Mage's Familiars and Role-Play.
- Thread starter BASTON!!!
- Start date
In my case, my last familiar was a monkey named Rico the Lady's Chimp. I role-played it a couple of time, only to react to some situation to bring a few laugh. He never did any mission on is own to help the group. Not that he could... 
Anyway, the next one will be a rat, he might never get out of my pocket but i will gladly take the +2 bonus on fortitude saves.
I think i will call him Socrate. Have you seen Willard the movie? hehe
BASTON!!!![:]](http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png "Devious :]")
Anyway, the next one will be a rat, he might never get out of my pocket but i will gladly take the +2 bonus on fortitude saves.
I think i will call him Socrate. Have you seen Willard the movie? hehe
BASTON!!!
The_Gneech
Explorer
My group loves familiars, and we tend to have weird ones. My character's is a leopard named "Kitty," who can be quite the terror in combat -- whenever he makes the final kill on a big monster, he immediately climbs on top of it and claims it for dinner. He also argues with my character and sometimes refuses to do what he's told, as is proper for any feline. This is all done by me, with the DM just sitting back and enjoying the show. In general, I have complete control over him.
Similarly, in the game I run, one of the characters has a blink puppy as a familiar, and he always plays her as an adorable little bundle of energy who teleports all over the place yipping away at everybody in Blink Dog (which nobody in the party can speak). She's rarely useful in a straight-up fight, but when mobility is required (e.g., pulling the lever on the far side of the pit) she's a godsend. Again, I let the player pretty much have control over the familiar all the time.
Animal companions, on the other hand, I tend to treat a little more as NPC characters rather than as extensions of the player character, but even then I only countermand the player's desires if there's a particular reason to.
-The Gneech
Similarly, in the game I run, one of the characters has a blink puppy as a familiar, and he always plays her as an adorable little bundle of energy who teleports all over the place yipping away at everybody in Blink Dog (which nobody in the party can speak). She's rarely useful in a straight-up fight, but when mobility is required (e.g., pulling the lever on the far side of the pit) she's a godsend. Again, I let the player pretty much have control over the familiar all the time.
Animal companions, on the other hand, I tend to treat a little more as NPC characters rather than as extensions of the player character, but even then I only countermand the player's desires if there's a particular reason to.
-The Gneech
jgsugden
Legend
I've played in a lot of games over the years. In 90% of them, the familiar tends to be an afterthought. They give a bonus and live on a shoulder, in a backpack, etc ...
In those other 10%, they are very useful.
One of my sorcerers has a bat familiar that warns him if anything invisibile approaches. It scouts out natural dungeons, retrieves fallen items in combat and sometimes enters the fringe of the fray after being hit with a polymorph spell so that it can perform some useful, though low risk, activities (such as mending wounds with healing potions, opening doors, searching for stuff, etc ...) It has also done useful things like knock torches off of sconces, chewed through ropes ... and *successfully* bull rushed a kobold off the edge of a bridge.
That bat has a distinct personality akin to secondary characters in a fantasy novel: only a few distinct traits, but those are a bit exagerated.
In those other 10%, they are very useful.
One of my sorcerers has a bat familiar that warns him if anything invisibile approaches. It scouts out natural dungeons, retrieves fallen items in combat and sometimes enters the fringe of the fray after being hit with a polymorph spell so that it can perform some useful, though low risk, activities (such as mending wounds with healing potions, opening doors, searching for stuff, etc ...) It has also done useful things like knock torches off of sconces, chewed through ropes ... and *successfully* bull rushed a kobold off the edge of a bridge.
That bat has a distinct personality akin to secondary characters in a fantasy novel: only a few distinct traits, but those are a bit exagerated.
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