Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
White Dwarf Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Nest
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
EN Publishing
Twitter
BlueSky
Facebook
Instagram
EN World
BlueSky
YouTube
Facebook
Twitter
Twitch
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Familiars: Crouching Monkey, Hidden Toad
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="John Cooper" data-source="post: 2010648" data-attributes="member: 24255"><p><strong>Encyclopaedia Arcane: Familiars</strong></p><p>Mongoose Publishing product number MGP1017 </p><p>J. Miller </p><p>64 pages, $14.95</p><p></p><p>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).</p><p></p><p>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. </p><p></p><p>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!</p><p></p><p>The inside front covers contain all of the monsters in the <em>Monster Manual</em> 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.)</p><p></p><p><em>Familiars</em> follows the standard <em>Encyclopaedia Arcane</em> format, including the following sections:</p><p></p><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> <strong>Introduction:</strong> describing the purpose of the "Encyclopaedia Arcane" line </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> <strong>Familiars - An Overview:</strong> focusing on different creature types, then giving overviews of natural intelligence, bonding, training, augmentation, mistreatment, dismissal, and death.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> <strong>The Summoning:</strong> how one goes about summoning a familiar of a different creature type than "animal"</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> <strong>Consequences of Bonding:</strong> focusing on the "special boons," like the fact that a toad familiar grants his master +3 hp</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> <strong>The Infusion:</strong> examining the level-dependent boons a familair grants his master, including six new "paths" the familiar can follow (granting different boons to the master)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> <strong>Unbound Mages:</strong> those wizards who decide not to get a familiar, ever, and those who draw power from slaying other wizards' familiars</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> <strong>Training Familiars:</strong> allowing familiars to gain class levels </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> 17 <strong>Familiar Feats</strong> </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> <strong>The Masters - Bound and Unbound:</strong> 6 familiar-based prestige classes</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> <strong>Spells of the Master:</strong> 8 familiar-themes spells</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> <strong>The Art of Familiar Maintenance:</strong> the consequences of having a familiar of a specified creature type</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> <strong>Familiar Creatures:</strong> 11 real-life creatures suitable as familiars</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> <strong>Designer's Notes:</strong> the author's views on why he wrote what he did</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> <strong>Rules Summary:</strong> a reprint of the new familiar-themed spells and rituals</li> </ul><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.)</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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 <em>Complete Ranger's Handbook</em> that turned the ranger into a treantlike creature, <em>Ghostwalk</em> 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 <em>at least</em> 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!</p><p></p><p>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 <em>somebody</em> 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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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?</p><p></p><p>Furthermore, is <em>Familiars</em> 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.</p><p></p><p>Still and all, little twitches and burps in the book like this notwithstanding, I can highly recommend <em>Familiars</em> 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.</p><p></p><p>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."</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="John Cooper, post: 2010648, member: 24255"] [b]Encyclopaedia Arcane: Familiars[/b] 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 [i]Monster Manual[/i] 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.) [i]Familiars[/i] follows the standard [i]Encyclopaedia Arcane[/i] format, including the following sections: [list] [*] [b]Introduction:[/b] describing the purpose of the "Encyclopaedia Arcane" line [*] [b]Familiars - An Overview:[/b] focusing on different creature types, then giving overviews of natural intelligence, bonding, training, augmentation, mistreatment, dismissal, and death. [*] [b]The Summoning:[/b] how one goes about summoning a familiar of a different creature type than "animal" [*] [b]Consequences of Bonding:[/b] focusing on the "special boons," like the fact that a toad familiar grants his master +3 hp [*] [b]The Infusion:[/b] examining the level-dependent boons a familair grants his master, including six new "paths" the familiar can follow (granting different boons to the master) [*] [b]Unbound Mages:[/b] those wizards who decide not to get a familiar, ever, and those who draw power from slaying other wizards' familiars [*] [b]Training Familiars:[/b] allowing familiars to gain class levels [*] 17 [b]Familiar Feats[/b] [*] [b]The Masters - Bound and Unbound:[/b] 6 familiar-based prestige classes [*] [b]Spells of the Master:[/b] 8 familiar-themes spells [*] [b]The Art of Familiar Maintenance:[/b] the consequences of having a familiar of a specified creature type [*] [b]Familiar Creatures:[/b] 11 real-life creatures suitable as familiars [*] [b]Designer's Notes:[/b] the author's views on why he wrote what he did [*] [b]Rules Summary:[/b] a reprint of the new familiar-themed spells and rituals [/list] 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 [i]Complete Ranger's Handbook[/i] that turned the ranger into a treantlike creature, [i]Ghostwalk[/i] 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 [i]at least[/i] 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 [i]somebody[/i] 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 [i]Familiars[/i] 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 [i]Familiars[/i] 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." [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Familiars: Crouching Monkey, Hidden Toad
Top