Opinion on a Sorcerer ACF [3.5]

[Bad Wolf]

Im trading away my familiar for an ACF, then getting it back with Obtain Familiar at around 6th level. Im stuck between two ACFs, and wanted the Playground's opinion on them.

The first one is called Spell Shield from Dungeonscape. When you take hit point damage, you can use an immediate action to reduce it by five times the spell slot you gave up. Downside is you have to make a Concentration check equal to 15+spell level and can only do that to one source of the damage.

The second is focus caster from dragon magazine 348. It gives me a item that gives me bonuses to spells of a certain school, and the item costs 10% less XP to enchant. Since I'm going into Malconvoker, I'm picking the Conjuration item(usually a quarterstaff), which gives me +1 round to conjuration spells, which increases to +2 at 7th level and +3 at 15th. Downside is I can't cast any spells without it.

I know half the playground is wondering what's wrong with me, and to take Focus Caster, but I felt like the Spell Shield might be useful, hence the hesitation.

[Snowbluff]

I think you should curl up in bed with your familiar and remind it that you love it. T.T

Support abandoned familiars!

Seriously, those 2 options are awful.

[Eloel]

I'd get Forlorn flaw and grab the feat. Even trade, except your familiar is now bound by character level instead of sorcerer level.

[Hellborn_Blight]

If it has to be between those two, I'd of course go with Focus Caster, but I would suggest Divine Companion from pg. 51 of Complete Champion as an alternative. I've seen that thing save a players life more than once and is at bare minimum a better defensive alternative to spell shield.

[NeoPhoenix0]

i'll be honest here, the only time i get rid of my familiar is when i want to get metamagic specialist from phb2 because i'm too feat starved to get the much nicer rapid metamagic feat, or to get the familiar by feat so it keeps scaling after i get a prestige class (those builds with level one familiars are just sad, but i still had my very useful level 1 buddy).

personally i'm not a fan of either of those options, maybe you can save yourself a feat? but if your just trying to get a scaling familiar maybe look at divine companion like Hellborn_Blight suggests? but between those two i would rather use spell shield to avoid unwanted side effects.

[atemu1234]

I'd get Forlorn flaw and grab the feat. Even trade, except your familiar is now bound by character level instead of sorcerer level.

Yep. If Dragmag is on the table, do this.