Tiny air elemental familiar?

[Ambrus]

My DM has graciously accepted to consider allowing my 1st level sorcerer character to take a tiny-sized gimped air elemental as a familiar. The plan is to advance the elemental to a standard small-sized elemental once I take the improved familiar feat at 5th level. As such, I've tried stating out a tiny air elemental, taking away one of its bonus feats, reducing its ability scores, and dispensing with its additional hit dice, skill points and special abilities as detailed below. My question, does this seem comparable to a standard animal familiar? It's main benefits is the ability to speak one language (auran) much as a raven and its darkvision 60 ft. comparable to a bat's blindsense. To try and balance it out, it also wouldn't grant any skill bonuses to my sorcerer. Is it still too strong or just right?

Tiny Air Elemental
N Tiny outsider (air, elemental, extraplanar)
Init +2; Senses darkvision 60 ft.; Perception +4
Defense
AC 16, touch 14, flat-footed 14 (+2 Dex, +2 natural, +2 size)
hp 6 (1d10+1)
Fort +3, Ref +4, Will +0
Defensive Abilities air mastery; Immune elemental traits
Offense
Speed fly 60 ft. (perfect)
Melee slam +5 (1d3–2)
Statistics
Str 6, Dex 15, Con 12, Int 2, Wis 11, Cha 11
Base Atk +1; CMB –3; CMD 7
Feats Flyby Attack, Weapon FinesseB
Skills Fly +14, Stealth +14

 

[freyar]

That's probably pretty reasonable. I'm not sure you even need to drop the skill bonus, as a viper or weasel are probably just as good.

 

[Ambrus]

I figure that between the darkvision, the ability to speak and the general usefulness of a creature able to pick up and manipulate objects that that might set it slightly ahead of other familiars so loosing out on a skill boost would be a reasonable concession. Also, since an improved familiar grants no skill bonuses it'd seem easier to simply nix the bonus outright than to later take it away.

 

[freyar]

That makes sense to me, especially about not wanting to change the bonus later.

 

[falcarrion]

as long as you name it "Puff". It looks good to me.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

What about "Pssst!"?

 

[crazy_monkey1956]

I can see doing this with other elementals as well.

An Earth Elemental familiar would make a perfect pet rock.

 

[freyar]

I was thinking last night that the elemental gen from the shair class in Dragon Compendium v1 would be good candidates to "Pathfinderize" for this sort of purpose. But I didn't get a chance to look over them again.

 

[Ambrus]

I can see doing this with other elementals as well. An Earth Elemental familiar would make a perfect pet rock.

Easily. I did something similar for a player in my last campaign. I started him out with a bat-winged snake (no venom) that slowly morphed into a pseudodragon by 7th level. This approach seems much more palatable to me to allow arcane PCs to enjoy the benefits of a familiar at low levels before taking an improved familiar at 3rd, 5th, or 7th level. It certainly seems preferable to missing out on a primary class ability for a significant portion of one's adventuring career or of callously dismissing one's initial familiar so as to gain an improved version. Poor forlorn familiars...

An Earth Elemental familiar would make a perfect pet rock.

That'd be kinda awesome. Imagine a mage pulling a rock out of his pocket and quietly asking it to take a peek before pushing it through seemingly solid stone wall.

What about "Pssst!"?

Is that supposed to be a farting noise?

 

[Ambrus]

I was thinking last night that the elemental gen from the shair class in Dragon Compendium v1 would be good candidates to "Pathfinderize" for this sort of purpose. But I didn't get a chance to look over them again.

I sort of always liked the idea of the gen. To me it always seemed like a missed opportunity that familiars weren't directly involved in a mage's spellcasting as the gen were in the Al-Kadim setting. Isn't teaching/providing magic the traditional purpose of familiars?