Familiars: are they worth it?

[TimSmith]

Yeah, that's rough. It's that kind of thing that led us to just establish a house rule that if your familiar is sharing the same 5' space as you, it only has to make a save if you failed yours; otherwise, just ignore any damage it might have taken. Or, more commonly, we assume that you told your familiar to get completely out of the area of the fight immediately and that none of the bad guys are ever going to waste their time chasing it down.

Which is clearly against the rules, but since the spell familiar pocket doesn't exist in our game and familiars are mostly used as friends and assistants for peaceful situations rather than as combatants, we don't care. It just saves time and grief for everyone involved if we give the familiars a break under those circumstances.

Now, if a familiar is out spying on the bad guys and gets spotted and recognized, well...then the gloves come off. Same goes for a familiar moving around in a fight, delivering touch attacks or flanking with a bad guy; the familiar becomes a valid and attractive target, and if an area-effect spell goes off, the familiar's on its own and can very easily die. That tends to keep familiars out of fights except when the spellcaster is extraordinarily desperate, which suits our purposes.

--
we're not exactly obsessed with realism in our fantasy games

EXACTLY the way I have always ruled it. You get flavour for the character, utility from the class feature of having access to a familiar AND a risk if you use it dangerously/rashly or the plot justifies this, WITHOUT making it a foregone conclusion that it will eventually be toasted by a fireball. This has to be the spirit of the rules and makes for a better game all round. If the DM doesn't want familiars then he can just disallow them rather than trying to slaughter them! I don't think its unreasonable that a familiar who is not trying to engage in risky activities should be able to pay attention to dangers and get out of the way/under cover/inside its master's clothing or wherever. As you say, though, if a familiar tries to get into a ruck then its fair game...

 

[likuidice]

Tensers transformation provides a nice surprise, as do any of the mass "animals +4 bonus (bulls str etc)" spells, also, if the familiar is within 5 feet, any spell the wizzy casts can also affect the familiar, mage armour, stoneskin, etc....and the use magic device skill is great for those wands and staffs.
aid another is a good use of the familiar, to get a +2 bonus on most of your rolls, every round.
sneakily, if armour in your campaign resizes, or for that matter, any magic item, the familiar can wear the "spare" magic leftovers that no one else wants, or carry a spare lockpick, scroll, etc on a collar...

 

[Thanee]

Beyond the role playing aspect and the benefits listed above, there is one often overlooked ability of a familiar that is excellent. From the SRD:

Skills: For each skill in which either the master or the familiar has ranks, use either the normal skill ranks for an animal of that type or the master's skill ranks, whichever are better. In either case, the familiar uses its own ability modifiers. Regardless of a familiar's total skill modifiers, some skills may remain beyond the familiar's ability to use.

While certain activities would be precluded, there is nothing stopping your familiar from assisting you with Knowledge, Spellcraft, etc. checks. In my current campaign, we have a wizard and a sorceress, both with familiars. There is rarely anything, particularly with the wizard who has many different knowledge skills, the four of them cannot puzzle out with Knowledge checks.

Taking this a step further, one idea I had was for a wizard PC was to take ranks in Use Magic Device and eventually take the Improved Familiar Feat. Select anything with hands and when the ranks transfer over, you could really have a very useful critter on your hands.

Heh. I actually did that with my familiar when I played an arcane trickster. Used alter self (3.0) to give the bird humanlike hands and a wand of dispel magic and one of magic missile.

Also, with the huge skills the arcane trickster usually has, the familiar is almost something like a backup rogue (sitting on its masters shoulder searching for traps and helping with the spotting while the party moves, for example).

The raven familiar in particular is a great asset. Speaking a language is really useful. You can use it to communicate with the rest of your party, if you split in two, for example. This is, again, particularily useful for the arcane trickster, who might be a good scout and this way can communicate any observations directly to the other party members.

Bye
Thanee

 

[CrimsonTemplar]

Toad. 'nuff said. He hides in an armored pocket inside my robes.

 

[tmaaas]

Our party is only low level, but the Sorcerer's familiar is very useful. It has great spot and listen checks and has saved the party more than once (an extra sentry on nightly guard duty).

Also, it goes with the party Ranger when scouting to instantly communicate back to the party. Yes, it's only an empathic link, but it is still very useful. We've established codes to communicate with and through it.

A key point with a familiar is that they're intelligent. A DM who treats them as a slightly-smarter version of an animal is not given a familiar it's due. Sheesh, by the time the Wiz/Sor hits 9th level, it's at "average" human intelligence. That's a lot of versatility (depends on your opinion of average human intelligence, of course).

 

[Talon5]

Three wizards in one group-

As near as we can tell Snow spends all her time on her masters shoulder. Never hear from Snow in any real way.

Harmon was a weasel, a coward much like his master (my character- Alran). Thou I would mention Harmon crawling about through Alran's shirt or up onto his shoulder he saw no action- never delivered spells or bite anyone. Just kinda hung out, stole food, and Alran's pillow.

The third wizard is an NPC- she mentioned having a cat long ago, but didn't keep it- they didn't get a long she claims.

Then one day I figured- what the heck is the use of having Harmon if I don't use him. He was killed three minutes later when he set off a floor trap (never figured that out). Alran was shattered that he'd killed his friend.

The effect of killing Harmon- the other player was reinforced into never using Snow, for anything.

FWIW- Harmon was reincarnated later after Alran got Imp. Fam. Feat. Harmon likes being a P Dragon- well not really up on the scales, and the first time he realized he had a poisonous tail he was very apologic to Alran

Its up to the GM and the Player how to handle the familar. When I GM I handle a raven named Loot, and the player seems okay with how he flies about and yells a single word five times.

Harmon I run some times and the GM handles some times.

Remember its all in having fun

 

[brellin]

yes

yes i think familiars are worth it you have a pal and someone you can talk about new magical stuff and if it is smart (DM willing) you might teach it to read and even do your taxes and help you keep track of stuff and if you have read the Van Richtens Arsenal V.1 on page 12 the dragon pack it takes a full round to pump for a single attack but if you have a faniliar with hands(claws) then he/she can pump it while you cast a spell or throw a dagger or whatever and something that has been on my mind is magical armor that cn not only make your familiar look cooler but also give your familiar spell-like powers

 

[Elf Witch]

In my personal experience, it is an advantage to have a familiar, but not huge.

Most of the time, the player doesn't know how to make it useful or is afraid of getting it killed: in this worst case a familiar is still worth two (lesser) feats, the one granted + Alertness, since the Wiz/Sor basically plays the familiar by just keeping it in his pocket or on his shoulder.

Otherwise, the only common use is to have the familiar scout ahead, if it can fly or if it is very unlikely to attract attention (such as a rat), but only if there is no apparent danger in doing so.

The best ability for standard familiars should be the touch spell delivery, but I haven't seen it used at all, even more powerful wizards are afraid to risk the familiar's life sending it into combat, and even prefer to go themselves into melee to cast the spell rather than face a possible Xp drain.

An improved familiar is instead another thing, and since it doesn't grant an extra feat it is actually taken with the purpose of using it

In one game I played in I had two familiars I lost my first one to a half dragon who hate my toad when I was captured. Next I had a Lantern Archon. Even with the experience of loss of XP I still used my familars for more than just sitting on my shoulder. They delivered touch spells, sometimes scouted , and added a lot to the role playing of my character.

If your game is mainly combat with not a lot of role playing then having a familiar might not be a good thing because usually the advantages you get don't outweigh the disadvantages. But in aheavy role playing game they can add a lot. So it really depends on the game if it is worth it.