Raven familiar can speak!?

[FireLance]

You got it in reverse. It's the Speak Language skill. Your raven could speak them, just not necessarily understand them!

You know, I just read the thread on how darkness actually creates shadowy illumination. What was your point again?

 

[Angel Tarragon]

Argo hit the nail on the head.

 

[Orm]

Fun thing: the raven is supposed to speak only one language that you know, but it shares your skills, so if you bought any language with the Speak Language skill, your raven benefit from it, too.

Nice trick, but:

A raven familiar can speak one language of its master’s choice as a supernatural ability.

emphasis mine.

 

[Gez]

Fun thing: the raven is supposed to speak only one language that you know, but it shares your skills, so if you bought any language with the Speak Language skill, your raven benefit from it, too.

Emphasis mine.

 

[Pickaxe]

Fun thing: the raven is supposed to speak only one language that you know, but it shares your skills, so if you bought any language with the Speak Language skill, your raven benefit from it, too.

I'm not sure that's right. A familiar can use the master's ranks in skills in which the master has ranks. Speak Language has no ranks; instead, you "buy" a language with skill points, the same way you'd buy ranks for a regular skill. Since there are no ranks in Speak Language, there's nothing for the familiar to "share", so familiars (of any type) don't automatically gain languages bought by their masters. After all, if you could do this, why couldn't you do it for any familiar (making the raven's special ability far less special)?

--Axe

 

[Orm]

I'm not sure that's right. A familiar can use the master's ranks in skills in which the master has ranks. Speak Language has no ranks; instead, you "buy" a language with skill points, the same way you'd buy ranks for a regular skill. Since there are no ranks in Speak Language, there's nothing for the familiar to "share", so familiars (of any type) don't automatically gain languages bought by their masters. After all, if you could do this, why couldn't you do it for any familiar (making the raven's special ability far less special)?

--Axe

Good explanation

 

[just__al]

So ,if you are a warlock with the acquire familiar feat and you have a raven and YOU have maxed out your UMD skill, what's to keep the Raven from using your spare wand of Fireball?

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

So ,if you are a warlock with the acquire familiar feat and you have a raven and YOU have maxed out your UMD skill, what's to keep the Raven from using your spare wand of Fireball?

Well, pistol-totin' ravens make excellent skeet-shoot targets ...

Otherwise, not much.

 

[Squire James]

Normally, I as a DM don't mess with familiars as long as they stay out of combat. The more "in combat" they become, the more hostile attention they get. That raven with the Wand of Fireballs is likely to become a priority target, and the stats of familiars tend to be bad enough that such familiars get killed a lot in "balanced" combats (given most PC's are level 10 by the time they get hold of multiple Wands of Fireballs).

On the other hand, that frog that just sits there and give his master 3 hp just doesn't get much attention... I often forget to ask the wizard to roll a save for his familiar.