PF: Improving Familiar Survivability

[faeryn]

I'm playing a "Luck Caster" in a campaign using the Unlettered Arcanist... and well... in our last session I was nearly rendered powerless when a Fireball dropped my Familiar from full health to -1... So... following that encounter... I'm looking for some way to improve my familiars survival... That said, there are certain options that are out of the question in this particular case.

Those options being: anything that stores my familiar in an extradimensional space, glyph, or otherwise removes her from the field.

The reason for this is, despite my better judgement, I opted for the Egotist Familiar archetype for RP reasons... so when your familiar believes herself to be the master and you to be her familiar it can be rather difficult to store her away... Due to the Unlettered Archetype, my character would have every reason to want to keep her familiar out of harms way since being seperated from her familiar would render her powerless...

So... what other options exist within Pathfinder for bolstering a familiars defenses?

I shouldn't have to worry too much about direct attacks against my Familiar, though indirect attacks are most certainly a major concern after last session...

[Vladeshi]

Does your familiar not have Improved Evasion, or is its hit point total so low that a half damage fireball still almost killed it?

[Nanashi]

Merge with Familiar spell. Portable Terrarium/Familiar Bubble blocks LoE. If you can find a way to stop the whole "needs to breath" problem, stick it in extradimensional space. Toughness and belts of con boost its HP as well. If you have the charisma for it you can dip into Bloodrager or Sorcerer and take the Tumor Familiar feat and it can merge with you (gaining fast healing while it does), though how exactly it stacks with other familiars is unclear.

Are you Lawful Neutral? If so take Improved Familiar and take Arbiter as your familiar. It has Pathfinder's version of regeneration, which allows it to have infinite negative HP and get back up (eventually) so long as it isn't hit by anything chaotic (and technically chaotic spells don't count). Backup your spells in a Stone Familiar or (subject to GM approval) have your old familiar become the new one (there's a few cases of this scattered around PF, though it's a bit out of character for arbiters). Egoist a bit weird on compatibility with Improved Familiar, even though it fits so well (there really is an imp on your shoulder telling you to do bad things!), since while it doesn't explicitly lose it most improved familiars have no general bonus.

Figment Familiar is the ultimate in survivability: It returns when you rest. Unfortunately "witch familiars, and familiars that grant spells" can't take it.

[faeryn]

Does your familiar not have Improved Evasion, or is its hit point total so low that a half damage fireball still almost killed it?

Thankfully it does have Improved Evasion. But that doesn’t help too much with a failed reflex save vs a 36 damage fireball when your familiar only has 14 HP... I got terrible rolls on my HP and Con... so my measly 28 HP doesn’t give my Familiar much... I rolled a Nat20 and my familiar rolled a 2...

Merge with Familiar spell. Portable Terrarium/Familiar Bubble blocks LoE. If you can find a way to stop the whole "needs to breath" problem, stick it in extradimensional space. Toughness and belts of con boost its HP as well. If you have the charisma for it you can dip into Bloodrager or Sorcerer and take the Tumor Familiar feat and it can merge with you (gaining fast healing while it does), though how exactly it stacks with other familiars is unclear.

Are you Lawful Neutral? If so take Improved Familiar and take Arbiter as your familiar. It has Pathfinder's version of regeneration, which allows it to have infinite negative HP and get back up (eventually) so long as it isn't hit by anything chaotic (and technically chaotic spells don't count). Backup your spells in a Stone Familiar or (subject to GM approval) have your old familiar become the new one (there's a few cases of this scattered around PF, though it's a bit out of character for arbiters). Egoist a bit weird on compatibility with Improved Familiar, even though it fits so well (there really is an imp on your shoulder telling you to do bad things!), since while it doesn't explicitly lose it most improved familiars have no general bonus.

Figment Familiar is the ultimate in survivability: It returns when you rest. Unfortunately "witch familiars, and familiars that grant spells" can't take it.

I’m playing an Unlettered Arcanist and actually already took a sip into Sorcerer for a bloodline... however, I don’t see Tumor Familiar as a viable option for this character...

She is Nuetral Good... so arbiter is a no go... besides I have zero intention in changing my familiar. She’s a Cat btw...

I really wish Figment Familiar was an option for me... but it is not... it explicitly states that classes that store their spells in their familiar such as a Witch cannot have a Figment Familiar. Sadly, Unlettered Arcanist does exactly that, and is even treated as Witch for some prerequisites.

I will try to picking up a Familiar Bubble and a Stone Familiar when we get back to town though... still need something to

[Power]

A bit late, but in your case, I'd recommend casting False Life using the Share Spells feature and Resist Energy to boost your familiar's survivability. You can also cast Invisibility on your familiar with Share Spells. Ordinarily a familiar satchel would be recommended, but in your case that's not as viable.

Incidentally, a 10th level Witch with the Beast-bonded archetype effectively has an unkillable familiar.

[zook1shoe]

figment familiar archetype (techniically works, but kind of cheesy)

parasite familiar archtype, have it burrow into your own body.

[Power]

Parasite archetype would work apparently (unless you're doing PFS), but figment familiars explicitly cannot be used for Witches and Unlettered Arcanists. Of course, the Parasite familiar archetype does not stack with Egoist so in this case that's useless.