Poll : Aside from Toad, which familiar in PHB is popular in your play group?

[IceBear]

The gnome illusionist in my group (who REALLY wanted to be a fairy - don't ask) ended up with a celestial badger (with pink butterfly wings - that couldn't support it's weight) familiar with a hankering for beer and muffins (don't ask )

It was mostly used for roleplaying rather than abilities or combat

IceBear

 

[JoelF]

I've always liked the bat. A) if flies so it's one of the better scouts, and b) blindsight rocks. With your familiar around you never need to worry about invisible foes getting the jump on you.

 

[Shallown]

In the group I run the Dwarf wizard picked a toad but so far it has saved his butt once when he was thrown in jail. He lead the other party member to him before he was convicted of breaking laws he didn't even know about.

Now that he is high enough level the toad talks with him a lot. When outside combat he often takes the toad on walks and such and has even left the party for several hours to walk closer to a swamp so the toad could get out and about for a while. No one thinks much of him walking along a trail talking to the toad.

In one campaign I played in a sorc/fighter had a badger familiar who hung out with my Gnome Security specialist (rogue but not a thief). At one point we were in a swamp and I had the badger perch on my head like a raccoon tail hat as I swam /crawled through the marsh. We would talk (Had taken burrowing language) and he would relay messages back to the Sorc/fighter.
We thought it was funny I could talk to his familiar before he could.

We had an elemental savant with an earth elemental familair it was pretty cool.

Later

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

Bat.

It is in character for my wizard. He is a bit of a "batty" goofball himself.

IMO all the flying familiars are fabulous. I don't find the toad to be compelling at all.

 

[Ciaran]

My DM has a random familiars table you can roll on; you can move up or down on the table by a number of places equal to your charisma rating, which doesn't give the average wizard too much flexibility. So I wound up with a squirrel. (+2 to Climb checks.) I tried using him as a scout at first, but we gave up that idea after little Thomas almost got eaten by a fiendish wolverine. Now he just hangs out in my hood and talks to me about how he hates all this adventuring and wants to go home.

The party's witch had a lizard, who did nothing but hide under her robes and complain about how cold it was. Damn useless thing.

- Eric

 

[Speaks With Stone]

My group has seen a weasel and a raven so far.

The raven is my wizard's familiar, though hopefully almost no one knows that fact. The raven never lands near any member of the party and just keeps us in sight or hangs wherever I need a door watched or what not. Using invisibility on the Raven with his ability to mock and taunt folk is another fun use of the Raven.