Ever kill a familiar? I did.

[Vahktang]

So the arcanes have familiars.
Every once in a while I'd plan to have the bad guys plan to kill the familiar.
Never worked.
Players always kept them safe.
Until last night.
Our heroes were the teleporting giant killing crew.
Giants decided that if we fight we die, if we run we die tired.
So lets hit 'em where they hurt.
Destroy their stuff. They'll go away to get more stuff and maybe get side tracked.
So, the wizard chain lightnings the giant, the others kick in and the giant (low in hit points but not able to escape or kill any one of them) steps up and offs the familiar (a hawk) with one swipe.
And the player starts going off (in a good way, I have a good group).
This familiar had been with the group since level one.
Used to piss me off because it was always doing recon, ruining my ambushes.
Couldn't do a thing about it.
Player tries to figure out why the familiar and not him.
Obvious to me that an attack on the PC was nothing, just another attack. Killing off the familiar is really affecting the player.
It's no longer 'kill 'em and take their stuff'. It's 'kill 'em all, destroy the entire tribe.'
The stuff of good, involved campaigns.

Any good stories out there?

 

[Mouseferatu]

Well, I've never deliberately killed a familiar...

I did once have a sorceress--my wife's character, no less--completely flub a Reflex save against call lightning when the party was fighting an evil druid. And then her familiar, a hawk named Gwaihir, flubbed the save even worse. (I think it was a natural 1.)

Poof. Ball of feathers, and no familiar. Oops.

On the plus side, her eventual replacement familiar--a pseudodragon, obtained with the Improved Familiar feat--was instrumental in the party's final victory at the end of the campaign, so I suppose it turned out for the best.

 

[FungiMuncher]

I've only come close...

The party is investigating the advances of the orcish army. They know that the orcs have used goblin sorcerers in the past. They infiltrate a town conqured by the orcs. In the center of town, they find an area surrounded by a palisade wall. The rogue hangs around awhile. Eventually, the doors open to allow some soldiers to pass, and he sees past them a goblin casting a spell on a couple ogres.

Later that night, the wizard sends his raven to fly over the walled area. One of the guards lucks out and spots the raven. He tells one of the goblin sorcerers. The goblin waits for the raven to approach closer, then blasts it with three magic missiles. The raven is down to one hit point, and screams out of there.

That was the raven's last recon mission.

 

[tarchon]

Later that night, the wizard sends his raven to fly over the walled area. One of the guards lucks out and spots the raven. He tells one of the goblin sorcerers. The goblin waits for the raven to approach closer, then blasts it with three magic missiles. The raven is down to one hit point, and screams out of there.

Hmm... I saw like 10 ravens on the way to work this morning.

Our sorcerer once had a stoneskin spell on, when he fell about 60 ft. He barely survived, but he carried his rat familiar around in a cage on his back. Squish.

 

[Driddle]

... blasts it with three magic missiles. The raven is down to one hit point, and screams out of there.

That was the raven's last recon mission.

This, and especially Vahktang's tale, reveal the hobbling effect some GMs have on familiars, reducing their effectiveness and appeal as a game element. At least Fungi implied some small amount of legitimacy in how he approached the attack on the familiar -- if anyone would know what's up with a magical animal, it would be the enemy's sorcerers. However, the likelihood of *anyone* taking note of a dark-feathered raven, above, at night, and then putting more than two brain cells together to be suspicious about it? Well, that sounds vaguely of DM premeditation.

In either case, why try to penalize (terrorize) the player for using his familiar in one of the few useful ways he can? Seems pretty mean-spirited.

 

[Simplicity]

Our sorcerer once had a stoneskin spell on, when he fell about 60 ft. He barely survived, but he carried his rat familiar around in a cage on his back. Squish.

Why wasn't the rat also stoneskinned? Don't familiars share spells with the caster?

 

[Ottergame]

This, and especially Vahktang's tale, reveal the hobbling effect some GMs have on familiars, reducing their effectiveness and appeal as a game element. At least Fungi implied some small amount of legitimacy in how he approached the attack on the familiar -- if anyone would know what's up with a magical animal, it would be the enemy's sorcerers. However, the likelihood of *anyone* taking note of a dark-feathered raven, above, at night, and then putting more than two brain cells together to be suspicious about it? Well, that sounds vaguely of DM premeditation.

In either case, why try to penalize (terrorize) the player for using his familiar in one of the few useful ways he can? Seems pretty mean-spirited.

I had a jackass DM try that once. Raven was flying over a city at night. The DM decided that 10 archers guarding the town saw it as a threat and shot at it. Needless to say, I metagamed the hell out of the rest of the time I played with him, despite his whining about it.

 

[JDragon]

I haven't killed a Familiar as a DM, but have made it clear to my players, that if the familiar gets involved in combat its a valid target.

Now as I PC I did get the chance to kill a NPC wizards familiar. We had attacked a camp in a clearing of a forest, the wizard leader was hiding in the trees and we were having trouble finding him. Then this owl starts doing fly-bys on my character, hitting me with some touch spell. So as it flew away I took the AoO and whacked it good but not killing it. Much to my surprise a round or so later it comes flying by for another attack, so I whack it again, killing it laughing out loud when the wizard screams and loses a level due to the XP loss.

It was very fun.

 

[tarchon]

Why wasn't the rat also stoneskinned? Don't familiars share spells with the caster?

In this case, it was a Stoneskin from an item (scroll maybe?).

Oh, wait - I remember now. It was cast on him before we went. I remember that was the same adventure where the party bought a couple scrolls from the same wizard, one to depetrify my bard, who was left stuffed under a bridge in the caverns.
They found me, and the Barbarian says to the Sorcerer: "Now, use the scroll to turn him back to flesh."
Illiterate Sorcerer without Read Magic : "That's what [the Bard] usually does. How do I do it?"
Drag. Drag. Drag.
"Hi, how much would it cost for you to read this scroll you made for us?"
Avaricious NPC Wizard chuckles.

 

[Pielorinho]

It's times like that that it's awful tempting as a player to say, "Wha-? He spots the raven? The raven's 200 feet up: are you counting in the -20 on his spot check? The raven's tiny: are you counting in the +8 on his hide check? It's dark out: what light source are they using, and what's the radius on it? Okay, so they see the raven: the raven is going to make a bluff check that it's just like any other raven around. Give me an opposed sense motive check."

The line between not getting cheesed off as a player, and not cheesing the DM off, is a pretty fine line sometimes .

Daniel