Horse familiar?

[chibichibi01]

Is there anything official for a horse familiar? I'm playing a level three sorceress and I thought it would be a good type to try. Can anyone help me out?

 

[Theo R Cwithin]

So far as I know, horses can only officially be animal companions for druids/rangers, but not familiars for sorcerors. There might be a non-official way to do it, but it would probably be overpowered, since familiars tend to be small creatures (especially at 3rd level )

 

[chibichibi01]

My DM already told me it was alright, if I can get the stats and stuff for it. And as far as I can tell, familiars are just like their normal counterparts with a few differences. I'm thinking of just taking it as is and not giving it any special boosts.

I just need to get a hold of my DM again x.x

And I'm still pretty new to the game anyway, I've made tons of characters, but never found anyone to play with until now.

 

[Theo R Cwithin]

Ah! If DM says ok, then ok...

Here's the basic info on familiars. For your horse, you'll have to figure out a good special ability to grant your sorceror (or maybe just take "I can ride it!" as the special ability, since it's already more powerful than normal familiars?). Here are the stats on horses. It should be fairly straightforward to apply familiar rules to the horse to make something your DM will accept.

I googled around a bit, and didn't find anything. That surprises me; surely someone has done this before?

Good luck with it, happy gaming!

[EDIT] Oh, and here's the info on the feat Improved Familiar, which might give a few more guidelines for more powerful familiars. Generally, more powerful familiars grant a less powers to their masters, so I think your intuition to cut back on boosts is a good idea.

 

[chibichibi01]

:'D That's fabulous! Thanks so much!

And yeah, I googled around a bit and couldn't find anything either. It was pretty odd.

 

[Mighty Halfling]

Special ability should probably be:
+3 to Ride checks.
or
+3 to Handle Animal checks.

You'll need all the help you can get to manage your horse in combat.

If I was DM, I'd let you have it, but require you to make Ride and Handle Animal Checks checks as if it were a regular horse.

Be sure to look up the Paladin's Mount rules. Maybe you can do a complete swap of the familiar rules for that.

 

[chibichibi01]

I'd completely forgotten about those skills! Thanks for the information, I'll have to rework the current skills I have a little bit to work around that. The info is much appreciated.

 

[Mighty Halfling]

You could also go in the complete opposite direction and opt to never ride your familiar. Why?

• RP reason: It isn't to be thought of as a beast of burden, and you constantly dote on it. You spend much of your free time brushing it and crafting fancy gear for it. You take extra time to seek out the best food and eagerly seek out magic items for it.
• Tactics reason: You use it exclusively to tote around your supplies, such as your alchemy kit, tanglefoot bags, extra spell components and so on.

 

[chibichibi01]

That's an even better thought. >:3

Thanks!

 

[anest1s]

Are you sure you don't want a normal familiar? You can't get it in a dungeon, you can't get it indoors, and if it dies.....

Its not like you can't buy a horse, if you want...