Problems with Training Familiar

[Rhialto]

I have been investigating familiars. I learned about the Play action, as well as the Explore with Familiar action. So I resolved to investigate how they worked. This involved the following: I reloaded an autosave for my most socially adept character, whose familiar was Mr. Pebbles. This character had a straight 10 in the befriend skill. Then, during Kapsus, I had my character maximize the familiar kinship subskill, after which that character used the play and explore with familiar actions. The familiar indeed became more skilled, and the bond increased. However, the following problematic issues I noticed.

 

1. Despite all notices in the selection menu showing green (guaranteed success), there were times when the day's log of events showed no gain in any skill or skill step by the familiar.

2. Even when the bond was 5 and the familiar's skill in a given subskill was 4, my character's character sheet revealed no bonus provided to that character from the familiar's skill.

[Metis]

1. Familiar subskills are capped to their natural Bond parent skill level +1 (or 10, whichever is lower), so if you have a Familiar with Bond 5 no subskill of theirs will go up to level 7 or higher. This includes the Bond subskills themselves, FYI.

2. Familiar bonuses aren't listed on your character sheet, and in fact are not accounted for by the game's color-coding mechanic. A PC with Compete 10 and a Familiar with Bond/Compete 4 will be able to get the full +6 Merit from using Compete every single time, at least barring CoF% and/or debuffs, but the roll will still be listed as blue.