Familiars Take 0.01

[FoxWander]

Now that my meaningless opinion is out of the way, I do have some suggestions for version 2.

The feat should should come with a standard stat-block for all familiars. As in, to be fair- all familiars should have the same basic stats and abilities. But their form is up to the player and the DM. With the DM's permission that from could grant the familiar different capabilities than other familiars. Which just means, one wizard might have a raven familiar, meaning it could fly but will have a hard time manipulating objects. Whereas one warlock's little "imp" familiar (not actually a demonic creature, it just looks like an evil little critter) will be able to pick up and carry things, but obviously can't fly, or be as stealthy as the cat familiar, or as unobtrusive as the mouse familiar, etc.. But all of these familiars should have the same basic stats, attacks, etc..

 

[ferratus]

Firstly, anyone can potentially cast a ritual and thus gain a familiar, and that's just wrong. Familiars belong squarely with mage-types, i.e. characters with an Arcane powers source.

Ritual casters are mage types, strictly speaking. Well, they have knowledge of ritual magic anyway. It was never a problem for fighters who had one level in wizard to have a familiar before. I'm not sure why it would be thought that the flavour text is different between the two.

 

[runnerXL]

Ritual casters are mage types, strictly speaking. Well, they have knowledge of ritual magic anyway. It was never a problem for fighters who had one level in wizard to have a familiar before. I'm not sure why it would be thought that the flavour text is different between the two.

Anyone trained in Arcana can take the ritual caster feat -> access to a familier.

Even worse, a ritual scroll can be used by anyone with no prerequisites. It takes away the arcane only flavour.

 

[FoxWander]

Even worse, a ritual scroll can be used by anyone with no prerequisites. It takes away the arcane only flavour.

Yes, this captures part of the "problem" exactly. A familiar shouldn't be accessible to anyone with the $$$ to buy a scroll. This was something I completely overlooked about rituals when I suggested earlier that there should be a 'find familiar' ritual.

It's especially true of Lizard's version of the familiar which brings the familiar back to it's traditional (as in real-life medieval mysticism) role as arcane advisor. If you could effectively just buy a familiar it would lose its (as runnerXL puts it perfectly) arcane flavor. Now if a fighter takes a multiclass feat so he has an arcane power source, then I'd have no problem if he wanted some of that 'flavor' for himself and took the familiar feat as well.