Introduction
Familiars are magical creatures that serve as equal parts pet, tool, and companion. With a long list of potential abilities and the ability to replace them daily, your familiar can be an important and powerful part of your character’s capabilities.
Before proceeding, be sure to read the full rules for familiars. The precise wording of the feature is important, and the text below is meant to expand upon and clarify the rules text, and to provide guidance on how to get the most value out of a familiar. It is not a replacement for the official rules.
This guide is for the remastered rules. For help with the legacy rules, see our Legacy PF2 Familiars Guide.
Table of Contents
Disclaimer
RPGBOT uses the color coding scheme which has become common among Pathfinder build handbooks.
- : Bad, useless options, or options which are extremely situational. Nearly never useful.
- : OK options, or useful options that only apply in rare circumstances. Useful sometimes.
- : Good options. Useful often.
- : Fantastic options, often essential to the function of your character. Useful very frequently.
How Familiars Work
The rules for familiars are complex, in part because they require you to understand the Pet feat, the retraining rules, and also the specific mechanics of familiars. In this section we’ll walk through all of it and explain what it all means and how to use it.
The Pet Feat
The Pet General Feat is the basis for the Familiar mechanics. A familiar is quite literally a Pet with better special abilities, so the Pet mechanics make up most of the mechanics for Familiars.
You have a pet—a Tiny animal of a type you choose, such as a cat, bird, or rodent.
Pets and Familiars are tiny, and most characters can’t change that. The Corgi Mount feat is a notable exception.
The type of animal you choose is important. See the text about abilities, below.
It has the minion trait, meaning it gains 2 actions during your turn if you use the Command an Animal action to command it; this replaces the usual effects of Command an Animal, and you don’t need to attempt a Nature check.
Like other Minions, you spend one Action to give your Pet/Familiar two Actions. Familiars can take the Independent feature to get one Action per turn even if you don’t Command them.
A pet can’t make Strikes.
If you want an attack animal, get an Animal Companion.
Level Your pet’s level is equal to yours.
This ensures that your Pet/Familiar will scale as you advance.
Modifiers and AC Your pet’s save modifiers and AC are equal to yours before applying circumstance or status bonuses or penalties.
Your Pet/Familiar uses your defenses, which means that you need to keep your defenses high. Get good armor and be sure to put runes on it to get item bonuses to saves.
It uses 3 + your level as its modifier for Perception, Acrobatics, and Stealth, and just your level as its modifier for other skill checks. It doesn’t have or use its own attribute modifiers and can never benefit from item bonuses.
Your Pet/Familiar is automatically passable with Perception, Acrobatics, and Stealth. However, without attribute modifiers it won’t compete with a Trained character. Even so, your Pet/Familiar can make a decent Scout.
Note that Familiars use your Spellcasting Attribute Modifier + your level instead of 3 + your level. This can often make a Familiar better than their master at Perception if their key casting stat is Intelligence or Charisma. Many spellcasters, such as Sorcerers and Wizards, get poor Perception proficiency.
Hit Points Your pet has 5 Hit Points per level.
Enough to take a couple hits, but not enough to stand up to focused attention. Strongly consider the Tough ability if you plan to use your Pet/Familiar in combat, especially if you’re not a Witch and therefore don’t automatically get your Familiar back during Daily Preparations.
Remember that Pets and Familiars still use the normal rules for dying, so they fall unconscious at 0 hp and make Recovery checks. If you add the Construct ability or if your Familiar is undead, they generally die at 0 hp.
Senses Your pet has low-light vision and can gain additional senses from pet abilities.
Pets can get Darkvision, Echolocation, and Scent. Familiars can gain those and more.
Speed Your pet has a Speed of 25 feet. You can choose to instead have an aquatic pet, which breathes in water instead of air and has the aquatic trait, no land Speed, and a swim Speed of 25 feet.
If you can’t decide between a land or aquatic pet, the Amphibious ability gets you both a land Speed and a swim Speed. You can also add other speeds with Pet abilities.
Pet Abilities When you gain your pet, choose two of the following abilities.
Your Pet or Familiar has two abilities by default. Pets choose from the abilities listed in the Pet General Feat, and those choices are fixed. Familiars can change their abilities daily during your Daily Preparations.
If your pet is an animal that naturally has one of these abilities (for instance, an owl has a fly Speed), you must select that ability.
You can put whatever abilities you want on whatever animal you want, but you must select any abilities which that animal would have. This is fine for a Pet because you’re probably picking something like an owl for Darkvision and Flight or a bat for Echolocation and Flight.
For Familiars, you want a base form that has no abilities because it’s as flexible as possible. Aquatic Familiars can be one of any number of varieties of fish. It is weirdly difficult to find terrestrial animals that don’t have at least one pet ability. Kiwi birds, rabbits, rats, and snakes should work, but your GM might let you get away with things like a dog that isn’t locked into Scent or a cat that isn’t locked into Darkvision.
Your pet can’t be an animal that naturally has more pet abilities than the maximum.
This is here to prevent you from picking some fantastic animal that has a ton of Pet Abilities. I can’t think of a qualifying animal, but I’m not a zoologist.
In some cases, the GM might add some familiar abilities described on pages 212–213 to the pet abilities you can choose.
This gives your GM the ability to stretch the rules a bit. Don’t expect this in organized play, obviously, but the rules want your GM to feel empowered to give you something novel in a home game, such as if you have a monkey and you want them to have Manual Dexterity.
Special You can gain a new pet by retraining this feat, releasing any previous pet you have.
If your previous Pet or Familiar is lost or dies, you get a new one by retraining. Retraining a Feat takes 1 week, which means that it takes a full week to replace a Pet or Familiar. This is a huge limitation if your game doesn’t include downtime on a regular basis, so you need to be cautious about putting them in harm’s way.
The Witch is a notable exception; your familiar is resurrected by your patron during your Daily Preparations.
If you later gain a familiar or other companion that uses the Pet feat, you can immediately retrain this feat.
This bit appears to only apply if you take the Pet feat directly. I don’t know what happens if you get familiars from multiple sources, such as a Sprite Witch taking the Corgi Mount feat. A permissive GM might let you take a General Feat to replace the redundant Pet feat, but I haven’t found anything in the rules text which makes that clear.
Familiar Rules
Familiars are mystically bonded creatures tied to your magic. Most familiars were originally animals, though the ritual of becoming a familiar makes them something more.
Flavor text.
You gain the Pet general feat, except that your pet has special abilities. Common choices for familiars include bats, cats, foxes, ravens, and snakes.
See the explanation of the Pet General Feat, above.
Some familiars are different, usually described in the ability that granted you a familiar; for example, a druid’s leshy familiar has the plant or fungus trait instead of animal.
There are numerous ways to gain a Familiar. Some of them give you something extra.
A familiar is different from a basic pet in the following ways.
Modifiers and AC
For Perception, Acrobatics, and Stealth, you can have your familiar use your spellcasting attribute modifier + your level instead of 3 + your level if it’s higher.
This overrides the Pet General Feat’s rules for your Pet’s skill modifiers. This is why your Spellcasting Attribute Modifier is often important to your Familiar.
Communication
Your familiar can communicate empathically with you as long as it’s within 1 mile of you, sharing emotions.
Empathic communication is very crude. If you feel scared, your familiar knows it. If your familiar feels hungry, you know it. But you can’t get more detailed, and I don’t know if you can force an emotional response to communicate.
It doesn’t understand or speak languages normally, but it can gain speech from a familiar ability.
Self-explanatory. You can still command your familiar without worrying about language, fortunately.
Selecting Familiar and Master Abilities
Instead of choosing two abilities only when you gain your familiar as you do with a normal pet, you can choose the two abilities each day during your daily preparations. You can choose from familiar abilities and master abilities. You can choose the pet abilities from the feat as familiar abilities as well.
This is what makes Familiars so much better than Pets.
You can’t swap out abilities that are innate to your familiar. For example, you couldn’t choose not to give a raven familiar flying.
You’re still stuck with this limitation, so you may want to pick a very simple animal as your familiar.
Your Character
Like anything in Pathfinder 2e, how effectively you can use an option depends heavily on how you build your character.
Spellcasting Attribute Modifier
Your Familiar’s skill and Perception modifiers are influenced by your Spellcasting Attribute Modifier. As such, your Spellcasting Attribute influences how useful they are. This is easy for spellcasting classes like the Druid, Witch, and Wizard, since you’re already going to maximize your Spellcasting Attribute Modifier.
However, the rules are silent on how this works for non-spellcasters. You can get a Familiar from Ancestries and from Archetypes which don’t provide spellcasting, so it’s entirely possible to have a Familiar and no Spellcasting Attribute Modifier. Prior to the Remaster, the default was Charisma. Innate Spellcasting defaults to Charisma, so it makes sense as a default, but that isn’t what the rules say.
For lack of a clear answer, default to +0. If you really want that numerical bonus to your Familiar’s skills and Perception, pick up an Archetype that provides spellcasting.
Character Build
Familiars are available from several character options, and it’s important to understand which options will work to get you the capabilities that you want. Familiars can do and be a great many things, and different options will vary in effectiveness for whatever you’re trying to do with them.
Remember: You can only have one Familiar at a time, so, while many of the class options below are tempting, it may be difficult to combine them. Familiars also take a full week to replace if they die, so be cautious about protecting them.
Alchemist
The Alchemist doesn’t have a built-in way to get more than 2 Familiar Abilities, but you can still get a Familiar, you get a free ability, and you can get more from Familiar Master if you need it.
Many Familiar Abilities and Master Abilities cater to the Alchemist very well including Lab Assistant, Valet, Extra Alchemy, and Extra Vial.
- : Construct for free, plus the regular 2 Familiar Abilities. It can’t quite compete with the free abilities from Improved Familiar Attunement or from the Witch, but it’s still really good.
Alchemist Archetype
A decent way to get a Familiar, especially since dipping into Alchemist is already a great choice for many characters. The ability to make yourself inexpensive alchemical items is great, then you can pivot to Familiars once you have what you want from the Alchemist. Even if you just take Alchemist Dedication and then Basic Concoction to get Alchemical Familiar, you’re ready to switch to Familiar Master to get more from your Familiar.
Animist
The Animist’s Familiar comes the Spirit Familiar feat, which is required for their Apparition Cloud feat. Apparition Cloud is really good, which encourages you to take Spirit Familiar instead of getting your Familiar from other sources like Familiar Master.
The Shaman subclass will get you Spirit Familiar and feats which grant additional Familiar Abilities, plus a unique ability at level 17, but you’ll still need to take Apparition Clou on your own.
- : Spirit Familiar, Enhanced Familiar, and Incredible Familiar automatically. The 17th-level feature lets your Familiar turn Incorporeal for a minute at a time, though it needs to stay close to you and maintain Line of Effect, which limits the impact.
- : You get a familiar with two abilities. If you plan to take this feat, strongly consider taking Familiar Master Dedication unless you also want Apparition Cloud. If you just want a very basic Familiar, consider getting it from the Gnome or Ratfolk Ancestries, or consider Witch Dedication because it will also get you two Cantrips.
- : 2 more familiar abilities. Wizards don’t get any further feats to support their Familiar, so you absolutely want to take Familiar Master Dedication instead if you want to do anything further with your familiar.
- : 2 more familiar abilities.
- : An excellent defense, and it appears that you can use it every round.
Animist
With no way to get the unique things about the Animist’s Familiar, the only appeal is a Wisdom-based Familiar.
Druid
The Druid’s Leshy Familiar Secrets is the only real selling point here. It’s good, but it’s not something that you desperately need.
- : You get a familiar which is a plant instead of an animal. Normally getting a plant Familiar costs an extra Class Feat or a Familiar Ability that does nothing else except change the creature’s type. Plant isn’t a great ability, so this isn’t a huge improvement over any other source of a Familiar.
- : 2 more familiar abilities. Objectively great, but strongly consider taking Familiar Master Dedication instead because it will get you Enhanced Familiar for free and also access to the rest of the Archetype’s feats.
- : You gain an extra
Familiar Ability from a list of three options not available anywhere else.
Unfortunately, most of them are bad.
- : Extra reach is great for delivering spells, using items, etc.
- : Too situational.
- : Neat, but it will never be helpful unless you let your Familiar die. If you do let your Familiar die for the healing, you’re out a Familiar until you have a full week of downtime to replace it.
Druid Archetype
The only reason to go this route is to get a Wisdom-based Familiar.
Familiar Master Archetype
The Familiar Master has a lot to offer. It doesn’t get as many Familiar Abilities as the Witch and doesn’t get all of the same feats, but it has three feat options (Familiar Conduit, Familiar Mascot, Mutable Familiar) not available anywhere else.
If you’re building around a Familiar, this is absolutely essential. Even classes which get Class Feats like Enhanced Familiar will be better served by Familiar Master because you’ll get the same number of Familiar Abilities while also getting access to the Archetype’s unique feats.
- : An easy way to add a familiar to any character. If you already have a familiar from another source (such as from a class feature or from an Ancestry Feat), you get the effects of Enhanced Familiar instead, giving you two additional Familiar Abilities. For classes which already grant familiars like the Witch and the Wizard, if you don’t plan to take another archetype but really like familiars, you should take this feat instead of taking Enhanced Familiar directly.
- : 2 more familiar abilities. Note that the Familiar Master gets access to this feat 2 levels later than the Witch or the Wizard since you can’t take Familiar Master Dedication until level 2, but you can also get this for free if you already have a Familiar before taking the Dedication feat.
- : It is much easier for
familiars to gain access to flight than it is for player characters, so this
is a fantastic way to make spells with short ranges or difficult AOEs work
better. For example, your familiar could fly above combat, firing cones
downward to target a circular area from above while remaining just out of
melee reach.
Surprisingly, touch spells work well with Familiar Conduit. While there is a Familiar Ability to help deliver touch spells, it requires that your familiar start adjacent to you and deliver the spell the same turn so you’re limited by your familiar’s speed. With Familiar Conduit, you can have your familiar ride around on your allies’ shoulders and deliver touch spells (including beneficial ones) without needing to return to you first.
However, the Action economy here is difficult. It takes one Action to Command your Familiar, then one Action to activate Familiar Conduit, leaving just one Action to cast a spell. Most spells require 2 Actions to cast, so you’ll either need to get your familiar positioned the turn before using Familiar Conduit or rely on Independent.
Since this tactic can make your Familiar an easy target, consider casting Rank 2 Invisibility on them. They’re not taking any Action which would break Invisibility, so they can spend an entire fight invisible while still serving as the origin point of your spells. They could even deliver offensive touch spells relatively safely.
- : If you’re heavily invested in your familiar, it’ll have a large number of Abilities. Sharing these abilities with your party can provide a number of very useful benefits if you have spare Abilities which you don’t need. It’s also really fun to have an animal in the party which everyone is emotionally attached to.
- : Specific Familiars will frequently cost the same number of abilities as the number of abilities that they give you. If you choose to use a Specific Familiar which requires 2 or more abilities, this effectively gets you 2 additional abilities. With the abundance of options, that’s an easy prospect. If you’re not sure what to pick, Elemental Wisp (Air) is an easy choice because it gives your Familiar helpful immunities and Flight.
- : Not everyone who uses a Familiar will need this. But if you use your Familiar as a Scout, the ability to change some of its Familiar Abilities will allow you to quickly adapt it to most environments. The listed abilities include move speeds, senses, and a couple other things like Amphibious and Resistance to help your familiar succeed almost anywhere.
- : 2 more familiar abilities. Note that the Familiar Master gets this feat 2 levels behind the Witch and the Wizard.
Gnome
Gnomes were the first Ancestry to get a Familiar from an Ancestry Feat, and their single feat option is more flexible than the Ratfolk’s. However, you still can’t use Specific Familiars. Getting a Familiar from an Ancestry Feat instead of from a Class Feat may be worth that cost. Essentially, you’re trading lower resource cost for a lower ceiling on how powerful your Familiar can be.
- : There’s no built-in
way to advance this familiar and you’re locked out of Specific Familiars
since the base form can’t change.
Class feats like those available to the Familiar Master Archetype and the Wizard can advance this familiar. Still, if you plan for your Familiar to play a supporting role without doing a lot in combat, this is a good way to get a familiar without spending a Class Feat.
The only distinguishing difference between Animal Accomplice and the Ratfok’s Rat Familiar is that Animal Accomplice doesn’t mandate anything about your familiar. It’s not a huge distinction most of the time, but it’s important if you want a Specific Familiar.
Kholo
Kholos get exactly one feat which grants access to a Familiar, then nothing else related to Familiars. The Gnome’s Animal Accomplice is better.
As with other Ancestries that can provide a Familiar, you can’t use Specific Familiars since your Familiar’s form is fixed. Getting a Familiar from an Ancestry Feat instead of from a Class Feat may be worth that cost. Essentially, you’re trading lower resource cost for a lower ceiling on how powerful your Familiar can be.
- : Hyenas are a good base for a
familiar because they’re (probably) not locked into any Specific Familiar Abilities.
However, there’s no built-in way to advance this familiar and you’re locked
out of Specific Familiars since the base form can’t change.
Class feats like those available to the Familiar Master Archetype and the Wizard can advance this familiar. Still, if you plan for your Familiar to play a supporting role without doing a lot in combat, this is a good way to get a familiar without spending a Class Feat.
Magus
Familiars are a very hard prospect for the Magus because their action economy is already such a mess.
- : You get a Familiar with two abilities. If you plan to take this feat, strongly consider taking Familiar Master Dedication instead. If you just want a very basic Familiar, consider getting it from the Gnome or Ratfolk Ancestries, or consider Witch Dedication because it will also get you two Cantrips.
- : 2 more familiar abilities. Magi don’t get any further feats to support their Familiar, so you absolutely want to look at Familiar Master Dedication instead.
Magus Archetype
More difficult in every sense than Witch Dedication. If you go for Wizard over Witch, you’re here for something other than the Familiar.
Ratfolk
Ratfolk get exactly one feat which grants access to a Familiar, then nothing else related to Familiars. The Gnome’s Animal Accomplice is better.
As with other Ancestries that can provide a Familiar, you can’t use Specific Familiars since your Familiar’s form is fixed. Getting a Familiar from an Ancestry Feat instead of from a Class Feat may be worth that cost. Essentially, you’re trading lower resource cost for a lower ceiling on how powerful your Familiar can be.
- : Rats are a good base for a
familiar because they’re not locked into any Specific Familiar Abilities.
However, there’s no built-in way to advance this familiar and you’re locked
out of Specific Familiars since the base form can’t change.
Class feats like those available to the Familiar Master Archetype and the Wizard can advance this familiar. Still, if you plan for your Familiar to play a supporting role without doing a lot in combat, this is a good way to get a familiar without spending a Class Feat.
Shadowcaster
The appeal of the Shadowcaster (at least in terms of Familiars) is exclusive access to the Shadow Familiar Specific Familiar, plus a few specific Familiar Abilities only available to Shadowcasters. They only get two feets, so you still want Familiar Master so that you can get more than 4 Familiar Abilities.
- : A fine way to get a Familiar. This will be at least your second feat in the Archetype, so you can add another Archetype after taking this.
- : If you’re exploring Shadowcaster, you’re probably here for other feats. If you want familiars, go for Familiar Master Dedication, which can get you this for free.
Sprite
Sprites get exactly one feat, but it lets you use your Familiar as a mount, which other Familiars can’t do. You’re locked into a few things, but it’s still absolutely fantastic.
- : You get a familiar, but it’s
locked into a few things. It’s size Small and you can ride it, but it’s
locked into the Scent ability and you can’t give it other move speeds using
Familiar Abilities. Still, giving it Fast Movement is a great combo. One
Action to command it will let you spend 2 Actions to move with 40-foot
speed, making you incredibly mobile without needing an Animal Companion.
Note that the Independent Familiar Ability specifically does not work while riding your Familiar. As such, you can’t use Independent to get free movement by riding your corgi.
Strongly consider adding Familiar Master Dedication to expand your Familiar’s number of abilities. While this will be redundant with other options which grant you a Familiar, such as the Witch class or the Wizard’s Improved Familiar Attunement, the ability to ride your Familiar may still be worth the redundancy.
Witch
Your Familiar is a central feature of the Witch, serving as both a Familiar and as the Witch’s equivalent to the Wizard’s spellbook. Witches get a Familiar by default and add an additional ability at 1st, 6th, 12th, and 18th levels, matching the progression of the Wizard’s Improved Familiar Attunement.
In addition, they get several features that other Familiar users can’t match. If the Witch’s Familiar dies, it comes back during their next Daily Preparations instead of requiring a week of downtime to replace it. You also get the powerful Phase Familiar Focus Spell which allows you to give your familiar some Damage Resistance as a Reaction. Your Patron will also give your Familiar an ability which is completely inaccessible to other characters.
You may also enjoy our Remastered Witch Class Guide.
- : Your familiar becomes a leshy familiar, which changes its type from Animal to Plant, the only effect of which is to change how your familiar handles effects related to creature type.
- : 2 more familiar abilities. Objectively great, but strongly consider taking Familiar Master Dedication instead because it will get you Enhanced Familiar for free and also access to the rest of the Archetype’s feats.
- : How effective this is depends heavily on your creature’s base form. If you go this route, avoid Specific Familiars since they tend to be unusual creature types like dragons and oozes. If you just want to talk to your familiar, select the Speech Familiar Ability instead.
- : Specific Familiars will frequently cost the same number of abilities as the number of abilities that they give you. If you choose to use a Specific Familiar which requires 2 or more abilities, this effectively gets you 2 additional abilities. With the abundance of options, that’s an easy prospect. If you’re not sure what to pick, Elemental Wisp (Air) is an easy choice because it gives your Familiar helpful immunities and Flight.
- : 2 more familiar abilities. Even if you took Familiar Master, you can get this 2 levels earlier as a Class Feat.
- : By this level your familiar may have as many as 9 abilities, making it powerful and versatile. The ability to perceive through its senses and communicate with it telepathically allows you to command it at great distance, using it to scout, retrieve objects, deliver messages, or any number of other activities without personally endangering yourself. However, it is partially redundant with the Share Senses Master Ability
Witch Archetype
This will get you an Intelligence-based Familiar plus two Cantrips, which is pretty great. On top of that, your Familiar is raised by your Patreon during your Daily Preparations if it dies, which is much safer to use in dangerous situations.
However, progressing past the Dedication feat may be difficult. You need to take two Archetype Feats before you can add another Dedication feat (such as Familiar Master Dedication), so you’re either going to get more Familiar Abilities very late by taking more Witch feats or you’re also getting other benefits from the Witch like more spellcasting.
The Multitalented Human Ancestry Feat can get you around the 2-feat requirement for adding a new Dedication feat, but it’s a level 9 Ancestry feat, which is likely much longer than you want to wait.
Wizard
The Wizard’s Familiar options are almost as good as the Witch’s, but the Wizard simply can’t do as much with a Familiar as a Witch can. While you can still do quite a bit, and you can get almost as many abilities, the Familiar is not as central to your class features. It’s still an excellent addition to a build, just not quite as good.
- : You get a familiar with two abilities. If you plan to take this feat, strongly consider taking Improved Familiar Attunement as your Arcane Thesis instead. If you just want a very basic Familiar, consider getting it from the Gnome or Ratfolk Ancestries, or consider Witch Dedication because it will also get you two Cantrips.
- : You get the Familiar Class Feat for free, plus your familiar gets an
extra ability and adds another at 6th, 12th, and 18th levels for a total of
6 Familiar Abilities.
Unfortunately, this doesn’t combine well with Familiars from other sources, such as an Ancestry feat or Witch Dedication, since you don’t get anything for getting a Familiar from multiple sources. If you go this route, expect to only consider Familiar Master for further improvements to your Familiar.
- : 2 more familiar abilities. Wizards don’t get any further feats to support their Familiar, so you absolutely want to take Familiar Master Dedication instead if you want to do anything further with your familiar.
Wizard Archetype
More difficult in every sense than Witch Dedication. If you go for Wizard over Witch, you’re here for something other than the Familiar.
Your Familiar
Base Creature
Your choice of base animal is a surprisingly important part of your Familiar’s capabilities. If your familiar naturally has an ability from the list of Familiar Abilities, that ability is locked in and you are unable to change that decision. For example: If you choose an owl as your familiar, one of your Familiar Ability slots must always be spent on flight.
Because you get so few Familiar Abilities, it’s important to avoid being locked into an ability which you won’t use constantly. Flight is often a good choice, but be wary of other options.
If you’re ever uncertain, stick with something like a rat or a tortoise.
Familiar Actions
Familiars have the “Minion” trait, which means that you need to spend an Action to command them before they can act. When you command your familiar, they then take two Actions. In a lot of ways they function more like a remote-controlled robot than like an independent creature. Your GM might relax these restrictions outside of combat, but your Familiar loses any ability to act on their own the moment that Initiative is rolled.
Because your Familiar is often most useful when they start in your space, it’s often helpful for your familiar to ride around on your shoulder, hang from your equipment, or sit in a pocket or pouch. Your Familiar doesn’t automatically follow you about, so having your Familiar on the ground means that you’re committing Actions every turn to simply command your familiar to follow you.
The Independent Familiar Ability allows your Familiar to take a single Action each turn without you spending an Action to command them. Depending on how you’re using your Familiar, this is often a fantastic option, but it’s not useful if you expect to Command your Familiar every turn.
Familiar Skills and Perception
Familiars always add your level to skill checks and attack rolls, and add your Key Attribute (see Key Attribute, above) on Acrobatics and Stealth skill checks, and on Perception checks. This means that your familiar may be better than you at a significant number of skills, but keep in mind that it’s not technically Trained in anything, so it can’t take any Trained Actions.
The Skilled Familiar Ability allows your Familiar to add your spellcasting attribute modifier to an additional skill, but still does not allow your Familiar to take Trained Actions.
Familiar Attacks
The rules for familiars don’t discuss attacks in any detail. Familiars use your level as their modifier on attack rolls, but it’s unclear if or how familiars can attack. Familiars are (with some exceptions) tiny animals, but even tiny animals have the ability to attack. Several animals are suggested as possible familiars, but none of the suggested creatures have stats in the bestiary. Apparently Paizo no longer saw fit to provide stat blocks for single rats and housecats. The closest I can find is the Viper, which might be an option if your GM allows it.
As a GM, I would simply rule that your familiar lacks any sort of natural attacks until Paizo gives us further clarification on how that works. It’s entirely possible that future supplements will include ways to give your familiar an attack.
Familiar and Master Abilities
During your daily preparations each day, you are allotted two (or more with certain feats and class features) ability slots to determine your familiar’s capabilities. These can be spent on Familiar Abilities and/or on Master Abilities in any combination you choose. You might choose to customize your familiar on a daily basis to suit your present needs, or you might settle on some broadly useful options and rely on them exclusively.
How Many Can I Get?
Witches can get more Familiar Abilities than any other character. Adding the Familiar Master Archetype doesn’t improve this progression. Wizards get one fewer only because the Witch gets an extra from their Patron.
- 3 at 1st level
- 1 unique patron ability
- Enhanced Familiar (+2)
- +1 at 6th level
- Incredible Familiar (+2)
- +1 at 12th level
- +1 at 18th level
- Total: 10
Familiar Abilities
Familiar abilities expand and improve your Familiar’s ability to act on its own. Generally when you plan to rely on your Familiar acting in combat, these are the abilities that you’ll want to emphasize.
For Familiar Ability descriptions, see the Familiars Page on Archive of Nethys.
- (PC1): For a Bard, a persistent and easily available bonus to Performance is very welcome. Unlike other Familiar Abilities which help you with skills, this doesn’t require your Familiar to Aid you before you get the bonus, which makes it much easier to benefit from this than comparable abilities like Ambassador. If you’re relying heavily on Performance for things like Lingering Composition or Fortissimo, you want every bonus that you can get. Combine this with the bonus from Musical Accompaniment, and you’re in good shape.
- (TV): Fantastic at low levels, but consider replacing this ability once you can get a real Bomb Coagulant Alembic. It’s a 150 gp level 5 item, so this can postpone that purchase until you can comfortably afford it. But using the alembic takes 10 minutes per bomb compared to 1 minute for Alchemical Gut, so you might actually prefer this to the alembic if you’re using it on a large number of bombs on a regular basis. Alchemists and other characters using Advanced Alchemy to create daily bombs might want this so that you can process large numbers of bombs quickly instead of potentially spending hours at the beginning of the day to process your bombs.
- (GB): An easy Circumstance Bonus to Make an Impression. Absolutely fantastic for a Face.
- (PC1): Situational by design. When you gain your familiar you permanently choose for it to have either a land speed or a swim speed, and you probably chose a land speed unless you’re in an aquatic campaign. If your campaign takes an unexpected dive underwater, you’ll want to pick up Amphibious at least temporarily. This also raises the question of whether or not the familiar needs to breathe, which isn’t addressed in the rules text, but I assume that they do since they’re still an animal by default.
- (PC1): Burrow speeds are really good for a lot of things like sneaking under walls or past gates or other obstacles. The speed is very limited, but, since you’re probably only using this outside of combat, that usually won’t be a problem.
- (PC1): Why would you choose a climb speed when flight is an option at the same cost?
-
(PC1): A huge list
of immunities, including immunity to 4 damage types. However, it’s also
immune to healing, so you’ll need to use the Crafting skill to repair it
instead of healing it with magic or Treat Wounds. Consider the
Quick Repair feat if
you plan to use your Familiar in combat.
Also remember that unlike living creatures, constructs are destroyed at 0 hp rather than falling unconscious, which is a huge liability
- (PC1): If you rely on your Familiar in combat, this can help keep it alive. I recommend Reflex saves so that it doesn’t die whenever someone casts Fireball or whenever a dragon breathes on it. Unfortunately, you can’t select this multiple times.
-
(SoM): Use Treat
Wounds to heal your Familiar.
This is only available on the Shadow Familiar Specific Familiar or if you’re a shadowcaster.
- (PC1): Darkvision is really good, and having it dramatically improves your familiar’s ability to serve as a Scout.
- (PC1): Very little in-game effect. If you want to change your Familiar’s creature type, go for Construct or Elemental.
- (PC1): Excellent for finding hidden and invisible enemies. Your Familiar will need to use Point Out to help you and your allies once you’ve found something with this.
- (PC1): Not quite as protective as Construct, but still some useful immunities, you don’t need Tough first, and your Familiar won’t die at 0 hp. Choosing Fire will also get your Familiar immunity to Fire damage, which is very useful.
- (PC1): Excellent, but only if your Familiar can also do something that makes their speed useful. If your Familiar is delivering spells or items, or if you’re riding a Corgi Familiar, this is great.
- (PC1): Objectively the best movement type.
- (PC1): Heal your Familiar with Treat Wounds. This is only appealing if you’re under constant time pressure and can’t allocate time to heal your Familiar for some reason.
- (PC1): Very little in-game effect. If you want to change your Familiar’s creature type, go for Construct or Elemental.
- (GB): Amphibious is this and then some. There is no reason to take this.
- (GB): This was published before Player Core gave us Major Resistance. At low levels, 3 + half your level will be more than your level. At level 6 they’re equal, then at level 7 and above Major Resistance is higher, so you’ll want to switch.
- (PC1): Depending on your familiar’s otherwise other abilities, one Action per turn can still be a huge benefit. They might be able to use items or do stuff on the edges of combat while not drawing attention. This does make Commanding your Familiar feel less appealing because it only gives them one more Action, but you’ll likely still need to do that sometimes.
-
(PC2): Excellent for
sharing items like potions, elixirs, and mutagens. For an Alchemist, this is
absolutely amazing, allowing you to efficiently share your items during
combat. This doesn’t cut into your recipient’s action economy by requiring
them to pick up the item and consume it (which takes 2 Actions), which is
absolutely amazing.
This requires Manual Dexterity. I recommend adding Fast Movement to extend the distance that your Familiar can cover when you use this. You might also add Flight to minimize potential obstacles and Independent so that your Familiar can return to you on your next turn without you spending Actions.
- (RoE): Get Flier instead. Jumping this far can be great when flight isn’t a choice, but this can’t be improved with Fast Movement and it doesn’t do anything about fall damage, so it’s strictly worse than Flier in almost every way.
- (): Situational, and it depends on your familiar being a common type of animal which may be less fun. If you plan to use this, I recommend choosing a familiar that’s common where your character lives like a rat or a bird.
- (): Potentially fantastic for the Alchemist. You still need to spend an Action to command your familiar, but your familiar then gets two Actions. It can use one to perform Quick Alchemy, then it could use its other action to either do it again or to use whatever item it just produced, such as by administering an elixir or mutagen to you or an adjacent ally. Manual Dexterity is required.
- (RoE): Get Flier instead.
- (): Two Familiar Abilities for resistance to two damage types is somewhat expensive, but if you know for certain that you’re facing a single damage type, this could be great. For example: if you’re facing a dragon that breathes acid, two abilities spent on Acid damage resistance is a good investment.
- (): Hands allow your familiar to do things like use items and open doors. Send your familiar to feed your allies potions (Item Delivery makes this much more efficient), or use it to spread caltrops or something.
- (): Very situational. Cases where this would be useful are very rare and would require a lot of pre-planning.
- (): Great for rogues and similar characters. Deception useful in social situations and to Feint, and Thievery is important for things like disabling traps.
- (): Very little in-game effect. If you want to change your Familiar’s creature type, go for Construct or Elemental.
- (): Very situational, extremely limited, and it requires a total of 2 abilities. The best use is likely to hide your familiar in plain sight to spy on other creatures.
- (TXCG): Interesting, but it may be difficult to use in practice.
- (PC1): The amount scales very slowly, but it’s often enough to prevent splash damage and Persistent Damage, and you get two damage types.
- (PC1): Even imprecise Scent allows your familiar to notice and locate invisible and hidden enemies, but Echolocation is a Precise Sense, so there’s little reason to take this instead.
-
(PC2): If you use
Recall Knowledge a lot, this can be fantastic. However, it requires your
Familiar to spend an Action to Aid in order to qualify to use their Reaction
to give you the bonus. For Mastermind Rogues, Monster Warden Rangers,
Thaumaturges, the consistent +1/+2 bonus will be consistently useful. If you
pair this with Independent, you can turn a Familiar with 2 abilities into a
dedicated Second Opinion machine. This even works if you use Automatic
Knowledge, but you won’t benefit until your second turn because your
Familiar needs to spend an Action on your first turn to prepare.
I don’t know how this works without speech. Maybe your familiar nods sagely when you recite trivia about goblins and weasels and whatever else.
-
(SoM): Teleportation
is fantastic, but the light limitations may make it difficult to use this
consistently unless you spend a lot of time crawling dungeons.
This is only available on the Shadow Familiar Specific Familiar or if you’re a shadowcaster.
- (): Your Key Attribute is almost always going to be +4 or higher, so for casters this is a big boost to your Familiar’s skills. Unfortunately, this doesn’t allow your Familiar to take Actions which require proficient with a skill.
- (GB): You’ll frequently know ahead of time when you need to Gather Information since it’s a multi-hour Activity, which means that you can often temporarily take this ability on days where you don’t expect a lot of combat or exploring dangerous locales.
- (PC1): If your familiar is serving as a scout, the ability to speak is crucial. Your familiar could spot all kinds of useful things, but if it’s limited to communicating basic emotions to you and possibly gesturing it will frequently be unable to meaningfully convey whatever it found. One important note: familiars don’t have Attributes, so it’s not at all clear how intelligent your familiar is.
-
(PC1): This can be a
great way to get some extra spellcasting quickly, but remember that Command
only gives your Familiar 2 Actions. You’ll need to limit yourself to giving
your Familiar a spell which takes 2 Actions or less. This also only works if
you have a Spell Repertoire, so classes like the Witch and the Wizard can’t
use it. This also only works once per day, which is very limiting.
This can be fantastic for spells which must be Sustained. If you also take the Independent Familiar Ability, you can Command your Familiar to cast the spell, then leave the to Sustain the Spell without further intervention, saving you a whole bunch of Actions.
- (GB): Basically the same as Intimidating Glare.
- (PC1): You can wear 2 Bulk worth of tools already, and very few tools are Light Bulk.
- (PC1): Speech is typically sufficient, but this can be helpful when silence is crucial.
- (PC1): A decent option if you plan to use your Familiar in combat.
- (GB): Tremorsense is great, but Echolocation is better for the same purposes.
- (): Useful for alchemists planning to throw bombs and for martial characters fighting with two weapons.
-
(TXCG): Much like
preparing spells, picking your Familiar’s abilities requires some guesswork
about what you’ll encounter in a day. This allows you to adapt on the fly,
making your Familiar even more versatile. Versatile Form isn’t specific
about which ability you replace, so it’s fine to replace Versatile Form and
not replace another ability which you want to keep.
This requires the Construct ability, which means that you’ll need someone in your party who can Repair your Familiar to heal it.
- (GB): Echolocation is better.
Master Abilities
Master abilities primarily contribute to your own capabilities. These are often good options for spellcasters who don’t rely heavily on their Familiar’s actions, though there are exceptions.
For Master Ability descriptions, see the Familiars Page on Archive of Nethys.
- (PC1): Great if you’re not using your Familiar in combat. This allows you to minimize risk to it, but still keep it handy when you need it outside of combat.
- (): Cantrips are nearly always good. Spellcasters normally get no more than 5 Cantrips known/prepared unless you spend feats, so an extra Cantrip can expand that pool by 20% or more. If you have a Spell Repertoire, this lets you change the chosen Cantrip daily, which can be very useful.
-
(PC2): Extra daily
items are extremely impactful.
Prior to the Remaster, this was called Extra Reagents.
- (PC2): Potentially useful at low levels when your resources are very limited, but as you gain levels you may find that one extra vial per day isn’t worth the cost.
- (PC1): If you’re heavily reliant on Focus Spells this can be a nice fallback. However, it’s only one point per day and if you’re reliant on Focus Spells you’re probably walking into fights with 3 Focus Points to throw around. This might be useful at low levels before you max out the size of your Focus Pool, but otherwise you’re probably fine without it.
- (PC1): This varies wildly in effectiveness depending on your Ancestry and Heritage, so it’s difficult to rate.
- (TXCG): This kills your familiar. For most characters, that’s prohibitive. For a Witch, it’s a significant inconvenience. You might use this with your absolute highest-Rank Fireball for a big damage boost, but you would want to reserve that for late in the day so that you spend as little adventuring time as possible without your Familiar.
-
(PC1): Replacing a
familiar takes a full week of Downtime unless you’re a Witch. In a campaign
where time is precious, that’s a big commitment. In addition, if you’re
heavily reliant on your familiar as part of your character’s skill set,
losing your familiar can feel like losing a hand. If you simply can’t handle
losing your Familiar, Lifelink is the way to go. Otherwise, skip it and let
your Familiar take the damage in your place.
If you consistently put your Familiar in harms way and need a way to protect them, strongly consider the Protection Companion Cantrip. It’s like casting Shield, but it protects an Eidolon or a Minion instead of yourself.
- (PC1): Helpful if you rely on your Familiar as a Scout, but it’s only once per day, so you can’t rely on it constantly.
- (PC1): Comparable to Battle Medicine. It’s a decent amount of healing, but it’s only once per day.
- (PC1): Great for scouting since you don’t need to rely on your familiar communicating its findings to you.
- (PC1): More spell slots are always great, though this spell slot is significantly below your best spells.
- (PC1): This basically replaces Reach Spell, but it’s not without issues. First, it’s unclear precisely how Actions work here. I think the intent is that you cast your spell, then spend an Action to command your familiar to deliver the spell. This costs just as many actions as Reach Spell, making it a viable replacement for another feat. However, it also leaves your familiar adjacent to your target. If the target is an ally, it’s probably fine. If the target is an enemy, your familiar is now in melee reach, and, while it shares your AC, it only has 5 hit points per level. Expect to spend an Action on your next turn commanding your familiar to retreat to safety.
- Tattoo Transformation (GB): This was renamed to “Absorb Familiar” in the Remaster and included in the Player Core.
Specific Familiars
Instead of customizing your familiar and potentially changing its abilities every day, you can choose to take a Specific Familiar. Doing so requires that you have at least the required number of abilities. In effect, you’re trading some of the customizability for the additional and often unique capabilities provided by the Specific Familiar which you choose.
Specific Familiars are not strictly better than regular familiars. They can do some specific, unique things that make them appealing, but you lose a lot of versatility which you normally get from the ability to customize a regular Familiar.
Specific Familiars Rules
Some familiars are more powerful than the usual familiars, and possess unique abilities. Any character can gain a specific familiar so long as they already have a familiar with at least the required number of abilities listed in the specific familiar’s stat block.
You must already have a Familiar, which means that you must both already have the feature and your Familiar must be alive. If your Familiar has died, you need to replace it as normal by spending a week of downtime to replace it (or by waiting for your next Daily Preparations if you’re a Witch).
Such a familiar usually replaces an existing familiar, though in some circumstances (such as for a witch) the familiar may evolve or reveal its true form.
This is mostly narrative as far as I can tell. If your Familiar is Jo the rat and you decide that you want an imp, Jo the rat goes away and is replaced by an imp. If you’re a Witch, Jo the rat and wakes up one day and turns into an imp.
In any case, this transition from a normal familiar to a specific familiar requires no downtime and has no cost.
So long as your Familiar is alive, you don’t need to spend downtime to make the switch.
Once you’ve selected a specific familiar, you can’t change it without losing your familiar—this uses the same rules for gaining a new pet.
If you want to go back to a normal Familiar or to switch to a different Specific Familiar, you need to spend a week retraining just as if your Familiar had died.
A specific familiar has several traits and abilities, as listed in their stat block. The granted abilities entry lists normal familiar and master abilities that familiar has. The familiar also gains unique abilities listed below the granted abilities entry. Much like a familiar that naturally has a familiar ability (such as an owl with a fly Speed), you can never swap out any of these granted or unique abilities.
Whatever Specific Familiar you choose locks you into certain specific abilities. That’s why you’re here.
If your familiar gains more abilities than the required number of abilities, you can use the remaining abilities to select additional familiar and master abilities as normal.
This allows you to further customize your Familiar beyond whatever you get from the Specific Familiar.
Statistics and abilities not listed in a specific familiar’s stat block (such as modifiers, AC, Hit Points, and so forth) use the normal familiar rules.
Some Specific Familiars deviate from the usual math for Familiars, such as the Spellslime. See above for the full walkthrough of the Familiar rules and how they work in practice.
Specific Familiar Options
For the full list of Specific Familiars and their stats, see the Specific Familiars page on Archive of Nethys.
1 Required Abilities
Poppet (PC1)
The only thing that you get is the Construct Familiar Ability and vulnerability to fire damage. You can pick Construct and then describe your Familiar as a Poppet and get all of the benefits without the Vulnerability.
2 Required Abilities
Somehow none exist.
3 Required Abilities
Aeon Wyrd (PC2)
The Aeon Wyrd is useful only if you have already maxed out your number of Invested items and you really want to add an Aeon stone on top of all of them.
Clockwork Familiar (GB) (Uncommon)
The Clockwork Familiar was published in Grand Bazaar prior to the Remaster, and it appears that the Construct Familiar ability is intended to replace it.
The Clockwork Familiar’s first ability makes them a wind-up clockwork thing. You need to wind it to power it, and using certain abilities reduces the “Operational Time”, so you need to track that. Enemies can use the Disable Device Action to try to reduce your Familiar’s Operational Time, but what enemy is going to that instead of attacking them? Honestly, the whole Operational Time mechanic seems purely cosmetic, and the fact that it has mechanics behind it is a bit silly.
Your Familiar also gains Weakness to Electricity damage. Unlike the Poppet, you can’t spend a Familiar Ability to remove it.
All of this is to get Steam Screen. Steam Screen gives the Familiar a bonus to Intimidation which might be useful if you want it to Demoralize, plus it gives other creatures in the square Concealment. This could provide a small defensive boost to you and your Familiar, but it has a 1-minute cooldown, so you can’t rely on it constantly.
To recap: You’re committing 3 Familiar Abilities to get a Clockwork Familiar. It gets Darkvision, the equivalent of the Construct ability, and Steam Screen, but it also comes with Electricity Vulnerability. If it didn’t have Electricity Vulnerability, I would rate this green.
Crysmal Shardling (RoE)
You allocate 3 abilities to get this, and you get Burrower, Elemental (Earth), and Speech in return. Elemental (Earth) isn’t especially strong compared to the other elements, but Elemental does come with some helpful condition immunities. The Crysmal Shardling’s unique ability is Crystal Scent, which is extremely situational. You could go an entire campaign and never use it.
Elemental Wisp (RoE)
Elemental Wisps are not Elemental Scamps (they’re a separate option). Elemental Wisps are little blobs of animated elemental energy. They’re cute, but they’re not little elemental bat things like Elemental Scamps.
The Elemental Wisp comes with Accompanist, Elemental, and Speech. You get to choose what element you want for Elemental when you first get it, which is great, and Speech as an easy go-to option for anyone investing heavily in their Familiar, but Accompanist is largely useless for anyone except Bards.
In addition to the 3 abilities that all Elemental Wisps get, your wisp will also get another movement-related ability depending on your choice of Element. Air gets Flight, which is the best option, but Elemental (Fire) providing immunity to fire damage is really strong. Unfortunately, fire only gets you Jet, which is a poor substitute for real flight. If you want an Elemental Wisp, I recommend choosing fire, then adding Flier with another Familiar Ability.
But all of that only matters if you want the unique Resonance ability, which provides a +1 Status Bonus to damage rolls for alchemical and magical effects with the matching Trait. Fire is by far the easiest choice to capitalize upon, but remember that this affects all creatures in the aura, not just allies, so enemies might also get the damage bonus.
If your party relies on Fire damage consistently from things like bombs, runes, and spells, this can be a consistent damage boost. But remember that enemies will also benefit, so be sure that your party has Fire damage resistance.
Mood Cloud (RoE)
The Mood Cloud is a great choice for a Face. Emote covers three social skills and isn’t limited to specific actions like Ambassador. You literally can’t match this with standard Familiar Abilities.
But if you’re not a Face, the Mood Cloud’s abilities are weak. Flier is great, but you get one of the weak versions of Elemental, and it costs 3 abilities to get here. Unless you’re going to get a lot out of Emote, this simply isn’t worth the cost.
If you go this route, stroncly consider adding Threat Display so that your Familiar will also support you using Demoralize. If you’re a Bard, add Accompanist and you’re getting a ton of value from this.
Spirit Guide (PF #188) (Rare)
Unique among familiars, the Spirit Guide has an unarmed attack. Familiars don’t typically have attacks of any kind, so you can (in theory) use this as a combat pet. Spiritual Recall gives it a layer of protection before it resorts to Lifelink, which makes this a little bit safer. But your Familiar’s attacks never add more damage dice, it doesn’t get an Attribute bonus to damage, and it can’t get more damage from things like Handwraps of Mighty Blows. It’s an attack, but it’s not a good one.
So your best bet is to ignore the attack, and just look at the Spirit Guide as an unusually durable Familiar. Independent, Lifelink, and Speech are all great abilities, plus you get Spiritual Recall as an added defense. This is a fantastic basis for almost any Familiar. If you don’t want the abilities of any other Specific Familiar, the Spirit Guide is an excellent choice.
Sweet Beasts (Chocolate Mouse) (WtD) (Uncommon)
You’re locked into Fast Movement and Scent, which are fine, but not amazing. The unique ability here is Sorcerous Sweets. The Chocolate Mouse’s version is identical to the Gingerbead Sparrow’s, and the Gingerbread Sparrow has much better granted abilities, so there’s very little reason to pick the Chocolare Mouse.
Sweet Beasts (Gingerbread Sparrow) (WtD) (Uncommon)
Flier and Independent are two of the best abilities available, so this is a fantastic start. But wether or not the Gingerbread Sparrow is good comes down to Sorcerous Sweets. Sorcerous Sweets provides a scaling item bonus to several Charisma-based skills. The scaling is similar to permanent items which tend to be hugely expensive and frequently don’t exceed +1 bonuses, but the item’s effects only last for an hour. Still, for high-stakes situations its pretty great. I would use this on a Bard or another Face character.
Sweet Beasts (Hard Candy Beetle) (WtD) (Uncommon)
Not quite as good as the Gingerbead Sparrow, but Burrower and Tremorsense are still pretty good.
Talking Head (BotD)
The Talking Head requires the fewest abilities of an Familiar that has Negative Healing, making it a great option for undead-heavy parties. Cantrip Connection and Speech are both great choices for Familiars, but Skilled might not be especially useful here since your Familiar’s bonus will still be so far behind that of a PC. The Talking Head is also very slow moving unless you give it Flier, and the ability to kick or throw it is hilarious but not especially useful. Also remember that being undead means that your Familiar is destroyed at 0 hp instead of falling unconscious.
The combination of abilities isn’t great, but Negative Healing can be essential in some parties. If you take the Talking Head, it’s either for the comedic effect or because you need Negative Healing and can’t get a better option yet.
4 Required Abilities
Ceru (IL)
The Ceru’s unique version of Cantrip Connection gives you 2 preselected Cantrips. The only spell list with both Guidance and Mage Hand is the Occult spell list, so most spellcasters will get a Cantrip that they otherwise couldn’t, and both Cantrips are fantastic. Darkvision is good, too.
Turn of Fate is a once per day ability that can grant Advantage or impose Disadvantage if the target fails a save. It’s good, but it’s only once per day.
Dust Bunny (FHOA)
Construct and Independent are great, but Play Dead and Skilled (Arcana) likely won’t see a lot of use. Kick Up Dust is great, especially since you can use it once per hour, but the 2-Action cost is difficult for a Minion. Your best bet is to use Play Dead and lure enemies into range, but that’s not always going to work, so you may need to get your Familiar into range on one turn, then activate Kick Up Dust on your next turn, which is dangerous with a 5-foot Emanation. Add Flier and Fast Movement.
Dweomercat Cub (PFS)
No longer usable in the Remaster now that schools of magic have been removed.
Mockingfey (RA)
Flier, Independent, and Speech are all fantastic abilities, so we’re already off to a great start. But the usefulness of the Mockingfey comes down to its unique Gibe ability.
Gibe is excellent. It’s essentially a Feint using your spell DC. Since the Mockingfey has Independent, it can use Gibe on its own potentially every turn until you run out of targets (remember the 1-minute immunity), and that would be a perfectly fine way to use a Familiar, especially if you have players in your party like Rogues who depend on making enemies Off-Guard.
The Mockingfey is an excellent basis for any Familiar. Even if you’re not going to lean on Gibe heavily, it’s a fantastic basis for a Familiar if you’re not looking for the unique abilities of another Specific Familiar.
Note that as of this writing, Archives of Nethys doesn’t list an Action cost for Gibe. In the Rival Academies book it’s 1 Action.
Old Friend (BotD)
The Old Friend has the Flier ability, Incorporeality (sort of), Negative Healing, and it can cast Invisibility on itself once per hour. That can all be really good, but it comes with some asterisks.
Anchored Incorporeality removes resistance to damage and immunity to precision damage usually enjoyed by incorporeal creatures, and mostly prevents it from moving through walls. It’s certainly more mobile in combat, and it can’t be grappled or attacked with weapons, but it can still be blown up, set on fire, etc. I don’t know if Treat Wounds works on Incorporeal creatures even if you have Stich Flesh.
Negative Healing is great in an undead-heavy party, but might not work in other parties. You also don’t want your party’s Cleric to blow up your Familiar when they cast 3-Action Heal. Also remember that being undead means that your Familiar is destroyed at 0 hp instead of falling unconscious.
The ability for your Familiar to cast Invisibility on itself is fantastic. Once per hour means that it will be available for most encounters, and the 10-minute duration allows you to use it consistently both in combat and while exploring. The ability to get your Familiar close to enemies while keeping it Hidden makes it easy to use it in combat, especially for Witches who often want their Familiar close to enemies to use their Patron abilities.
All told, the Old Friend is powerful but very complex. I can’t recommend it as a go-to option, but in the right party it’s spectacular, and you can make it work in most parties as long as you’re careful about Negative Healing.
Spellslime (PC2)
The abilities are mediocre, and tanking your Familiar’s AC is a good way to get it killed even with Tough and the extra healing from Slime Rejuvenation. This thing is trying to be a damage sponge, but Familiars simply don’t have the stats for that. This thing is going to get crit at the first opportunity, and then it’s gone.
5 Required Abilities
Crawling Hand (BotD)
With Manual Dexterity, Spell Delivery, and Valet, the Crawling Hand is great for spellcasters who also enjoy expendable items like elixirs, potions, and scrolls. However, that’s a pretty narrow set of characters. Many characters will be able to easily benefit from Spell Delivery or from Valet, but may be unable to use both.
Negative Healing is great in an undead-heavy party, but might not work in other parties. You also don’t want your party’s Cleric to blow up your Familiar when they cast 3-Action Heal. Also remember that being undead means that your Familiar is destroyed at 0 hp instead of falling unconscious.
Lend a Hand is the Crawling Hand’s unique ability. This allows it to Aid with attacks, making it a useful companion in combat. It automatically Succeeds on this check, giving the ally a +1 Circumstance Bonus, but it has no way to Critically Succeed, unlike with similar Familiar Abilities. Lend a Hand works while sharing a space with the ally that the hand is Aiding, so you’re either sending your familiar to stand with a friend or it’s sitting alongside you. Weirdly, this appears to work at range, too. Don’t ask me how, though.
The text of Lending a Hand says “If the crawling hand has a similar ability, like partner in crime, it still gains only 1 reaction and can choose how to spend it.” I haven’t found any other indication that Familiars can only ever have 1 Reaction, so I’m not sure what’s going on here.
The biggest challenge with the Crawling Hand is figuring out who can best use it. Lend a Hand is for characters depending on attack, Spell Delivery is for characters depending on spells, and Valet is for characters depending on expendable items. There are very few characters that fit all three, which makes the Crawling Hand only useful for a tiny number of characters.
Elemental Scamp (RoE)
I cannot rate the Elemental Scamp blue simply because Elemental Scamps are fantastic and I love them. That would be irresponsible.
Elemental, Fier, and Speech are a great base to start from. You’re locked into your choice of element (unless you replace your Familiar), which determines your scamp’s breath weapon damage type and their movement type. Weirdly, Flier is listed in their Granted Abilities, but they have the same Elemental Mobility ability as the Elemental Wisp. I think the intent is that they all get Flier and can get an additional movement-related ability. I don’t know what happens with redundant Flier for air scamps.
Elemental Breath is pretty good, too providing decent damage with consistent scaling. The 10-foot cone can only hit adjacent creatures, but, against enemies that aren’t moving, your scamp can fly over their heads and hit them with it on back-to-back turns. The only issue is the 2-Action cost on a Minion.
But keep in mind that Elemental Breath will likely monopolize your Familiar’s Actions in combat. You either lean into using it, or you’re losing most of the Elemental Scamp’s impact to do other things.
If you go for the Elemental Scamp, expect Elemental Breath to be what it does in combat and look at Familiar Abilities and Master Abilities which make it useful outside of combat like Ambassador, Cantrip Connection, and Extra Alchemy. You likely also want Fast Movement and Independent to help it position to use Elemental Breath.
Fey Dragonet (PC2)
The Granted Abilities are great, providing a great basis for whatever you want your Familiar to do. Euphoric Breath provides a very powerful debuff, and the 1 hour cooldown is short enough that it will be available in most combat encounters.
While it’s easy to compare the Fey Dragonet to the Elemental Scamp since they both have a breath weapon, remember that the Fey Dragonet’s breath has a cooldown. While it’s excellent, the breath weapon shouldn’t monopolize your Familiars Actions in combat.
Gennayn (RoE)
Elemental and Speech are a great start, then you add Elemental Mobility similar to the Elemental Scamp and the Elemental Wisp. I recommend Air because Flier is the best option available. But that’s only 3 abilities on a Specific Familiar that costs 5, so Little Witch and Elemental Diplomat need to be good.
Little Wish works once per day, but the effect is fantastic. Use this to rescue an ally from a bad save or to force an enemy to reroll a save against a save-or-suck effect. Elemental Diplomat is awful.
The Gennayn just doesn’t bring enough abilities for its cost. Little Wish is powerful, but once per day just isn’t enough.
Nosoi (GB)
Great Granted Abilities, plus Haunting Melody and Nosoi Resistance. Nosoi Resistance provides Resistance to Negative and Poison damage, then you can add the Resistance ability to get Resistance to two other damage types. With that, your Nosoi is prettu durable.
Haunting Melody is a gamble. Making enemies Fascinated by your Familiar makes it likely that they’ll focus on killing your Familiar. Even with damage resistances and potentially the Tough ability, Familiars are not durable.
Pipefox (PC2)
The Granted Abilities are fine, but Scholarly Linguist is not going to be useful in a game where you got access to magical translation long before you could afford a Pipefox Familiar.
6 Required Abilities
Calligraphy Wyrm (RA)
7 Granted Abilities plus Ink Spray for the cost of 6 abilities, but only worthwhile if they’re abilities that you want. Most of them are good, but I would happily trade Darkvision, Scent, and Ink Spray for Echolocation.
Faerie dragon (APG)
Replaced by the Fey Dragonet in the Remaster, the Faerie Dragon has the same breath weapon, worse Granted Abilities, and cost an additional Familiar Ability compared to the Fey Dragonet.
Homunculus (PC2)
The Granted Abilities are great, and Blood Link makes your Homunculus an especially good Scout because you can communicate with it so easily. Poison Reservoir is helpful if you have an easy source of poison (typically this means being an Alchemist), and Porter gives you the choice between Item Delivery (for using items on allies) and Valet (for using items yourself). The best master for this Familiar is a Poisoner Alchemist. Other characters will find much less value.
House Drake (SaS) (Uncommon)
The Granted Abilities are good, but there are only 4 of them, so you’re definitely here for the House Drake’s unique abilities. Silver Infusion is bad. Tenacious Mind’s effect is good, but it requires your Familiar (which you’ve invested a ton of stuff into at this point) to take no actions in the previous round, so you’ll nearly never use it. That just leaves the breath weapon, which is a worse version of the Fey Dragonet’s.
Kinnars (TXCG) (Uncommon)
The flavor text can be a bit confusing. You’re essentially turning your Familiar into two bird people (people birds?) which function as one creature. Pretend that they’re strapped together.
The Kinnar’s Granted Abilities are pretty good, and you get 5 of them, plus 3 unique abilities. Dazzling Show is a great crowd control ability, but it does affect allies, so you need to position it carefully. Soul Bond is an excellent mental defense, which is great since Familiars have so few options to boost their mental defenses. All told, that’s a perfectly fine Familiar. Having it start combat by Dazzling several of your enemies can have a huge impact,
It also gets Vina Song, which says “hey enemies, look at my fancy birds that will take me a week to replace.” Making enemies Fascinated will make your Kinnars a huge target.
Lantern Wisp (TXCG)
4 good Granted Abilities and also Kindling, plus Stunning Flare. For 1 Action, it’s a really good crowd control effect. The range is short, though, so consider adding Fast Movement so that your Familiar has more range to position itself early in combat.
Shikigami (TXCG)
6 Granted Abilities, and most of them are good. Versatile Form is basically free since you can use it to replace itself with another ability of your choice. The Shikigami comes with Kindling, which is normally a trap for everyone except Witches since the damage boost is nowhere near good enough to justify spending a week to replace your familiar, but the Shikigami’s Mass Produced ability lets you replace it during daily preparations! This makes it easy to justify Kindling, as well as anything else that might routinely place your Familiar in danger, such as having your Familiar deliver spells.
The Shikigami’s Seal-Bearer trait improves things even further, allowing you to change the element which works with the damage boost from Kindling so that you can branch out from Fireball.
Tapir Sage (TXCG) (Uncommon)
The Tapir Sage’s granted abilities aren’t great. You get 5, but Kinspeech isn’t going to see much use since Tapirs don’t live in a lot of places, and Toolbearer just isn’t a great ability. Pot of Tea is really novel, and the save bonus against disease/poison is fantastic, but 2 Actions to consume the tea is very hard to justify in combat where you really want it. Your best bet is to use this when you expect to face enemies that rely on disease and poison, but the bonuses only apply once each, so you’re better served by items like Elixir of Life and Antiplague which will provide the bonus on multiple saves over an extended duration.
7 Required Abilities
Imp (PC2)
The Imp is a great basis for use as a Scout. Skilled (Deception) probably won’t help you much, but, if you want an imp Familiar, maybe you do want someone around to lie on your behalf. It also adds the ability to make itself invisible (again reinforcing its capability as a Scout) once per hour and Infernal Temptation. It gets a total of 7 Granted Abilities, most of which are reliably good, plus two excellent unique abilities.
Infernal Temptation is amazing both thematically and mechanically. The target gambles with their eternal soul, risking losing the ability to be raised from the dead, but in exchange you get to roll an attack or save twice and use the better result, potentially saving your life by doing so. If you have an ally who can make a big, singular attack, especially from a safe range, this is essentially Sure Strike with a 1-hour window to use it. A Magus, a Sniper Gunslinger, a Swashbuckler with a nice Finisher, or just a Rogue or a spellcaster with a decent high-damage attack can all use this to great effect.
Prior to the remaster, the Imp require 8 abilities rather than 7. The Resistance ability was updated to provide resistance to 2 damage types, but the Imp only gets Resistance to Poison damage, which may account for the reduction in the number of required abilities.
Shadow Familiar (SoM) (Uncommon)
The Shadow Familiar is complicated. Before you consider anything else, remember that it’s only available if you take the Shadow Caster Archetype. The Archetype offers other things, but, for the purposes of this article, we’re going to focus on the Familiar. The Shadow Familiar requires 7 Familiar Abilities, which means that most characters will need 4 Class Feats (Familiar, Enhanced Familiar, Improved Familiar, and Incredible Familiar) to be able to afford it. So you need a total of 5 Class Feats to afford it (fewer for the Witch and for Wizards with Improved Familiar Attunement), which is a huge resource cost unless you’re using Free Archetype. The obvious question is “is the Shadow Familiar worth all of this effort?”
The Shadow Familiar gets 5 granted abilities, and they’re fine. Master’s Form is weird, and I haven’t found a way to use it consistently except to turn your Familiar into a target for attacks. Shadow Step will be most useful in situations like dungeon crawls.
Become Shadow is a great way to make your Familiar more durable. Near-universal damage resistance will stretch its hit points considerably. Depending on what other abilities you give your Familiar (which are likely few in number), you can likely make your Familiar very useful both in combat and outside of combat as a Scout. Unfortunately, this will prevent things like Item Delivery or Valet, as well as mundace actions like opening doors and retrieving items.
Slink in Shadows will let your Familiar hide much more easily in nearly an environment. However, you no longer have a shadow, so your Familiar will need to find other creatures or objects to hide near. “creature’s or object’s shadow” covers nearly everything that has a shadow, so your Familiar should always have good places to hide unless you’re in a featureless void.
Steal Shadow is a decent debuff. Enfeebled 1 with such a long duration means that enemies will typically be dead long before it wears off. It’s not clear if your Familiar needs to have a physical form to use this, so they may need to exit Become Shadow before using this attack. There is no rules guidance in either direction, so we’re left to ask our GMs and hope for the best.
Finally, the Shadow Familiar has unique access to the Darkeater ability. It’s not good unless your party is desperately short on healing resources. If that’s the case, I don’t know how you survived to high enough level to get this.
So: Is the Shadow Familiar worth all of the effort to get it? On its own, no. It’s fine, and it has some cool stuff, but it’s simply not good enough to justify the Feat cost unless you were already going to become a Shadowcaster.
8 Required Abilities
Makhluk Wayang (TXCG)
Costs 8 abilities and you get 6 Granted Abilities and Shadow Projection. Shadow Projection is not good, so there’s nothing here worth the cost.
Polong (BotD)
5 Granted Abilities, Anchored Incorporeality, and Undead so it has Negative Healing. The big draw is Polong Possession, which allows your Familiar to possess a creature, perceive through its sense, and make it Drained 1. Drained doesn’t usually matter on enemies, and there are much easier ways to spy on enemies.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are Specific Familiars good?
As a concept, yes, but they vary wildly in quality. Some are great, some are awful, and most are good for specific characters.
Can familiars use magic items?
It’s not clear if they can or can’t use magic items, but they would like need the Manual Dexterity Familiar Ability so that they can take Manipulate Actions. Familiars can only wear and Invest items with the Companion tag.
How do I change my Familiar’s base form?
You need to replace your familiar, which requires retraining the Pet feat, which takes a week of downtime.
How many Familiar Abilities can I get?
A Witch or a Wizard with Improved Familiar Attunement can each get 9, not counting unique abilities from sources like the Witch’s Patron or from a Specific Familiar.
What happens when my Familiar dies?
You can replace your familiar by spending a week to retrain the Pet feat to get a new one. If you’re a Witch, your familiar returns during Daily Preparations.
