Some problems with Carnivalist

[Rezialn]

Carnivalist is super cool because I get a familiar as a rogue and the familiar can do sneak attacks. That's rad. What is not rad is Pet Performance. I don't want to be a rogue/bard. I want to be a rogue with a cool familiar that can do sneak attacks. What can I about this?

[Gallowglass]

well, IMO, the attraction of the carnivalist is the built in flank buddy with both of you doing sneak attack damage. The detraction is that anybody who fights you is going to be smart enough to kill the much more fragile badger or seal rather than targetting you and you'll be out a "familiar" in each combat. Hope you have a bunch of trained seals in standby.

I would just "refluff" pet performance to something less bard-like if I was you. Instead of "pet performance" call it "pet larceny" or something. The point is you are using your handle animal to get the pet to distract or fascinate an opponent to make it easier for you to sneak attack or pick their pocket OR you are handling the animal to do the pick pocket or lock picking themselves. That seems pretty useful and its only bard-like if you think it is bard-like. They don't have the "buff" abilities of the bard, just the "debuff" abilities.

Otherwise, there is no by the book way to "deal with it" but you could try to talk your GM into letting you swap out the pet performance for some other archtype feature that replaces your rogue talents at 2nd, 4th and 6th level. That's not kosher by what archtypes are meant for, but that's between you and your table. IMO, you aren't going to find any as versatile as what you are junking.

[Geddy2112]

I don't see how this is a problem...you are not a bard at all. You use handle animal for a perform check-bards usually use perform for a handle animal check.

You don't use distraction and fascinate to entertain, you use it to pull off some underhanded tricks- like having your familiar sneak ahead, or then switching to trained legerdemain and having your familiar pick the pocket of the derps you just fascinated, or distracted from the lame wizard magic show.

Okay, sure, losing rogue talents for distraction is sad, but fascinate is solid and trained legerdemain is flat out amazing. If you ask your DM, they might drop those or make them optional.