Familiars - Advantage or Disadvantage?

[KB9JMQ]

I have no idea if familiars are a problem or not. I never had a player take one.
In all this time I have had one Druid's companion and thats it. That went fine.

 

[llamatron2000]

That XP penalty goes a long way to making sure people don't take familiars. In fact, I've only ever had one player take a familiar, and he was a newbie. In the current game I'm running, though, one of the spellcasters took Imbued Staff.

 

[Archade]

I think people are thinking of familiars simply as stat blocks.

You can leave your familiar at home as an alarm system to tell you someone broke in.
You gain the equivalent of a feat by taking a familiar (Toughness, Lightning Reflexes, Skill Focus, etc.
You gain a scout with a huge Hide bonus due to size, or one that can fly.
It can eventually give you the ability to speak with certain kinds of animals.
There are a ton of feats that will let your familiar maintain concentration for you on a spell, cast spells for you, etc.
It can receive 'self only' spells like False Life.

I think that a familiar requires finesse, but I've always found them worth it.

 

[JoeyD473]

in my campaign I have tw pure wizzies. One with an Owl and one with a Raven. Whenever there is danger about the one wizard(Evocator) sends his owl flying high into the sky theorethically out of harms way. The other wizard (Necromncer) uses his raven to deliever his touch spells

So one uses it, the other only has it for the bonuses to spot. I think I will always take a fmailiar when I play a magic user

 

[D.Shaffer]

One thing I think a lot of people overlook with familiars is that they retain their feats and skills. Combined with the empathic link, they make decent 'early warning devices' since many of them either have Scent or fairly high spot/listen checks. Considering neither wizards or sorcerors have Spot and Listen as class skills, those are pretty decently high bonuses. If nothing else, it's an extra set of ears/eyes to avoid ambushes, and you dont need to send it forward to scout.

One of the players I game with uses his cat familiar for this exact purpose, using scent for ambush avoidance. And now that he's hit 5th level and can speak with it, his cat has become our tracker (Tracking via scent)

Bat: Listen +8, Spot +8, Blindsense
Cat: Scent
Hawks: Spot +16
Owl: Listen +14, Spot +6 (+14 in Shadowy illumination)
Rat: Scent
Raven: Listen +5, Spot +7
Viper: Scent, Listen +6, Spot +6
Weasel: Scent

 

[CRGreathouse]

I think that their benefits almost exactly cancel their liabilities. I don't typically summon them, unless I think the familiar fits the character well and will be useful for RP.

As a result, I would never consider (as DM) allowing players to trade that ability for something else. A familiar isn't as valuable as a bonus feat, for example -- the feat has no liability like that of the familiar.

 

[frankthedm]

As a result, I would never consider (as DM) allowing players to trade that ability for something else. A familiar isn't as valuable as a bonus feat, for example -- the feat has no liability like that of the familiar.

Mostly I'd agree. I think letting a caster trade the familiar for Eshcew Components is reasonable though.

 

[Klaus]

Most birds fly by at an impressive height, not do a low flyby for the “bird’s eye view” of secured location. The animal that behaves oddly in a world where magic can turn your foes into animals has just put a bull’s eye on itself. If a caster does not bother to have the familiar hide while it scouts, then it gets spotted sure as anything else. And maybe I am just a cruel person, but target practice on tiny animals I spot while on guard duty sounds like a fun time waster and a good idea if I am getting sick of iron rations and turnip stew.

And if you want to get RAW, it takes;

A knowledge Nature check DC 11 to recognize the familiar is not a normal 1HD animal.
A knowledge Arcana DC 10+ owner’s caster level [the familiar’s effective HD] to recognize a familiar as such.

I'll be sure to tell the birds that fly by my apartment window and land on the air-condition set that they're actually magical beasts under the control of an arcane spellcaster, including the two hawks that roost on the mall next door.

 

[Cor Azer]

I'll be sure to tell the birds that fly by my apartment window and land on the air-condition set that they're actually magical beasts under the control of an arcane spellcaster, including the two hawks that roost on the mall next door.

I've seen such things too...

And when people can get away with it, I've known plenty who fire BB guns and thwe like at such low flying birds, rather like bored guards in D&D.

 

[frankthedm]

I've seen such things too...

And when people can get away with it, I've known plenty who fire BB guns and thwe like at such low flying birds, rather like bored guards in D&D.

IMHO Shooting down pidgeons is every citizen's civic duty.