RolandOfGilead said:
Alz - at that level I'd expect a wizard bothering to spellstich his familiar to give it a +3 tome of understanding (making his wisdom a 15 -- allowing him to have preprogrammed 4th level spells)
You're probably right. As it stands, any 20th level arcane spellcaster would probably have many, many more options for adding new, permanent effects to buff their familiar with. I simply wanted to present a generic example of a modified familiar (well, as generic as making it fiendish, undead, and spellstitched, when it was already an imp, can be).
As it stands, if anyone wants to have it be a bit simpler, removing the Spellstitched template would just lower the saves by 2, remove the turn resistance and DR 5/magic and silver, and the 2/day SLA's, and then it's "just" a fiendish undead imp.
It's worth noting that making a familiar undead has been done thrice in three different ways:
One is the Undead Familiar feat in
Dragon #280, which offers no advantage beyond the familiar being undead (though it can be applied to any familiar, apparently).
The second is the
animate dead familiar spell above, which gives the undead familiar one special attack, and makes it immune to turning/rebuking as long as its in empathic range of its master (and can also be applied to any familiar).
The last one is the Stitched Flesh Familiar feat in
Libris Mortis. This one (being the only option here for 3.5E) limits your choices to the "standard" familiars in the PHB. It also doesn't give the familiar's normal benefits found in the second column of the table on the sidebar of page 52 of the PHB. However, it does let you control 4 more hit dice than normal of total undead you can control.
Of these three options, I think the second one is best. It applies to any familiar, with no drawbacks of any kind (save the usual in becoming undead). In truth, the limitations of the Stitched Flesh Familiar feat (that it only applies to "standard" familiars, and they give up their normal benefit for the new benefit) should probably apply to all of these options (and others from 3E), since that seems the standard for 3.5E. However, by the RAW, they don't, giving you some mean combinations.
also note a good choice for a familiar like this is Chill touch - negative energy damage it can use to heal itself (1d6 x up to 5 touches aint half bad for a first level spell)
A healing spell is good, but I felt it unnecessary here. With the ability to fly, turning
invisible, and fast healing 2, it's extremely easy for an imp to just retreat and heal up quickly. A healing spell seemed unnecessary.