What is a Good affordable Protection familiar for a (level 10) Wizard/Sorcerer

[jedikiller]

I'm on my second thread now and I've finally decided instead of armor I'd just wear bracers of protection and get a tanky familiar. Are there any good choices besides golems?

[Buufreak]

How do you propose a tiny creature with half your hitpoints is going to tank in any sense of the word?

[denthor]

Bind an elemental as a familiar

[Elkad]

An Imp sharing buffs with a Wizard is pretty darn sturdy. Not hitpoints, but everything else. ACs in the upper 30s, invisibility, flight, etc.
But I can't see it actually front-line tanking.

Maybe a Winter Wolf or something?

[Vizzerdrix]

Familiars are xp bombs waiting to go off. You want either a construct, dominated critter, or some undead. A combination of any 2 of those is best.


One thing. I think the hedgehog from the dmg gives a +1 to ac.

[noob]

Rat familiar is the most affordable familiar and it gives an untyped +2 to fort saves which is a quite good protection.
But the best familiar is an ioun wyrd that is you.(so you pick yourself as a familiar)
The advantage is that you get a bunch of protective stuff(such as natural armor and armor from being small and dex to armor and flight) and since you are a construct you can improve your own intelligence by 2 for every 5000 gp you use up for that purpose.
So the first step is building an Ioun Wyrd(costs approx 1050 to build but takes one single day to build(the 50 gp are from the gray ioun stone)) then make of it your familiar then use spell transfer(or whatever name that cleric spell had) to give it the ability to cast alter self then use Mind Swap, Major onto it then improve your own intellect with the leftover gold

Then since you are your own familiar use duplicate familiar on yourself and get extra familiars that are you and are your familiar and so those familiar then also can cast spells and use duplicate familiar then you somehow fill the entire universe with yourself.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

A plain ol' raven or parrot. Why? Because tinfoil hat (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?129012-How-Many-Uses-for-a-Tinfoil-Hat). Raven and parrot familiars can speak, and so they can say command words. Wear the hat (with a second hat on your familiar, which perches on your shoulder). Your familiar readies an action each round to say the command word to shield you or itself from harm any time something might actually effectively harm one of you.

Bonus points if the hat itself acts as your familiar's perch.

Alternately, play a changeling with the ACF that allows your familiar to change forms to whatever you can summon as a familiar. Then take Improved Familiar (along with the dozens of forms it grants), Draconic Familiar, and enough levels in Spell Sovereign, from Dragon Mag #357, to get access to living spell familiars. Now your familiar can not only do the tinfoil hat trick, but it can also become almost any other type of familiar in the whole game, so it adjusts itself on the fly. It also gives you unlimited casting of all spells of any level that your familiar can turn into. Spend feats on Obtain Familiar or Extra Familiar to multiply the effect.