Share your experiences with familiars.

[Ferret]

Has anyone had any good experiences with familiars? I have been reading posts saying that they are only Liabilities, and thought I'd share.

I was playing in Return to the Temple of element evil, with a Halfling sorcerer who had a Rat familiar. I never got very far into the campaign, but I remember that I had him scout a round and he was only ever pocketed in combat, otherwise I described how he sat on my shoulder, or scouted ahead.

Does anyone else have any memorable...memories?

 

[ARandomGod]

Has anyone had any good experiences with familiars? I have been reading posts saying that they are only Liabilities, and thought I'd share.

I was playing in Return to the Temple of element evil, with a Halfling sorcerer who had a Rat familiar. I never got very far into the campaign, but I remember that I had him scout a round and he was only ever pocketed in combat, otherwise I described how he sat on my shoulder, or scouted ahead.

Does anyone else have any memorable...memories?

Oh, I love my familiar.
Of course, I'm an Arcane Trickster, so I have a LOT of skill points. AND my familiar has hands. Which means that it can do nearly anything I can, and can be used to "aid another" for almost anything. Verrry nice.

There's a pure mage in that party who has a LOT of knowledges, and he's so far really enjoying that "Aid Another" for all the knowledges he has and for his spellcraft.

Familiars are great.

 

[Storminator]

I run a PBeM with all rogues. One has a level of Sor, and a cat familiar. In a recent battle one rogue raced after the villain, carrying the familiar with him. The Rog/Sor stayed back to fight the summoned critters. Since the R/S knew the direction of his familiar, he was able to catch up and rejoin the fight. Later, the R/S followed the villain, and the familiar was able to lead the third rogue back to the fight.


Without the familiar the villain would have easily escaped, and likely killed 2 of 3 party members (since he would have caught them one at a time). As it was, the villain died a most satisfying death.

PS

 

[kigmatzomat]

Familiars are often vastly underrated. Since they have all your skills, they essentially give you two chances on any test. This works out incredibly well for the obscure knowledges that only the caster has. Those mage/rogues should gleefully hand the familiar wands & staves for those "Use Magic Device" checks.

Dragon had a number of familiar feats and I had a summoner sorceror that had extra familiar (a bat and a cat) and the one that let the "shared" spells work out to 1 mile (but they had to be cast within 5'). The familiars let me converse (poorly) with a number of animals encountered and they were incredible scouts. No one notices cats in a community of any size and bats are pretty typical at night. The combination of sharp eyes and blindsight saved us more than once.

Sure, they tend to be rather fragile, but most of them have a decent mobility and fall below the "threat" threshold of most monsters. Heck, with sizes of Tiny or Diminuitive, most are almost unnoticeable. (What is that, +4 and +8 to hide checks?)

If you can find and use the Dragon Mag feats, they get better. Mage Armor, stat buffs, invisibility, blur, and fire shield go a *long* way to improve the longevity of a familiar without putting them out of commission.

 

[Ferret]

Friendly bump.

I once heard a discussion on a similiar topic and that someone had 'planted' a dog by the fire of an inn whilst the PC planed an attack on the Evil mage. Guess whos familiar it was ?

 

[ASH]

I dont think that grama would approve...

 

[Kaji]

First, I'm currently reading Dweomarcraft:Familiars, and it's pretty cool and a great resource for familiar ideas.

Second, out campaign has a sorcerer with a raccoon familiar who is actually a reincarnated 10th rogue. Who hates his master. Nothing but fun, and of course, he never uses his rogue skills to help, cause he hates us all.

 

[Vertaxis]

The last time I worked with a Familiar?

A little wild onion, some garlic, and Olive oil. Roasted slow over an open fire.

 

[F5]

Right now I'm playing a summoner wizard with an air mephit familiar, through the Improved Familiar feat, and it's almost embarassing how useful he is.

Darkvision, good stealth abilities (small size and high dex), a good fly speed, and is humanoid, so he can do anything a normal character can. He's practically a Cohort. I've used him as a way to keep tabs on the party even when it was split up, like Storminator did. He's just about the perfect scout, especially when I cast Invisibility on him. I've given him my crossbow in forest encounters, and had him take potshots at ogres from the treetops, convincing them that they were surrounded.

And the role-playing opportunities are awesome, too. Whenever I'm tempted to make a smart-aleck remark that would be silly and out-of-character for my arrogant, straight-laced wizard, but I just can't bear to pass up on, I make the comment as the familiar instead. It's great to be able to play your own straight man...

Improved familiar can be a powerful feat. A humanoid-shaped familiar that can speak Common and fly is a lot more useful than, say, a toad. He's still got no hit points, but the real usefulness is outside of direct combat.

 

[Sejs]

Familiars are a hoot. As has been pointed out, they have all of their master's skill ranks, so for characters like the arcane trickster it just gets obscene. Particularly if they have hands, like a little monkey, or many of the improved familiars.

Improved Familiar is quite worthwhile if done right. The two notable experiences I've had with it in the past were with an imp familiar where one of her alternate forms was human, and a small earth elemental familiar. Imp was with a straight wizard, elemental was with a eldritch knight. Share Spell just gets mean: true strike, enlarge person, bull's strength, you name it.


As an aside, one of the things we do in my group is that if someone has a helper-type npc.. familiar, cohort, gondsman, whatever - the running of that npc was handed off to a willing fellow player. One who felt comfortable with running a bit character in addition to their own, and was willing the portray it faithfully to its type and role. It's been quite fun. Means there's actual table interaction between the player and their helper, and lets the surrogate develop a personality for the npc that may not have been there otherwise. Partly sidesteps the *boop* familiar is there, master gains the familiar benefits, *boop* familiar is 'off in the background' somewhere again -issues. Heh, I'll never forget Goon the Gondsman and his little brass moustache that moved when he spoke, like Tick-tock from Return to Oz, that the player pantomimed out whenever he was in-chracter.