Familiar + Polymorph

[Yogibear41]

If I polymorph my familiar does the natural armor bonus for having a high familiar level cross over?

For example, say I am a 15th level Wizard with an Imp Familiar, I polymorph my Imp into a Horned Devil. Will my Imp have an AC of 35 as a normal Horned Devil, or will it retain the +8 to Natural Armor for me being a 15th level Wizard and have an AC of 43?

[MaxiDuRaritry]

If I polymorph my familiar does the natural armor bonus for having a high familiar level cross over?

For example, say I am a 15th level Wizard with an Imp Familiar, I polymorph my Imp into a Horned Devil. Will my Imp have an AC of 35 as a normal Horned Devil, or will it retain the +8 to Natural Armor for me being a 15th level Wizard and have an AC of 43?It should, yes, since your familiar doesn't stop being your familiar, despite being polymorphed. Plus, the familiar abilities listing specifically says it's an adjustment to your familiar's natural armor bonus instead of a replacement.

[Gruftzwerg]

It should, yes, since your familiar doesn't stop being your familiar, despite being polymorphed. Plus, the familiar abilities listing specifically says it's an adjustment to your familiar's natural armor bonus instead of a replacement.

Agree.

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Familiars are really totally OP if played right.

[Godofallu]

Agree.

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Familiars are really totally OP if played right.

Share some tips. Every time I consider using one in a fight I am simply told it will die and be gone for a year and cost me exp. But looking at stats it can potentially become combat worthy. Similar to an animal companion if you have good enough base HP and Bab.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Share some tips. Every time I consider using one in a fight I am simply told it will die and be gone for a year and cost me exp. But looking at stats it can potentially become combat worthy. Similar to an animal companion if you have good enough base HP and Bab.Well, taking the changeling wizard ACF for morphic familiar (Races of Eberron) so your familiar can turn itself into any creature of a type that you can take as a familiar is a good start, especially when you start adding in things like Improved Familiar (for dozens upon dozens of additional forms), Draconic Familiar, Celestial Familiar, and the spell sovereign PrC (which can give you every single low level spell in existence at will via living spells)...

Note that your familiar isn't using alternate form or polymorph or whatever; it actually becomes that type of creature, meaning, for example, it gains all (Su) and (Sp) abilities of its forms, which includes things like teleport at will.

Giving up your class familiar for a good ACF, then Obtain Familiar and Extra Familiar at least once or twice is another good idea.

Otherwise, start decking your familiar(s) out with some good mundane and magical gear to help keep them safe, along with taking UMD and/or UPD and some decent low-level wands and/or dorjes to assist your primary spellcasting. This includes things like expending extra spell slots every night on spells like explosive runes and fire shuriken so you can use spells now to gain benefits later. Feel free to abuse acorn of far travel (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?546179-Un-Hallow-that-Stacks), as well.

Depending on your exact loadout, you've got tons of fantastic options going for you, and you can tailor your strategies and tactics to suit.

[Gruftzwerg]

Share some tips. Every time I consider using one in a fight I am simply told it will die and be gone for a year and cost me exp. But looking at stats it can potentially become combat worthy. Similar to an animal companion if you have good enough base HP and Bab.

IIRC you already did pick up the Stalwart Battle Sorcerer combo a while ago. I did use it for an Iron Chef build of mine which does make use of his familiar. SBS offers d8+2 HP and 3/4 BAB which helps with the 2 main areas where familiars struggle (at the cost of spells known).

Other option is to go for any of many gish builds that build up enough BAB & HP while having access to some great combat buff spells. Familiars are great for gishes. (see next point)
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Share Spell is the main key to success here. Any combat buff using caster (read gish^^) is stat and spell wise optimized to use Familiars.

Most notable are the form changing spells, starting with Alter Self (2nd lvl spell). Note that your familiar also counts as Magical Beast in addition to its regular type, opening a whole can of worms to play around (for the early levels).
e.g. a Blood Horse from Dragon #299: 4HD, fly, pounce + other special abilities.

Another trick is, that you can bypass "Target:" restrictions. This is due to the Share Spell ability targeting the familiar and not the spell itself, thus ignoring regular "Target:" restrictions. This can be abused in some specific ways. E.g. Enlarge Person, if you cast it on yourself and share it, the effect doesn't ask for your (humanoid) type anymore and thus also increases your familiars size by one step.

On the later levels Polymorph will take over. The most common form here is War Troll. And you know what they say, 2 is better then 1. With high AC, reach & Dazzling Blow it offers your familiar a save combat form.

Another niche spell I found recently is the (lesser/greater) Spider Form spell line. It is a swift action and thus very nice for action economy. Be it to share with your familiar and both attack or to directly cast on your familiar and still be able to cast a regular spell in the same round. The familiar will be safely sitting on a wall and spitting webs at your foes.

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Then there are some nice feat options to enhance your familiar:

Improved Familiar is the most obvious to give it some better base stats. I would recommend something that can fly and has invisibility at will. Like an Imp or an Quasit if you wanna take this option.


Be either a Krinth or a Changeling (with Racial Emulation) and take Shadowform Familiar (ideally before you have summoned a familiar, since it only applies to new summoned familiars). Any familiar that you summon will be incorporeal from now on. Now your Familiar can hide in the ground/walls for more safety when in combat.

Enspell Familiar enhances the distance to share spells to 1 mile. This enables your familiar to leave your side when sharing buffs in combat.

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Magic items are another way to beef up your familiar. You just need to be creative. If you really wanna go all out for safety here, a Ring of Nine Lifes should ensure its safety in most situations.

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Finally you can go for Arcane Hierophant or an even further optimized companion build if you really wanna go all out.


edit:

I forgot another great point that familiars offer and that is that you share your skill ranks with em. This can be abused in some ways.

Aid Another: You and your familiar will always Aid Another in any situation where it is helpful. The power of Teamwork, yeah!^^

UMD: Take a raven ( since it can speak and thus use command word activation items) and UMD the hell out of wands/scrolls and stuff. Turn your familiar into buff/heal-bot.

Tumble: To avoid AoO's

Ride: Let you familiar ride you as mount.
Buy your familiar/yourself a custom Battle Bridle for unusual mounts (iirc +50% base item price). This gives your familair Mounted Combat and allows it to roll for ride to avoid an attack made against you.
If you wanna play an ubercharger gish, Riding Boots give your Familiar Ride-by-Attack and in return you the ability to move after you have charged.

Knowledge Skills: Have a lil chat with your familiar when you think about any (knowledge skill based) problem. Have a 2nd roll every time and aid another each other for a +2 bonus.

Perception Skills (Spot, Search): Again a 2nd roll and the option to Aid Another.

Depending on your builds skill selection there are really many ways to abuse this. e.g. take a monkey familiar and craft skills and let him do the annoying labor.

[Darg]

Lurking Familiar feat is really nice.

Using improved familiar to get a stirge gives you a pretty awesome grappler. It can grapple anything and it uses your BAB for the grapple checks. It's extremely effective at pinning anything, even dragons, with haste.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Any way to get large numbers of the more useful skills into your skill list, along with additional skill points to go with them. A familiar that can reliably Tumble, for instance, is more useful than one who can't. Same goes for UMD, UPD, the perception and stealth skills, and Iaijutsu Focus.

[Gruftzwerg]

Any way to get large numbers of the more useful skills into your skill list, along with additional skill points to go with them. A familiar that can reliably Tumble, for instance, is more useful than one who can't. Same goes for UMD, UPD, the perception and stealth skills, and Iaijutsu Focus.

Flexible Mind feat (Dragon #???) gives you 2 skills as class skills for all classes you take. Along with a chaotic aura (like paladin/cleric). Must be chaotic as requirement.

Alternatively a specialized gish build can work too here, setting the focus on the skills you like/want to have. Can work really well with INT based casting and Able Learner.

And I forgot to mention social skills. With a familiar that can speak (Raven, Imp, Quasit..) you can play the skill game with social skills too (buff, diplomacy, sense motive, intimidate...). Again, a 2nd roll for every situation and you can Aid Another each other for the +2 bonus.

[Doctor Despair]

I wanna add that Arcane Hierophant is a nombo with most feats that support familiars, as it explicitly dismisses your familiar and doesn't replace it with another one. Instead, you get a familiar companion, a defined game term that is an animal companion that gains some specific benefits a familiar would normally have:


In addition, your animal companion (if any) gains many of the abilities that a familiar would normally possess.