D&D 4E 4e homebrew familiars

[unan oranis]

It looks like they're trying to appeal to harry potter fans with the artwork of wizards pointing so many wands all around, you think they would have done something for familiars and animal companions!

Has there been a good system homebrewed by someone here?

Granted that no solid wizard/warlock familiar system can really be hammered out until we have the 4e books, but they are such an important part of my campaign world I'd like to have something on day 1.

After reading the designers notes about why they haven't included familiars, I've come up with some concepts that might fit in with 4e's design.


1. The familiar is so spiritually bound to its master that they are in fact one being. The familiars hit points, armor class, status etc are allways the same as the wizard whom it belongs to. If the familiar takes damage, the wizard takes damage and vice versa.

2. Instead of rolling to attack, the familiar automaticly does its masters ability modifier (charisma?) as physical damage. The familiar may not attack unless it occupies its own square (no snarling weasels from within the wizards robes trying to bite adjacent foes like a chest-burster alien).

3. The familiar has only one standard action, and allways goes on the same iniative as its master. The master can "give" his own actions to the familiar (let the familiar use his move action for example).

4. Gaining a familiar costs a feat. A choice of 6-10 classic tropes, each with a special ability. Could be as simple as a skill boost, or something a little more complicated and unique like : OWLS WISDOM: "choose an x-level encounter spell for your owl to "hold". If you have not used an x-leveled encounter spell yet today, you may trade one of them for the one your owl is "holding"
... something like that anyway.


The main concern apparantly is that the character with the familiar gets a whole extra turn when their initiative comes up.

The "automatic hit + attribute bonus as damage" vs "one more square that can be targeted to hit the arcane caster" may or may not be balanced, though I couldn't guess which one is harsher given the number of area of effect and cleave like abilities flying around.



Point me to a good kludge if you see one.

--

unan

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

As far as I know no-one has homebrewed any familiar rules yet - can I ask for a little more detail as to why they're so important to your world?

IME, familiars have suffered from the "invisibles" problem - familiars are only used when they're needed, and the rest of the time they don't exist at all. Particularly if they might die (eg the mage is hit by a fireball) as the penalties of the familiar dying were quite severe.

 

[1of3]

I'd rather not let the character trade his actions, and I'd let the familiar roll attacks.
Damage equal to Cha mod +1 sound good. That's about what a minion would do.

Familiar bonuses might be fine through additional feats. Otherwise you have a small useful scout and a bonus that one might get as a simple feat.

IME, familiars have suffered from the "invisibles" problem - familiars are only used when they're needed, and the rest of the time they don't exist at all. Particularly if they might die (eg the mage is hit by a fireball) as the penalties of the familiar dying were quite severe.

That problem is less severe, when the Familiar is a feat. In that case only people who really care will take a familiar.

Also the idea of a single HP pool for character and familiar could solve the fireball problem. Targetting the pool only once would be the same as targetting a large creature only once.

 

[Xanaqui]

I'm unclear as to what you're looking from from familiars, but the easiest way to solve the combat issues is to make familiars non-combatants.

Anther solution would be to have them only attack during a Wizard's basic melee attack, and to just add damage (+2? +Cha mod?) to the Wizard's basic melee attack on a hit. Since the Wizard's basic melee attack is sub-optimal in most cases, improving it slightly shouldn't be a problem.

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

Anther solution would be to have them only attack during a Wizard's basic melee attack, and to just add damage (+2? +Cha mod?) to the Wizard's basic melee attack on a hit. Since the Wizard's basic melee attack is sub-optimal in most cases, improving it slightly shouldn't be a problem.

That I could see. Using feat to gain some bonus damage makes sense, and then further feats could give the familiar other powers - I could get behind that, so long as we don't end up with the wizard in questions gaining extra actions.

 

[unan oranis]

As far as I know no-one has homebrewed any familiar rules yet - can I ask for a little more detail as to why they're so important to your world?

IME, familiars have suffered from the "invisibles" problem - familiars are only used when they're needed, and the rest of the time they don't exist at all. Particularly if they might die (eg the mage is hit by a fireball) as the penalties of the familiar dying were quite severe.

Tallarn;

You are right, most campaigns seem to forget their familiars most of the time. Between that and the pacing complications of having a player dictate two sets of actions for basicly two characters, I understand the designers turfing them.

OTOH, I doubt they are getting rid of summon monster spells, but perhaps they've made them one-at-a-time and full concentration required?

In any case, I've allways treated famliars as npc's. Give them a few personality traits, and you have a great opportunity to throw in excellent role play. The cute animal side kick routine is something most players will sympathise with, and usually generates more empathy than other npcs such as princesses and small villages that need rescueing etc.

Probably another reason familiars/animal companions aren't more popular in earlier versions of dnd is that they were mostly a liability... they didn't really do much for you (especially at higher levels).

In my campaign, we've got a list of hundreds of animal followers, and a special animal "class" so they level as you do and remain important and an asset through your characters career.

My players and I will want them, so I'm gonna make some kind of go at it.

--

unan

 

[unan oranis]

I'd rather not let the character trade his actions, and I'd let the familiar roll attacks.

Damage equal to Cha mod +1 sound good. That's about what a minion would do.

Familiar bonuses might be fine through additional feats. Otherwise you have a small useful scout and a bonus that one might get as a simple feat.

That problem is less severe, when the Familiar is a feat. In that case only people who really care will take a familiar.

Also the idea of a single HP pool for character and familiar could solve the fireball problem. Targetting the pool only once would be the same as targetting a large creature only once.

Those are excellent suggestions, thank you. I will use that as a starting point, and create special feat trees for any wizard/warlock interested.

The familiar grows stronger as the wizard does (shared hp and cha bonus), you've got a handy tool with some additional small bonuses relevent to the animal chosen, all in exhchange for a bit more vulnerability and a feat. Sounds good to me.

--

unan

 

[Fallen Seraph]

This was in response to a thread dealing with a Ranger's Animal Companion, but I think my idea could apply here:

I think an animal companion for a Ranger could work as something you gain as a Paragon Path.

I could see it being you pick out your animal companion, lets say in this case a rottweiler. By choosing a rottweiler you gain access to a series of minor-powers (takes a minor-action) which are essentially commands.

Once you use these at-will, minor-powers the animal companion goes about trying to complete it. Each command would be a power onto itself, that either the DM or Player rolls for the animal.

Each animal would have access to its own selection of commands (some would be generic that all would receive).

For the rottweiler they can be things like:

-Tracking a target.
-Threatening a target (you gain combat advantage).
-Throat attack (may cause wounding damage).
-Guard target.

To keep an animal companion focused on a task, each round you must reinforce it with the same command (when in situations without initiative/rounds it is considered implied that you are doing so).

 

[Mr. Teapot]

Easier and more balanced familiar houserules:

1) Take the Mage Hand cantrip. This represents any times the familiar fetches items for you or otherwise manipulates the environment around you.

and/or

2) familiars replace implements, but have the same effect. A hawk or raven familiar gives you the superior accuracy that a wand gives you. An owl or cat gives you the effect of and orb, and a rat or weasel or other things give the effects of staves. (Or some other configuration of familiars and appropriate effects; since we've only seen the one pregen wizard and a weirdly rewritten article, I'm not clear on these implements and their effects.)


Presto. You still have familiars in the game until the designers actually write some decent rules for it. I certainly don't feel comfortable doing any more houseruling than that until I have, you know, seen the rules I'm modifying. And I think any more drastic houserules are probably in danger of being quite abusable.

 

[ShadowyFigure]

Spider Mount rules by a freind of mine. Here it improves as the spider rider does.