Obtain Familiar & Familiar progressing prc = win win?

[Gruftzwerg]

What happens when I have Obtain Familiar and lets say Arcane Hierophant (AH).
AH gives arcane caster levels which count for Obtain Familiar. Further AH has the ability that its level stack with the Familiar progression. Do the levels now count twice?

I tried to find any discussion about it, but after a 15min. search I didn't find anything related.

[liquidformat]

What happens when I have Obtain Familiar and lets say Arcane Hierophant (AH).
AH gives arcane caster levels which count for Obtain Familiar. Further AH has the ability that its level stack with the Familiar progression. Do the levels now count twice?

I tried to find any discussion about it, but after a 15min. search I didn't find anything related.

It depends on when you took Obtain familiar feat. If you took obtain familiar feat before you take your first level of AH you wasted a feat and now loose your familiar upon taking said first level of AH. If you took obtain familiar after first level of AH then you either get nothing or get a familiar but that really falls under dm discretion as you already technically have a familiar its just combined with your animal companion.

Interestingly obtain familiar never mentions anything about multiple familiars so it somewhat leaves the door open to taking the feat multiple times and getting another familiar each time...

[sleepyphoenixx]

Not by RAW, no.
Arcane Hierophant stacks AH levels and arcane spellcasting class levels (regardless of them granting a familiar or not).
Obtain Familiar stacks all your arcane spellcasting class levels for familiar progression.

They don't add anything, they just set your familiar level to "all your arcane casting classes". Having the ability twice doesn't give you a double bonus.

It depends on when you took Obtain familiar feat. If you took obtain familiar feat before you take your first level of AH you wasted a feat and now loose your familiar upon taking said first level of AH. If you took obtain familiar after first level of AH then you either get nothing or get a familiar but that really falls under dm discretion as you already technically have a familiar its just combined with your animal companion.

Interestingly obtain familiar never mentions anything about multiple familiars so it somewhat leaves the door open to taking the feat multiple times and getting another familiar each time...

Obtain Familiar lets you get a familiar "as a wizard would". Wizards can explicitly only have one familiar.

You also can't get the benefit of a feat twice unless it says you can.

Benefit

What the feat enables the character ("you" in the feat description) to do. If a character has the same feat more than once, its benefits do not stack unless indicated otherwise in the description.

In general, having a feat twice is the same as having it once.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Regular, and even improved, familiars just aren't worth putting that many resources into a build for. You'd need a significant amount of power and versatility for that kind of investment, if it even works.

How about going changeling wizard for morphic familiar (your familiar can use a standard action to turn itself into any type of familiar you qualify for; it's not a polymorph or alternate form effect, so it gains every racial quality that a normal familiar of that type would have), Improved Familiar, and levels in spell sovereign? That grants all the regular familiars, all the improved familiars, and every living spell of a certain level or below (depending on your levels in spell sovereign).

[Gruftzwerg]

Not by RAW, no.
Arcane Hierophant stacks AH levels and arcane spellcasting class levels (regardless of them granting a familiar or not).
Obtain Familiar stacks all your arcane spellcasting class levels for familiar progression.

They don't add anything, they just set your familiar level to "all your arcane casting classes". Having the ability twice doesn't give you a double bonus.

I think I agree with this part ;)

Obtain Familiar lets you get a familiar "as a wizard would". Wizards can explicitly only have one familiar.

You also can't get the benefit of a feat twice unless it says you can.

We don't have the feat twice. This is not feat stacking here.
We have one feat and one ability. The ability doesn't give the feat.

So I assume I could get a familiar together with an animal companion (with familiar bonuses) if I take the feat after entering AH.

_______
while looking for alternative prc who progress familiar I found the Alienist. And have a look at this sentence of their Familiar ability:

If a character had levels in multiple classes that grant access to a familiar before becoming an alienist, she must decide to which class to add each level for the purpose of determining the abilities of her familiar.

So, one can have multiple familiars from multiple sources


edit: due to double post warning, I moved the content of the second post here and deleted the other..

Regular, and even improved, familiars just aren't worth putting that many resources into a build for. You'd need a significant amount of power and versatility for that kind of investment, if it even works.

How about going changeling wizard for morphic familiar (your familiar can use a standard action to turn itself into any type of familiar you qualify for; it's not a polymorph or alternate form effect, so it gains every racial quality that a normal familiar of that type would have), Improved Familiar, and levels in spell sovereign? That grants all the regular familiars, all the improved familiars, and every living spell of a certain level or below (depending on your levels in spell sovereign).

sorry but the question is more of a thought lesson for maybe later use in TO builds.

sadly it seems it can't be stacked. well... at least we now know that one can have multiple familiar as it seems.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

sorry but the question is more of a thought lesson for maybe later use in TO builds.

sadly it seems it can't be stacked. well... at least we now know that one can have multiple familiar as it seems.

Regular familiar, Obtain Familiar, and Extra Familiar would get you as many familiars as you're willing to spend feats (plus one).

[edit] You could always do this.

[Elkad]

Regular, and even improved, familiars just aren't worth putting that many resources into a build for. You'd need a significant amount of power and versatility for that kind of investment, if it even works.

They are worth it for the fun alone. I'll pick up Obtain and Improved on nearly every arcane caster, and spend a fair amount on equipment for it.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

They are worth it for the fun alone. I'll pick up Obtain and Improved on nearly every arcane caster, and spend a fair amount on equipment for it.

They're just so fragile, and you get screwed over so hard if one dies. Less so for Obtain Familiar, although losing a familiar is still difficult. And on half a d4 HD and half your Con mod (which usually isn't extraordinarily high for a wizard anyway, since it's not a wizard's primary focus stat), and without major defenses against most things, familiars are really easy to kill.

At least a changeling spell sovereign's familiar can give itself tons of low level buffs to protect itself, along with all the healing it could ever want.

[Crake]

Interestingly obtain familiar never mentions anything about multiple familiars so it somewhat leaves the door open to taking the feat multiple times and getting another familiar each time...

The general rule is that you can only take a feat once. A feat needs to specify otherwise to allow you to take it more than once.

[Elkad]

They're just so fragile, and you get screwed over so hard if one dies.

Sure. If you want a flanking buddy, you'd better give it half your duskblade hit points.

On a wizard? It stays out of range, and probably invisible, etc. An imp has pretty fine defenses. AC 28 the day you get it, assuming you cast mage armor on it, plus invisibility and flight. Who else in the party has a better AC at L7? And that's before you give it any gear.

Evasion for AoE stuff (plus not hanging out near anyone else). And some resists. So as long as it doesn't get detected and specifically targeted, it does pretty well.

[sleepyphoenixx]

So as long as it doesn't get detected and specifically targeted, it does pretty well.

The problem with that being that you want it to actually do things if you're spending a feat on it, so it'll almost definitely get detected.
Not that i'd suggest sending a wizard familiar into melee, but you probably want it to use wands, deliver touch spells or something along those lines.

Thankfully you can negate a big chunk of the "specifically targeted" problem with a few ranks in UMD and a wand of Wings of Cover.
Unless you're fighting a bunch of archers who all want to full attack your familiar that works pretty well.
Even better if your familiar has the dragonblood subtype (there's even an ACF for that) so it can protect you or your party members too.

[Darg]

A Stalwart battle sorcerer has a familiar with decent HP. Combined with an opening vampiric touch at mid levels gives them a really good health pool. Considering the really high AC + the cleric BAB makes them really tough combatants. Get improved familiar and cast transformation on the familiar for an extremely strong combatant, especially when you pick a familiar that can wield weapons.

Also, nothing is preventing a class that gains a familiar through class levels from having another familiar through obtain familiar. The limitation is on multiple familiar gaining classes from each providing their own. It says nothing about gaining another through a feat. So you can have 2 of these beasts slaughtering the battlefield.

[Elkad]

The problem with that being that you want it to actually do things if you're spending a feat on it, so it'll almost definitely get detected.
Not that i'd suggest sending a wizard familiar into melee, but you probably want it to use wands, deliver touch spells or something along those lines.

Thankfully you can negate a big chunk of the "specifically targeted" problem with a few ranks in UMD and a wand of Wings of Cover.
Unless you're fighting a bunch of archers who all want to full attack your familiar that works pretty well.
Even better if your familiar has the dragonblood subtype (there's even an ACF for that) so it can protect you or your party members too.

Sure. but you can be cautious and it can preserve invisibility doing non-direct stuff. Just rearranging the battlefield by flying around and using a Benign Transposition wand is handy (get squishy members out of bad spots - including grapples, line the barbarian up for charges, etc). Same with area denial via Blockade, Grease, etc. Or summoning monsters, buffing party members, pouring potions in dying people, etc. Or using that excellent Hide check to snipe.

Point is, I find it fun. Yes, a familiar dies occasionally. It's not the end of the world if it does. I could spend the same XP to make a fancy stave and have someone Sunder it too.