Familiars

[MerricB]

G'day!

The Wizard's Staff thread got me thinking: How useful are familiars in your games?

In most of mine, they get relegated to granting Alertness and their small bonus, and that's it. I think one has *occasionally* been used to scout, but that's it. (Order of the Stick has it right for my game).

Cheers!

 

[takasi]

In our current Age of Worms campaign we have 7 players with two characters that have familiars. One is a spider monkey and has done absolutely NOTHING. The second is a hawk and was only used as a scout in Encounter at Blackwall Keep. That's it.

Of course, it doesn't help that in Shadows of the Last War I had two Emerald Claw soldiers grapple and rip apart a player's familiar. He was overusing shocking graps throughout the campaign, so I had two of the green goons each grab a wing and "make a wish". For good measure I even through in a CDG; the PCs were too busy with glass zombies and a cleric to provide any protection.

 

[Crothian]

Alas the normal familars are that way too in my current game. However, a special familar I introduced and any normal familar I run have as much or more personality then the other player characters.

 

[Mark CMG]

In the 3.x games I have run, almost everyone (who can) has taken a familiar and I have very rarely seen them used beyond the innate bonus they grant. I think some folks like to downplay the fact that they have one lest the DM go after it.

 

[ForceUser]

I think that familiars are horridly undervalued by most groups. Here's a list of things familiars can do.

• Aid the spellcaster on skill checks--the familiar has the same ranks in every skill that the wizard or sorcerer has ranks in, modified by the familiar's own ability scores. Thus, once the familiar can speak with master, if a wizard is making a Knowledge (arcana) skill check, the familiar can make a DC 10 Knowledge (arcana) skill check to aid. Every...single...time. Somehow, nobody anywhere in all of D&Ddom seems to realize this. It is a subtle yet powerful advantage for the spellcaster.
• Scout--We all know this one. As long as the familiar isn't a toad, he's going to be quite good at scouting, especially if he's a bird. Better, when combined with the familiar's skills (which, I'll say again, are all the same skills his wizard has), this means that the familiar can make intelligent observations about the creatures and places scouted and report back ("Boss, I saw five hill giants, one of which seemed to be a divine spellcaster.")
• Talk to creatures of its type--Another subtle advantage. Rats are everywhere. Birds are everywhere. If your familiar is either of these, he can, in the course of scouting, gather information from the local fauna.
• Heraldry--If you have a raven familiar, he can be your herald and messenger, traveling long distances to deliver important information or announce your imminent arrival.
• Deliver touch spells to allies--No brainer here. Works really well with a multiclassed cleric/wizard because the familiar can deliver healing without putting the wizard in harms' way. Also great for delivering stoneskin or cat's grace to an ally in need.
• Track--Weasel familiars can track by scent. Useful.

Familiars are great, and as DM I always endeavor to make them meaningful, useful, and full of personality.

 

[Shemeska]

I don't think I've ever had a familiar taken in any of my games based on the bonus they give to X skill or X stat, or for any mechanical utility they provide. Familiars get taken and selected because they're fraggin cool to have, because they give additional RP interaction, and they typically end up as characters in their own right.

Current or past familiars:

Pseudodragon named Shimmerscales. A young, vaguely innocent, NG influence on a N/NE sorceress born from an arcanaloth and a fallen lupinal (TN).

A LE Pride incarnate, taking the form of a tiny, pixie-like woman.

A multi-tailed fox.

A chaos imp taking the form of a faerie dragon, or alternately possessing items and making a royal pain in the ass of itself.

A lesser artifact ring in the shape of an Ourorborus, inhabited by -something- Abyssal in origin, and which serves as a peanut gallery presence for the most part, though it possessed its owner the first chance it got when she left her body during the course of casting a magic jar spell. It's not a true familiar, but it might as well be.

 

[gamecat]

Familiars get treated almost as comic devices IMC.

They're passably immune to comic violence (Wile E. Coyote) but if it got serious, yeah, I'd kill a familiar.

 

[Hairfoot]

Those are great points, ForceUser.

Familiars should be specialised cohorts, and should at least be useful servants. Right now they're fragile liabilities.

Despite some treatment in Tome & Blood and Complete Arcane, familiars remain strangely bland and undeveloped. I think the designers fear that improving familiars would unbalance arcane casters.

I'd like to see:

- "Classes" for familiars, such as defensive, scout, and metamagic, with appropriate class features

- More familiar-buffing spells

- A prestige class which improves master/familiar teamwork

- A range of humanoid familiars

All of that goes for animal companions, too. Except the humanoid bit.

 

[fafhrd]

Despite some treatment in Tome & Blood and Complete Arcane, familiars remain strangely bland and undeveloped. I think the designers fear that improving familiars would unbalance arcane casters.

Agreed and agreed. The odd part is that, despite the much vaunted power of the cleric, the Complete books seemed perfectly content imbuing turning with a whole slew of new uses, some of which(read divine metamagic) have notable unfortunate results.

I really wish the designers would stop trying to balance interest in classes by overstuffing some and starving others.

 

[Richards]

Our 3E campaign has had several familiars thus far:

- A 3.0 toad (selected specifically for the bonus hp every single level) named Pyracor that was the "last man standing" during our one TPK. He went down fighting a couple of demons after they had killed his mistress and the rest of the party. In earlier adventures, they had built him a two-flask harness he wore around his body that held two healing potions, and had trained him to revive those who had been knocked down into negative hp. My oldest son, by the way, absolutley hated it that his PC's life had been saved - twice - by "that damn toad."

- A Small air elemental (who took the form of a female humanoid cloud) named Mystral, in the service of a cold-based elven wizard named Daerian. Neither one managed to stay alive for very long.

- A hawk named after some obscure Roman emporer whose name I can't summon to memory at the moment. He was used primarily as a scout.

- A different campaign, but when I had the opportunity to be a player for once (I usually DM), I decided to run a human sorcerer (named Nikolai) with a raven familiar (named Boris). I've only gotten to play in two adventures with him so far, but so far Boris has proven his worth as a lookout.

Johnathan