UGHH! Where can i read up on that? Even if the DM puts limits on that it's so cool...!

I'm also interested in the Morphic Familiar Changeling ACF, but i'm torn. There seem to be no ACF'S and few Prcs that work with Beguiler, and of course Wizard doesn't have enough skills to make a skillmonkey.

Changeling Facto3/ Wizard17 sounds like potential. Very SAD character. Brains over Brawn and some Familiar aid another etc would boost the skills of the Wizard to a quite acceptable level of skill access.

[Ruethgar]

An Awakened Advanced Monkey Familiar? UGHH! Where can i read up on that? Even if the DM puts limits on that it's so cool...!

Can't have an awakened familiar(they become magical beasts when they become familiars and have to be normal beforehand), but you can play an Advanced Awakened Monkey which I only mentioned because at level 1 your maximum in-class skill ranks is 9 and you start with 10+Int*5 more skill points than every other ECL 0 race in existence. You can have two as Animal Friends per the feat of the same name if you play a Gnome. You can of course get normal monkey familiars if you wish. It should be noted, however, that Extra Familiar does not specify how the familiar advances(or if it even advances) making Obtain Familiar the better option to avoid the need for DM adjudication.