What to do with a familar

[Saloric Windrunner]

I'm playing a wizard in the campaign I'm in and for the first time I've taken a seabird as a familar. So far he he's only been helpful once. We were stranded by pirates on an island and he caught fish for us. So I was wondering what have been the best uses for a familar you've seen?

 

[Olaf the Stout]

The one player that has a familiar in my campaign can't even seem to remember that it's ther most of the time!

For your purposes though, a seabird could be useful for scouting. Send him out to see if there are any other ships in the area or to look for land.

Olaf the Stout

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Scouting is very useful. Noah memorably used his dove familiar that way.

 

[lukelightning]

The one player that has a familiar in my campaign can't even seem to remember that it's ther most of the time!

That's standard gaming, as brilliantly illustrated by Order of the Stick.

 

[drothgery]

My late Silver Pyromancer used his familiar for scouting a lot, because the hawk had a somewhat better spot modifier than any of the PCs (and could fly, allowing her to trail bad guys that ran away). Also, the 'deliver touch spells' thing was pretty useful for dropping buffs on allies that he otherwise wouldn't have been able to reach in a single move.

 

[sjmiller]

I don't think there's a single game session in my current campaign where the two sorcerers haven't found some creative way to use their familiars. Quoth, the raven, is sometimes used to deliver shocking grasp or other annoying touch attacks at a distance. Entwistle, the owl, is used for night scouting, spotting at night, and guard duty. Those are just some of their more common uses.

 

[lukelightning]

The problem with the delivering touch attacks thing is that the familiar has to enter the target's space (because the familiar is tiny or smaller), which provokes an attack of opportunity.

 

[scrubkai]

a few things you can do with a familiar...

1) Scout/Spy (who bothers with a sea bird circing near the sea shore.)
2) Use it as a messanger. (have it carry a letter.)
3) Deliver Helpful touch spells in combat.
4) This creature shares your skills... So your DM may allow it to do an "Aid Another" action on all your skill checks.
5) There are a bunch of familiar enhancing spells in the SC and other secondary books, you may want to consider them...
6) They can move small objects (potions, scrolls, keys, a dagger, etc.) to different characters when you are either busy (combat) or held prisoner.
7) Dive bombing runs in combat (Tanglefoot bags and Holy Water seem to work well)
If you have a cleric in the party:
8) Have them use Imbue with Spell Ability on it to give it some helpful spells. (Note you will need the Speak with Master ability to use Verbal components, and you will have to deal with the lack of hands for Somatic components.) I had a dragon familiar that saved many a character from Death by simply flying in and dropping a cure light wounds when the party cleric was busy.

And of course there is my favorate:
9) They can take out other wizards familiars. (Yes, nothing is more fun then seeing the enemy wizard suddenly lose his most powerful spell because your Bird just ate his toad....)

 

[Driddle]

Familiars are an excellent opportunity for playful brainstorming in a roleplaying framework.

For lack of an apparent task, just start goofing off a bit with the familiar. Have your PC play some games with the familiar, for example, like go-fetch. Or get into its feathers (so to speak) and wander around the environment, poking your beak into things where it doesn't belong. Have fun.

The idea is that *something* will come to mind while you're amusing yourself (and peers) -- either you'll come to recognize an adventure angle you hadn't noticed before, OR you'll inadvertantly prompt the GM into something he hand't previously considered. You might just provide him with an opening to open a new story arc.

Example: Boring day on ship. Calm waters. Nothing to do. So the seagull familiar starts wandering amongst the crew, counting their collective missing limbs and trying to convice the cook to give up a tasty left-over. In the process he's attacked by the 'alpha' ship rat, and he stumbles into -- DM opportunity! -- secret room on the lower decks...

Sometimes it's helpful to stop thinking in terms of a final goal and instead allow yourself to roleplay into the unknown.

 

[lukelightning]

The empathic link needs to be fixed. It's vague, and either the player has to give up all control of his familiar when it scouts ("uh, well, you feel your familiar is happy and looking around...then you feel that it's um, thinking about a door, and uh, is kind of unhappy that there is, um, some feelings of fear...") or try to avoid metagaming and knowing too much if he's in control.

Delivering touch spells, as I mentioned above, is risky because of AoOs and the fact that familiars tend to be rather fragile. You could cast protective spells on it like greater invisibility but you're probably better of just casting it on yourself. Plus some familiars don't have weapon finesse (I'm talking to you, bats!) so have a crappy chance to hit.

Bombing: A light load for a raven is half a pound, so don't count on it carrying anything worth dropping. Hawks can fly with 10 pounds, and owls 6.5, so they at least can bomb. However, I'd certainly say that the creature has an ad-hoc penalty to hit since it's not throwing, but dropping, which limits its aim.

Attacking another familiar sounds like fun, but given the fact they normally do 1 point of damage it could take a loooong time.