Ever kill a familiar? I did.

[Aeric]

"You...you killed my familiar!!"

This was a while back, so the details are a little fuzzy....

I was once playing in a game where our party was being followed pretty obviously by a bird of some kind. One of the guys in the group decides to take a pot-shot at it, to get it to go away. Natural 20. The bird drops dead, and a few rounds later a wizard, clutching his chest in pain, comes staggering out of the nearby woods, accompanied by his very pissed-off comrades. It seems that the bird was his familiar (surprise surprise) and he was using it to check us out. Apparently this other group was a (non-evil) adventuring party that was after the same goal as we were at the time, and they were scoping us out for a possible alliance. I don't remember if they allied with us or not (I'm thinking *not*), but my best friend and I still mention that experience to this day. It struck us as really funny for some reason, maybe because the wizard was so shocked that we would actually kill this bird that was following us.

 

[Thanee]

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.

Well, I'm not metagaming against my players. Bad DM!

Bye
Thanee

 

[RuminDange]

Well, I gotten one familiar that I remember in 20+ years as DM. This was last year, in our 3E game. The Player had an Eagle Owl as a familiar (a fairly large type of owl) Anyways he sits down in the forest on a solo adventure (sort of, the party are linked with a set telepathic rings of status they won from a BBEGroup.) Anyway he sits down in middle of the late evening, to do a commune with nature. You know 10 minutes of spell casting with only his familiar looking over him. About 5 minutes into his casting his familiar fails the spot and listen checks to notice the displacer beasts that were already in the area and had come to check out the noise he was making getting in tune with nature. They spot him, and the large owl. Two attack him while a third goes for the easy snack of the owl.
Some of the other PC's detect the fact he is taking damage and scry to find him and teleport in to help him as he is getting tore up by the displacers. They finally defeat or run off the displacers but not before one party member while trying to help him kills him in an area effect spell. The displacer beast that got the owl had an easy snack and left when the fireworks began.

They ended up finding some of the remains of the owl and after the PC was rezzed. He paid to get his owl back as well. A few months ago, his character parted ways with the owl leaving it in the grove of the PC Druid, who intends to awaken the owl one day. He decided he no longer wanted a familiar not because of that but because he tends to forget about his animal companions and familiars as well as NPC cohorts, and allies all the time even with reminders, hints and jabs from the other PC's and me (in game, in character)
He also has an awakened Cooshee that he had left behind as a cohort previously for several days in this forest before remembering that he teleported and left the cooshee fighting worgs and goblins. He went to help a town under siege several days away after fighting some goblins on worgs that was chasing a rider to the next town seeking help. The cooshee made it, it was learned how to be a ranger (he isn’t). The cooshee is also currently hanging out around the PC Druid’s grove (ie the one that awakened him to give a chance to survive hanging around his life long companion/master).

But I tend not to go after familiars or even animal companions unless they become targets because of being involved. This was one of many cases of the player being careless. This had happened before, but the last time he had done a solo commune with nature in the forest he had gotten attacked by a gibbering mouthier and was nearly killed had his dancing sword not finished off the mouthier after he was knocked unconscious and into the negatives and stuck waist deep in the ground after the mouthier used its ability to soften the ground underneath them. Again he was rescued by the PC Druid who still gives him a hard time of this kind of stuff.

RD

 

[Black Omega]

Hmm..not killed a familiar..yet. One PC in my group uses a thrush familiar to scout (which thus far has been pretty safe. Only shot at once, during the time a bounty was being awarded for all birds that were killed in that area). But when the familiar flies into combat with the area of silence and purge invisibility things can get a bit messier. It's been blasted a few times, strength drained to less than zero once, And when it pissed off a earth Shugenja would have died if not for the group wizard thinking fast and doing something about that large earth elemental. So it's not at all unlikely at some point the familiar's luck will run out.

 

[Vahktang]

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.

And, in response:

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.

As mentioned above, if you put your familiar into risk, things occur.
Usually, they keep the familiar safe.
Other times, it's in danger:

The arcane just chain lightninged the giant.
There's a hawk on his shoulder.
Even giants can put 2 and 2 together, and know how arcanes feel towards familiars.
And since the giants die, a lot, and the party tports away before they're in danger, do you have a better strategy for the giants then destroy their stuff, hit them where it hurts?
(No, really. I've thought of allies and the giants are working on it but it takes time.)

I don't _deliberately_ go out and kill anything. As a GM you know that if I wanted to, they'd be dead (big rock falls, no save, everyone dead).
But I do plan out the adventures and sometimes the plan calls for it. Not every time, but sometimes.

And Ottergame's GM was wrong. Ordinary soldiers shouldn't have shot at a raven.
Unless:
"Bet you can't hit that raven."
"Gold says I can."
"Hey, can I get in on that?"
Etc.

But why did Fabrice have to make a save?"

Because it was in the radius of a fireball. They have improved evasion anyway.

Well, I'm not metagaming against my players. Bad DM!

Then you're not gaming.
You don't do _anything_ about the players your playing with, the party itself?
They meet utterly random CR's?
Everything is a random encounter?
You don't put in traps for the rogue to have fun with, undead for the cleric?
No player _ever_ didn't show up on time or wasn't there that session so you kept that PC in the back, or back in town, etc?
Everybody metagames. It is a game after all. You're living in the real world. You're playing in a fake one.

I am incredibly fair. My players know that and have mentioned it to visiting players.
I mentioned the other times the plan was that the familiar would die (opposing arcane, etc) and the Player made it so it didn't happen. Just cursed to myself ('foiled again') and kept playing, trying to make it fun for everyone.

As a Post script, looks like the arcane is not going to replace the familiar.
And you can raise dead a familiar (If I'm not mistaken) and the PC chose not to. The party offered though.

 

[Herpes Cineplex]

[on why poor Fabrice the kitty had to make a save] Because it was in the radius of a fireball. They have improved evasion anyway.

Not in AD&D2, they didn't. This was a high school game, and while I'm flattered that you'd think I'm young enough to have been in high school when 3rd edition came out, I'm afraid that's not the case. More to the point, I looked through the rulebook later and discovered that, in the circumstances which the GM used to assassinate little Fabrice, by the rules Fabrice would have escaped completely unscathed.

I'm not joking when I say Fabrice the kitty had to make a save because the GM specifically broke a rule in order to murder him. Years later, the GM himself admitted it, somewhat ruefully; the crap Chris put him through with the songs and side comments about his familiar before the murder was nothing compared to what he started doing afterwards. Our GM probably would've been better off just tolerating one apparently irritatingly-named kitty and not letting the situation escalate.

--
but hey, thanks for the brave attempt at pedantry

 

[Thanee]

There's a difference between making an adventure fun and challenging and metagaming like that.

Killing a familiar for the sole purpose, because it's a familiar and causes the PC to lose XP if it dies - altho there probably is not even a good reason for the giant to know that fact and it really doesn't make any sense to act this way (except for the DM to "punish" the player) - is just lame (lacking a better word ).

The giants obviously were no match for the PCs, so what should they do? Flee? Surrender? Hope for a lucky blow?

Giant sees wizard cast spells. Giant sees hawk. Giant knows that hawk is the familiar of wizard, since the PHB says, wizards have familiars.

Why are there even knowledge skills in this game, if everyone can just put 2 and 2 together?
Why should a player make a knowledge roll to find out anything about an opponent, if he could just pick up the Monster Manual and look it up in all completeness?

Ok, now that's an exaggeration, of course, but I guess you know what I mean.

Anyways, it's not the DM's job to oppose the players. The DM sets the situation - and of course does so by keeping an eye on the stats of the PCs to do it in a proper way, fun and challenging - but from there an NPC should act pretty much like a PC, according to NPC knowledge and behaviour and not as a gaming piece used to oppose the player.

I tend to have my NPCs act reasonable. Not in such a metagamish way, that's what I meant.

The difference between gaming and metagaming is believability.

No, I never put in traps for the sole reason that the rogue has something to disarm.
Also, I never put in undead for the sole reason that the cleric has something to use his turn undead power on.

When I put in stuff like that, while keeping in mind, that the PCs will have something to toy with, making everyone's special abilities useful, I always keep an eye on this believability, which seperates gaming from metagaming.

Metagaming is to use out of character knowledge to derive an in character reaction, which the character would "naturally" not come up with in that situation, because he lacks that knowledge.

Bye
Thanee

 

[just__al]

I didn't kill the familiar but it happened in a game I was playing.

We are sleeping for the night and we get attacked by krenshar (plural). The person on watch fails his spot/listen checks and the krenshar attack. The party sorceror is already very badly wounded before we are all awake and able to react. After the surprise round and the first round where most of the party is waking up to the commotion, the sorceror is almost down. She backs up 5 feet and casts a spell (magic missle) and it doesn't kill the krenshar. The krenshar attacks her and downs her. The next turn nobody can get close enough to help the sorceror (we were sleeping in wagons and a little far away) so the sorceror's player decides her familiar will attack. Well the Krenshar takes an AoO and manages to improved grab the familiar (an owl). Snack in hand (well mouth really) it takes off on its turn.

We can't catch it before it munches the owl. We did however keep the sorceror from dying.

 

[Klaus]

One of the best fights in my soon-to-end campaign:

Half-elven wizard/rogue PC sends her cat familiar after the rat familiar of the duergar illusionist in Forge of Fury.

Poor Snurrevin never saw Cheshire comin'... mee-OW!

 

[Saeviomagy]

He lost it to a draw from a Deck of Many Things. Unfortunatly, he drew the "Rogue" card - which states that one of your closest friends turns against you. The wizard in question had only 5 friends - and 4 of them were the other PCs. The fifth was his toad familiar - who spat at him and hopped away! That was really the only logical result, as having the PCs hate each other would have presented some difficulty in resolving the story.

Wait... you were worried about the story, but you put a DoMT in the game??