The oft forgotten familiar

[Darmanicus]

Ok guys here's one for ya all.........

As we all know, the familiar is so easily forgotten as a wizards friend and is usually just counted as a bonus to feats ie. Alertness and a bonus like +2 Fort WOOT........NOT!!!!

C'mon folks, they are soooo much more handy than that!

Take for example the delivery of touch spells, and I'm not talking about delivering some whup ass to the bad guy, forget that!!! I'm talking the bolstering of yer partners, yes the other party members!!!

Take for instance, yet again your DM has forced an encounter in a tunnel, 5ft wide and you are at the back and the main tank is up front getting the smack down laid on his ugly, half-orc butt!!! He's down to not so many HP's and seriously needs a boost both HP wise and maybe lots else.........so why don't you cast Polymorph and get your familiar to go deliver it to that stoopid half-orc tank who's taking a pounding? BOSH, all of a sudden, Mr half-orc is now an Annis Hag or a troll, has healed some HP's and gained a hell of a lot more.........and you didn't even have to get anywhere near the smelly git Ok so you couldn't get near him anyways but that's not the point.

So, any other mages etc. out there actually use their familiars? Well I do and my party has bets on how long it'll last because I've actually dared to use it!!! In fact they've lost money so far because, and let's face it, they are pretty tough, at least at lowish levels!

And I've managed to derail my own thread before it's even started.......

My point was actually gonna be regarding your familiar and the Polymorph Any Object spell......

Seriously, you can cast that spell.....wouldn't you transform that furry little critter into something FAR bettter? And if yes, then what? And, more importantly, if your familiar was a Raven, like mine, then what would be the best thing to transform him into?

Just remember, the Raven into XXXXX is more important seeing as that's the familiar I have however I'd love to hear of any other ideas for other familiars.

Cheers, Daar.

 

[rgard]

Ok guys here's one for ya all.........

As we all know, the familiar is so easily forgotten as a wizards friend and is usually just counted as a bonus to feats ie. Alertness and a bonus like +2 Fort WOOT........NOT!!!!

<snip>

Cheers, Daar.

Hi, my last character with a familiar was my 1E Magic User. Never got around to converting the MU to 3.5, but would keep the familiar if I did.

I have moved away from that in 3E using flaws and variants to remove the familiar class feature.

Thanks,
Rich

Edit: forgot and kept most of the original post.

 

[BV210]

I started a thread a couple of weeks ago asking about the use of familiars and whether they were not all they're cracked up to be.

In a game just last weekend, I used a familiar probably for the first time in years. Nothing super flashy, but the ability to deliver a touch spell came in very handy. With the advent of several familiar enhancing spells and magic items, they are becoming much more interesting to me.

 

[crazy_monkey1956]

Multi-class Wizard or Sorcerer and Cleric + flying familiar = Fly-By Healing.

My wife's PC does this all the time. Comes in quite handy.

 

[Ilium]

The wizard in my game has a snake familiar. He throws it at the other party members to buff them.

 

[moritheil]

Just remember, the Raven into XXXXX is more important seeing as that's the familiar I have however I'd love to hear of any other ideas for other familiars.

Cheers, Daar.

PAO a pseudodragon into a true dragon.

 

[abri]

My group saw the great power of familiars when I played a mystic theurge with a blink dog familiar: I don't need to be in the same ROOM (or building actually) to heal you or buff you !
There's also some fun stuff with begign translocation and familiar...

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

The utility of familiars (and other animal sidekicks) is directly proportionate to your DM's attitude towards them.

For instance, the last 3 times I played PCs with animal sidekicks, the DMs killed them. They weren't attacking- one was scouting, one was off on its own, and the last one was consumed in an area-effect attack delivered by suprise.

Thus, I don't play PCs with animal sidekicks with those DMs anymore.

 

[Bloosquig]

I did a pretty awesome rescue mission once with my owl. The party was fighting off an army of demons/devils and our rogue got separated from us and it looked bad. As he fled from the screaming horde with a bare handful of hit points down came the owl and popped the two of them off with a teleport back to my underground lab. Not sure if you can technically cast a 'port off with a familiar but my dm allowed it and it ended up being almost the only thing the owl did that made it worth anything.

It did get swatted out of the air like a mosquito when we ran into the devil possessed half dragon general of the aforementioned army while it was trying to sneak in for a dive bomb curse spell though.

 

[pressedcat]

How does a familiar work when delivering spells where you effect x touched creatures a level. I ask because i'm not entirely sure how the mechanic works, ie if i was to move, cast a buff spell that effects x touched allies (none of whom are adjacent to me), could my raven familiar fly round delivering the effect to all my allies, or would flying to one and touching him count as both the move and action allowed?