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View Full Version : Celestial Familiar doesn't gain it's master skill ranks? DnD 3.5



Abaddona
2019-01-20, 06:05 AM
In BoED we have Celestial Familiar feat which allows us to gain cute little good-aligned outsider. When obtaining it we modify this by following specified in the feat rules just like normal familiars: hit dice, hit points, attacks, saving throws... exactly like in... wait, where did the "skills" section went? Yeah, I don't see it anywhere and considering that in various handbooks nowhere i have seen it mentioned then I assume that i somehow read it wrong. But for clarification purposes could someone explain it to me if it gains master skill ranks and if yes - why?
Additionaly could someone explain to me what abilities exactly celestial familiar gets? I assume that fragment about "celestial familiars not granting their masters any benefits appearing in sidebar on PHB pages 52 and 53" refers to that table "master gains a..." from page 52 but the wording in the feat description isn't exactly clear and technically "alertness" feat, ability to scry on familiar etc. are abilities which master gets.
As a side note: Coure Eladrin is proficient with simple and martial weapons but not with armors and shields right?

The Viscount
2019-01-20, 07:34 PM
You are correct about the Coure Eladrin. It would be proficient with simple and martial weapons, but not with armor or shields.

The text from the feat is poorly worded, but what they mean to reference is the table of benefits on page 52, which is why they make an exception for celestial template animals, and why the footnote says "Unlike other celestial familiars, a celestial animal grants its master the standard benefit for having an animal familiar of that type." To be clear, they mean that, say, a celestial bat still grants a +3 on listen checks, but a Coure eladrin doesn't give you a comparable benefit. You still consult the chart for things like Speak with Master, etc.

As for Celestial Familiar as a feat, you are reading correctly that as written, your familiar does not share your skill points. It's likely not discussed in handbooks because most other feats that give you better familiars do not have this restriction. It's not exclusive to Celestial Familiar; Dragon Familiar also makes the familiar keep their own skills instead of sharing yours. It's possible that many are assuming that the feat is simply poorly written and not intentionally excluding skills. Certainly the Coure and Lantern Archon are no stronger than the Imp or Quasit if we use CR as a measure.
In a last measure for some weak support I turn to sample characters. There are two with the feat in BoED. One has a familiar that has the same skills as the base creature and one uses its master's skills. As always, sample characters are a laughable mess.
EDIT: Some further research may help explain a bit. BoED was one of the very first books published in 3.5, and, as evidenced by the erroneous occurrence of terms like "change self" and "subdual damage", some portion of it was written or composed before the update to 3.5. In 3.0 Improved Familiar as found in Tome and Blood explicitly states that the familiar uses the skills of the base creature and not the master. I can't exactly prove it, but it seems far more likely to me given the rather careless editing (almost none of which was fixed in the errata) resulted in someone referencing old Improved Familiar instead of new Improved Familiar as a basis for how the rules work.

So to answer your question, RAW they don't share skills, but it's almost certainly due to oversight of the writers. RAI is hard to prove, but based on how Improved Familiar works and was updated, they should almost certainly get to use their master's skill ranks, and I encourage you to talk with your DM to convince them.