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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JoeGKushner" data-source="post: 2011771" data-attributes="member: 1129">Time for another dreaded Ennie review. This time around, we’ve got Dweomercraft: Familiars. This book clocks in at 124 black and white pages and I believe it runs for $19.95. Published by Dark Quest Games and written by Steeve Creech, Michael Hammes, Neal Levin, and David Woodrum, the authors bring together a ton of OGC material and make it a nearly seamless whole.Now I know, we’ve already got a book on familiars out there by Troll Lords. Well, this one takes a different route. While the Troll Lord book focused on providing some type of companion to each character class, this one works on each type of familiar. That’s not to say that it doesn’t go over races and their favored familiars and special abilities for familiars, but rather, that the focus on the book is on those different types of familiars. I’m also not saying that it doesn’t provide familiar options for the spellcasting classes, as it does, including special abilities for the familiar in levels, it’s just that’s not the focus of the book.We have other planar creatures, undead familiars, constructs, flying familiars, reptiles, rodents, vermin, exceptional beasts, monstrous humanoids, and oozes. These sections include details on the types of familiars to be found in that realm. For example, under rodents, we have everything from a mongoose to a flying squirrel. It provides a little fiction of the familiar and master, reasons to choose that type of familiar, reasons not to choose it, how to handle and care for your familiar, different notes for your familiar, and special abilities your can buy, with experience points, for your familiar.  For example, let’s say that you take an avian familiar and want to give it a little boost. You look at the avian upgrades and see, hey, Pious Beak and Sharp Beak. They sound interesting. You look it up and see that the first is 1000 experience points and the second 250, the first providing a +1 to attack and damage rolls against Evil aligned creatures and a +4 bonus against Evil domain spells. The Sharp Beak just gives a +1 to attack.Now what stops you from just loading up on your familiar? Well, you can only add so many powers at once, two powers at bonding and one power per caster level that the master gains.It’s a nice book that provides a lot of options for familiars. For those who are interested in the unusual familiar, the construct familiar might be up your ally. It has rules for how much gold and experience pints you have to spend and how long it takes to craft the familiar. Perhaps you’re more interested in a normal familiar, just not one from the Player’s Handbook. Well, they have everything from Snowshoe Hares and Penguins to Potbellied Pigs and Sloths. The best part for those fans of everything with a stat, is that these familiars also come with full game stats as well as caster benefits. One of the things that helps the book move beyond being just about familiars and boosting their power, is that they include other things like the care and feeding of them. For those looking to add a touch of worry to the master’s mind, they have different diseases for familiars. Perhaps your mouse gets Red Mange or Festering Laughter. How about dry rations for the familiar? How about alchemical items for the familiar like bug powder? The authors have you covered. Heck, they’ve even included magic items to help your familiar survive. Missing is caster cost in gold and experience points.  For those arcane spellcasters looking to get the most out of the familiar, there is a Magebond PrC. This 0 level PrC doesn’t get spells at every level, but they gain numerous special abilities including bonus feats, as well as granting his familiar special abilities far ahead of what the familiar would receive per standard advancement.The best thing is that because there is so little overlap between the concepts of this book and Troll Lord’s book, is that both can be used in a campaign without a lot of overlap and indeed, both are probably stronger if used together.If you’re looking for more options for your familiar, Dweomercraft Familiars is a good bet for you.</blockquote>

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