What's giving up a familiar worth?

[Rhun]

I allow my players to trade their familiar for a feat. I'm definitely an anti-pet DM.

 

[frankthedm]

I would probably allow a number of different feats in exchange, possibly two feats. Another good option, is the Staff option that was located in a relatively recent Dragon Magazine. It exchanges familiars for a 'signature' staff that can produce special effects, effectively a Staff-Familiar (and gains additional hardness/hp as the caster increases in level). It even forms the basis for an additional feat tree based on the staff.

That staff is pretty well balanced... but that balance is achieved at a horrific cost.

The article's purpose is to place the wizards staff in the archtype role it has in mythic history and fiction, rather than the spell battery the D&D ruleset makes them. A noble goal and one the article does well.

But drawback is when the staff gets sundered, the XP hit is 500 per caster level save for half IIRC.

Plus, unless all wizards and sorcs in a world get bonuses from their staffs, an opponent would still need a reason to sunder the staff... rather than, say, the wizard or sorc.

Yeah, sundering a wizard's staff should not be high on the list of your average non-metagaming opponent.

Do either of you remember the dragon magazine article that had the staff familiar rules in it? The Article's main goal was to represent the staff's role in the rules as it was in fiction, history, myth and legend. That means that the majority of npc’s will know more erroneous and exaggerated myths than the actual effects the loss of the staff will cause.

Knowledge: Local will tell NPCs of legends and let them tell their children old wives tales of spell casters being weakened by the destruction of their staves.
Knowledge: History will tell NPCs of world spanning wars of wizards seeking their staves back
Knowledge: Arcana will tell NPCs how rude breaking a wizards staff is and that doing so is asking for the worst fate that caster can conjure up.

Yeah, I can just see thugs jumping at the chance to earn the ultimate ire of a powerful wizard.

An thats the rub, the thugs have little access to arcana. Local; likely, History: remote chance if they have listened to a few bard songs but arcana is simply too esoteric.

So they heard the legends of the Resurrected White Wizard breaking the Rainbow wizard’s staff, but they don’t know the ins and outs of the mechanics of what that did.

 

[Klaus]

I agree that it's worth a feat, but not for that reason.

Having a familiar gives you:
A slightly reduced version of Alertness.
A bonus that is exactly identical to a feat (+2 reflex is Lightning Reflexes, +3 HP is Toughness, etc...).
Ability to deliver touch attacks via familiar, use the familiar to spy/scout and several other things that don't get used too often.
The weakness of possibly loosing the familiar and being penalized for it.

I'd say the last two cancel out, so that's like 1 and 3/4 feats of bonus. They're weak feats, so let's just call that one decent feat. I allow my PCs to trade it for any wizard feat.

In most games I'm in, people only use familiars for the alertness and psuedo-feat bonuses, not for anything else. They hide the familiar in their pocket and pretend they don't exist so they don't get killed. As both a player and a GM, I'd rather just get a regular feat in place of the walking target that is a familiar.

You're forgetting that the familiar has the same ranks the master has, so a familiar is practically a garanteed Aid Another +2 bonus to any skill check the master tries.

 

[irdeggman]

That staff is pretty well balanced... but that balance is achieved at a horrific cost.

Yup - I had a player work it out wiht me to go that route. It was a hefty investment to obtain that staff familiar. A 1st level Pc could never afford it and a 2nd level probably couldn't either (depends on how much treasure they find).

The article's purpose is to place the wizards staff in the archtype role it has in mythic history and fiction, rather than the spell battery the D&D ruleset makes them. A noble goal and one the article does well.

But drawback is when the staff gets sundered, the XP hit is 500 per caster level save for half IIRC. Do either of you remember the dragon magazine article that had the staff familiar rules in it? The Article's main goal was to represent the staff's role in the rules as it was in fiction, history, myth and legend. That means that the majority of npc’s will know more erroneous and exaggerated myths than the actual effects the loss of the staff will cause.

I'll have to look it up at home.

But the article was actually something like Staves of the Magi or something like that. It featured several different types of wizard staves. One of them was the staff familiar.

 

[Chupacabra]

I don't think the player is totally trying to min/max. He simply doesn't want to keep track of a familiar. He (and I too) always found it humorous in the other campaign that we are both players in the arcane caster seems to always forget that he has a familiar:
Fighter: "Hey Wizard, where is that Raven of yours?"
Wizard: "Oh right, he's been here flying by me the whole time." (POP!)
Cleric: "You mean while we got hit with the Ice Storm. While we swam underwater. While we presented ourselves to the King in his audience chambers?"
Wizard: (sheepishly) "....uh, yeah...exactly"

Kinda like Varsuvias (sp?) in Order of the Stick comic whos familiar only shows up when necessary and then pops out of existance when the plot does not call for it. He wanted to avoid that scenario.

If I felt that he was asking for too much or it was simply a out-and-out power grab I'd tell him heck no. One extra arcane-esque feat ain't gonna break the campaign.

 

[pallandrome]

Personally, I use my familiar as a scout and messenger. Cecil speaks common, can fly, and can see quite well at night. He is also a pretty good long range bombardier, and invaluable as a mobile scrying censor. There isn't a feat in the game that I would trade him for.

 

[atomn]

Do either of you remember the dragon magazine article that had the staff familiar rules in it?

I believe it was Dragon 338.

 

[irdeggman]

Yup, Dragon 338 and the article was Staffs of the Magi.

It had to do with "Imbuing your staff".

One of the options was a staff familiar.

Some of the others were:

Enchant Staff
Invest Spell
Imbued Defense
Imbued Strength
Recharge Staff

Basically they were wizard feats that allowed certain things.

 

[XO]

Buy the Numbers

Spencer Cooley's "Buy the Numbers" http://www.stcooleypublishing.com/

Provides an excellent basis for comparison when swapping bits and pieces, or creating whole classes.

 

[green slime]

I'd say it was about equivalent to a feat. I'd have no qualms about swaping it out.