Familiar experience

[hwttdz]

How is experience and leveling up handled for familiars. My character is currently a ranger, archer type, and I just recieved my animal companion, took a bear. I'm thinking about taking a level of mage or sorcerer to get a familiar and also so I can take a level of arcane archer for the enchanted arrows, but my question is, is the familiar very weak at first level, and do they level up? also is my animal companion going to level up? does the animal companion level up only when I take a ranger level? Thanks a bunch.

[swcarter]

I'm not sure how it works with rangers, but with sorcerers and wizards, the familiar level is the same as the number of levels you have in your sorcerer / wizard class (you get to pick a new familiar each time you level up, but your "new" familiar can be the same as your old one, just a level higher). So if you're going to take a level of wizard to become an arcane archer, then your familiar won't help you much.

SWC

[Prince David]

Key point is that the familiar level matches your wizard/sorcerer level, so multi-class characters don't get to "level-up" their familiar when they level-up their non-wizard class.