Familiars, Awaken, cohorts and more

[Spotty]

Hi everyone,

I'm a first time poster, long time lurker on this board. I hope you can provide me with some feedback on an issue that is causing me some problems.

First the background...

I have a player who has the following concept for his character:

Bladesinger PrC (Tome and Blood) with an owl familiar who is a know-it-all. He suggested that this could be achieved by having the spell Awaken cast on the owl and giving it 2 expert levels (NPC class levels). He also wants his Bladesinger levels to count as equivalent wizard levels (he will only ever be Wiz1) for purposes of familiar advancement and is then thinking of taking Leadership and having this owl also be his cohort so that the owl can get more character levels.

So, some questions:

1) Am I right in believing that Awaken only provides +2 HD, or am I missing something that would allow these +2 HD to also provide +2 character levels?
2) Has anyone house ruled that levels in arcane caster PrCs can act as effective wizard or sorcerer levels for the purpose of familiar advancement (natural armour, intelligence, familiar abilities, etc.)? If so, have you found it to be unbalancing in any way?
3) How do the Leadership feat amd familiars interact? Can a familiar also be a cohort? If so, can it then get class levels?
4) My initial ruling was that the type of familiar he has in mind is similar to those provided by the feat Improved Familiar and that I would create a feat, Special Awakened Familiar (or something), as well as an Improved Awaken spell to allow this to occur. Am I shortchanging my player if I do this? (ie, are the improved familiars significantly more powerful than what he is asking for?)


Thanks in advance for any advice you can provide. I like the ideas behind this and want to encourage this type of thinking among my players but I also don't want to give the characters in my campaign anything too powerful without them paying an appropriate cost.

Regards,

Spotty

 

[Caliban]

A familiar is a magical beast, and cannot be the target of an Awaken spell. Awaken only affects animals.

If you really want to do something like this, the Improved Familiar feat is probably your best bet.

 

[coyote6]

What Caliban said (naturally ); go with a special version of Improved Familiar, if you want to allow it.

As for your first two specific questions:

1) Awaken adds 2 HD, not 2 levels in some class. However, awakened animals can then gain class levels, just like any other intelligent creature. So an awakened owl expert is possible (though, as noted, you can't awaken a familiar).

2) No, I haven't, though I've been tempted. I've been thinking of creating a unique magic item for the PC sorcerer to find/be given, that would allow her to count the levels in the prestige class(es) she's going to take to count towards determining her familiar's abilities. Gift from the gods, basically.

Again, though, this might be feat material; call it Advancing Familiar or somesuch.

 

[Spotty]

Thanks for your input. The fact that familiars are magical beats had completely left my memory.

Spotty