The latest release in the Encyclopaedia Arcane series, Familiars (Crouching Monkey, Hidden Toad), on first glance seems to be a pretty decent product. I can recommend its purchase for most players.
Good stuff:
1. Higher-level familiars. I know a lot of people will appreciate being able to bond to a tougher critter. (Although I like the idea of even a 20th level mage still talking with his best-buddy toad.)
2. "Infusion paths," or alternative familiar ability progression tables. You're already familiar with the traditional progression: Touch, speak with master, speak with creatures, spell resistance, scry, etc. Well, this option allows for a mage to "specialize" his familiar, of a sort. An Envoy familiar, for example, will pick up a bonus language when the mage is 5-6 levels, while a Guardian familiar will instead pick up the ability to "Find Master" at the same point of progression. Nifty idea.
3. Variant familiar types, allowing for construct familiars, plant(?) familiars, aberration familiars, and the like. The author chose to take the route of special spells for these familiars instead of feat substitutions, but interestingly enough a feat is available that serves the same purpose.
4. Feats, including my fave, Extra Familiar. Unbroken Bond is pretty cool, too, allowing a familiar to continue to advance in his own abilities when a mage is advancing in an arcane prestige class.
5. Prestige classes. This is almost required anymore. If a supplement doesn't have a prestige class, it's not really D&D, right?
Only a few problems come immediately to mind (and some of you may disagree that they're important at all):
1. The choice of familiars in the big list -- No matter how hard a publisher tries, he's always gonna miss out on someone's *favorite* animal. In my case, I consider it a glaring error that they did not include squirrel or fox references, but somehow thought three separate entries for centipedes were more valuable. I also have to wonder how an orcs and lizard folk made the list, but humans, dwarves, kobolds and so many other races were left out.
2. The benefits, or "boons," attached to each familiar -- I'm not quite sure that most people imagine a camel as a particularly agile or graceful creature, so I have to wonder how a +2 Reflex save came to be attached to it. I'm not going to argue the logic of a +2 Fortitude save for a horse, +2 Sense Motive for a pegagus, and a +2 Survival skill for a unicorn ... horse sense; go figure. But I do wonder why they chose to deviate from fairly logical material already published in Dragon magazine articles (issue #280, for example, "A Little More Familiar") in which a dog familiar granted a +2 Sense Motive boon and a Racoon granted a +2 Pick Pockets boon. This Mongoose product gives racoons a +3 Reflex and Hide bonus, and gives dogs a +2 Constitution boon. Meanwhile, a riding dog gets a +2 Reflex boon. In this supplement, too, the raven grants a +3 Appraise boon instead of the standard PHB ability of speaking a language.
3. Who determines a familiar's boon -- To the author's benefit, he does allow for a choice of boons for any particular familiar. Most people would agree that a cat can be quite stealthy (+3 Move Silently boon?) and quick on its feet (+2 Reflex?), and either aspect would be appropriate for a cat familiar. But it would have been nice to place that decision firmly in the grasp of the DM (with player's approval) or player (with DM's approval). A lot of gamers need a default judgment call like that to rely on.
The second and third gripes above are linked, of course. A supplement like this is going to fall short of listing every possible animal and boon combination. But, still, you like to see certain details actually published in ink so it's official and not just penciled in the margins of a character sheet. It would have been nice to have stressed at least once or twice that these are merely examples and should be modified as necessary.
Overall, though, a good resource and worth $15. (Definitely worth $13.50 if your game shop manager gives you the standard 10 percent favored customer discount!)
And to those of you who were wondering: A tyrannosaurus familiar grants a +2 Fortitude save boon, while a penguin grants +2 Wisdom and Swim. It's not enough that the former can already eat your enemies and the latter can make them roll up in a ball, giggling...
Good stuff:
1. Higher-level familiars. I know a lot of people will appreciate being able to bond to a tougher critter. (Although I like the idea of even a 20th level mage still talking with his best-buddy toad.)
2. "Infusion paths," or alternative familiar ability progression tables. You're already familiar with the traditional progression: Touch, speak with master, speak with creatures, spell resistance, scry, etc. Well, this option allows for a mage to "specialize" his familiar, of a sort. An Envoy familiar, for example, will pick up a bonus language when the mage is 5-6 levels, while a Guardian familiar will instead pick up the ability to "Find Master" at the same point of progression. Nifty idea.
3. Variant familiar types, allowing for construct familiars, plant(?) familiars, aberration familiars, and the like. The author chose to take the route of special spells for these familiars instead of feat substitutions, but interestingly enough a feat is available that serves the same purpose.
4. Feats, including my fave, Extra Familiar. Unbroken Bond is pretty cool, too, allowing a familiar to continue to advance in his own abilities when a mage is advancing in an arcane prestige class.
5. Prestige classes. This is almost required anymore. If a supplement doesn't have a prestige class, it's not really D&D, right?
Only a few problems come immediately to mind (and some of you may disagree that they're important at all):
1. The choice of familiars in the big list -- No matter how hard a publisher tries, he's always gonna miss out on someone's *favorite* animal. In my case, I consider it a glaring error that they did not include squirrel or fox references, but somehow thought three separate entries for centipedes were more valuable. I also have to wonder how an orcs and lizard folk made the list, but humans, dwarves, kobolds and so many other races were left out.
2. The benefits, or "boons," attached to each familiar -- I'm not quite sure that most people imagine a camel as a particularly agile or graceful creature, so I have to wonder how a +2 Reflex save came to be attached to it. I'm not going to argue the logic of a +2 Fortitude save for a horse, +2 Sense Motive for a pegagus, and a +2 Survival skill for a unicorn ... horse sense; go figure. But I do wonder why they chose to deviate from fairly logical material already published in Dragon magazine articles (issue #280, for example, "A Little More Familiar") in which a dog familiar granted a +2 Sense Motive boon and a Racoon granted a +2 Pick Pockets boon. This Mongoose product gives racoons a +3 Reflex and Hide bonus, and gives dogs a +2 Constitution boon. Meanwhile, a riding dog gets a +2 Reflex boon. In this supplement, too, the raven grants a +3 Appraise boon instead of the standard PHB ability of speaking a language.
3. Who determines a familiar's boon -- To the author's benefit, he does allow for a choice of boons for any particular familiar. Most people would agree that a cat can be quite stealthy (+3 Move Silently boon?) and quick on its feet (+2 Reflex?), and either aspect would be appropriate for a cat familiar. But it would have been nice to place that decision firmly in the grasp of the DM (with player's approval) or player (with DM's approval). A lot of gamers need a default judgment call like that to rely on.
The second and third gripes above are linked, of course. A supplement like this is going to fall short of listing every possible animal and boon combination. But, still, you like to see certain details actually published in ink so it's official and not just penciled in the margins of a character sheet. It would have been nice to have stressed at least once or twice that these are merely examples and should be modified as necessary.
Overall, though, a good resource and worth $15. (Definitely worth $13.50 if your game shop manager gives you the standard 10 percent favored customer discount!)
And to those of you who were wondering: A tyrannosaurus familiar grants a +2 Fortitude save boon, while a penguin grants +2 Wisdom and Swim. It's not enough that the former can already eat your enemies and the latter can make them roll up in a ball, giggling...
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