What do you allow a Familiar's Empathic Link to convey?

[DrSpunj]

Empathic Link (Su): The master has an empathic link with his familiar out to a distance of up to 1 mile. The master cannot see through the familiar’s eyes, but they can communicate empathically. Because of the limited nature of the link, only general emotional content can be communicated.

Because of this empathic link, the master has the same connection to an item or place that his familiar does.

Tome & Blood lists quite a bit more potentially being shared telepathically over the Empathic Link, but the 3.5 rules keep it pretty limited.

If the familiar is away from the player (but within 1 mile), either watching an area (like the party's base camp) or following someone the party is interested in catching up with, or some other scenario, and given a base Familiar's Intelligence of 6, what kind of info do you pass along to the player?

Obviously quite a bit more can be shared once the Familiar can Speak with Master and it's returned to the immediate vicinity of its Master, but assuming this is a lower level Wizard or Sorcerer, how do you handle it when players are asking questions like:

• How many creatures are there?
• What type? Enemies?
• Do they have (insert kidnapped/unconscious creature here) with them?
• Any spellcasters (assuming they're actually casting spells when the Familiar is watching them)?
• etc., etc.

I'd love to hear some examples of situations that have come up in other people's games. This situation came up tonight with my Rgr3/Wiz1, and I realized I haven't given this much thought. The DM & I worked out a good solution on the fly, IMO, but I'd like to hear some other opinions before I decide on what to do for the game I DM (because it's going to come up soon with an Improved Familiar in a level or two).

Thanks.

DrSpunj

 

[Crothian]

I use as emotions, so no numbers could be conveyed. If the familiar was looking for someone and found them, a sense of success would be felt. But no idea of who or what type of creatuires were there.

 

[DrSpunj]

Thanks, Crothian. Anyone else wanna weigh in on this one?

IOW, **BUMP**!

 

[Voadam]

I've used it to leave my familiar at a base camp with our henchmen when we teleport into the bad guys fortress. Then when we need to leave I use the link to make the camp the easiest category for teleports.

 

[Nail]

Let's get more specific:

A Rgr3/Wiz1 is tracking some orcs that got away. He sends his familiar (an owl) out to find them. The owl is successful. What does the Rgr3/Wiz1 now know?

• Does he know in what direction the orcs lie?
• Does he know how far away they are?
• Does he know how to get to them?

The system we came up with "on the fly" is that the owl would fly back and forth between master and quarry. I occurs to me now I (the DM) might have made that a touch too easy. Suggestions?

 

[DrSpunj]

<snip> It occurs to me now I (the DM) might have made that a touch too easy. Suggestions?

Well, as the DM, you are privy to a lot more information to base your decision on. As the player in question, given that I took the Wizard level at character level 2, the familiar and I have had 3 "levels" to figure out a system that works for us, so I would hope we would've worked out all the kinks we could have during that time to make this as smooth as we could.

Specifically, as a Ranger with Favored Enemy-Orcs, if the Owl finds them within 1 mile of my position, I expect I'd get an emotional response of satisfaction or happiness or anger (or whatever you feel is appropriate coming from the Owl) through the Empathic Link.

Now, with an Intelligence of 6, I hope the Owl could then fly back to me and either lead me or fly towards or point me in the direction I need to go to get to them. Assuming they haven't moved much (which they hadn't, they'd set up camp), I'd hope the Owl could find them rather easily. Rinse & repeat until I get close enough to them.

Now, if they'd continued moving during the time it took the Owl to fly between their constantly changing position and mine (to help lead me in the right direction), that might be enough for them to elude the Owl, even unknowingly. With them staying put I think it would be fairly easy.

Is this method easier or faster than simply using Track with my +2 for Favored Enemy? Maybe, maybe not. I was trying to do that at the same time but we (both Nail & I) kind of dropped that aspect of things when we started hammering out how things with the Owl & Empathic Link should work.

I originally thought the Empathic Link would give me a rough approximation of direction of, and perhaps distance to, the Owl, but the 3.5 PHB doesn't relay anything of the sort. I think I was remembering the vastly enhanced abilities outlined in Tome & Blood regarding the Empathic link (which I'm too lazy to type here since they're trumped by the 3.5 PHB material anyway).

Anyway, what got me to post was not what happened last night (though I admit, it'll be good for later sessions to have things better spelled out between us), but my thinking on the way home that I'm going to have to deal with this exact issue in a few months in the game I DM. A Wizard there is planning on taking the Improved Familiar feat (hasn't decided on what creature yet), and I'd like to have thought things through before being faced with that at the table.

Thanks.

 

[Altamont Ravenard]

I've played it more as a telepathic link than an empathic link, ie direct telepathic communication between the familiar (with its low intelligence and skewed world views) and the sorcerer/wizard. It's just simpler, even if it's more powerful.

AR