pretty much what the title says. but i would also like to extend the question to not only familiars, but also to animal companions and psicrystals.
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pretty much what the title says. but i would also like to extend the question to not only familiars, but also to animal companions and psicrystals.
I'm AFB right now but I don't believe familiars do as they don't gain Hit Dice. I think animal companions do as they continue to gain HD as the druid/ranger/whatever advances in levels. Can't speak to psicrystals at all as I've never used one, but I'm guessing they are more like familiars so probably not.
Well, in a familiars case they use what the animal would have normally in skills and feats, they don't gain new feats nor skills as you level, but their HD is either equal to thier base animal or masters whichever is higher, but hp is always half their masters. And even though the skills don't progress, they get their base animal's skills or their masters whichever is higher, which is easy to abuse for always having someone to assist you on a check.
Psicrystals, RAW, do.
Familiars don't get feats, but animal companions and psicrystals do. They all get skill points; familiars and psicrystals get their masters' ranks in skills (but not their own, except when their native ranks are higher than their masters').
The reason why this is is because the wording on familiars states that they're treated as if they had the same number of HD as their masters for various effects (such as spells and so on), but psicrystals actually have HD due to a different wording; theirs is "as master's". Animal companions explicitly get HD (they even get bonus HD for being companions).
Thus, animal companions and psicrystals get all the benefits of HD as they level (including feats and ability score increases); psicrystals would also get skill points for being intelligent creatures, but theirs are explicitly overridden by their masters' skill ranks.
ooooohhh thanks i understand now :smallsmile:
Just as a corollary, paladin mounts DO get extra feats, skills and, for that matter, ability score increases, right?
Yep - the Paladin's Special Mount gets real HD, just like an Animal Companion (only worse).
Good to know, thanks! :smallsmile:
There are exceptions.
Basic familiars have no HD, thus no feats.
But some improved familiars do have HD. For example, the dragon familiar feat gives you access to various wyrmlings.
The gold dragon wyrmling starts with 8 racial HD so it can choose 3 feats and advance its skills, independantly of yours, up to that point. However it can never progress beyond that level.
The homonculus can also be advanced (which is the whole point of having one in the first place as they can't talk, thus they can't use wands).
As mentioned earlier in the thread, they get the base abilities for the creature (which includes HD and related stuff). They just don't gain extras for being familiars.Quote:
Originally Posted by Soranar
A homunculus can't be advanced after crafting it. You have to craft it with extra HD from the start.
They can if you use the homunculi in the Eberron Campaign Setting.Quote:
Originally Posted by Flickerdart
Yeah, well, they can't if, uh, you don't. There. :smallcool: