Death, Reincarnation and Familiars...

[FCWesel]

Okay.

Wizard-type has familiar.
Wizard dies. Familiar changes back to normal animal.
Wizard gets reincarnated.

What happens to the ex-familiar? Does it suddenly return into a familiar, or does the Wizard have to redo the familiar ceremony?

Does the wizard have to wait a year? (I would say no.)

Any thoughts or ideas?

 

[Wolfwood2]

Okay.

Wizard-type has familiar.
Wizard dies. Familiar changes back to normal animal.
Wizard gets reincarnated.

What happens to the ex-familiar? Does it suddenly return into a familiar, or does the Wizard have to redo the familiar ceremony?

Does the wizard have to wait a year? (I would say no.)

Any thoughts or ideas?

Nothing in the rules says that the familiar changes back to a normal animal when the wizard dies.

Now one might assume it to be so, but ask yourself which has the more interesting potential for adventures.

"You're all in a bar when a cat dragging a paper and piece of chalk in its mouth approaches you. It laboriously sketches out the words, 'Get master's body, Raise him, great reward!'"

 

[Bad Paper]

Our rule is that the familiar remains a magical beast for one day per level of master's class. So a Wiz14 has two weeks, but a Wiz2/Fig12 has two days.

I also applied this to animal companions, in a way. When the druid was killed, her wolf shadowed the party keeping a close eye on the corpse for a few days until it was reincarnated.

 

[frankthedm]

"You're all in a bar when a cat dragging a paper and piece of chalk in its mouth approaches you. It laboriously sketches out the words, 'Get master's body, Raise him, great reward!'"

Really good idea.

 

[FCWesel]

Our rule is that the familiar remains a magical beast for one day per level of master's class. So a Wiz14 has two weeks, but a Wiz2/Fig12 has two days.

Like that idea, maybe I'll use that. Thanks for posting it.

 

[IcyCool]

Nothing in the rules says that the familiar changes back to a normal animal when the wizard dies.

Now one might assume it to be so, but ask yourself which has the more interesting potential for adventures.

"You're all in a bar when a cat dragging a paper and piece of chalk in its mouth approaches you. It laboriously sketches out the words, 'Get master's body, Raise him, great reward!'"

We used the opposite idea in a previous campaign. The characters were wandering down a side street in Sigil, and happend upon a sandwich-board sign that said "Familiar - Will work for new master." with a raven sitting on it. Turns out that the raven was a potent wizard's familiar. The wizard was a horrible person who regularly mistreated his familiar, and when some Yugoloths "collected his debt", the familiar decided it was time to find a new master quickly before his old master died and he turned back into a normal raven.

 

[Jack Simth]

Hmm... does Reincarnation do anything special to a familiar (when used on the familiar)?

Would you use the table of familiars, or of other magical beasts? Does it give the same familiar bonus, or a different one?

Could get interesting.

 

[Gerion of Mercadia]

Nothing in the rules says that the familiar changes back to a normal animal when the wizard dies.

A Familiar is a separate character from the PC, Just like a Paladin's horse. Discovering a Familiar of a very high level wizard that you need to have true resurrected for one reason or another is a nice plot hook...