Talk:Master of the Familiar (3.5e Prestige Class)

Some thoughts

Augment Familiar (SC) would in my opinion be a better entry requirement then familiar pocket. Familiar pocket can only hide familiars of tiny or smaller sizes and since this class is all about boosting your familiar this feels a bit unsuitable to me.

Actually having a familiar does not seem to be an entry requirement. Having the class feature or the feat Obtain Familiar should in my opinion be a requirement. Maybe dropping the spell requirement and adding this instead, this would open up the prestige class to more characters. --108.162.231.174 10:30, 4 July 2012 (MDT)

Just came back to reference this page, and... what the hell?

The original intent of this class was to allow interesting (but balanced) options.

• Enable casters to obtain a useful familiar: grant it to bards and fringe/nonconventional arcane classes, and augment any existing familiar (characters without another source of familiar lose out on Speak with Animals, SR, and Scry on Familiar - and its associated linked mind ability, Share Senses - along with some Int and NA).
• Increase the durability of the familiar to make it less of a vulnerability when doing familiar type stuff (spying/scouting, delivering touch spells, being a courier), thus encouraging its use.
• Adding animal companion hit dice to the familiar is primarily intended as a way for the familiar to gain more feats and skills related to its identity as an animal (or whatever) - or at least disparate from its master. The HP, BAB, and saves from such hit dice are unintended (and unlikely, for long) to overshadow statistics inherited from the master.
• MotF has 3/5 spellcasting to distinguish it and entail a cost vs. base spellcaster levels, since its focus is often the only significant class ability given up by leaving the base classes. Spellcasting levels are a significant cost, so this is offset by the Amplify Spell ability, which, so long as the familiar is nearby, compensates for the caster level loss for existing spells and the save DC opportunity cost of higher level spells. The benefits of a 1-level dip for the otherwise free defensive bonuses of Augmented Familiar are mitigated a bit by the cross-class skill prerequisite.
• Lesser Familiar Spell is intended as a consolation prize for some of the caster's lost spell slots, but also to enable interesting possibilities regarding spell access (especially for multiclass and limited-spells-known characters). Again, this grants the familiar options to gain little more distinctiveness; it isn't just an animal shaped mini-me.

Between users 173.245.49.110 and Gilgamesh76, the following changes have been made:

173.245.49.110:

• Spellcasting increased from 3/5 to full
• BAB increased from poor to medium
• Skill points increased from 2 to 4
• A (nonrestricted!) bonus feat at 5th level
• The option for a familiar to increase in size, an ability not granted by the ordinary versions of either Animal Companion or Summon Familiar.
• At 5th level, extending the telepathy to have no limit (rendering Empathic Link completely superfluous).

With the possible exception of the telepathy and maybe the option for a familiar to increase in size, these changes are flat out ridiculous for simple balance reasons, regardless of my original intentions for the class.

Gilgamesh76:

Prerequisites reduced, apparently for no reason other than to allow early entry from 4th level (already frowned upon).

• Skill ranks in Knowledge:arcana and Handle Animal reduced from 8 and 4 to 7 and 3, respectively, additionally reducing the skill cost by 1 point
• Arcane spellcasting reduced from 3rd level spells to 2nd, but with the curious addition of the ability to cast Familiar Pocket (2nd level sor/wiz spell).

Familiar Pocket is not present in this wiki or d20srd.org, but it is a Sor/Wiz 2 spell, effectively requiring the familiar class ability to be already present in the character (disregarding exceptions and weird builds of course), and inelegantly enough rendering superfluous the "ability to cast 2nd level spells" prerequisite. As mentioned earlier, I intended this class specifically as a way for other arcane casters to acquire a familiar.

Also the table is ugly now.

I am changing all of it back.

I am also correcting a typo ("2rd level") and adding a skill bonus to the familiar; having read my own statement of intent, I realized that animal skills tend to scale poorly (mostly on account of the poor Int score).

That said, I am interested in any actually constructive suggestions or changes.

(Schmendrick) 76.120.210.4 15:05, 19 October 2012 (MDT)

Balance

Should this class really get twice their level applied to the animal companion special ability as a druid? It should probably either be equal to or half their level, on or the other. --Calidore Chase 03:38, 19 January 2007 (MST)

You are right, 1.5 times might be more appropraite and better balanced. I say a change to 1.5 would not hurt, however how does one do .5 of a level in animal companion? As soon as this can be figured out the change can take place. Possibly every other level the PrC gives 2 levels in animal companion? --Green Dragon 10:37, 19 January 2007 (MST)

Is it really that unbalanced? Maybe I am reading the class differently. 5 levels of this class give a total of 10 levels of druid bonus to the familiar. That ends up being: +6 HD, +6 Nat Armor, +3 Str/Dex, Devotion (+4 morale bonus on Will saves against enchantments), Multiattack (which may or may not be useful), and 4 Tricks. Suppose you add up everything the class gives (assuming a level 5 wizard takes it):

• lvl 1: +0 BAB, +2 Will, +1 spell casting level, familiar gets evasion for fort/will save spells (Mettle), energy resist(all) equal to half its natural armor bonus (at this point that is 3, so it gets 1 energy resist).
• lvl 2: +1 BAB, +1 Will, Widen Link (which is alright, but not even close to a balance issue), +1 Spell DCs, familiar gets +2 HD, +2 nat armor, +1 str/dex, +1 more nat armor (I assume the class counts as wizards levels for familiar advancement), and +2 more energy resist (all)
• lvl 3: +0 BAB, +1 Fort and Ref, +1 spell casting level, Linked Mind (also alright, but not even close to a balance issue -- more flavor than anything), familiar gets +2 HD, +2 nat armor, +1 str/dex, devotion (see above), and +1 more energy resist (all)
• lvl 4: +1 BAB, +1 Will, Perfect Link (cool combat trick -- useful), +1 Spell DCs, familiar gets +2 HD, +2 nat armor, +1 str/dex, +1 more nat armor, and +1 more energy resist (all)
• lvl 5: +0 BAB, +1 spell casting level, Lesser familiar spell (neat capability, basically can be seen as equivalent to adding a bonus spell slot for each level up to 3), familiar gets +2 HD, +2 nat armor, +1 str/dex, and +1 more energy resist (all)

So instead of your character having a familiar with +5 natural armor and 10 HD, you get one with +11 natural armor and 16 HD as well as a bunch of combat oriented perks involving the familiar. It is hard to say if that is too good or not, but the way I see it, there has to be some sort of compensation for losing 2 spell caster levels and also needing to use your familiar in combat to get the full effect of this PrC. It's not like the familiar will be invincible and it is very bad when they die. Aarnott 11:22, 19 January 2007 (MST)

That is a huge increase at a much earlier level. Losing two caster levels does not stack up against getting a Squirrel with a base AC of 26 (10 + 11 Nat + 5 Dex) with 16 HD, 6 points of energy resistance all, +4 STR/DEX, +9 BAB, and fair saves. Give the squirrel a bit of magic and its numbers can be outrageous. Now don't get me wrong, I love the idea of this class and will probably be using it for my newest character. --Calidore Chase 15:31, 19 January 2007 (MST)

Don't know if this page is dead or not, but this is Schmendrick checking in. I haven't really kept up with this wiki, and this is the first time I've seen the discussion page since I added the class however many years ago...

I'm glad you liked my class, Calidore, but your fears of overpowered supersquirrels can be laid to rest (though I'm curious how your character turned out, especially since I wasn't here to clarify two years ago). The squirrel in question (for a Wiz5/MoF5) doesn't have 16 HD and its BAB isn't +9. When I wrote the class, I understood the HD a familiar is considered to have by virtue of its master's HD did not grant BAB, saves, or skill points; the familiar only had a HD number for purposes of determining spell effects. If you play under rules where a familiar has as many (real) HD as its master, you may want to reduce the augmented familiar bonus by half (effective druid level equal to MoF class level) or even eliminate the "animal companion" bonuses altogether.

At higher levels, a standard familiar is more like a noncasting version of its master than it is like its base animal, at least mechanically speaking. A typical animal familiar's base creature has 1 or 2 HD, so at MoF5 (minimum CL 10), a character's familiar would have 7 or 8 HD; +5 BAB, only an improvement over its master's BAB in certain multiclass non-fractional calculation situations (and even then, only until the master gained another level or two!). Similarly, its HD would be the greater of 7 (its own) or 10 (its master's). Augmented familiar HD are intended mainly to provide skill points (especially for racial skills) and feats, because these are animal-related aspects of a creature that never change under normal familiar rules. It is intended, primarily, to make the familiar more individualized as a magical cat, rat, hawk, or whatever, and less like an echo of its master's statistics (among other reasons, this is also why Lesser Familiar Spell specifically allows the familiar to choose spells its master does not already know, though it must adhere to its master's spell lists). For certain improved familiars (available through various feats or other prestige classes), the bonus HD may result in a few minor gains in BAB, saves, and HP, but these increases are intended to be eclipsed as the master's statistics increase, per usual. --Schmendrick; 72.215.221.134 19:38, 25 February 2009 (MST)

Rating 8/10

It seems fairly good, as one could still cast as a 20th level caster before going epic, but he has to keep a close watch on his beloved pet to provided this bonus, thus balancing some of the increased combact prowess the familiar gained...

Some rule for the improved familiar feat and the death of a familiar could help...

--Third Eye —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 84.221.69.217 (talk • contribs) 16:08, 31 January 2007 (MST). Please sign your posts.

Improved familiars work as usual (the bonus hit dice they gain by virtue of augmented familiar grant skill points, saves, hit points, etc. according to their base type), and familiar death works just like normal familiar death -- experience loss and all. Gaining a new familiar allows the new familiar to "catch up" in all its augmentations, just like a replaced animal companion (or normal familiar, for that matter). --Schmendrick; 72.215.221.134 19:42, 25 February 2009 (MST)

SuperSquirrel

Made the mage a physical coward, the squirrel is his muscle, was alot of fun to play. Never got to the prestige class unfortunately. Military moved me before the game got to far. --Calidore Chase 10:50, 1 March 2009 (MST)