Favorite Familiars or Animal Companions

[eris404]

Yar. Warhorses make great animal companions too. (Tip: Ride is a class skill for druids. Warhorses are stout combatants. Warhorse animal companion + druid with Mounted Combat = great combo.)

I liked that, too, although my druid's mount was a dire bat. THAT was fun!

 

[lukelightning]

Favorite familiar: Rat. Bonus to fort saves is awesome for a wizard, it can climb and swim, chew through things, talk with other rats. Bats are my second choice, then Raven.

Animal companion: Dire ape. It has reach, is great in combat, and very versatile and mobile. I hate having animals that can't handle terrain obstacles (pits, walls, etc.)

Here's an interesting thing about familiars: Technically any familiar should be able to understand spoken languages, probably Common. According to the SRD:

Intelligence: A creature can speak all the languages mentioned in its description, plus one additional language per point of Intelligence bonus. Any creature with an Intelligence score of 3 or higher understands at least one language (Common, unless noted otherwise).

 

[Shemeska]

Anything quirky, wierd, and intelligent in its own right:

Imps, Quasits, Nalgs*. You can never go wrong with divided loyalties personified in an eight pound bottle of bitter and mean.

Mephits - like above, just hellishly more annoying.

Pseudodragons - cute versions of the imp/quasit/nalg archetype. We've got one in my current campaign, and it's one of the few things keeping its PC master from going evil, which she's already inclined towards by virtue of her parents.

Faerie Dragons - the pipe dream of a chaotic good spellcaster, or a spellcaster with little tangible grip on reality. Insanely adorable, but also insanely dangerous since I give the little fellows a Wish 1/day.

Chaos Imps - mischief incarnate. Never ever allow a Xaositect tiefling wild mage access to one of these. You'll regret it.







*NE analogs to imps and quasits from somewhere back in the wee early years of Dragon mag, possibly before I was born, which I redefined in my games as yugoloth creations, much like guardian yugoloths are, used to tempt spellcasters to neutral evil and to allow the 'loths to get their claws into influencial people.

 

[TroyXavier]

I enjoyed my Dire Bat Druid companion too during a brief use of him at GenCon. He was very useful for crossing gorges and the like. Too bad the DMs were always forgetting about letting me use him in combats.

 

[Stormborn]

For Arcane Spell Casters I like the Raven, as lots of people have already said. Spiders are nice for Arcane Trickster like characters. I have also played a Human Paladin who had a riding dog as a "mount". The campaign was centered around a large marshy area created by a Black Dragon and its followers so a horse wasn't really useful, but a hunting dog was perfect. My wife has played an elf druid with a wolf companion named Ulmas that I think she liked better than the actual druid.

 

[Ashanderai]

I haven't played one yet, but I would love to play an Artificer with homunculi companions. They have construct traits, are telepathically linked to their master, and can notify their master of what they see and hear. The messenger can fly and communicate to others on its own (even serving as a mouthpiece for its master) and the others can serve as skirmshers, guards, laborers, and thieves. Because they are constructs you can also buff them with your infusions.

 

[Tarangil]

A friend of mine had a large (size of a cat) black Scorpion as a familiar. His name was clacker. It was actually pretty fun to have. He would not have traded him in even for a psuedodragon.

 

[lukelightning]

I heard about a player who asked his DM if he could have a Large scorpion for a familiar; the DM said yes thinking that he was asking for a big scorpion like the size of a rat or tarantula...nope, the player meant a LARGE scorpion...

A friend of mine had a large (size of a cat) black Scorpion as a familiar. His name was clacker. It was actually pretty fun to have. He would not have traded him in even for a psuedodragon.

 

[iwatt]

Well I like my raven familira becauze he can talk.

But the best one is OPS. The Owl Positioning System. A stealthy observation platform with superior low light vision (x5), is just awesome.

 

[Evilhalfling]

One Adult dragon took Obtain familiar - a 134hp Bat. & second set of +20 skill modifiers
she is waiting for improved familiar