How do Pathfinder 2e Familiars Work?

[@YmirLonginus]

My witch has a poppet familiar that is a paper origami man with text that moves along the surface of it's body that functions as a spellbook. Secretly the familiar is also in a way my witch's patron, which is a 4th dimensional entity that uses it's power to manifest itself in a 3rd dimensional form.

[@CollectiveArcana]

Thats excellent! I've never heard of qn origami familiar before and I love the magical text appearing on the body! Very cool!

[@sammy71500]

My witch has furless black cat

[@Nitopayiw]

@@sammy71500 😤how you know it’s a black cat??

[@shadow-faye]

​@@Nitopayiw black skin? idk mine has a teddy bear

[@Nitopayiw]

@@shadow-faye it was a joke don’t worry friendo

[@4thdoctor4thewin]

Bless this video, my groups got 2/3rds of the players with familiars

[@CollectiveArcana]

I bet thats a fun party! Let us know if you have any questions we didn't cover :)

[@Asurendra334]

love your content keep it up! both of you(you and your better half ;-) are my favorite 2e content creators,up top with basics4gamers. Love you,amazing work

[@CollectiveArcana]

Thats so nice to hear, thank you! Let us know if there's any topics you'd like us to cover :)

[@Asurendra334]

@@CollectiveArcana continue with classes,minions,maybe even some shorter videos about archetype combinations etc, just keep it going ;-)

[@CollectiveArcana]

@@Asurendra334 we'll take a note of those, thanks!

[@scarabart8171]

@@CollectiveArcana if I may drop in and advise, the 3rdparty kineticist, a lot of people on reddit want to know how it plays and feels,if you can also add that to the list,that would be awesome!

[@CollectiveArcana]

@@scarabart8171 absolutely! Officially added to the list, thanks!

[@dlarso11]

Great to see this Video, thanks man

[@CollectiveArcana]

Hope it was helpful!

[@bokajon]

Great vid as always!!

[@CollectiveArcana]

Thanks for watching!

[@ForgeTSM]

im currently building a wizard with the improved familar attunement thesis but i am curirous how spesfic familars work in a level 1 build

[@CollectiveArcana]

For specific familiars you need to have enough budget (that is, enough daily master and familiar abilities) for the specific familiar's cost. For example, you should have a budget of 4 familiar/master abilities at level 1 with that subclass. So any specific familiar that costs 4 or less from your budget is available to you, and if you have any points left in your budget, you can still spend those to gain additional abilities as you would with any other familiar.

[@chrisk3824]

Found this channel because of witch video, I'll stay for a while as I'm learning 2e and maybe stay for longer

[@CollectiveArcana]

Thats awesome to hear! Let us know if there anything you'd like us to cover!

[@Lastofthesigilites]

Duel starting classes and free ancestry is fun when you grab familars

[@CollectiveArcana]

I bet!

[@bananabanana484]

What about saving throws?

[@CollectiveArcana]

Same as the caster's!

[@nolanstrife7350]

So... This is my hot take (really, really hot take), but... I usually run familiars as if they are as intelligent as humanoid races This is mostly for convenience sake. This way it's much easier for me as a GM to sell my players that one day someone's familiar is a cat, just a plain regular cat, and tommorow suddenly this cat can talk, has PhD in Lore: Agriculture and can provide their owner with a second opinion. Let's agree, without familiar's sentience that's quite a whiplash

[@CollectiveArcana]

I do tend to run them that way as well! Especially if they can talk.

[@goji3755]

I would love to play a Tia Dalma-styled sea witch with a crab familiar. Not sure about the logistics of bringing such a creature far inland, over or under mountains for example, but I'd imagine there'd be some way to transport and feed it in a nice little portable habitat. As for abilities, I suppose swim would be essential. And maybe manual dexterity to make better use of its pincers.

[@CollectiveArcana]

There are terrestrial and semi aquatic crabs! Any flexible GM would probably allow you to conjure salt water as easily as freshwater if you wanted to be able to give your little beastie bestie a soak!

[@jamesbond3485]

What if your familiar dies ?Do i have to wait till morning ,cost more / less then first time ? time it takes? fe fi foe fum ?

[@CollectiveArcana]

Most familiars need a week of downtime for you to restore them or find a new one - no cost except the time spent - presumably flavored as a ritual or mwditation, but no check to succeed. Just spend the time and it happens. A Witch's familiar always comes back at your next daily preparations, also for free. Hope that helps!

[@ShaunPetersonNY]

Do familiars need to sleep? If not, can you have it keep guard while your party is sleeping?

[@CollectiveArcana]

It depends on the familiar. Or rather, what animal your familiar is. Your familiar has all needs that any other creature of its kind would have. Construct familiars may not need sleep, for example, or even Leshy familiars, but cats and owls do. They also need to eat and breathe air. Its only differences between it and a normal creature of its type are outlined specifically under the familiar rules and your master & familiar abilities. Now a bat familiar may sleep all day to stay awake at night as is its nature, but your GM may rule that it gets sleepy if asked to do too much during the day and still keep watch at night.

[@ShaunPetersonNY]

@@CollectiveArcana Thanks, that makes sense!

[@Frostgnaw]

I know this is a fairly old video, but I was hoping someone might be able to help me out. I picked a gnoll barbarian for my first character and took the familiar from I think my ancestry as a witch gnoll. Uh, I thiught it was an actual pet, which is not the case. We just started last week so we're still really fresh in the campaign, but what uses could I have for my familiar as a melee strength character? I took some kind of aid ability and an assistance to intimidation attempts for its abilities. From what I gathered in the video, I could use it to scout areas or at some point hand me items in combat.

[@CollectiveArcana]

Yes! It's really about what familiar/master abilities you have, that determines what's open to you. Notably their aren't a lot of tools for non casters, and barbarians are even more handcuffed when raging, but it can certainly help cover skills you or the party don't have, can act as a scout (though how useful that is depends on the GM), and if you give it language can even act as a messenger. To get the most out of it you might need to take an archetype to improve it (like Familiar Master or Witch), but with creative thinking you can get a lot out of it as-is. That said, if Ota really not working out how you'd hoped, you can always ask your GM if you can retrain it - should be possible, as I don't see any language in the feat to suggest it can't be.

[@dee_the_bee3772]

Its just funny to still see too many Players use Familiars like battle buddies and making them attack Monsters like a normal companion...tbh DM´s allowing this should be banned from doing Roleplay Campaigns xD

[@sammy71500]

Conan shirt ?

[@CollectiveArcana]

Yup! Big Conan fan :)

[@sammy71500]

@@CollectiveArcana watched his first years when he started back in the day

[@salyfea]

Thank you for this nice video :) I'm thinking about creating a Ysoki (Ratfolk) Alchemist. At level 1 the ancestry grants you a Rat Familiar if you chose in doing so. When I chose the abilities of my Rat Familiar in my daily preparations, do I HAVE to pick Swimming and Burrowing because this is what a rat usually can do? Then it would be really useless to chose the Rat Familiar, and when I pick the Familiar Master Archetype I would have to chose for example Climbing and the scent ability as well and would have no chance to pick some of the cool stuff. Do I understand it the right way? I know that I could take the Alchemist's Familiar, but I would like to spend the talent else where and a speaking Rat Familiar which could help me with my alchemy would fit so nicely into my background story :D I'm sorry for my English, I'm not a native speaker.

[@CollectiveArcana]

So there isn't much specifics on the familiars or where the line is drawn. I would say while rats can burrow, they wouldn't have a burrow speed, as they can't move several feet in six seconds (one round). Same with swim speed. While a rat can swim, so can a human, but neither has a swim speed. Look at it from the other direction, it isnt saying your owl must take fly speed, its saying your owl doesn't get flight for free, but must pay for it. If you just want a rat, pick q rat, just be aware that it can't do anything s rat might do unless you spend the familiar ability to let it. Not worried about climbing, or having a super sniffer? Don't spend the ability, and accept that you rat can't do those things even if maybe some rats could.

[@salyfea]

@@CollectiveArcana thank you very much for your detailed answer. I'll think awhile about what I'll do with or without my rat :D

[@Wolfphototech]

❤

[@PpAirO5]

Stupid rules 🤦‍♂️ Should be based on the type of animal, makes way more sense.

[@CollectiveArcana]

It is based on the type of animal! It just also leaves it open so that there is no right or wrong animal to choose. You can have a talking, flying rat. No need for everyone to pick raven or owl (which is what I usually saw). Its like any other build in TTRPG. If you want a character that has certain abilities, you'll miss out on other abilities that another character has.