D&D 4E 4e Familiars more than just a skill buff ?

[Klaus]

I'd like to see options for tiny dragons and faeries that can be familiars. I've wanted to make a fey-inspired bard with a brownie familiar for a while.

 

[Driddle]

I've decided that I'm the only person who can play familiars correctly. I've asked WotC to not include familiar material in the next edition so that I can keep them all to myself. I'll have a special Driddle-only rules supplement. I may share with some of you if you ask nicely and confirm that you're ready for the responsibility.

 

[Cadfan]

It doesn't matter to me what you do with familiars unless you fix the whole dying thing.

I'm just not interested in any of the solutions I've seen so far.

I don't want serial familiars. If I have a familiar, I want to keep it for the long term.

I don't want a solution that involves the DM voluntarily being nice and not killing my familiar, and forgetting to notice my familiar's presence in the blast radius when fireballs go off.

I don't want a solution that involves making the familiar relatively tough, because eventually that plan will fail and the familiar will die anyways.

Give me familiars that don't croak, and I'll use them. I don't know how that can be done, but its what I want.

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

Maybe treat the familiar as a "spirit" creature with a physical form that's more closely connected with the PC than under 3e rules. When the physical form is "killed" it remains a noncorporeal spirit and after some appropriate delay time reconstitutes its physical body? That way strictly speaking it doesn't really die, treat them more like those companion animal-spirits from the Golden Compass series, a physically expressed spiritual extension of the character.

 

[Ahglock]

Maybe treat the familiar as a "spirit" creature with a physical form that's more closely connected with the PC than under 3e rules. When the physical form is "killed" it remains a noncorporeal spirit and after some appropriate delay time reconstitutes its physical body? That way strictly speaking it doesn't really die, treat them more like those companion animal-spirits from the Golden Compass series, a physically expressed spiritual extension of the character.

Something like that is the only way I'd take a familiar, and even then I'm upset when its the default the wizards get them because I don't want to have to have one to be up to snuff.

Two things I could see working to make them kind of cool.

1. Make it a conjuration not summoning so its just dispersed for 24 hours when killed.

2. If it could be used as a substitute for relic/item thingy, the rod, wand, tome, staff or whatever they were.

 

[Driddle]

It doesn't matter to me what you do with familiars unless you fix the whole dying thing.

I'm just not interested in any of the solutions I've seen so far.

I don't want serial familiars. If I have a familiar, I want to keep it for the long term.

I hear ya. Heck, druids/rangers get to replace their animal companions right away if they die. Doesn't seem fair.

As I said earlier in this thread, for all intents and purposes a familiar is very much like a permanent cantrip (not a combat machine). There's no reason that a death situation should be such a massive penalty.

 

[Klaus]

It doesn't matter to me what you do with familiars unless you fix the whole dying thing.

I'm just not interested in any of the solutions I've seen so far.

I don't want serial familiars. If I have a familiar, I want to keep it for the long term.

I don't want a solution that involves the DM voluntarily being nice and not killing my familiar, and forgetting to notice my familiar's presence in the blast radius when fireballs go off.

I don't want a solution that involves making the familiar relatively tough, because eventually that plan will fail and the familiar will die anyways.

Give me familiars that don't croak, and I'll use them. I don't know how that can be done, but its what I want.

Enter the raven harrier ability of the Knight of the Raven (a PrClass from Expedition to Castle Ravenloft). It's a celestial raven that, if "killed", reforms again at the next dawn. Its abilities include lowering an enemy's AC, spellcasting and other things, delivering spells and letting the Knight see through their eyes.