Familiars: Crouching Monkey, Hidden Toad

[Messageboard Golem]

Within Encyclopaedia Arcane: Familiars, shall be addressed an abundance of issues dealing with familiars and in order to give the work a coherent structure the first section shall be dedicated to an overview of the salient topics related to familiars. In this section we shall discuss in short many of the fundamentals that shall be dealt with in more detail later in this work. Also to be found in this section shall be a brief discussion of the various types of familiars from aberrations to magical beasts to undead.

The following section shall feature an in-depth treatise upon the art of summoning a familiar. It is herein that the various summoning rituals shall be detailed and cataloged for ease of reference. Also to be found in this section shall be a concise assessment of the advantages and disadvantages of postponing the summoning of a familiar.

The next segment of this work deals with the effects of bonding to a familiar and provides a helpful and alphabetized list of the most common consequences of bonding. This portion of the manuscript also provides a detailed inquiry into the variations upon the standard evolution of abilities that familiars acquire as their masters expand their influence over arcane power.

Further sections incorporated into this tome include: an in-depth exploration of the training rituals that are oft times used to develop and expand a familiar’s repertoire, and a short consideration of those mages that specialize in the utilization of familiars. Finally this work shall conclude with a concise catalog of spells that were created in order to enhance the survivability and capabilities of familiars.

As an endnote to this introduction, and a slight indulgence of wit, it is the firm hope of the author of the work that this volume will prove to be a useful reference for those who are fascinated by all things familiar.

The primary purpose of this sourcebook is to give players and Games Masters alike all the information they need to manage familiars in their campaigns. Herein you will find chapters devoted to the process of summoning familiars and the effects of bonding with them. You will also find variant special ability progressions for familiars whose masters have gained in experience, a detailed guideline on how to improve a familiar via gained experience and training rituals, brief overviews of a couple prestige classes based on familiars, and a catalog of spells used to augment familiars. Finally, this work shall discuss how to implement the above rules and make familiars a living part of every campaign and provide a condensed list of familiars and their stats.

Summoning a familiar is an important step for any mage and it should not be taken lightly. Familiars are much more than pets; they are an extension of the mages that summon them. To be more to the point, familiars are a part of the mage made manifest by his arcane powers and will and the mage should recognize that he invests much more than the components of the summon spell into his familiar. In fact, he invests a piece of himself that should be protected by the mage, lest it be lost to him forever.

 

[John Cooper]

Encyclopaedia Arcane: Familiars
Mongoose Publishing product number MGP1017
J. Miller
64 pages, $14.95

The 17th book in the popular "Encyclopaedia Arcane" line examines those boons to wizards and sorcerers alike, familiars. Cleverly subtitled "Crouching Monkey, Hidden Toad," it is full of interesting concepts (and the obligatory "familiar" pun - apparently J. Miller failed his Will save to resist the temptation).

The cover is by Mongoose regular Anne Stokes and is one of her best works. It features a mouse familiar opening a locked chest with a key, while (presumably) his wizardly mistress looks on. There is an excellent level of detail (the mouse wears a collar with a charm, there are intricate scrolls on the desk), and the border layout does not obscure anything important.

The interior artwork consists of 22 black and white pieces of varying levels of quality. Marcio Fiorito does his standard nice job, offering nice, clean lines and expressive faces. However, one of the four artists credited (it's difficult to make out the initials; if that's a "P" then it's Gillian Pearce) has a scribbly, dark style that is very hard to make out - it took me several times through the book to realize that there was a penguin in the foreground of the picture on page 36! One of the other two artists - I'm guessing David Allsop, although the pieces aren't signed - has a very nice style, and is apparently responsible for the majority of the interior artwork. Whoever it is, I really like the style: the rag-doll familiar holding a knife behind its back on page 3 is very disturbing (in a good way!), and page 49 has the best-looking magmin I've ever seen. There's also a very evil-looking rat on page 56 - nice work, whoever you are!

The inside front covers contain all of the monsters in the Monster Manual of Challenge Rating 8 or less that could be used as familiars (using the rules within the book) and the special boons they provide their master. This is an excellent use of the inside covers; unfortunately, the same material is also printed on pages 14-17 of the book. That seems like an inappropriate waste - surely those three and a half pages could have been put to better use. (All they'd need to do is mention on page 14 that the charts are on the inside covers, rather than reprint the info.)

Familiars follows the standard Encyclopaedia Arcane format, including the following sections:

• Introduction: describing the purpose of the "Encyclopaedia Arcane" line
• Familiars - An Overview: focusing on different creature types, then giving overviews of natural intelligence, bonding, training, augmentation, mistreatment, dismissal, and death.
• The Summoning: how one goes about summoning a familiar of a different creature type than "animal"
• Consequences of Bonding: focusing on the "special boons," like the fact that a toad familiar grants his master +3 hp
• The Infusion: examining the level-dependent boons a familair grants his master, including six new "paths" the familiar can follow (granting different boons to the master)
• Unbound Mages: those wizards who decide not to get a familiar, ever, and those who draw power from slaying other wizards' familiars
• Training Familiars: allowing familiars to gain class levels
• 17 Familiar Feats
• The Masters - Bound and Unbound: 6 familiar-based prestige classes
• Spells of the Master: 8 familiar-themes spells
• The Art of Familiar Maintenance: the consequences of having a familiar of a specified creature type
• Familiar Creatures: 11 real-life creatures suitable as familiars
• Designer's Notes: the author's views on why he wrote what he did
• Rules Summary: a reprint of the new familiar-themed spells and rituals

Andrew Wilson does a fine job on proofreading, although I was surprised to see quite a few American conventions getting through the standard "British style" grammar and punctuation nets that Mongoose usually uses: on several occasions there were quotation marks (") used instead of the British single apostrophe (') and contractions were used ("they're" instead of "they are"), although traditional British spelling ("armour" instead of "armor") predominated. There were a couple mistakes that another round of proofreading might have caught: one short fiction blurb on page 50 was not in boxed text, "effects" was used when "affects" was appropriate (and in another case it was the other way around, with "affect" instead of "effect"), the phrase "new it's master" should have been "its new master" (hmm, a word transposition error and incorrect apostrophe usage rolled into one!), but the mistakes were few and far between, so an overall good job in that area.

Miller does a fine job expanding the possibilities of the familiar. No longer constrained to summoning an animal, wizards now can have familiars of any creature type - for a price. Not only are the more powerful creature types more expensive (in terms of gold pieces and possibly experience points as well) as far as the initial summoning ritual goes, but summoning a familair of a full Hit Die or more actually eats up a permanent spell slot (well, for as long as you have the familair, anyway, plus a year after that). In addition, the more powerful the familiar is to begin with, the weaker the "special boon" it provides. As an example, the lowly honey bee familiar (stats provided) grants its master a +2 to Dexterity, while a chimera familiar merely provides a +1 bonus to Listen and Spot. (However, the wizard insisting on a chimera familiar is also out 1,750 gp and an 8th-level spell slot, meaning he can't even get his chimera familiar until he's 15th-level himself.)

I was also very impressed with the concept of "paths of infusion," allowing a wizard's familiar to serve different purposes for his master. The Path of the Assistant, for example, is perfect for those wizards seeking a more intelligent familiar capable of helping around the laboratory (familiars travelling along this path gain heightened Intelligence and the ability to Speak With Master much sooner than traditional familiars), while the Path of the Guardian is perfect for those wizards who prefer using their familiars as personal bodyguards. This, to me, is one of the highlights of this book, allowing for a much greater variety in even the standard familiars.

The feats and spells were nicely done and made logical sense. However, I wasn't as pleased with the prestige classes. Not that they weren't well thought out, it's just they weren't as groundbreaking and original as I would have hoped. Of the six of them, four merely transform the wizard to become more and more like his familiar (be it ghostlike - for those with undead familiars - or beastlike, or oozelike, or treantlike). Most of these have been done before: there's the Oozemaster from one of WotC's splatbooks, I recall a "kit" from AD&D 2nd Edition's Complete Ranger's Handbook that turned the ranger into a treantlike creature, Ghostwalk has rules for ghost PCs, etc. Furthermore, I really didn't like the ghost one (Acolyte of the Ghost) because of the spontaneous diseases involved. Why would the "Coming Death" disease have an incubation period of one round for those taking their first level in this prestige class (which is automatically failed, by the way), but then have a day-long incubation period whenever the Acolyte infected anyone else? (And how'd the disease show up in the first place - does it just hang around waiting for wizards to take a level in the correct prestige class?) Same deal with the "Maddening" disease that the Acolyte contracts at 2nd level. Furthermore, there seems little point of the first disease turning the Acolyte's skin "deathly pale and dried" when the second disease turns his skin "almost pitch black." Finally, the fact that the mandatory diseases required to complete this "prestige class" result in an overall loss of at least 2 permanent points of Strength, Constitution, and Wisdom make this a pretty stupid way to achieve ghosthood. Granted, you're going to lose the Constitution rating once you attain undeath no matter what, but I'd just as soon not be weak and foolish for all of eternity!

There are other little things that bugged me in this book - nothing major, really, just some little things. For instance, on page 11, it states that for those wizards interested in obtaining an ooze familiar (hey, you know there's somebody out there looking to do just that), it'll cost them 500 gp of diamond dust (or equivalent) per CR of the ooze inquestion, plus an arcane focus consisting of "a magically treated container that will hold the ooze during the spell." My question: given that a black pudding (CR 7, within the constraints given in the book) is of Huge size, just how much is that arcane focus going to cost me? No suggestions are given.

The ritual of power deals with those wizards who draw power from the killing of other wizards' familiars. However, for reasons which elude me, they are only allowed to kill familiars of wizards the exact same level as they are. Okay, given that the evil wizard's going to get some nice benefits from this - the slain familiar's "special boon," a permanent +2 bonus to his primary spellcasting attribute (Charisma or Intelligence), and a bonus feat to boot - I can see why Miller would set it up so that mid- or high-level wizards shouldn't be getting all of these benefits by picking on poor 1st-level wizards, but why shouldn't, say, a 5th-level wizard gain the aforementioned benefits if he manages to get his hands on the familiar of a wizard more powerful than himself? I'd think he'd earn even more benefits if he was able to pull something like that off.

The Beastheart prestige class states that you get a "bestial property" at each level, but the chart shows "bestial property" as a 1st-, 3rd-, and 5th-level benefit. However, the example of the natural armor (hmm, spelled "armor" here instead of "armour," interesting - I hadn't noticed that until now) bestial property uses a blink dog familiar as an example and states "thus a beastheart could not take this property more than three times." So...since there are only three instances of "bestial property" on the chart, I'm guessing the chart's in error, then, and you should get a bestial property at each level?

Furthermore, is Familiars supposed to be for 3.0 or 3.5? I notice that it references beasts as a creature type (suggesting 3.0), yet it states that toad familiars grant a +3 hit points (as per 3.5 rules; in 3.0 they granted a +2 to Constitution). I'm willing to guess it was written for 3.0, then updated to 3.5 at the last minute and not everything made the transition.

Still and all, little twitches and burps in the book like this notwithstanding, I can highly recommend Familiars for those wanting to add a little spice and variety to their sorcerer and wizard PCs. Pick this book up if you're tired of the same old "toad in a pocket" syndrome with every arcane spellcaster you create, and are looking for something new. The book is equally useful to players and DMs alike.

Cooler prestige classes and another couple rounds of proofreading/editing could have shot this up to a five-star product. Still, it sits easily in my mind as a "high four."

 

[GameWyrd]

Encyclopaedia Arcane: Familiars is responsible for one of _those_ moments. The d20 sceptical little brother was visiting, he picked up the book from the to-review pile, flicked through it and commented, "Oh, you can have a Tyrannosaurus as a familiar now."

I hadn’t actually read the book at that point but I felt compelled to defend it. "It makes sense in some circumstances," I pointed out, "Would a lizardman shaman have a cat as a familiar?" Thankfully he didn’t counter by pointing out that a toad familiar would suit the lizardman perfectly, I was even more fortunate that he didn’t know the d20 rules well enough to point out how silly it would be to have a tyrannosaurus with only 2 hit points.

In fact, the tyrannosaurus wouldn’t have had only 2 hit points – that’s clear after just one casual flick through the book. To summon a familiar as powerful as that then a more powerful summon familiar ritual is required. The tyrannosaurus is a Challenge Rating 8 beast so it would need to be summoned with the Beast Familiar Ritual IX. That ninth level ritual would be the wizard or sorcerer would be, at least, 17th level. At the very least, it would have 9 hit points. Heh.

It should be noted that the to-review pile of books from which Encyclopaedia Arcane: Familiars was plucked from by the D&D doubtful roleplayer was rather high. I think EA: Familiars stood out for two reasons. It’s a good idea, familiars are present in every game with a wizard or sorcerer character and yet they’re terribly under supported. The book has a great front cover with a catchy tag line, "Crouching Monkey, Hidden Toad". You’ve got to smile.

As already made clear by the opening paragraphs of this review one of the ways this Encyclopaedia Arcane sets about fleshing out Familiars is to dramatically increase the types of familiar available. Anything’s available now; oozes, undead, fey, humanoids and even dragons. Fey don’t have to accept the familiar bond but are bound if they do. Dragons can unhitch the familiar link between you and themselves at will – begging the question ‘Who’s really the familiar in the relationship?’ My favourite addition here are the Construct familiars. The book makes use of numerous illustrations of scary rag dolls dragging a large knife along side them. You’re able to select from a range of familiars and so you should find one that suits the flavour of game you’re playing better than the standard list of little animals. This is a success rather than an embarrassment for the book. EA: Familiar’s long list of possible familiars includes special boons for them all. The now notorious tyrannosaurus relates to +2 to Fortitude saves, Shield Guardians grant +1 to natural armour, an Efreeti’s special boon is Immunity (Heat) and Derro grants the Blind-fight feat. And so on.

Encyclopaedia Arcane: Familiars is fully 3.5 compatible. The "traditional familiar special abilities" table is the same one as you’ll find in the updated rule set. Share Spells and Empathic Link are available at level one, the natural armour bonus is +5 when the Master’s Effective Class level is between 9 and Scry Familiar becomes available when the ECL is 13. This traditional path assumes that the familiar is going to try and share and enhance their master’s arcane energy. Crouching Monkey, Hidden Toad adds some alternative paths for the familiar and the more powerful ones are balanced through an experience point investment. Summon your familiar and be tempted by the Path of the Assistant, the Path of the Envoy, the Path of the Guardian, the Path of the Gladiator, the Path of the Infiltrator or the Path of the Seeker. These different paths have widely different abilities; sometimes the familiars have the full hit points of their master and sometimes they can even soak up damage to protect their master (and regenerate it quickly if they’re powerful enough). My personal preference is to shy away from the more combat orientated familiars but to take a shine to the wizardly assisting familiars. The path of the infiltrator should mean its unlucky/unwise to allow a raven to sit up in a tree and watch you plot against the local witch. The Path of Seeker has the familiar busy itself with trying to find material components for its master. This is a great idea. I hate it when the search for components consumes too much game time. Get the familiar to do it in the background and sell the idea to BioWare’s CRPG designers.

Another option is to do without a familiar all together. The Path of Independence gives the mage the ability to forever do without a familiar and gain a feat instead. Doesn’t sound like a fair trade to me (especially since some familiars grant feats in this book) but options are generally good. A better idea is to sacrifice other people’s familiars and harvest the power yourself.

Familiars naturally advance in power along side their master but EA: Familiars suggests that they can be specifically trained too. Training isn’t natural. It requires a Training Ritual and plenty of experience points. Training Ritual I grants a class level of 1 to the familiar, Training Ritual V grants a class level of 5 to the familiar and Training Ritual VIII takes it up to class level 8. Just as players must advance one level as a time, so do familiars. Do familiars have character classes? Yes! But they don’t get all the associated special abilities though. You can train your familiar to be a wizard and it’ll be able to cast the spells you know but not be able to summon a familiar all for itself. A Barbarian familiar could rage. A monk monkey family can deflect arrows if it has enough levels. ("Crouching Monkey, Hidden Toad", remember).

Some standard feats don’t suit familiars at all but the book offers up some special familiar only feats. These familiar feats wouldn’t normally be required but with familiar training they could need as many feats as their master. Extended Empathic Link will allow your familiar to contact you up to five miles away. Sense Component is a feat that lets your familiar magically sense when a component is nearby. Handy.

Encyclopaedia Arcane: Familiars contains prestige classes for mages especially interested in the familiar link. The Acolyte of the Ghost must have an undead familiar and, as the name suggests, will transform into a ghost as they level up. The Beastheart must have a magical beast familiar and are interested in how the arcane familiar experiences the world. Already mentioned in this review is the idea and practise of sacrificing someone else’s familiar and the Libertine Darktongue prestige class is spawned from this. True Magi are those who do without a familiar and explore the possibilities and arcane secrets that become apparent without that connection. Mongoose’s Ooze Lord class is no less silly than the Oozemaster in WotC’s awful Masters of the Wild. The Treantblood class is less silly since even though it has a similar transformation process it’s not one that defies belief and prevents roleplaying.

The book finishes off with a collection of familiar related magic spells and stat blocks for common familiar suitable animals like otter and, of course, the mongoose.

Crouching Monkey, Hidden Toad is a pick’n’mix book. If you pick it up and read something at random then you could well find an article or idea that holds no attraction for you. On the other hand you’re equally as likely to find a winning idea. However, all these ideas, whether they appeal to you or not, are wrapped up in typical Mongoose professionalism and this gives the book just the edge it needs.

* This Encyclopaedia Arcane: Familiars review was first published at [a]http://www.gamewyrd.com[/a].