Polymorph your familiar

[Quidam]

All 3.5e considerations re the polymorphs aside, have any of you seen polymophed familiars used to great effect? Are there any sorts of rulings on such strategies? What's the coolest/funniest/most useful implementations you've seen?

I saw someone mention in passing polymorphing a familiar into something with reach for the deliverance of touch spells... What else?

 

[AuraSeer]

Reach would be kinda hard, considering the size limitation. Most familiars are Tiny, which means poly other can get them to Small at most.

 

[Caliban]

I've seen a few familiar buffing schemes, although I don't recall any that featured polymorph, since it cut off the link with the master.

I've heard of Mage Mage Armored, Shielded, Hasted, Iron Body Tenser's Transformed familiars wielding Force Lances and hasted, imbued familiars tossing off magic missiles and/or fireballs.

 

[Hypersmurf]

I'm fond of the Polymorphed Paladin's Mount Sharing the Divine Might and Divine Shield feats, myself.

-Hyp.

 

[Janos Antero]

We had a toad familiar thrown at our party, which we naturally assumed was a humorous thing. Till it bit one party member. Much like Caliban mentioned, it was Hasted, Stoneskined, Transformed, Displaced, Cat's Graced, etc.

The wizard had dropped a good half of his spells on buffing the thing to keep us distracted while he got away. Worst part was, when we finally were about to kill it, the contingency on it triggered, dimension dooring it to safety.

We were very unhappy with said toad and said wizard.

 

[Hypersmurf]

We had a toad familiar thrown at our party... it was Hasted...

Wow... so with a Run plus a move action, it could move 25' in one round!

-Hyp.

 

[coyote6]

Wow... so with a Run plus a move action, it could move 25' in one round!

Maybe it was also under expeditious retreat, bumping that up to a ground-devouring 50 feet!

 

[Janos Antero]

Heh unfortunately our party was so busy laughing, we stood around and only half-heartedly swung at it that first round, thinking he was an idiot for tossing his beloved toad to us.

After that first suprise round, we had it surrounded and beat into triggering it's contingency it didn't have more than two rounds, both of which it spend attacking.

 

[Caliban]

It's not quite as amusing when it's a Pseudodragon with a 40+ AC, SR 19, a Reach of 20 feet, Improved Evasion, four attacks at +21/+21/+16/+11 and does 2d6+7 force damage with a x3 crit.

A 12th level wizard can do this one with just a few spells: mage armor, shield, haste, tensers transformation, and Thunderlance (From the FRCS).

You can also use the familiar buffing spells from Tome and Blood to make your familiar even more durable, and even grant it the ability to cast spells of it's own.

 

[Cheiromancer]

Turn your Formian worker familiar into an eladrin (at level 10) or astral deva (at level 12). Those critters kick some butt.