Familiars - Advantage or Disadvantage?

[Klaus]

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.

Throwing stones, I can see. Mean, but plausible.

Firing arrows that cost money to whatever force the guard belongs to, I doubt it. It'd be like an Army Guard firing a round of his M-16 assault rifle at any small bird that flies by.

 

[Dracomeander]

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.

Except for the raptors and buzzards, most birds I encounter when walking in the woods stay below treetop level. The flycatchers and songbirds have no fear of flying down below head height to grab flies and other tasty morsel that might be disturbed by the human's presence in the woods. So seeing a low-flying bird would not be that uncommon of a sight.

 

[InVinoVeritas]

The best familiar I've ever had was Kiki the Wonder Ferret.

I was playing a gnome rogue/illusionist with a 16 Con, so both Kiki and I had good HP. I also had Evasion and +2 Reflex Save, we could both speak with other ferrets/weasels, and Kiki was an excellent scout, too. Being able to poke around in the tiniest of cracks and hide was very useful!

Other players were surprised at how Kiki got attention all the time, was regularly running about, stealing stuff, and even occasionally getting into combat (ferret beats kobold, by the way). One player in particular, was constantly shouting out "NOOO!!!!!" whenever Kiki did anything. He was the guy who took a toad familiar and stuck it in some hidden place we never dared ask about.

Kiki rocked. Almost got her killed chasing after a yuan-ti who slithered away, but as long as you're careful, you can do a heck of a lot with the right familiar.

 

[Hairfoot]

It's disappointing that so many people see familiars through the prism of rules. Character flavour is always worth more than a pinch of optimisation. That said, I'd like to see the familiar rules cover the familiar's true purpose: a companion and assistant to the caster.

In the demi-scientific model of D&D magic, familiars are a type of personal computer; an extra bit of brain to deal with the complex equations magic requires. I'd like the rules to allow players to choose between 'adventuring' familiars, which confer skill bonuses, feats,and indirect spellcasting, and 'academic' familiars, which make casting times easier, negate some material components, make spell-copying cheaper etc.

 

[Li Shenron]

So do the Wizards or Sorcerers in your campaign have a familiar? Does it get used much or mainly forgotten about? Do you think that they give enough benefits to offset the potential XP loss?

I think perhaps half of W/S in our games have it and half don't.

But I also think that most players have only two extreme options in mind: either 1) forget about the familiar altogether, or 2) carry it with you all the time.

The second option means you're going to carry it in the dungeon and in every battle, only to complain that it's got too few hp, and if it gets killed then it's DM who has been unfair with the player.

Instead, there are intermediate possibilities to those two extremes:

3) you can have a familiar and just leave it at home when you go adventuring. Because the bonuses work as far as 1 mile, you probably won't benefit from them if you go on a quest. But at least they work as long as the wizard stays in town, and the familiar can do a lot of useful tasks (such as serving as alarm, or messenger), so it would make sense for an average wizard to have a familiar even without ever bringing it to adventuring.

4) you can carry it with you in the adventures, but NOT in battle, and not in enclosed dangerous spaces such as a dungeon. This way, you can use it for scouting for example, and you can also benefit from Alertness when travelling. If battle ensues, have it hide away or run/fly away from danger.

As it is designed, a Familiar is rarely effective in combat. You CAN use it in combat e.g. to deliver spells, but you can't pretend it's not risky. Eventually you just need to realize that not everything in the game is about fighting, and you'll see that the Familiar is almost always worth having

 

[Cor Azer]

Throwing stones, I can see. Mean, but plausible.

Firing arrows that cost money to whatever force the guard belongs to, I doubt it. It'd be like an Army Guard firing a round of his M-16 assault rifle at any small bird that flies by.

Perhaps. I think there's a slightly different scale of cost between arrow and ammo round, but I understand the principle of your rebuttal.

Of course, recall too that many guards of fantasy worlds (particularly those trying to emulate medieval periods) aren't as likely to have the same level of discipline as modern infantry, nor the same "respect for life" (Yes, that is a fairly broad stroke I brushed).

 

[DarkKestral]

Throwing stones, I can see. Mean, but plausible.

Firing arrows that cost money to whatever force the guard belongs to, I doubt it. It'd be like an Army Guard firing a round of his M-16 assault rifle at any small bird that flies by.

Well, if you go by RAW, yes, the arrows cost money. However, in the real world, you could often reuse or repair arrows if you had the skill. Furthermore, if you're in D&D world, an owl flying in the daytime's probably a familiar, so you're probably going to shoot it if you take a moment to recall that seemingly every spellcaster in D&D worlds that adventures is either a good adventurer, (a seeming rarity in many cases) a town wizard who runs the local magic store, (not terribly uncommon, but you'll probably know by sight what the locals' familiars look like) or Evil conquerers, (seemingly common) which means that on average, if the familiar doesn't look like a local's, it's probably a good idea to shoot it and weaken their master somewhat.


That said, I think some of the familiars are great for RP, but mechanically, they often either need heavy heavy feat investment, which limits character ability, or are only useful for a few levels, and afterwards tend to become more and more of an afterthought. I personally think familiars should pretty well remain useful throughout the game.

I think a solution presents itself in a modified form of the Leadership feat: You get a cohort (read familiar) that's slightly weaker, but levels up over time, so it's usually only a couple levels below Average PC Level, assuming you don't have too many character deaths concentrated on one or two people. If Animal Companions/Familiars/Paladin Mounts/Cohorts all came out of a single, unified mechanic and were all basically variations on the basic 'get a Player-controlled NPC' idea, you could have familiars which were combat-capable.

To do this, I'd eventually make Leadership have 3 feats in a tree: Leadership/Improved Leadership/Improved Cohort with IC and IL being the second 'ranks' in the tree. One (Improved Leadership) would offer more massive quantities of low level followers than the base version of leadership, but at the cost of forgoing advancement of the main cohort, while the other (Improved Cohort) would be like Improved Familiar/higher-level Animal Companions/special Paladin mounts... you might lose some levels, but you gain access to cohorts with higher base ECLs relative to player ECL. However, since it's not class-specific, but a unified setup, wizards could gain it as a possible bonus feat, and maybe have a wider list of possible familiars/cohorts available w/o spending additional feats.

 

[Storyteller01]

The critters, no. We've been using the rules in DRagon for Staff familiars modified for other weapons. Makes the fighter/sorcerer in the group much happier.

 

[Klaus]

Perhaps. I think there's a slightly different scale of cost between arrow and ammo round, but I understand the principle of your rebuttal.

Of course, recall too that many guards of fantasy worlds (particularly those trying to emulate medieval periods) aren't as likely to have the same level of discipline as modern infantry, nor the same "respect for life" (Yes, that is a fairly broad stroke I brushed).

Of course, sling stones cost nothing, and I find it perfectly fitting for a bored and mean guard to carry a sling for "bird hunting".

 

[Swedish Chef]

I'm currently playing a Necromancer in our game. I made sure to get a familiar at first level, and the DM was willing to let me choose a ferret.

That ferret has saved a number of character lives already. 1st level spell, Benign Transposition, works really well with a familiar. Fighter about to die? Transpose with the ferret. Attacking enemy misses (expecting to hit a med. sized humanoid, not a Tiny animal), fighter can be quickly healed by cleric, and, if I have enough spells left, the fighter can re-appear in front of the enemy the next round. And the spell does not provoke an AoO against either of the transposees.

Now, when I get Baleful Transposition (2nd level spell), it's going to get even more interesting. Enemy spell caster hiding behind fighters and causing problems? All of a sudden he appears in the midst of our fighters (assuming Save failure, of course).

The ferret has also been very useful as a guard around camp (spot and hide skills rock!), a decent tracker (no ranger in the party) and even good as comic relief on occasion.