Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="airwalkrr" data-source="post: 5506289" data-attributes="member: 12460">Using Alter Self to transform your familiar into a formidable-looking foe like a hydra is a terrible idea in my opinion. In the first place, the familiar doesn't advance the same way as a typical creature does. It uses its master's base attack bonus, which is hardly impressive unless you are a mystic theurge casting divine power, at which point you've already sacrificed a lot of familiar abilities. So you are basically attacking with the hydra's Str score plus a little bit more which isn't much, considering the size penalty. Add that to Jack Simth's point about how utterly squishy they are hp-wise and you're just asking for that XP penalty.Now I have found familiars handy in combat in other ways. The key is to make them just ineffective enough that the bad guys don't pay attention to them. For example I once played a half-orc wizard named Dravus (pure wizard, no fighter levels or anything) who carried around a greataxe and regularly waded into melee. He was pretty good at it too. And always running alongside him was his weasel familiar Bubu. As Dravus would charge into the fray his battle cry was always "Go for the balls, Bubu! I'll take the top!" Many monsters wouldn't waste their attack of opportunity on a little weasel who had to enter their square to attack, but once he was attached, that was 1 hp of damage every round. Enough to possibly make a difference, but not enough to distract attention from the half-orc with the greataxe. And when it came time for it, being attached meant the DM usually allowed an auto-hit on casting touch-range spells through the familiar. Of course I rarely used the latter ability unless I was relatively certain it would take down the monster, as it was a guaranteed to get the monster's attention. Casting shocking grasp through a weasel's teeth tends to hurt quite a lot.But no, a familiar is never really a tank. Even if you take every familiar feat out there and cast tons of spells on it, it is never really going to be a tank. Nor is it a skill monkey. If you're a sorcerer or a wizard, your skills aren't the type that are generally reserved for the so-called "skill monkey." Your familiar can't disable traps or open locks (unless you somehow also have those skills and even then it depends on the familiar and whether it has opposable digits). It can't negotiate with diplomacy or sense motive any better than your own character. This underlies the fact that the familiar still has the same skill points as you, so it isn't doing anything that you couldn't do already. Even if you transform it into other creatures, it has to stay within 5 feet of you and how many useful abilities can you really get from transmutation that you couldn't get for yourself?A familiar is generally a useful tool for an arcane spellcaster, most often as a scout or messenger, but not as a fill-in for some other party role. If your DM lets you get away with making a familiar a tank, I'd say you are either incredibly lucky, or your DM doesn't understand the familiar rules too well and is letting you get away with too much.</blockquote>

Verification