Ranged characters work better for party comps with good CC. Being able to put a full-sized Entangle between the party and a dangerous enemy kicks ass, unless your party members all start scrambling through the weeds to thwack enemies with big sticks.

Assurance: Medicine precludes the need to roll altogether, and honestly is a near-mandatory pick for the tabletime it saves. You might save a little in-universe time by manually rolling with a high modifier, but unless your campaign is running at breakneck pacing, the difference isn’t worth the real time spent. Recall Knowledge checks with medicine are the only reason I’d want to manually roll, and Anatomy Lore covers a huge swathe of that subject anyway.

All that to say, ehhhh its probably fine to brew up that Medicine->Anatomy Lore feat. I wouldnt reccomend doing something similar for any other skills though.

Urgathoa, but she’ll get better

IIRC, the -4 isnt worth the damage die drop, but the -8 is. It’s also worth it on specialized features that only work with agile weapons.

There is the modern zombies hack Jason Bulmahn is putting out.

I love Cast Down so much, it’s legit the only reason I’ve touched the cleric after the oracle came out.

It requires a bit of setup, but I really like a lizardfolk ranger setup that uses the Druid archetype for the lightning focus spell, Ranger’s Bramble from in-class feats, and Terrain Advantage from lizardfolk feats to really tank someone’s AC before firing off a volley.

I kind of resent how Incapacitation makes my spell lists all look the same. Fear, Command, and Slow all show up on every single spellcaster because they’re all worthwhile enemy facing spells that can change the fight, usually better than spells loaded up that incapacitate. Primal gets some neat tools, but they’re worthless if your teammates don’t care about skirmishing and only want to go in.

The idea that familiars cant activate items is so arbitrary, I let them use the alchemist’s elixirs for them since that’s arguably the primary reason an alchemist would create a familiar in the first place. And fuck it, i’ll let them reload a crossbow too, why not.

PF just isn’t built to discourage fights. Resources are easily replenished, wounds are easily cured, and consumables can patch any time limits you put in place. I’d recommend trying out some different systems with more punishing combat and more robust tools for players to avoid fights.

The trick is since Assurance ignores penalties, if you know it’ll succeed then it’ll always succeed, even if you’re at full MAP. You can also bump a higher level enemy down into the “success” zone by inflicting debuffs to their fort or reflex DCs. A fantastic combo is Intimidating Strike -> Quickened Strike -> Trip (Assurance) on a fighter, setting up your teammates and an AoO with fair reliability. It’s better to rely on your teammates to inflict greater status debuffs than Frightened 1 though.

assuming using specific familiar abilities, and assuming no specific picks or combo?

I can’t quite parse what you mean by that, do you mean with either or?

You could give it Masters Form and a shield to have it bodyblock, and Lifelink to keep it alive when it takes hits. This strategy is best used on a Champion or Monk, rather than a wizard or witch.

You can use it as a 1-day “Quicken Spell” with the Spellcasting ability.

You can load it up with Skilled (Specific Lore), Independant, and Speech abilities to act as a free-action enemy scanner.

A familiar can’t quite activate an item, but it can release an item from a high distance using Manual Dexterity + Flier, breaking open jars containing items affected by Shrink Item, or Inhaled Poisons.

If I were isekaied to Golarion with choices, i’d pick Anadi Sorcerer, and make my way through life as a spell-trader. As in, I’d trade spells known with other casters via the Arcane Weaving ritual, teaching psychics how to cast Heal, and Oracles how to cast Magic Missile, that sort of thing.

A few others I remember seeing/using at some point:

Retrieval Prism + Sturdy Shield | When you’re a fighter, champion, warpriest, or druid that gets Shield Block for free, it can feel wasteful to not include a shield into your kit. But how are you going to use that shield if you like rolling with a big sword, or a staff and scroll combo? The easy answer is by summoning the shield exactly as needed! You can take two swings of your sword, summon the shield, and raise it, all in one turn. Or you can expend that scroll, summon your shield, and raise it. Bonus combo: Greater Retrieval Prism + any scroll on your person. Completely negate the action cost of pulling out the 1st scroll in an encounter, letting you combo together 1-action spells and whatever spell would be perfect for the situation.

Shrink Item + Stupid big pot of water + Control Water | Okay, admittedly it is hard to find a big pot that can store 80 bulk worth of water, but the upside of the crafting rules being a flat 4 days to craft anything mean you can make one yourself. Shrink the 80bulk pot of water, store it in a smaller jar to preserve the spell indefinitely, and you can now summon an enormous amount of water for use with Control Water in any environment. If you play your cards right, you can bottle up another 80 bulk of water from the raised water level and use it again in another situation.

Fear + Amped Message + Dread Striker | Our rogue has the Dread Striker feat, which makes any frightened enemies flat-footed to them. Fear inflicts Frightened, and Amped Message gives the rogue a reaction to swing. If they weren’t sneak attacking before, they are now. All for 3 actions, a first level spell, and a focus point on the spellcasters turn. Simple and effective.

I’m a fan of this rework of flamestrike. AoE Holy Fire or Holy Spirit damage with a DoT can proc quite a few weaknesses and ignore a common resistance when it shows up. Seems reliable, and heightens pretty well, asuuming your GM doesn’t roll well on those persistent checks often.

Oh wow, that’s pretty handy in vanilla games if you’ve got an inventor in the party w/ the Gadget Specialist feat and a bundle of scrolls. Suddenly you can purchase a bunch of expensive gadgets for only 12gp.

They’re how spellcasters get over the fact that they only have 2-4 spells per level and maybe 5 encounters per day. Each scroll is a consumable spell slot that you can use so long as you’ve got basic spellcasting ability, even if thats just cantrips and the trained proficiency in one tradition.

Unlike in PF1e and D&D, scrolls actually use your spellcasting DC, which makes them viable in combat against enemies you’ll face in your adventures.

The lowest level ones are crazy cheap and can be applied to a wide variety of situations, so it makes sense to stock up on loads of them. When your budget for consumables is 500, why not buy a hundred lv 1 scrolls? fear, gust of wind, command, illusory object, etc. etc. can easily become as “at-will” as your cantrips.

Using it with consumables to put them in range of your teammates is a clever idea. Hopefully they don’t break on hit, or maybe hopefully they do, depending on the type of consumable. A glass flask of yellow musk poison would be pretty ideal to crack open, though an elixir of life would be rough to lose.

I would never call it a poor class, but if you want to be using magic regularly, the bill for all of the scrolls and wands you buy will make for a poor character, ehehe. That being said, all spellcasters should be buying more scrolls than they can physically carry on their person anyway, so that’s hardly a feature unique to summoners.

Something ive noticed at high levels is that although the level gap gets wider, overall toughness and utility does actually keep rising. You’re going to be hard pressed to hit anything, but ive anecdotally been able to summon monsters with key offenses that target key weaknesses to much greater effect at high level than at low level, and they often stuck around for much longer.