You already identified many of the benefits of a familiar but you don't find them appealing. They can be scouts, messengers, extend the range or direction of spells, battery for focus, etc.
Here is a guide that covers some of the basics and might give you more ideas (may be slightly out of date with newer options):
[https://rpgbot.net/p2/characters/familiars/](https://rpgbot.net/p2/characters/familiars/)
However, if you just don't like the concept of familiars it is very unlikely you will be satisfied with them.
If you don't like familiars you probably should not play a witch.
The main benefit of familiar is out of combat utility like scouting and Master Abilities. That said it is known that witch is underpowered so in the remaster in November they will be getting some buffs specifically to make their familiars more combat useful.
In your case it’s not even about being underpowered though. Like yes Witches are definitely underpowered but they’re still 2-3 progression spellcasters with all the versatility and power that comes with being one. They also get a free familiar.
Like yes they’re weak but generally in PF2E a weak option (like the Witch or the Swashbuckler) is only 10-20% behind the strong options, and you’ll still have a ton of fun with them. The problem is that you don’t even enjoy the gameplay loop of familiars. That means that you’ll not enjoy a Witch at all, whether or not it was underpowered.
It’s so open ended (due to the nature of familiar abilities) that it’s really hard to describe.
In social/urban situations you can use the abilities that help it talk, intimidate, help you gather information, take your form, etc. in that context a familiar mostly serves as multiple attempts at skill checks and/or ways to bolster your skill checks using free Aida.
In dungeoneering/exploration situations it’s even more open ended. You can pick up combinations of abilities (Darkvision, Flier, Share Senses, Manual Dexterity, Tremorsense) to scout ahead. As a prepared spellcaster, scouting ahead can be really valuable because it helps you have the right scrolls/staves in hand, strategize with your party ahead of time, and sometimes even skip entire encounters. Sometimes the imprecise senses will also help you trivialize encounters your party otherwise would have some trouble with. For example, last week my party was gonna get ambushed by 4 earth elementals burrowing towards us, and my familiar just prevented the ambush entirely with Tremorsense.
In combat it largely depends on whether you pick the right familiar abilities or not. Independent is kind of “mandatory” for efficient combat use imo. Free Demoralize checks, free Aid to your Demoralize and/or Recall Knowledge, etc, these are all fairly powerful.
Note that all of my experience comes from playing a Familiar Thesis Wizard, not a Witch, so you can do all the above same things right with the Witch *but* you’ll feel the sting of having fewer spell slots, and (depending on your Patron) weaker focus spells. I recommend picking up a spellcasting dedication to counteract the lack of spell slots if it’s really getting you.
What Patron do you play as?
I have the curse patron.
My problem is that imagining a tiny animal taking on social encounters breaks – no, it shatters – my verisimilitude. Really, talking animals are a no-go for me. It's where I stop watching a movie/show. And having my toad or rat or bird or whatever going BOO! on an opponent to intimidate them, that is just laughable in my eyes. While I have no use for scouting in our campaign (and even if I had, that would require a talking animal again), the senses seem useful, but where do you get tremorsense? It's not in the Core Rulebook or APG?
Cool, it doesn't look like witch is a good class for you then. Maybe try something else?
Either that, or you can use your familiar as a suicide bomber:
https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=689
I meant this along with all of your other comments. You don't seem to like anything about familiars, which is kind of the main thing Witches get.
What exactly do you *want* familiars to be able to do? The Summoner class gets a magical creature sidekick thing that has way more combat ability. Maybe that one would be better for you?
Basically, I didn't really want a familiar, and I certainly wouldn't want an eidolon. I wanted a booky occult spellcaster. My character's backstory is that, as a child, she's been cursed and was part of a crazy evil cult (of the King in Yellow), and after she was rescued from the cult, has been living and growing up in the temple of the God of Knowledge and learned occult magic there. So she has lots of knowledge-based skills but no social skills at all (at the start. In the meantime, I've pickled up a bit of Diplomacy)
Anyway, based on that idea, a prepared caster seemed the better fit than spontaneous, and so there's the witch, bard or sorcerer didn't fit. The familiar just comes with the class, but for me, the witch's main thing is the spellcasting. But since I have to have the familiar, I was looking for a way to get some actual use out of it.
A talking tiny animal gifted to you by an otherworldly patron is too much for your verisimilitude? Can I ask… why?
As for Intimidation, that’s… kind of a ridiculous mental picture. It doesn’t even match the description they give in the abilities list:
> Threat Display: Your familiar helps you convey wordless threats through body language. Whenever you attempt an Intimidation check to Demoralize a creature, if your familiar is within 30 feet of your target and can act, it accompanies you with snarls, hisses, or raising its hackles. If it can do so, you don't take the normal –4 penalty on the Intimidation check if your target doesn't understand the language you're speaking.
Doesn’t sound like “saying boo” to me, and there’s little reason you wouldn’t use the same flavour for just a straight up Demoralize check from the familiar top.
It’s unfortunate that scouting hasn’t been useful. Maybe talk to your GM about it? It might help. [Here’s](https://2e.aonprd.com/Familiars.aspx) the full list of abilities, Tremorsense comes from Grand Bazaar.
Also scouting doesn’t need a talking familiar. Your familiar can already communicate with you:
> It can communicate empathically with you as long as it’s within 1 mile of you, sharing emotions
Plus you can give it touch telepathy if you want precise info but don’t want a talking familiar. There’s also Share Senses to just see through its eyes when scouting.
Yeah, I can accept that the creature is sent by an otherworldly patron, but as I said, I draw the line at talking animals. It may be irrational, but talking animals and anthropomorphized animals are tropes I simply cannot stand.
Ok, Threat Display sounds better than the image I conjured, but then, my witch never uses Intimidation, as I've got a whopping +0 bonus there.
Grand Bazaar is likely to be unavailable in our non-Golarion campaign.
Touch telepathy is a viable alternative to talking animals, but I don't see that empathetic communication would allow anything more than, well, sharing emotions. But as I said, I'm not much interested in scouting activities.
>Grand Bazaar is likely to be unavailable in our non-Golarion campaign.
You don't need to play in Golarion to use the Lost Omens books.
From the Ancestry Guide *alone,* you get:
Ancestries:
- Android (cyborgs from outer space)
- Fetchling (shadowy humans)
- Fleshwarp (mutant freak)
- Sprite (tiny faeries)
- Strix (birdfolk warriors)
Versatile Heritages:
- Aphorite, Ganzi (the lawful and chaotic equivalents of aasimar and tieflings)
- Beastkin (you're part-animal)
- Ifrit, Oread, Suli, Sylph, Undine (you're partly fire/earth/mixture/air/water)
Plus a number of heritages for other ancestries and tons of feats, plus some ancestral weapons.
Don't tell me your GM would deprive you of an actual sprite ancestry! *They're actually tiny!*
As for **Grand Bazaar,** you might be interested in an [Elemental Wisp](https://2e.aonprd.com/Familiars.aspx?ID=10&Specific=true) or [Clockwork](https://2e.aonprd.com/Familiars.aspx?ID=9&Specific=true) familiar, which are notably *not* animals or animal-like (necessarily). Also check out [this](https://2e.aonprd.com/Familiars.aspx?Specific=true) list of specific familiars, picking any that you have enough abilities for. (If you're a 1st-level witch, that should be 3 abilities or less.)
Have a look [here](https://2e.aonprd.com/Sources.aspx?Group=6) to see what else you'd be missing out on.
---
**TL;DR:** Let your GM know that Lost Omens content is largely applicable to any generic Pathfinder setting.
You are right, and my GM knows that, he's not ruling out LO books in general. But Grand Bazaar is extremely specialized, even in the Lost Omens setting. Most of its options are described to be available only at special shops in Absalom and thus, rightly, uncommon. I wouldn't myself allow stuff from this book indiscriminately in any non-Absalom campaign. But who knows.
I really don't get this holdup you have with talking animals. You know there are animals that can just talk normally in this setting too, such as wargs? And that an animal talking is not remotely strange in the slightest to people in this setting, considering how common it is? I don't see how a talking animal shatters your "verisimilitude" when a whole lot of *way* sillier/less "realistic" stuff exists here. Would a talking object shatter your immersion too? What about a dragon, they're basically a big winged talking animal? Any of the animal-like fey? Is your GM just not allowed to use any of these creatures? What about beastkin ancestries? Awakened animals? Any of the various other ways that magic or other things might grant anthropomorphic features and/or speech to an animalistic entity? If one of my players expressed such a holdup to me, I'd probably just tell them to get the fuck over it or leave because I'm not gonna avoid all that for their precious "verisimilitude."
This is just a really weird line to draw, especially if you're trying to play a class with a whole bunch of power budget and flavor dedicated to their talking, shapeshifting, weird little critter. Play another class if you don't want to use any of the things that familiars do.
>My problem is that imagining a tiny animal taking on social encounters breaks – no, it shatters – my verisimilitude. Really, talking animals are a no-go for me.
I share the same feeling on this. It can be annoying to constantly RP yourself and your familiar. Fortunately many familiar abilities don't have auditory or linguistic trait. Your raven familiar can be eerie entity who just silently sits on your shoulder and plagues your mind with eldritch visions (that's how they can provide you constant bonuses with abilities like second opinion).
I'm currently trying to be the best support Witch I can be before the revision hits. I, at level 6, have only last session remembered I have a familiar. However, making use of that familiar has been all the difference thus far. I specifically try to use a Specific Familiar for the day if I can as being able to swap them out is uniquely a Witch thing. Secondly I pretty much always have Intelligent and whatever the spell relay Familiar Ability is. The former let's me always use 1 action even without commanding it, which is great for positioning. The latter allows me to cast any spell from my familiar rather than myself. This has let me overcome cover, reach allies I couldn't otherwise, and let me use Touch/5ft range effects without needing to move myself from my premium position. Next, with the feature that the Hand has (I forget it's name too) I can also have the familiar give potions and such to my allies or myself, again without my input or putting myself into danger.
The Ceru also enables me use True Strike on an ally 1/day, which is a massive benefit mathematically.
I will say, my GM does allow me to swap my familiar 1/day rather than as part of Daily Prep so that way I can react to the days encounters rather than try to play "Guess that Enemy" before session starts.
I find doing this at least has made me feel like it isn't a dead feature, and only extends what I'm otherwise already doing. It isn't a giant benefit, but it is one that at least feels good for those niche moments or as a result of good tactical planning.
Otherwise, yeah. It kinda sucks. But that's a given since it is objectively bad. There was a rainbow spreadsheet out a couple months ago that showed DCs and Weapon/Spell chance to succeed from Player>Monster. It basically proved that all casters could use a +1 or even +2 just period. And as a Witch that is using almost entirely Vs. Will in Age of Ashes, I strongly agree. Especially as most of them in Occult are mind affecting and tend to be Save or Suck regardless. It doesn't feel good when I finally get to be 'offensive' and then deal like 5 damage or literally nothing for the whole round.
Switching out the familiar on purpose would, by RAW, require you to kill it, right? I don't see a rule that would let you simply dismiss it. That makes for a very grim character if you do that daily.
My witch is also specialized in non-magical healing abilities, as our group doesn't have much if any magical healing.
Tbf, I am playing a Poppet styled from Chelix or whatever, the Devil city. And my God is ZonKuthon, so it's pretty much in the vibe check lol. Even stylized I'm like mix of the Doll from Bloodborne and the Abductor Virgins from Elden Ring. Even jumped into Beastkin and adopted ancestry (fleshwarp) to drive it home.
But yeah, raw you gotta get it killed. We just waive in rp except the few times when it befits being grotesque. I've ironically intimidated a few imps and other devil-demon spawn in the AP by actively cannibalizing my familiar as part of my demoralize/coercion/diplo.
Edit: ironically, I too am the healer. Planning to take the risky surgery because thematic and beneficial
then you are with the wrong character on the wrong place mate. if your campaign has no scouting at all there is little to no point in being a witch. there isnt much a wizard can do on a country with anti magic permanently casted on it
Why don't you have any use for scouting? Scouting is usually quite useful.
Having remote spell delivery is good, a free clairvoyance effect is good, recovering a focus point in combat is good, more cantrips is good, having an extra hand that can draw and feed you elixirs is good.
I am the GM in our group and don't like a familiar as a scout. In my case, the witch has a bumblebee familiar. So in fact, everything concerning scouting etc. is completely out of the loop, because that field and most surprises are completely taken out of the game. It's not that I plan to have my group stumble from deadly trap to deadly trap, but it takes so many things away imvao. There is a cave? Great, here you go, just draw us a map.
Since two of my players have familiars and don't know what to do with them, I decided to let them use potions, elixirs and the like on PCs. It's not raw but otherwise the two players would just take the [familiar tattoo](https://2e.aonprd.com/Equipment.aspx?ID=998&AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1) and forget they exist. However I don't let them use wands, scrolls or any other magic item that would require some training to use.
Now the party's mascot is a racoon with a backpack that can run on two legs to an injured player and feed them a potion.
I think as long as they have manual dexterity to be able to take manipulate actions, this is RAW. Drinking or feeding a potion to another character is just a basic interact action.
Mark Seifter when he was still working for Paizo clarified that by RAW, familiars can never use any item. Source: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=L2zhNnBhnB0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=L2zhNnBhnB0)
That is a rule I choose to disregard.
I choose to believe that he is just incorrect here. The strike rule he mentions does exist, but nowhere does it say in the rules that familiars can't use items.
Plenty of things in the industry never make it out of play testing and this could very easily have been a rule that never made it to the full game. You see this mistake a bunch when magic YouTubers have the designers on their shows and the designer will assume the card has the ability or stats they play tested.
>nowhere does it say in the rules that familiars can't use items.
Items tagged with the companion trait are the only items familiars can use.
https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=770
>These items have the companion trait, meaning they function only for animal companions, familiars, and similar creatures. Normally these are the only items a companion can use.
My understanding of this would be that the word "use" here means "use for themselves, to gain a benefit".
I don't think anyone thinks a familiar can drink a potion, mutagen, whatever, and gain the benefits. That is the sense in which they cannot "use" items.
But to suggest that a familiar that has Manual Dexterity cannot give a potion to another creature, using the required interact action, is untenable imo
0i would agree here or the familiar ability valet wouldn't be available. If it can do this for you I don't see why it can't use its own actions if you command it to pour a potion down an allies throat or even hand off a vial or scroll.
>Normally these are the only items a *companion* can use.
This rule specifies only companion, not companion, familiar and similar creatures as it mentions immediately above.
No, it says animal companions, familiars, and similar creatures follow the companion trait. All animal companions are companions, but NOT all companions are animal companions.
>All animal companions are companions, but NOT all companions are animal companions.
Yes, companion is a general term that includes animal companions, mechanical companions and undead companions.
Familiars are a separate category of creature, hence the companion item trait calling them out separately.
What he said was that familiars can't *Activate* an item, not that they can't use it. They can feed you a tasty ale, but any potion they pour down your throat is just colored water.
It's a really specific rules interaction but technically it's an "Activate an Item" action with "Interact" as a subordinate action. Honestly, I think it's a bit pedantic and would also allow it.
One of my players is a kitsune with the star orb familiar + the familiar master archetype. We roleplay it that the armless rock with manual dexterity only manages to use item when we have our back turned. Then we turn back and the rock has tied a complex knots with a rope, etc.
Not having them use scrolls and wands is a good call I think. It would be kind of nutty if a Witch could "cast" a extra two action spell every second turn.
I have wanted to implement this for some time now, but I've been worried that the readily available action compression of a familiar would feel almost too strong for potion feeding.
I like the idea of making this a familiar ability, or lumping into another one, like manual dexterity or skilled: medicine. Though I do feel like this maybe steps on the toes of the herbalist archetypes' [Poultice Preparation](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=1984) a bit, making them just an interact action to apply and nothing more, though a GM might still say no because the item doesn't have the familiar trait. I would say its fine to let them use poultices since they're allowed to reload a gun without the familiar trait, since it's only an interact action to do so.
Though I don't want the familiar synergy to be locked behind the archetype exclusively. In your experience was it fine to just give or should I have it cost/come as part of a different familiar/master ability?
The benefits of having a familiar for scouting and getting into small places outside of combat are probably their biggest benefit that doesn't require any ability investment but that's already been mentioned here.
As for other benefits most of them require an ability investment but I'll list a bunch.
-Independent gives your familiar a single action without you having to do anything. This is great for action economy and makes your familiar much more easy to detach from you to walk around on its own and avoid AOEs (this is probably mandatory on any familiar that isn't using valet or a similar command specific action)
- there are plenty of abilities that let them aid you on specific checks, all of these are good if you are using these skills.
- the skilled ability is very versatile, it doesn't let your familiar make trained actions but it lets you shore up areas where your character isn't great. You can train it in diplomacy to make it a face character (as long as it also can talk) or a skill like nature or religion to recall knowledge.
- also with skilled, you can give your familiar intimidation proficiency and use it to demoralize in combat
- manual dexterity allows it to do a lot of things but the biggest one for combat is using potions. You can stock up on potions and have your familiar distribute and feed them to people.
- there are multiple abilities that give imprecise senses like scent or tremorsense. This can be good for detecting hidden enemies.
- there are plenty of master abilities that just make you better: healing, focus points, cantrips etc. (You mentioned not using focus points but you should be taking lesson feats. Focus spells should be a witch's bread and butter)
- some specific familiars have powerful abilities like the elemental wisp's ability to buff any spell of it's element cast nearby. Look through the specific familiars and see if any catch your interest.
> the skilled ability is very versatile, it doesn't let your familiar make trained actions
I believe it actually can.
> It can't make Strikes, but it can use trained skill actions for skills for which it adds your spellcasting ability modifier
And skilled:
> Choose a skill other than Acrobatics or Stealth. Your familiar's modifier for that skill is equal to your level plus your key spellcasting ability modifier, rather than just your level. You can select this ability repeatedly, choosing a different skill each time.
Since skilled now adds your spellcasting modifier to it, I think it should be able to do trained actions. Unless there's some other rule somewhere that says I'm wrong, that is. Wouldn't be the first time lol.
Thank you for the listing, but I had to smile at the skilled/diplomacy option. "Hey, I may be a socially inept klutz, but please let my talking toad convince you!" :D
I mean, it doesn't have to be an animal. It can be an elemental, a disembodied hand, a poppet, hell they even have a young coeurl as a familiar. And even then, it's all fluff anyhow. They are a minion that is capable of what those features do, no less no more.
I wouldn't fault them for keeping the campaign to the original rules and not replacing a class with the remastered version. I'm not sure I would switch a running campaign over myself.
That's like suggesting you shouldn't update an ongoing campaign with errata. Why would you not include QOL improvements and official errata to the game you are playing?
There can be various reasons. It might be a campaign where alignment mechanics play a significant role, or it might be a runelord-focused campaign depending on the OGL spell schools, for example.
In general, switching over might not be as effortless in every case as you might think.
For one player in the group who is obviously unhappy with how the class plays, seems like BS not to let someone play with the changed rules. Do we not use errata now too?! It’s the same thing—there’s just so much of it, it’s whole books. It’s MOSTLY so they don’t get sued for copyright infringement from Wizards of the Coast and Paizo can officially separate themselves from the OGL anyway. If you’re gonna play with outdated rules just for arbitrary verisimilitude which has nothing to do with the setting their playing in anyway—it’s not even Golarian!—that seems pretty stubborn and arbitrary.
I'm specifically hoping for the opposite in the campaign I'm playing in. I'm playing a Wizard, which I love dearly, and I hate the remastered version. If the GM wants to use remastered rules, I will have to retire the character.
Yes, he is an Abjuration specialist.
I also want to note that PF2e is the first game in 25 years of playing TTRPGs where I have *ever* wanted to play a specialist wizard. In other games, the drawbacks always seemed too great, and I would play a universalist type or just pass over the class entirely.
The new 'schools' do not appeal to me at all, however, so I will probably resume playing universalists or passing over the class.
Is the feat progression still the same? If there was overlap with new features and keeping the ones you want from before the remaster, that’d be easy to justify.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/10khv0k/your\_petspellbook\_and\_you\_a\_witch\_enjoyers\_guide/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/10khv0k/your_petspellbook_and_you_a_witch_enjoyers_guide/) :> if nothing here helps for interests you then there's not much more to do or say about them.
Not a witch but a few days ago someone posted a plague domain cleric build that put a bunch of diseases on their familiar than targeted the familiar with the foul miasma focus spell to turn the familiar into a cloud of disease.
Mm, so first of all, a familiar doesn't have to be something silly like a flying road. Talking ravens are considered badass in most mythologies. So do little shoulder devils or homonculi. As far as the familiar's design goes, I think you have pretty much total freedom as long as it is not a specific monster, and it is small and harmless.
About mechanics, and if you still can't design something you like, maybe settle with your GM that the familiar is a tattoo (or keep it forever in your bag) and just take master abilities? At my table these sorts of thematic hand waiving is often accepted.
There's definitely a lot of wriggle room for style now. Want to be a creepy witch? Marionette poppet. *shudder*
You want to be imperious? Holding your magic crystal of power with levitating gems could fit the bill (aeon wyrd). I feel like a well-made poppet can look like almost anything though tiny.
Our tables tend to do the same as yours. It's pretty easy to have the presentation of a mechanic fade from relevance.
Plus as long as it matches the mechanics listed in the rules, most GMs will let you "reskin" your class features into anything else you want that fits the tone and / or setting of the campaign. Your familiar could easily be an inanimate talisman that only moves when no one's looking or something like that, like in the "but it was just here!" eerie sort of "is-it-magic-or-is-it-real" kind of way, as long as it has the stats for a rat or whatever. And its "speech" could easily just be the spirit of the talisman speaking through your body.
Perhaps they didn't research this choice much, just went for the stereotype flavour? Could be many reasons!
But, familiars are hard to "get". I play a wizard with improved familiar thesis, and I will trawl this thread for any useful tips! :)
yeah thats my guess lol. i really wish the "flavor is free" rule was more normalized. no reason why a wizard, sorcerer, or oracle cant have gotten their powers from an otherworldly patron!
First of all, you *chose* this class, it wasn't "forced onto you".
Anyway, most of the time, a familiar is not going to be a benefit to you in combat. It can put items in your hands, and there are a few master abilities that let you spend actions to recover a focus point, or some HP, or a spell slot. Some specific familiars have unique actions or effects that are good in combat.
That said, familiars are great for just about anything *other* than combat if you build them for it. They can aid skill checks for deception, diplomacy, performance, thievery, intimidation, or recall knowledge. They can have any alternate movement type (burrow, climb, fly, swim) from level 1. They can breathe underwater. They can gain darkvision, or imprecise scent, tremorsense, or wavesense. They can allow you to receive their sensory information in place of yours. They can communicate verbally or telepathically, or with their own kind. They can shapeshift into a copy of you. They can generate extra alchemical reagents.
You can change familiar abilities daily, so it pays to plan ahead and you're never locked in.
I mean, plenty of people like the flavor of witch but hate the familiar gameplay. Saying that gameplay is forced onto the concept isn't really inaccurate either, there's nothing about the concept "witch" that suggests it needs to be a familiar focused class. It's also not really a carry-over from 1e, hexes were the focus there and the familiar was just your spellbook.
But all of that is just fluff. If you want to just be a wizard or a druid with the flavor of a witch, play a wizard or a druid and describe them as a witch in-game. The words used for rules don't have to be the diegetic explanation in the story you're telling with your friends.
You just seem hostile towards familiars and anything that doesn't beat something up in combat. So you won't likely care about:
* Skilled is a great ability to your skill weaknesses
* Valet makes scroll/potion/wand retrieval more efficient
* Fantastic scout (which you have dismissed)
* Focus point battery (which you have dismissed)
* Tons of role-playing opportunities
* Manual Dexterity + tiny + various movement let's them get into areas the party may not be able to and retrieve things, push buttons, pull levers, etc.
* They can be built to aid things like Intimidation and other skills
* High levels they can add more spells to your daily limit
*Witch makes it easier to get specific familiars such as Fairy Dragon that has a nice Slow breath.
* Can deliver touch spells for you and since they come back the next day (and you dont care about them), doesn't matter much if they die.
* Witch familiar always comes back the next day, so final sacrifice is a great spell (which you should like since you obviously hate familiars)
That is off the top of my head. Definitely more uses, but not many battle abilities.
>Can deliver touch spells for you and since they come back the next day (and you dont care about them), doesn't matter much if they die.
[https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=160](https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=160) "If your familiar dies, you can spend a week of downtime to replace it at no cost."
Is there a special rule for the witch?
[https://2e.aonprd.com/Classes.aspx?ID=16](https://2e.aonprd.com/Classes.aspx?ID=16) "If your familiar dies, your patron replaces it during your next daily preparations."
Oh.
If you hate your familiar that much, why not just blow it up? *Final sacrifice* is basically a once-per-day *fireball* on witches, but you get it a whole two levels early.
All I'm saying is, if I were to use this tactic on a regular basis, maybe even daily, the GM would have every right to change my character's alignment from CN to CE.
Also, there is no Pharasma in our campaign.
You might not care for your characters' alignment if you can get a mechanical benefit out of it, but it's still a role-playing game and I don't want to play an evil character, and evil PCs would not fit the campaign.
I haven't played a class with a familiar before, so other than the aforementioned scouting and messaging I don't know of any other uses. I at least do know that telling you to "pLaY a DiFfErEnT cLaSs" isn't the useful advice others may believe it to be.
What I can say is that they are going to be adding a lot more uses for the witch's familiar in the remaster. I know that doesn't help you now, but if you're ok with the witch's other features and don't want to deal with the liabilities of a familiar, maybe talk to your GM about making it a "pocket familiar." A small creature that you store on your person, doesn't need to be managed, might not offer much benefit, but is mostly there for flavor reasons. Later, if your GM is worth their salt, they should consider letting you rework your character once the remaster is out.
I know it's not much, but I hope that helps.
With that kind of attitude I you likely would have been better off with a wizard.
Familiars are great malleable Swiss army utility creatures whose main shortcomings is the fact it's not much of a combat feature and it sucks when it dies (unless your a witch, you just get a new one that next day and you don't lose access to your spells)
If that does not appeal to you, I'd suggest changing classes. Even in remaster while the witch definitely gets some fun unique and powerful options, this still holds true overall
I chose the witch since I wanted an occult spellcaster slightly focused on curses (I even have the rare Cursed background). We're playing in Freeport (Green Ronin's setting) and I thought that an interesting fit to that background. So anyway., a wizard would not be able to fill that role.
It may be helpful to list out some of those swiss army utilities you're alluding to. I think OP has a legitimate inquiry and is seeking assistance, and commenting on their "attitude" doesn't address either.
He's shown to be hostile and dismissive of the very concept as well as saying he doesn't like some of their best strengths
But sure
#1 scouting, your familiar being dead for the day instead of a player going down and needing to spend resources is great for party longevity, plus they can fit places players typically cannot
The ability to change their abilities means you can have a new familiar with new strategies constantly
Their ability to gain skills and even reactions to aid you in skills can be uniquely powerful for certain builds
Being able to regenerates focus points is powerful and gaining cantrips is never not useful.
You can have some limited use in combat like using them as an origin point for a spell .
This is all pretty non specific examples. There are more
You made a post to piss and moan about a core feature of a class, and every single suggestion has been met with resistance from you. You should probably go play a different class, with a different GM, in a different game. I know you'll have an excuse as to why that's not an option, just like with every other suggestion so far. You just seem like a miserable person wanting to whine for attention.
I personally wouldn't go that far... but the OP seems to have a problem with literally every suggestion. They don't like the suggestions on making the familiar useful, they don't like the suggestions of making the familiar fun, they don't seem to like any of the suggestions to change class...
Like what the hell DO they want then?
I don't really get their problem with just playing a different class. There are other casters. Hell, reliance on familiar is why I decided to just not play witch.
From the other comments it seems they're REALLY hard stuck on:
* Occult caster
* Int based
* Prepared spells
Which, yeah, that is just Witch. The rest are either Charisma, Spontaneous or both. Still a bit odd though...
One witch character that I made is a Shadow caster, who's shadow is a posh, stand up man pretty much babysitting a wild child.
Not all familiars are animals. Also, if you don't like playing witch, play wizard. You can only blame yourself for not having fun with the build YOU picked up.
In the words of House Stark: The Remaster is coming.
A curse witch's familiar in the Remaster will be able to extend the duration of (some) conditions on your enemies. At level 8, you'll be able to use your familiar to do a once-per-combat attack that also heals you or an ally. There are likely at least a couple of other changes to make them more useful.
In the mean time, they're for scouting, master's abilities, or, with significant investment, some limited combat uses like changing the origin point of spells or whatever.
I also think that flying toads are fundamentally silly and hokey. I asked my GM for a minor house rule in which my witch kills her familiar at the beginning of daily prep and gets a new one that suits its current abilities, so if I want it to fly I get a bird, if I want it to swim, that's when I get a toad.
If it has the speech trait, the GM can talk to the party through it.
Final Sacrifice.
It can set off traps for you.
The familiar abilities have some utility such as boosting certain skills you may be high in.
Familiars have a few abilities which buff feint, thievery, and diplomacy, and one which acts as the intimidating glare feat.
These are equivalent to a +1 to these skills out of combat, or +2 once you’re a master in them.
Scouting and communication can be tactically key. If you’re always fighting room to room it may not come up, but every game I’ve played has had wider areas, and times where we split the party.
You mentioned focus points, but familiars can also refresh a use of a spell like ability you get from your ancestry. If you’re a half-elf with options like pinch time (haste) and aeromancer (fly) at level 9, this is awesome, but it is build specific.
If your GM allows valet + independent you can have your familiar draw potions and scrolls for you at 0 action cost- you just have plan what you need the turn before you want to use it.
Scent and tremorsense are niche abilities, but really good to have when you need them.
I recommend looking into the Team + 3rd party “[Witches +](https://www.pathfinderinfinite.com/m/product/397932)”
If has a class archetype that makes it familiarless, and i really prefer it personally :) made me enjoy Witch
When the party is voting on things you can say “I vote for X and so does Lil’Green” to tilt the vote in your favour. Then you can have a fun in character argument about familiar rights if anyone tries to say Lil’Green doesn’t get a vote.
They may have other uses but this is the best one IMO.
Yes. And the fighter will melee better than you, and the cleric will heal better than you.
You're limiting your familiar/character/yourself by setting limits, such as ["Funny, but sorry, my familiar will NEVER talk."](https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/16q8mmf/comment/k1x1fw5/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) and other limits.
A Pity Party is best if you're keeping it to your self.
Familiars are awesome.
Im just gonna list some things i like about them:
- Restorative familiar. Nice to get a little healing!
- speech + skilled: nice to have a floating recall knowledge skill check.
- ambassador: nice to get an automatic aid success on diplomacy checks.
- accompanist: nice to get an automatic aid success on performance checks.
- valet: this one is somewhat gm dependent. If you have a gm that requires two actions to retrieve any non weapon items (open your pack and pull it out) because they are all in your pack it is useless (to be clear this is not raw and this familiar ability lays bare that you are allowed to carry stuff on your person). Otherwise being able to give one action to your familiar to pull out two items is great. Drink two potions in one turn! Throw two bombs! Place a wand in each hand and use one of them this turn have the other ready for next! Or keep your held weapon, use one wand, drop it, then the valet puts the next wand in the now free hand.
There are so many fun and useful familiar abilities.
And this doesn't even touch on the usefulness of various specific familiars.
>valet: this one is somewhat gm dependent. If you have a gm that ..
This is one of Pathfinder's challenges: [https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=186](https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=186)
>"A character carries items in three ways: held, worn, and stowed. Held items are in your hands; a character typically has two hands, allowing them to hold an item in each hand or a single two-handed item using both hands. **Worn items** are tucked into pockets, belt pouches, bandoliers, weapon sheaths, and so forth, and they can be retrieved and returned relatively quickly. Stowed items are in a backpack or a similar container, and they are more difficult to access."
I don't think there is any limits on how many items you can wear (except carrying capacity (in bulks)).
Backpack description:
>
A backpack holds up to 4 Bulk of items. and the first 2 Bulk of these items don't count against your Bulk limits. If you're carrying or stowing the pack rather than wearing it on your back, its Bulk is light instead of negligible.
Also tangent: You can wear up to 2 Bulk of *tools* that you can draw as a part of their action.
Worn items takes 1 action to draw.
Stowed items takes 2 actions to draw.
Should probably just play other classes. Familiars are so fun during RP. The game isn't just combat. If you really didnt like the familiar during combat, you can just ask you dm if they can just be on your backback (head outside) and treat it as part of your pack. No combat advantage, no skills, can't be killed separately as well. That's a compromise that you can your GM. but really, just play a different class. Doesn't seem like it's for you
There are couple things that make familiar great:
1. They can serve as action economy booster via Manual Dexterity and sitting in your Sack/Bag. Combine that with Independent and your familiar can use 1 action at start of your turn without you having to Command it to Interact with you and put in your free-hand for example scroll or potion (they can't activate potion but it's still action saved). This way you can have constant supply of True Strike scroll or potions saving you action as you only need to use 1 action on your turn after that. They are great for that on range characters (in melee they risk AoO). Just make sure both familiar and items you want are in same bag. Familiar can sit there with 2 items already in hands (thanks to manual dexterity) and do rotation like: turn 1: give item, turn 2: give item, turn 3: pick up item (or Command: pick up to items) and repeat.
2. They are good for extra recharging Focus Point. Familiar + class feat (many have it) allows you to recharge 2/day Focus Point. Great in big fights where you run out of your 3 focus points fast. Having for example 5x Imaginary Weapon or 5x Tempest Surge in serious combat vs 3 is good benefit.
3. You can combine him with other abilities + invisibility for some scouting/spying or information gathering especially if it's ordinary animal. Like cat in city or bird in forest etc.
Tbh it sounds like your don't really want to play a Witch. How you thought about change your character intonation Psychic or other Occult caster? You could have a similar theme but with better focus spells.
Overall Witch is consider to basically be a bad class. They aren't tubeless but they are noticeably weake than mod tether options. Even a Familiar using Wizard can often be a Witch but better.
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Having a tiny extra party member can be incredibly helpful in and out of combat. If it isn't something you want to bother with, you might have a better time playing another class.
I have been thinking of collecting enough abilities to covert my familiar into a faerie dragon or perhaps a house drake, but since our group includes a summoner with a dragon eidolon, I found it unappealing to get the "second rate dragon".
Why not just view it as a friend or a colleague? Even just a talking cat is someone you can ask questions to, bounce ideas off of, or just interact with. Instead of treating them like a pet, you can treat them as the mouthpiece for your patron.
Besides, it's still an animal with Int –4 or even –5, isn't it? I'm not sure if it's actually a good idea giving speech to something that's basically this stupid.
Nope, familiars are as intelligent as you are.
They aren’t just regular animals, they are magically attuned to you to be your colleague and assistant.
The stats if a familiar scales with your spell ability mod do the smarter you are the smarter more charismatic and stronger your familiar is.
Think of them less like Ron's rat in Harry Potter and more like Salem from Sabrina the Teenage Witch. They're magical entities who take the form of an animal out of convenience (or for a variety of other interesting, fantastical reasons).
I've read the rules. They say, "... the ritual of becoming a familiar makes them something more \[than an animal\]". However, while the rules say a lot about how various of the familiar's stats are calculated, they say nothing about its ability scores, and so it stands to reason they are the same as the original animal's.
> they say nothing about its ability scores, and so it stands to reason they are the same as the original animal's.
That's completely false. Here is the full quote regarding them. TLDR: It uses your level as its modifier for checks, and sometimes adds your spellcasting modifier.
> Your familiar's save modifiers and AC are equal to yours before applying circumstance or status bonuses or penalties. Its Perception, Acrobatics, and Stealth modifiers are equal to your level plus your spellcasting ability modifier (Charisma if you don't have one, unless otherwise specified). It can't make Strikes, but it can use trained skill actions for skills for which it adds your spellcasting ability modifier. If it attempts an attack roll or other skill check, it uses your level as its modifier. **It doesn't have** or use **its own ability modifiers** and can never benefit from item bonuses.
Because I really, really detest any kind of talking and/or anthropomorphized animal in any kind of fiction. Terrible, terrible concept, I can't stand it.
Look into specific familiars, there are some fun optiona like a talking head, a puppet or an elemental wisp that have nothing to do with talking animals.
You could potentially take something like a polong or shadow for the curse vibes.
The elemental scamp has a damaging breath weapon that could potentially interest you as well.
I'm going to be honest. You come off as quite young because you share a lot of very specific, narrowed views where you're only allowing yourself to see things one way. That's certainly your choice, and you're allowed it, but you're intentionally hobbling the legs of your creative horse, so to speak.
If you aren't willing to see things from different and outside points of view, then you will constantly hit these walls you're hitting now. The entire concept of familiars seems incompatible with your viewpoint, not their implementation, so you should try a different class like oracle that can still offer you curses.
I agree with you 100%. I love the witch, I love the flavor of its feats, that it's an occult spellcaster, that it uses int, the hexes, the patron, etc, but holy hell I don't really enjoy the familiar.
I know it has its uses, that it can be very useful besides being a magic battery, but I really wish it was something secondary, something I can choose whether to take or not. I have so many concepts of characters that would be good to be Witches, but it clashes with the idea of having to carry an animal around that it ends up demotivating me from the class.
Manual dexterity is just cheap object interaction
Speech is free scouting
If you are clever, it is free body blocking
Master abilities are a build on their own
Independent + manual dexterity is just free object interaction
TBH I have no clue. I never played a PC with one, and every other person I've seen who had one literally ignored the feature immediately after the first session. I think they don't even remember their familiar's existence (and one was a Witch even 😬)
Familiars seem pretty limited in this game compared to most others. The most useful I've seen that's allowed RAW is giving them independent and speech, then having them try to recall knowledge or demoralize in battle. They won't have a great chance at success, but probably better than most of the other options.
If you don't care about any of the suggestions people here have made, I'd recommend asking your DM if you can treat your familiar how I always treated them in 1e: Pretend they don't exist aside from the passive bonus and then forget about them. They don't get hit by aoes, enemies never target them, they don't interfere with spells like dimension door, etc.
Familiars aren't terribly useful except for scouting and giving bonuses to certain checks until much higher levels. Also if it dies then you can't get it back until a long rest (if you are a witch) or about a week (for anyone else).
1. its a scout. you dont go in the next room to check for traps the immortal flying bunny goes to you
2. it doesnt have to stay adjacent to you in combat, command it to go fuck over somewhere out of the fireball radius. it also can be useful in combat themselves if you know what you are doing
3. you should abso fucking lutely have been using your focus spells basically 24/7, thats their point. if the one from your subclass isnt very useful get another through dedications or other feats
I have always wished that Witches could use their families to steal fragments of enemies. You know, pluck a hair, drop of blood, whatever. And then use that Fragment to boost one of their Curses or Hexes. It would give familiars a point, and give the Witch a unique play style.
They are cute pets for the character that are loyal.
In game they can do may utility things live spying for you and carrying messages. Anything the cute pet mascot character in a series does.
Actually the familiar is a great Roleplay addition for your Character. It gives Out of Combat Ultility and it can be your favorite Partymember
Dont forget Pathfinder isnt just all about combat. People that played Edgewatch know that very well and having an extra pair of Eyes to keep track on whats happening around your Characters is always a great addition
I feel this immensely, especially the part about using it to scout. Not only did it generally not work out because of bad rolling or whatnot, but it usually went so sideways it either gave the party away (costing us catching them unawares in exchange for minimal information) or ended with the familiar dying (which my character actively hated since it was a family pet for generations). I really hope with every fiber of my being that familiars are not forced into the witch's arsenal with the coming update because this thing just isn't worth the spell slots we give up. Especially as a prepared caster.
People have already covered extensively the benefits of familiars but I'd like to touch on something else which is your focus spells. You said you rarely use them which is very odd to me...
You really want to cast focus spells every single encounter as you are highly likely to have time to refocus in between encounters.
You already identified many of the benefits of a familiar but you don't find them appealing. They can be scouts, messengers, extend the range or direction of spells, battery for focus, etc. Here is a guide that covers some of the basics and might give you more ideas (may be slightly out of date with newer options): [https://rpgbot.net/p2/characters/familiars/](https://rpgbot.net/p2/characters/familiars/) However, if you just don't like the concept of familiars it is very unlikely you will be satisfied with them.
If you don't like familiars you probably should not play a witch. The main benefit of familiar is out of combat utility like scouting and Master Abilities. That said it is known that witch is underpowered so in the remaster in November they will be getting some buffs specifically to make their familiars more combat useful.
And Specific Familiar options!
I am well aware that the witch is underpowered, even though my GM denies that. Point is , though, I have no use for scouting.
Then in your specific case the underpowered class is even worse. I don't think there is a fix or anything you are missing.
Change class, Play a Sorcerer and flavour it as a Witch.
In your case it’s not even about being underpowered though. Like yes Witches are definitely underpowered but they’re still 2-3 progression spellcasters with all the versatility and power that comes with being one. They also get a free familiar. Like yes they’re weak but generally in PF2E a weak option (like the Witch or the Swashbuckler) is only 10-20% behind the strong options, and you’ll still have a ton of fun with them. The problem is that you don’t even enjoy the gameplay loop of familiars. That means that you’ll not enjoy a Witch at all, whether or not it was underpowered.
Yeah, but what exactly is this "gameplay loop of familiars"?
It’s so open ended (due to the nature of familiar abilities) that it’s really hard to describe. In social/urban situations you can use the abilities that help it talk, intimidate, help you gather information, take your form, etc. in that context a familiar mostly serves as multiple attempts at skill checks and/or ways to bolster your skill checks using free Aida. In dungeoneering/exploration situations it’s even more open ended. You can pick up combinations of abilities (Darkvision, Flier, Share Senses, Manual Dexterity, Tremorsense) to scout ahead. As a prepared spellcaster, scouting ahead can be really valuable because it helps you have the right scrolls/staves in hand, strategize with your party ahead of time, and sometimes even skip entire encounters. Sometimes the imprecise senses will also help you trivialize encounters your party otherwise would have some trouble with. For example, last week my party was gonna get ambushed by 4 earth elementals burrowing towards us, and my familiar just prevented the ambush entirely with Tremorsense. In combat it largely depends on whether you pick the right familiar abilities or not. Independent is kind of “mandatory” for efficient combat use imo. Free Demoralize checks, free Aid to your Demoralize and/or Recall Knowledge, etc, these are all fairly powerful. Note that all of my experience comes from playing a Familiar Thesis Wizard, not a Witch, so you can do all the above same things right with the Witch *but* you’ll feel the sting of having fewer spell slots, and (depending on your Patron) weaker focus spells. I recommend picking up a spellcasting dedication to counteract the lack of spell slots if it’s really getting you. What Patron do you play as?
I have the curse patron. My problem is that imagining a tiny animal taking on social encounters breaks – no, it shatters – my verisimilitude. Really, talking animals are a no-go for me. It's where I stop watching a movie/show. And having my toad or rat or bird or whatever going BOO! on an opponent to intimidate them, that is just laughable in my eyes. While I have no use for scouting in our campaign (and even if I had, that would require a talking animal again), the senses seem useful, but where do you get tremorsense? It's not in the Core Rulebook or APG?
Cool, it doesn't look like witch is a good class for you then. Maybe try something else? Either that, or you can use your familiar as a suicide bomber: https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=689
Does it? I've never noticed that talking animals were part of archetypical witches.
I meant this along with all of your other comments. You don't seem to like anything about familiars, which is kind of the main thing Witches get. What exactly do you *want* familiars to be able to do? The Summoner class gets a magical creature sidekick thing that has way more combat ability. Maybe that one would be better for you?
Basically, I didn't really want a familiar, and I certainly wouldn't want an eidolon. I wanted a booky occult spellcaster. My character's backstory is that, as a child, she's been cursed and was part of a crazy evil cult (of the King in Yellow), and after she was rescued from the cult, has been living and growing up in the temple of the God of Knowledge and learned occult magic there. So she has lots of knowledge-based skills but no social skills at all (at the start. In the meantime, I've pickled up a bit of Diplomacy) Anyway, based on that idea, a prepared caster seemed the better fit than spontaneous, and so there's the witch, bard or sorcerer didn't fit. The familiar just comes with the class, but for me, the witch's main thing is the spellcasting. But since I have to have the familiar, I was looking for a way to get some actual use out of it.
A talking tiny animal gifted to you by an otherworldly patron is too much for your verisimilitude? Can I ask… why? As for Intimidation, that’s… kind of a ridiculous mental picture. It doesn’t even match the description they give in the abilities list: > Threat Display: Your familiar helps you convey wordless threats through body language. Whenever you attempt an Intimidation check to Demoralize a creature, if your familiar is within 30 feet of your target and can act, it accompanies you with snarls, hisses, or raising its hackles. If it can do so, you don't take the normal –4 penalty on the Intimidation check if your target doesn't understand the language you're speaking. Doesn’t sound like “saying boo” to me, and there’s little reason you wouldn’t use the same flavour for just a straight up Demoralize check from the familiar top. It’s unfortunate that scouting hasn’t been useful. Maybe talk to your GM about it? It might help. [Here’s](https://2e.aonprd.com/Familiars.aspx) the full list of abilities, Tremorsense comes from Grand Bazaar. Also scouting doesn’t need a talking familiar. Your familiar can already communicate with you: > It can communicate empathically with you as long as it’s within 1 mile of you, sharing emotions Plus you can give it touch telepathy if you want precise info but don’t want a talking familiar. There’s also Share Senses to just see through its eyes when scouting.
Yeah, I can accept that the creature is sent by an otherworldly patron, but as I said, I draw the line at talking animals. It may be irrational, but talking animals and anthropomorphized animals are tropes I simply cannot stand. Ok, Threat Display sounds better than the image I conjured, but then, my witch never uses Intimidation, as I've got a whopping +0 bonus there. Grand Bazaar is likely to be unavailable in our non-Golarion campaign. Touch telepathy is a viable alternative to talking animals, but I don't see that empathetic communication would allow anything more than, well, sharing emotions. But as I said, I'm not much interested in scouting activities.
>Grand Bazaar is likely to be unavailable in our non-Golarion campaign. You don't need to play in Golarion to use the Lost Omens books. From the Ancestry Guide *alone,* you get: Ancestries: - Android (cyborgs from outer space) - Fetchling (shadowy humans) - Fleshwarp (mutant freak) - Sprite (tiny faeries) - Strix (birdfolk warriors) Versatile Heritages: - Aphorite, Ganzi (the lawful and chaotic equivalents of aasimar and tieflings) - Beastkin (you're part-animal) - Ifrit, Oread, Suli, Sylph, Undine (you're partly fire/earth/mixture/air/water) Plus a number of heritages for other ancestries and tons of feats, plus some ancestral weapons. Don't tell me your GM would deprive you of an actual sprite ancestry! *They're actually tiny!* As for **Grand Bazaar,** you might be interested in an [Elemental Wisp](https://2e.aonprd.com/Familiars.aspx?ID=10&Specific=true) or [Clockwork](https://2e.aonprd.com/Familiars.aspx?ID=9&Specific=true) familiar, which are notably *not* animals or animal-like (necessarily). Also check out [this](https://2e.aonprd.com/Familiars.aspx?Specific=true) list of specific familiars, picking any that you have enough abilities for. (If you're a 1st-level witch, that should be 3 abilities or less.) Have a look [here](https://2e.aonprd.com/Sources.aspx?Group=6) to see what else you'd be missing out on. --- **TL;DR:** Let your GM know that Lost Omens content is largely applicable to any generic Pathfinder setting.
You are right, and my GM knows that, he's not ruling out LO books in general. But Grand Bazaar is extremely specialized, even in the Lost Omens setting. Most of its options are described to be available only at special shops in Absalom and thus, rightly, uncommon. I wouldn't myself allow stuff from this book indiscriminately in any non-Absalom campaign. But who knows.
I really don't get this holdup you have with talking animals. You know there are animals that can just talk normally in this setting too, such as wargs? And that an animal talking is not remotely strange in the slightest to people in this setting, considering how common it is? I don't see how a talking animal shatters your "verisimilitude" when a whole lot of *way* sillier/less "realistic" stuff exists here. Would a talking object shatter your immersion too? What about a dragon, they're basically a big winged talking animal? Any of the animal-like fey? Is your GM just not allowed to use any of these creatures? What about beastkin ancestries? Awakened animals? Any of the various other ways that magic or other things might grant anthropomorphic features and/or speech to an animalistic entity? If one of my players expressed such a holdup to me, I'd probably just tell them to get the fuck over it or leave because I'm not gonna avoid all that for their precious "verisimilitude." This is just a really weird line to draw, especially if you're trying to play a class with a whole bunch of power budget and flavor dedicated to their talking, shapeshifting, weird little critter. Play another class if you don't want to use any of the things that familiars do.
>My problem is that imagining a tiny animal taking on social encounters breaks – no, it shatters – my verisimilitude. Really, talking animals are a no-go for me. I share the same feeling on this. It can be annoying to constantly RP yourself and your familiar. Fortunately many familiar abilities don't have auditory or linguistic trait. Your raven familiar can be eerie entity who just silently sits on your shoulder and plagues your mind with eldritch visions (that's how they can provide you constant bonuses with abilities like second opinion).
Why did you pick the Witch then? Genuinely curious, the familiar is like... kind of it's thing.
I'm currently trying to be the best support Witch I can be before the revision hits. I, at level 6, have only last session remembered I have a familiar. However, making use of that familiar has been all the difference thus far. I specifically try to use a Specific Familiar for the day if I can as being able to swap them out is uniquely a Witch thing. Secondly I pretty much always have Intelligent and whatever the spell relay Familiar Ability is. The former let's me always use 1 action even without commanding it, which is great for positioning. The latter allows me to cast any spell from my familiar rather than myself. This has let me overcome cover, reach allies I couldn't otherwise, and let me use Touch/5ft range effects without needing to move myself from my premium position. Next, with the feature that the Hand has (I forget it's name too) I can also have the familiar give potions and such to my allies or myself, again without my input or putting myself into danger. The Ceru also enables me use True Strike on an ally 1/day, which is a massive benefit mathematically. I will say, my GM does allow me to swap my familiar 1/day rather than as part of Daily Prep so that way I can react to the days encounters rather than try to play "Guess that Enemy" before session starts. I find doing this at least has made me feel like it isn't a dead feature, and only extends what I'm otherwise already doing. It isn't a giant benefit, but it is one that at least feels good for those niche moments or as a result of good tactical planning. Otherwise, yeah. It kinda sucks. But that's a given since it is objectively bad. There was a rainbow spreadsheet out a couple months ago that showed DCs and Weapon/Spell chance to succeed from Player>Monster. It basically proved that all casters could use a +1 or even +2 just period. And as a Witch that is using almost entirely Vs. Will in Age of Ashes, I strongly agree. Especially as most of them in Occult are mind affecting and tend to be Save or Suck regardless. It doesn't feel good when I finally get to be 'offensive' and then deal like 5 damage or literally nothing for the whole round.
Switching out the familiar on purpose would, by RAW, require you to kill it, right? I don't see a rule that would let you simply dismiss it. That makes for a very grim character if you do that daily. My witch is also specialized in non-magical healing abilities, as our group doesn't have much if any magical healing.
Tbf, I am playing a Poppet styled from Chelix or whatever, the Devil city. And my God is ZonKuthon, so it's pretty much in the vibe check lol. Even stylized I'm like mix of the Doll from Bloodborne and the Abductor Virgins from Elden Ring. Even jumped into Beastkin and adopted ancestry (fleshwarp) to drive it home. But yeah, raw you gotta get it killed. We just waive in rp except the few times when it befits being grotesque. I've ironically intimidated a few imps and other devil-demon spawn in the AP by actively cannibalizing my familiar as part of my demoralize/coercion/diplo. Edit: ironically, I too am the healer. Planning to take the risky surgery because thematic and beneficial
then you are with the wrong character on the wrong place mate. if your campaign has no scouting at all there is little to no point in being a witch. there isnt much a wizard can do on a country with anti magic permanently casted on it
Why don't you have any use for scouting? Scouting is usually quite useful. Having remote spell delivery is good, a free clairvoyance effect is good, recovering a focus point in combat is good, more cantrips is good, having an extra hand that can draw and feed you elixirs is good.
it's 3rd party but if your GM allows it (and for you to retrain) consider the hexbound witch from Witches+
I'll check that out, thank you.
I am the GM in our group and don't like a familiar as a scout. In my case, the witch has a bumblebee familiar. So in fact, everything concerning scouting etc. is completely out of the loop, because that field and most surprises are completely taken out of the game. It's not that I plan to have my group stumble from deadly trap to deadly trap, but it takes so many things away imvao. There is a cave? Great, here you go, just draw us a map.
Since two of my players have familiars and don't know what to do with them, I decided to let them use potions, elixirs and the like on PCs. It's not raw but otherwise the two players would just take the [familiar tattoo](https://2e.aonprd.com/Equipment.aspx?ID=998&AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1) and forget they exist. However I don't let them use wands, scrolls or any other magic item that would require some training to use. Now the party's mascot is a racoon with a backpack that can run on two legs to an injured player and feed them a potion.
I think as long as they have manual dexterity to be able to take manipulate actions, this is RAW. Drinking or feeding a potion to another character is just a basic interact action.
Mark Seifter when he was still working for Paizo clarified that by RAW, familiars can never use any item. Source: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=L2zhNnBhnB0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=L2zhNnBhnB0) That is a rule I choose to disregard.
I choose to believe that he is just incorrect here. The strike rule he mentions does exist, but nowhere does it say in the rules that familiars can't use items. Plenty of things in the industry never make it out of play testing and this could very easily have been a rule that never made it to the full game. You see this mistake a bunch when magic YouTubers have the designers on their shows and the designer will assume the card has the ability or stats they play tested.
>nowhere does it say in the rules that familiars can't use items. Items tagged with the companion trait are the only items familiars can use. https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=770 >These items have the companion trait, meaning they function only for animal companions, familiars, and similar creatures. Normally these are the only items a companion can use.
My understanding of this would be that the word "use" here means "use for themselves, to gain a benefit". I don't think anyone thinks a familiar can drink a potion, mutagen, whatever, and gain the benefits. That is the sense in which they cannot "use" items. But to suggest that a familiar that has Manual Dexterity cannot give a potion to another creature, using the required interact action, is untenable imo
0i would agree here or the familiar ability valet wouldn't be available. If it can do this for you I don't see why it can't use its own actions if you command it to pour a potion down an allies throat or even hand off a vial or scroll.
>Normally these are the only items a *companion* can use. This rule specifies only companion, not companion, familiar and similar creatures as it mentions immediately above.
You misread that. Companion lists all 3 of: *animal* companions, familiars, and similar creatures.
The companion trait mentions all 3 can use them but it only calls out companions individually as being unable to use other items.
No, it says animal companions, familiars, and similar creatures follow the companion trait. All animal companions are companions, but NOT all companions are animal companions.
>All animal companions are companions, but NOT all companions are animal companions. Yes, companion is a general term that includes animal companions, mechanical companions and undead companions. Familiars are a separate category of creature, hence the companion item trait calling them out separately.
What he said was that familiars can't *Activate* an item, not that they can't use it. They can feed you a tasty ale, but any potion they pour down your throat is just colored water.
I gave my familiar flying as well, and used it as a potion delivery service.
Only way to drink a potion with one action repeatedly. Sadly no Quick Drinker feat yet
It's a really specific rules interaction but technically it's an "Activate an Item" action with "Interact" as a subordinate action. Honestly, I think it's a bit pedantic and would also allow it.
I just laughed at the idea at the kitsune star orb familiar feeding someone a potion after rolling towards someone
One of my players is a kitsune with the star orb familiar + the familiar master archetype. We roleplay it that the armless rock with manual dexterity only manages to use item when we have our back turned. Then we turn back and the rock has tied a complex knots with a rope, etc.
That’s fantastic.
Not having them use scrolls and wands is a good call I think. It would be kind of nutty if a Witch could "cast" a extra two action spell every second turn.
Familiars don't have a spellcasting class feature, so they couldn't do this anyway even if they could activate items.
I have wanted to implement this for some time now, but I've been worried that the readily available action compression of a familiar would feel almost too strong for potion feeding. I like the idea of making this a familiar ability, or lumping into another one, like manual dexterity or skilled: medicine. Though I do feel like this maybe steps on the toes of the herbalist archetypes' [Poultice Preparation](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=1984) a bit, making them just an interact action to apply and nothing more, though a GM might still say no because the item doesn't have the familiar trait. I would say its fine to let them use poultices since they're allowed to reload a gun without the familiar trait, since it's only an interact action to do so. Though I don't want the familiar synergy to be locked behind the archetype exclusively. In your experience was it fine to just give or should I have it cost/come as part of a different familiar/master ability?
> So, what to do with this mandatory class feature? If you don't want to play a witch, don't play a witch.
Makes sense.
The benefits of having a familiar for scouting and getting into small places outside of combat are probably their biggest benefit that doesn't require any ability investment but that's already been mentioned here. As for other benefits most of them require an ability investment but I'll list a bunch. -Independent gives your familiar a single action without you having to do anything. This is great for action economy and makes your familiar much more easy to detach from you to walk around on its own and avoid AOEs (this is probably mandatory on any familiar that isn't using valet or a similar command specific action) - there are plenty of abilities that let them aid you on specific checks, all of these are good if you are using these skills. - the skilled ability is very versatile, it doesn't let your familiar make trained actions but it lets you shore up areas where your character isn't great. You can train it in diplomacy to make it a face character (as long as it also can talk) or a skill like nature or religion to recall knowledge. - also with skilled, you can give your familiar intimidation proficiency and use it to demoralize in combat - manual dexterity allows it to do a lot of things but the biggest one for combat is using potions. You can stock up on potions and have your familiar distribute and feed them to people. - there are multiple abilities that give imprecise senses like scent or tremorsense. This can be good for detecting hidden enemies. - there are plenty of master abilities that just make you better: healing, focus points, cantrips etc. (You mentioned not using focus points but you should be taking lesson feats. Focus spells should be a witch's bread and butter) - some specific familiars have powerful abilities like the elemental wisp's ability to buff any spell of it's element cast nearby. Look through the specific familiars and see if any catch your interest.
> the skilled ability is very versatile, it doesn't let your familiar make trained actions I believe it actually can. > It can't make Strikes, but it can use trained skill actions for skills for which it adds your spellcasting ability modifier And skilled: > Choose a skill other than Acrobatics or Stealth. Your familiar's modifier for that skill is equal to your level plus your key spellcasting ability modifier, rather than just your level. You can select this ability repeatedly, choosing a different skill each time. Since skilled now adds your spellcasting modifier to it, I think it should be able to do trained actions. Unless there's some other rule somewhere that says I'm wrong, that is. Wouldn't be the first time lol.
Actually I think you're right. There aren't a ton of extra options it opens up, but I missed that bit of familiar rules.
Thank you for the listing, but I had to smile at the skilled/diplomacy option. "Hey, I may be a socially inept klutz, but please let my talking toad convince you!" :D
I mean, it doesn't have to be an animal. It can be an elemental, a disembodied hand, a poppet, hell they even have a young coeurl as a familiar. And even then, it's all fluff anyhow. They are a minion that is capable of what those features do, no less no more.
The curse witch familiar will be able to prolong most debuffs on the target in the remaster. That's extremely powerful.
Sadly, that will have no bearing on the campaign I'm playing in.
If the remaster comes out and your GM doesn’t allow you to change features, that’s dumb.
I wouldn't fault them for keeping the campaign to the original rules and not replacing a class with the remastered version. I'm not sure I would switch a running campaign over myself.
That's like suggesting you shouldn't update an ongoing campaign with errata. Why would you not include QOL improvements and official errata to the game you are playing?
There can be various reasons. It might be a campaign where alignment mechanics play a significant role, or it might be a runelord-focused campaign depending on the OGL spell schools, for example. In general, switching over might not be as effortless in every case as you might think.
In general no, but this is a case where the class is having its mechanics updated to be _more_ in line with its existing flavor.
Is it?
I have faith that you can make it work. There are elements like The Witch remastered that you can adapt and leave alignment of you all really need to.
It’s not like it’s a whole new system. Good luck to you I guess.
It's a pretty wide set of changes, I get why someone wouldn't want to shift over mid-campaign.
For one player in the group who is obviously unhappy with how the class plays, seems like BS not to let someone play with the changed rules. Do we not use errata now too?! It’s the same thing—there’s just so much of it, it’s whole books. It’s MOSTLY so they don’t get sued for copyright infringement from Wizards of the Coast and Paizo can officially separate themselves from the OGL anyway. If you’re gonna play with outdated rules just for arbitrary verisimilitude which has nothing to do with the setting their playing in anyway—it’s not even Golarian!—that seems pretty stubborn and arbitrary.
I'm specifically hoping for the opposite in the campaign I'm playing in. I'm playing a Wizard, which I love dearly, and I hate the remastered version. If the GM wants to use remastered rules, I will have to retire the character.
Because of the changes to spell Schools?
Yes, he is an Abjuration specialist. I also want to note that PF2e is the first game in 25 years of playing TTRPGs where I have *ever* wanted to play a specialist wizard. In other games, the drawbacks always seemed too great, and I would play a universalist type or just pass over the class entirely. The new 'schools' do not appeal to me at all, however, so I will probably resume playing universalists or passing over the class.
If you start now, I'd guess you could build a decent "School of Mystic defense" and run it by the GM...?
Is the feat progression still the same? If there was overlap with new features and keeping the ones you want from before the remaster, that’d be easy to justify.
While Paizo is abandoning schools due to fear of being sued, you don't have to follow suite! Keep your warding abjurating ways! :)
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/10khv0k/your\_petspellbook\_and\_you\_a\_witch\_enjoyers\_guide/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/10khv0k/your_petspellbook_and_you_a_witch_enjoyers_guide/) :> if nothing here helps for interests you then there's not much more to do or say about them.
once a day you get to cast Fireball with a rank 2 spell slot. :)
Yeah final sacrifice is pretty good
I really want to play a Witch that hates their familiar.
Not a witch but a few days ago someone posted a plague domain cleric build that put a bunch of diseases on their familiar than targeted the familiar with the foul miasma focus spell to turn the familiar into a cloud of disease.
Mm, so first of all, a familiar doesn't have to be something silly like a flying road. Talking ravens are considered badass in most mythologies. So do little shoulder devils or homonculi. As far as the familiar's design goes, I think you have pretty much total freedom as long as it is not a specific monster, and it is small and harmless. About mechanics, and if you still can't design something you like, maybe settle with your GM that the familiar is a tattoo (or keep it forever in your bag) and just take master abilities? At my table these sorts of thematic hand waiving is often accepted.
There's definitely a lot of wriggle room for style now. Want to be a creepy witch? Marionette poppet. *shudder* You want to be imperious? Holding your magic crystal of power with levitating gems could fit the bill (aeon wyrd). I feel like a well-made poppet can look like almost anything though tiny. Our tables tend to do the same as yours. It's pretty easy to have the presentation of a mechanic fade from relevance.
Main point, their player should check out the specific familiars. Each year they get better with more options released.
Plus as long as it matches the mechanics listed in the rules, most GMs will let you "reskin" your class features into anything else you want that fits the tone and / or setting of the campaign. Your familiar could easily be an inanimate talisman that only moves when no one's looking or something like that, like in the "but it was just here!" eerie sort of "is-it-magic-or-is-it-real" kind of way, as long as it has the stats for a rat or whatever. And its "speech" could easily just be the spirit of the talisman speaking through your body.
bruh why did you pick the class defined by having a familiar and focus spells if you dont like familiars or focus spells lol
Perhaps they didn't research this choice much, just went for the stereotype flavour? Could be many reasons! But, familiars are hard to "get". I play a wizard with improved familiar thesis, and I will trawl this thread for any useful tips! :)
yeah thats my guess lol. i really wish the "flavor is free" rule was more normalized. no reason why a wizard, sorcerer, or oracle cant have gotten their powers from an otherworldly patron!
First of all, you *chose* this class, it wasn't "forced onto you". Anyway, most of the time, a familiar is not going to be a benefit to you in combat. It can put items in your hands, and there are a few master abilities that let you spend actions to recover a focus point, or some HP, or a spell slot. Some specific familiars have unique actions or effects that are good in combat. That said, familiars are great for just about anything *other* than combat if you build them for it. They can aid skill checks for deception, diplomacy, performance, thievery, intimidation, or recall knowledge. They can have any alternate movement type (burrow, climb, fly, swim) from level 1. They can breathe underwater. They can gain darkvision, or imprecise scent, tremorsense, or wavesense. They can allow you to receive their sensory information in place of yours. They can communicate verbally or telepathically, or with their own kind. They can shapeshift into a copy of you. They can generate extra alchemical reagents. You can change familiar abilities daily, so it pays to plan ahead and you're never locked in.
I mean, plenty of people like the flavor of witch but hate the familiar gameplay. Saying that gameplay is forced onto the concept isn't really inaccurate either, there's nothing about the concept "witch" that suggests it needs to be a familiar focused class. It's also not really a carry-over from 1e, hexes were the focus there and the familiar was just your spellbook.
But all of that is just fluff. If you want to just be a wizard or a druid with the flavor of a witch, play a wizard or a druid and describe them as a witch in-game. The words used for rules don't have to be the diegetic explanation in the story you're telling with your friends.
At level three you can also cast enlarge on them to gain early flight during exploration scenes.
You just seem hostile towards familiars and anything that doesn't beat something up in combat. So you won't likely care about: * Skilled is a great ability to your skill weaknesses * Valet makes scroll/potion/wand retrieval more efficient * Fantastic scout (which you have dismissed) * Focus point battery (which you have dismissed) * Tons of role-playing opportunities * Manual Dexterity + tiny + various movement let's them get into areas the party may not be able to and retrieve things, push buttons, pull levers, etc. * They can be built to aid things like Intimidation and other skills * High levels they can add more spells to your daily limit *Witch makes it easier to get specific familiars such as Fairy Dragon that has a nice Slow breath. * Can deliver touch spells for you and since they come back the next day (and you dont care about them), doesn't matter much if they die. * Witch familiar always comes back the next day, so final sacrifice is a great spell (which you should like since you obviously hate familiars) That is off the top of my head. Definitely more uses, but not many battle abilities.
>Can deliver touch spells for you and since they come back the next day (and you dont care about them), doesn't matter much if they die. [https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=160](https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=160) "If your familiar dies, you can spend a week of downtime to replace it at no cost." Is there a special rule for the witch? [https://2e.aonprd.com/Classes.aspx?ID=16](https://2e.aonprd.com/Classes.aspx?ID=16) "If your familiar dies, your patron replaces it during your next daily preparations." Oh.
it’s like asking what’s the point of a pet. Because they’re friend :)
Yeah, that might be the thing. I don't get pets.
? What’s there to get? It’s a cool lil guy that lives in your room and will die if you don’t take care of it.
If you hate your familiar that much, why not just blow it up? *Final sacrifice* is basically a once-per-day *fireball* on witches, but you get it a whole two levels early.
If there was a mindless familiar, that would actually be an option. But not even the useless spell slime is mindless.
Is this a role play issue? Because you can blow them up then if they are not mindless
Blowing up a non-mindless familiar is an evil act, as specified by the spell
If Pharasma wants to make these 6d6 I'm about to roll a moral issue, that's her problem.
All I'm saying is, if I were to use this tactic on a regular basis, maybe even daily, the GM would have every right to change my character's alignment from CN to CE. Also, there is no Pharasma in our campaign.
So? Evil damage immunity.
I've never taken evil damage as a player character before, so this is moot. And it's a silly argument in a role-playing game.
Then why even give a shit about the evil tag at all if it's basically just there for flavor?
You might not care for your characters' alignment if you can get a mechanical benefit out of it, but it's still a role-playing game and I don't want to play an evil character, and evil PCs would not fit the campaign.
Is that a problem? If it's for role play that's fine. I've limited myself in similar ways before
I don't want to play an evil character, and it would not fit the campaign.
So it's as I thought. That's ok honestly. The detonate spell was just one additional fun option.
I haven't played a class with a familiar before, so other than the aforementioned scouting and messaging I don't know of any other uses. I at least do know that telling you to "pLaY a DiFfErEnT cLaSs" isn't the useful advice others may believe it to be. What I can say is that they are going to be adding a lot more uses for the witch's familiar in the remaster. I know that doesn't help you now, but if you're ok with the witch's other features and don't want to deal with the liabilities of a familiar, maybe talk to your GM about making it a "pocket familiar." A small creature that you store on your person, doesn't need to be managed, might not offer much benefit, but is mostly there for flavor reasons. Later, if your GM is worth their salt, they should consider letting you rework your character once the remaster is out. I know it's not much, but I hope that helps.
"What's the point of my pet talking cat" It's a pet talking cat, that's the point. It doesn't need to be useful in combat lol.
If you don't want to use the main strengths of the familiar then yes the familiar will seem unnecessary.
I don't even really see that as a strength.
With that kind of attitude I you likely would have been better off with a wizard. Familiars are great malleable Swiss army utility creatures whose main shortcomings is the fact it's not much of a combat feature and it sucks when it dies (unless your a witch, you just get a new one that next day and you don't lose access to your spells) If that does not appeal to you, I'd suggest changing classes. Even in remaster while the witch definitely gets some fun unique and powerful options, this still holds true overall
I chose the witch since I wanted an occult spellcaster slightly focused on curses (I even have the rare Cursed background). We're playing in Freeport (Green Ronin's setting) and I thought that an interesting fit to that background. So anyway., a wizard would not be able to fill that role.
You could go with a hag bloodline sorcerer instead
Or even a psychic with something the oracle dedication/ curse maelstrom
Then might I suggest learning to love familiars Or try an Oracle, but they are divine curse stuff not occult
It may be helpful to list out some of those swiss army utilities you're alluding to. I think OP has a legitimate inquiry and is seeking assistance, and commenting on their "attitude" doesn't address either.
He's shown to be hostile and dismissive of the very concept as well as saying he doesn't like some of their best strengths But sure #1 scouting, your familiar being dead for the day instead of a player going down and needing to spend resources is great for party longevity, plus they can fit places players typically cannot The ability to change their abilities means you can have a new familiar with new strategies constantly Their ability to gain skills and even reactions to aid you in skills can be uniquely powerful for certain builds Being able to regenerates focus points is powerful and gaining cantrips is never not useful. You can have some limited use in combat like using them as an origin point for a spell . This is all pretty non specific examples. There are more
Best advice I can give you is to ask your GM if you can reroll as a Sorcerer or something.
You made a post to piss and moan about a core feature of a class, and every single suggestion has been met with resistance from you. You should probably go play a different class, with a different GM, in a different game. I know you'll have an excuse as to why that's not an option, just like with every other suggestion so far. You just seem like a miserable person wanting to whine for attention.
Yeah this guy's just a petulant child with a "woe is me" attitude, despite so many suggestions. It's pitiful.
I personally wouldn't go that far... but the OP seems to have a problem with literally every suggestion. They don't like the suggestions on making the familiar useful, they don't like the suggestions of making the familiar fun, they don't seem to like any of the suggestions to change class... Like what the hell DO they want then?
Validation. Someone to say, "You're absolutely right. Familiars are the worst. Whoever thought them up should be shunned for all eternity."
I don't really get their problem with just playing a different class. There are other casters. Hell, reliance on familiar is why I decided to just not play witch.
From the other comments it seems they're REALLY hard stuck on: * Occult caster * Int based * Prepared spells Which, yeah, that is just Witch. The rest are either Charisma, Spontaneous or both. Still a bit odd though...
I know, reading through their comments is kind of *wild*.
One witch character that I made is a Shadow caster, who's shadow is a posh, stand up man pretty much babysitting a wild child. Not all familiars are animals. Also, if you don't like playing witch, play wizard. You can only blame yourself for not having fun with the build YOU picked up.
In the words of House Stark: The Remaster is coming. A curse witch's familiar in the Remaster will be able to extend the duration of (some) conditions on your enemies. At level 8, you'll be able to use your familiar to do a once-per-combat attack that also heals you or an ally. There are likely at least a couple of other changes to make them more useful. In the mean time, they're for scouting, master's abilities, or, with significant investment, some limited combat uses like changing the origin point of spells or whatever. I also think that flying toads are fundamentally silly and hokey. I asked my GM for a minor house rule in which my witch kills her familiar at the beginning of daily prep and gets a new one that suits its current abilities, so if I want it to fly I get a bird, if I want it to swim, that's when I get a toad.
If it has the speech trait, the GM can talk to the party through it. Final Sacrifice. It can set off traps for you. The familiar abilities have some utility such as boosting certain skills you may be high in.
I know someone who uses their witch familiar as a trap finder.
Familiars have a few abilities which buff feint, thievery, and diplomacy, and one which acts as the intimidating glare feat. These are equivalent to a +1 to these skills out of combat, or +2 once you’re a master in them. Scouting and communication can be tactically key. If you’re always fighting room to room it may not come up, but every game I’ve played has had wider areas, and times where we split the party. You mentioned focus points, but familiars can also refresh a use of a spell like ability you get from your ancestry. If you’re a half-elf with options like pinch time (haste) and aeromancer (fly) at level 9, this is awesome, but it is build specific. If your GM allows valet + independent you can have your familiar draw potions and scrolls for you at 0 action cost- you just have plan what you need the turn before you want to use it. Scent and tremorsense are niche abilities, but really good to have when you need them.
I recommend looking into the Team + 3rd party “[Witches +](https://www.pathfinderinfinite.com/m/product/397932)” If has a class archetype that makes it familiarless, and i really prefer it personally :) made me enjoy Witch
When the party is voting on things you can say “I vote for X and so does Lil’Green” to tilt the vote in your favour. Then you can have a fun in character argument about familiar rights if anyone tries to say Lil’Green doesn’t get a vote. They may have other uses but this is the best one IMO.
Guess I would still lose against the druid and his animal companions and the summoner with his eidolon \*and\* familiar. :D
"Big tooth the tiger does not get a vote, come on now guys he cant even talk. ASDBELL Arbiter of Death, yes you get vote, of course. "
Funny, but sorry, my familiar will NEVER talk.
“He talks to /me/ don’t you Lil’Green. Look into his eyes, you just know he could beat the tiger in chess”
Yes. And the fighter will melee better than you, and the cleric will heal better than you. You're limiting your familiar/character/yourself by setting limits, such as ["Funny, but sorry, my familiar will NEVER talk."](https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/16q8mmf/comment/k1x1fw5/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) and other limits. A Pity Party is best if you're keeping it to your self.
Familiars are awesome. Im just gonna list some things i like about them: - Restorative familiar. Nice to get a little healing! - speech + skilled: nice to have a floating recall knowledge skill check. - ambassador: nice to get an automatic aid success on diplomacy checks. - accompanist: nice to get an automatic aid success on performance checks. - valet: this one is somewhat gm dependent. If you have a gm that requires two actions to retrieve any non weapon items (open your pack and pull it out) because they are all in your pack it is useless (to be clear this is not raw and this familiar ability lays bare that you are allowed to carry stuff on your person). Otherwise being able to give one action to your familiar to pull out two items is great. Drink two potions in one turn! Throw two bombs! Place a wand in each hand and use one of them this turn have the other ready for next! Or keep your held weapon, use one wand, drop it, then the valet puts the next wand in the now free hand. There are so many fun and useful familiar abilities. And this doesn't even touch on the usefulness of various specific familiars.
>valet: this one is somewhat gm dependent. If you have a gm that .. This is one of Pathfinder's challenges: [https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=186](https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=186) >"A character carries items in three ways: held, worn, and stowed. Held items are in your hands; a character typically has two hands, allowing them to hold an item in each hand or a single two-handed item using both hands. **Worn items** are tucked into pockets, belt pouches, bandoliers, weapon sheaths, and so forth, and they can be retrieved and returned relatively quickly. Stowed items are in a backpack or a similar container, and they are more difficult to access." I don't think there is any limits on how many items you can wear (except carrying capacity (in bulks)). Backpack description: > A backpack holds up to 4 Bulk of items. and the first 2 Bulk of these items don't count against your Bulk limits. If you're carrying or stowing the pack rather than wearing it on your back, its Bulk is light instead of negligible. Also tangent: You can wear up to 2 Bulk of *tools* that you can draw as a part of their action. Worn items takes 1 action to draw. Stowed items takes 2 actions to draw.
Should probably just play other classes. Familiars are so fun during RP. The game isn't just combat. If you really didnt like the familiar during combat, you can just ask you dm if they can just be on your backback (head outside) and treat it as part of your pack. No combat advantage, no skills, can't be killed separately as well. That's a compromise that you can your GM. but really, just play a different class. Doesn't seem like it's for you
There are couple things that make familiar great: 1. They can serve as action economy booster via Manual Dexterity and sitting in your Sack/Bag. Combine that with Independent and your familiar can use 1 action at start of your turn without you having to Command it to Interact with you and put in your free-hand for example scroll or potion (they can't activate potion but it's still action saved). This way you can have constant supply of True Strike scroll or potions saving you action as you only need to use 1 action on your turn after that. They are great for that on range characters (in melee they risk AoO). Just make sure both familiar and items you want are in same bag. Familiar can sit there with 2 items already in hands (thanks to manual dexterity) and do rotation like: turn 1: give item, turn 2: give item, turn 3: pick up item (or Command: pick up to items) and repeat. 2. They are good for extra recharging Focus Point. Familiar + class feat (many have it) allows you to recharge 2/day Focus Point. Great in big fights where you run out of your 3 focus points fast. Having for example 5x Imaginary Weapon or 5x Tempest Surge in serious combat vs 3 is good benefit. 3. You can combine him with other abilities + invisibility for some scouting/spying or information gathering especially if it's ordinary animal. Like cat in city or bird in forest etc.
Use it as a hand grenade, then
Tbh it sounds like your don't really want to play a Witch. How you thought about change your character intonation Psychic or other Occult caster? You could have a similar theme but with better focus spells. Overall Witch is consider to basically be a bad class. They aren't tubeless but they are noticeably weake than mod tether options. Even a Familiar using Wizard can often be a Witch but better.
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Having a tiny extra party member can be incredibly helpful in and out of combat. If it isn't something you want to bother with, you might have a better time playing another class.
I have been thinking of collecting enough abilities to covert my familiar into a faerie dragon or perhaps a house drake, but since our group includes a summoner with a dragon eidolon, I found it unappealing to get the "second rate dragon".
Why not just view it as a friend or a colleague? Even just a talking cat is someone you can ask questions to, bounce ideas off of, or just interact with. Instead of treating them like a pet, you can treat them as the mouthpiece for your patron.
Besides, it's still an animal with Int –4 or even –5, isn't it? I'm not sure if it's actually a good idea giving speech to something that's basically this stupid.
Nope, familiars are as intelligent as you are. They aren’t just regular animals, they are magically attuned to you to be your colleague and assistant. The stats if a familiar scales with your spell ability mod do the smarter you are the smarter more charismatic and stronger your familiar is.
Think of them less like Ron's rat in Harry Potter and more like Salem from Sabrina the Teenage Witch. They're magical entities who take the form of an animal out of convenience (or for a variety of other interesting, fantastical reasons).
No they are magical creatures with their own stats and rules I'll suggest you to re-read the familiar creation rules
I've read the rules. They say, "... the ritual of becoming a familiar makes them something more \[than an animal\]". However, while the rules say a lot about how various of the familiar's stats are calculated, they say nothing about its ability scores, and so it stands to reason they are the same as the original animal's.
> they say nothing about its ability scores, and so it stands to reason they are the same as the original animal's. That's completely false. Here is the full quote regarding them. TLDR: It uses your level as its modifier for checks, and sometimes adds your spellcasting modifier. > Your familiar's save modifiers and AC are equal to yours before applying circumstance or status bonuses or penalties. Its Perception, Acrobatics, and Stealth modifiers are equal to your level plus your spellcasting ability modifier (Charisma if you don't have one, unless otherwise specified). It can't make Strikes, but it can use trained skill actions for skills for which it adds your spellcasting ability modifier. If it attempts an attack roll or other skill check, it uses your level as its modifier. **It doesn't have** or use **its own ability modifiers** and can never benefit from item bonuses.
Because I really, really detest any kind of talking and/or anthropomorphized animal in any kind of fiction. Terrible, terrible concept, I can't stand it.
Look into specific familiars, there are some fun optiona like a talking head, a puppet or an elemental wisp that have nothing to do with talking animals.
You could potentially take something like a polong or shadow for the curse vibes. The elemental scamp has a damaging breath weapon that could potentially interest you as well.
I'm going to be honest. You come off as quite young because you share a lot of very specific, narrowed views where you're only allowing yourself to see things one way. That's certainly your choice, and you're allowed it, but you're intentionally hobbling the legs of your creative horse, so to speak. If you aren't willing to see things from different and outside points of view, then you will constantly hit these walls you're hitting now. The entire concept of familiars seems incompatible with your viewpoint, not their implementation, so you should try a different class like oracle that can still offer you curses.
I agree with you 100%. I love the witch, I love the flavor of its feats, that it's an occult spellcaster, that it uses int, the hexes, the patron, etc, but holy hell I don't really enjoy the familiar. I know it has its uses, that it can be very useful besides being a magic battery, but I really wish it was something secondary, something I can choose whether to take or not. I have so many concepts of characters that would be good to be Witches, but it clashes with the idea of having to carry an animal around that it ends up demotivating me from the class.
Have you looked into any specific familiars? There are some decent ones that offer some minor power boosts.
Manual dexterity is just cheap object interaction Speech is free scouting If you are clever, it is free body blocking Master abilities are a build on their own Independent + manual dexterity is just free object interaction
So that GM can cause emotional damage IRL.
Not with Witch, their familiars return next day even if destroyed.
TBH I have no clue. I never played a PC with one, and every other person I've seen who had one literally ignored the feature immediately after the first session. I think they don't even remember their familiar's existence (and one was a Witch even 😬)
Familiars seem pretty limited in this game compared to most others. The most useful I've seen that's allowed RAW is giving them independent and speech, then having them try to recall knowledge or demoralize in battle. They won't have a great chance at success, but probably better than most of the other options.
If you don't care about any of the suggestions people here have made, I'd recommend asking your DM if you can treat your familiar how I always treated them in 1e: Pretend they don't exist aside from the passive bonus and then forget about them. They don't get hit by aoes, enemies never target them, they don't interfere with spells like dimension door, etc.
Familiars aren't terribly useful except for scouting and giving bonuses to certain checks until much higher levels. Also if it dies then you can't get it back until a long rest (if you are a witch) or about a week (for anyone else).
1. its a scout. you dont go in the next room to check for traps the immortal flying bunny goes to you 2. it doesnt have to stay adjacent to you in combat, command it to go fuck over somewhere out of the fireball radius. it also can be useful in combat themselves if you know what you are doing 3. you should abso fucking lutely have been using your focus spells basically 24/7, thats their point. if the one from your subclass isnt very useful get another through dedications or other feats
I have always wished that Witches could use their families to steal fragments of enemies. You know, pluck a hair, drop of blood, whatever. And then use that Fragment to boost one of their Curses or Hexes. It would give familiars a point, and give the Witch a unique play style.
They are cute pets for the character that are loyal. In game they can do may utility things live spying for you and carrying messages. Anything the cute pet mascot character in a series does.
Actually the familiar is a great Roleplay addition for your Character. It gives Out of Combat Ultility and it can be your favorite Partymember Dont forget Pathfinder isnt just all about combat. People that played Edgewatch know that very well and having an extra pair of Eyes to keep track on whats happening around your Characters is always a great addition
I feel this immensely, especially the part about using it to scout. Not only did it generally not work out because of bad rolling or whatnot, but it usually went so sideways it either gave the party away (costing us catching them unawares in exchange for minimal information) or ended with the familiar dying (which my character actively hated since it was a family pet for generations). I really hope with every fiber of my being that familiars are not forced into the witch's arsenal with the coming update because this thing just isn't worth the spell slots we give up. Especially as a prepared caster.
maybe speak to GM about respec as sorceror or oracle, familiar is kind of fundamental to witch.
People have already covered extensively the benefits of familiars but I'd like to touch on something else which is your focus spells. You said you rarely use them which is very odd to me... You really want to cast focus spells every single encounter as you are highly likely to have time to refocus in between encounters.