Familiar (Witch)

Your patron has sent you a familiar, a mystical creature that teaches you magic and facilitates your spells. This familiar follows the rules for familiars, though as it’s a direct conduit between you and your patron, it’s more powerful than typical familiars. Your familiar gains two additional familiar abilities: one of these is a unique ability based on your patron and is always selected, and the other is an additional familiar ability that can be selected daily as normal. Your familiar gains another extra ability at 6th, 12th, and 18th levels.

Spells: Your familiar is the source and repository of the spells your patron has bestowed upon you, and you must commune with your familiar to prepare your spells each day using your witch spellcasting. Your familiar starts off knowing 10 cantrips, five 1st-rank spells, and one additional spell determined by your patron’s initial lesson. You choose these spells from the common spells of the tradition determined by your patron or from other spells of that tradition you gain access to. Each time you gain a level, your patron teaches your familiar two new spells of any rank for which you have spell slots, chosen from common spells of your tradition or others you gain access to. Feats can also grant your familiar additional spells.

Learning Spells: Your familiar can learn new spells independently of your patron. It can learn any spell on your tradition’s spell list by physically consuming a written version of that spell over the course of 1 hour. This can be a scroll of that spell, or you can prepare a written version using the Learn a Spell exploration activity. You and your familiar can use the Learn a Spell activity to teach your familiar a spell from another witch’s familiar. Both familiars must be present for the entirety of the activity, the spell must be on your spellcasting tradition’s spell list, and you must pay the usual cost for that activity, typically in the form of an offering to the other familiar’s patron. You can’t prepare spells from another witch’s familiar.

Undying: If your familiar dies, your patron replaces it during your next daily preparations. The new familiar might be a duplicate or reincarnation of your former familiar or a new entity altogether, but it knows the same spells your former familiar knew regardless. Your familiar’s death doesn’t affect any spells you have already prepared.