Familiar skills

[LazerPointer]

I'm in the process of creating a Ranger 1/Wiz 3, statting out Sir Jinks, a Raven familiar.

This straddles the line between Character Creation and House Rules, I guess, but its not changing rules so much as fleshing out an area where the rules are vague.

I have a lot more skill points than the standard Wiz, so it seems my familiar, using my ranks with his modifiers, is a particularly skilled Raven. so it seems that for skills like survival, listen, search, etc, my wizard will essentially get a second skill check for having Jinks along.


given the number of skills he'll be decent at, and the fact that my DM will be very skeptical when I tell him my Raven is making a Knowledge: (arcana) check, I want to nerf a couple of skills a bit before he tells me my familiar just can't do them at all. Flavor text will pave my way to munchkinism! I'll do this with a misc. modifier penalty; he'll have skill synergies where I do.

I figure that, though Jinks is a smart, curious bird, he hasn't been allowed to enter the public libraries where I've studied. His knowledge is gained adventuring, and reading over my shoulder at a couple of private studies I've visited.

so I'll say he has an inherent penalty to knowledge skills:

(arcana) my ranks: 5 his penalty: -4 for an effective total of +1. (he primarily knows how he was summoned and invested with greater sentience, and may rarely provide insight into other magic-infused beasts)

(planes), (history) my ranks: 1, his effective ranks: 0. I think it would just be simpler to say he can't use these skills at all, instead of doing so at a penalty.

(nature) my ranks: 5 his penalty: 1. He grew up in the hills, but he isn't a Ranger, y'know?

(dungeoneering) my ranks: 5 his penalty: 2. He hates and fears going underground, and so has not learned as much as I have about it. his fear makes him on edge; he sleeps much less, and learns what he can of the creatures he comes across.


other skills:

search: -1 penalty for not having hands....



I'm interested in any feedback about this approach. should any other skills be adjusted?

 

[Thanee]

I think the problem is, that you have the wrong picture of what the skill ranks represent here. The raven familiar itself has only the skills of a normal raven (as in the MM).

Not the familiar has aquired all these skill ranks, but the mystical link allows the familiar to tap your very own knowledge.

Effectively, you can certainly say, that it doesn't help to make another Knowledge check for your familiar, since well... it's the very same knowledge, really. And the familiar, being less intelligent, is also worse at processing that knowledge than you are yourself. However, if someone else is with the familiar and you are not around, then the familiar could be helpful with these Knowledge skills.

On the other hand, actively used skills, like Listen or Spot (active not in the rules sense, there they are passively used, hope you know what I mean ), should work, it's another pair of eyes and ears at the very least.

Bye
Thanee

P.S. You need no hands to use the Search skill.

You generally must be within 10 feet of the object or surface to be searched.

 

[LazerPointer]

good post, Thanee. That's a much simpler view of the knowledge skills, but I'm gonna play devils advocate here.


according to page 52 of the PHB, (the only place I can see where this is addressed) for every skill I have ranks in, my familiar has either a normal Raven's ranks or my ranks, whichever is better. the familiar then applies his own ability modifiers. so, while your argument works really well for knowledge skills, I don't find it as compelling an explanation for why he can concentrate well, or move silently. he's just tapping into my knowledge and muscle memory on how to move quieter; hmmm. doesn't not work, I'll give you that.

anyway, I'm glad we agree on skills like spot and listen....would you lump survival and search in there too? I think that's what you mean.

as for search, I was just thinking how sometimes one needs to rifle through the contents of a chest, ransack a room, etc, and wanting to mechanically represent that. maybe I'll nix the penalty and just have him not able to search in those situations.

 

[Thanee]

While the familiar is a seperate creature, it's not a completely seperate entity. It's something like an extension of yourself in a mystical sense.

Therefore it gains (half) your hit points and also some of your abilities.

On that part with the skill ranks. Sure, the familiar might also gain physical skills, like Hide or Move Silently. The familiar then has this ability as if it had learned the skills itself.

Its just, that it is very much the same skill you use yourself. Therefore I would do it like this:

For purely theoretical tasks (that seems a better description), I would not give you another roll.
For any practical tasks, I would, since the familiar has its own set of actions, eyes, ears, body, whatever is necessary.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Scion]

in games I have been in if it comes down to too much rolling (which it can) we simply made it so that the familiar would always be aiding another when he is close enough to help with whatever it is. Another set of eyes and brain always help to some degree, after all, maybe the familiar can pick up that info just on the tip of the tongue

So, if two checks is frightful, simply use the +2 from aid another. Easy enough, not terribly bad, and it makes the most sense in my opinion.

Any skills it only uses itself (such as move silently) should be easy enough to let it work on, why shouldnt it? It has the ranks, it gets to use the skill.

 

[fafhrd]

Effectively, you can certainly say, that it doesn't help to make another Knowledge check for your familiar, since well... it's the very same knowledge, really. And the familiar, being less intelligent, is also worse at processing that knowledge than you are yourself.

The irony being that high level sorcerors often end up being the intellectual inferiors of their familiars.

 

[Wolf72]

The irony being that high level sorcerors often end up being the intellectual inferiors of their familiars.

heck even mid level sorcerors ... especially if the player had fun and put the 7 stat into Int ... at one point the player asked "what if my toad gets a higher int than me?", I replied that he could add the two scores to make Intelligence based skill checks.

 

[Quickleaf]

I did a rewrite of the familiar that addresses these discrepancies. It's more house rulesy I suppose, increasing the costs & benefits of having a familiar in a "power list now choose" format. If you want I can post that.

Here is the replacement I created for shared skills (notice that it is a 2-way ability implying a bond, and that it doesn't refer to all skills, only to one)...

Shared Racial Skills: You each gain one of the other’s racial bonuses to skill checks (but not special qualities like low-light vision or scent). No more than a +4 bonus can be received in this manner for each of you (e.g. the wizard can only get +4 Spot from his bird familiar, and not the full +8 the bird receives). If you lack racial skills, you may instead grant the benefits of any Skill Focus feats you have gained to your familiar. If your familiar lacks racial skills you cannot take this bond quality. You gain some quirk related to the skill gained (e.g. the wizard’s eyes become bird-like and the bird enjoys reading books on mystic lore).

Using the core rules as the base, one option would be to allow a familiar/wizard to apply "shared racial" skills at every other level, until the ability is maxed out (e.g. no more racial skills/Skill focus skills to share).

 

[Scion]

I did a rewrite of the familiar that addresses these discrepancies.

just for my own benefit what discrepancies do you mean?

Even after going through this thread I dont really see any, just things that some people have issues with and want to houserule it somehow.

 

[Thanee]

The irony being that high level sorcerors often end up being the intellectual inferiors of their familiars.

Heh. That's why you pick up a PrC ASAP, so this humiliation can never happen.

Bye
Thanee