Wizard/Sorcerer hit point increase

[yipwyg]

Would this work, balanced?

Wizards and Sorcerers lose the ability to summon a familiar at 1st level, but move to d6 hit points.

Basically if a Wizard or a Sorcerer wanted a familiar, he would have to use one or more of his feat choices on summon familiar feats. I have 2 books that deal with familiars and basically have 6 or 7 different feats dealing with summoning them. The books are book of familiars and dweormercraft: familiars

Here are some of the feats available

Summon Familiar
Summon Exceptional Familiar
Summon Undead Familiar
etc...

Depending on how powerful of a familiar the wizard/sorcerer wanted, he might be taking 3 feats just for a familiar, and not using it on metamagic/item creation, etc...

Anyway any suggestions would be appreciated. The only reason I am considering changing the HD, is due to d4 for wizards hit points being considered a sacred cow.

 

[Thanee]

What's wrong with Improved Toughness?

Bye
Thanee

 

[IcyCool]

Wizards and Sorcerers lose the ability to summon a familiar at 1st level, but move to d6 hit points.

Does the Wizard or Sorcerer get d6 hit points for just the first level, or all levels? Also, as Thanee said, you could accomplish the exact same thing with the Improved Toughness feat (unless you give max hitpoints for every level). And you still get to keep your familiar.

 

[Terath Ninir]

What's wrong with Improved Toughness?

Bye
Thanee

What's wrong with posting a comment that is relevent to the thread?


Personally, I'm about ready to give both of 'em a d6 HD. They need a little more survivability at 1st level and I can't see it making much of a difference either way at high level. But, if you're concerned about the power boost, summon familiar seems like a decent tradeoff. Especially given the number of arcane casters who don't bother with familiars at all.

 

[farscapesg1]

What's wrong with Improved Toughness?

Bye
Thanee

Other than the fact that a wizard has to be 6th level to take it?

As to the OP, I don't see a problem with increasing the hit dice for the cost of summon familiar.

 

[Aust Diamondew]

Imp Toughness if I'm not mistaking has a prereq of Fort +2. Wizards/sorcerers don't get for +2 till level 6.

Anyway I don't see much of a problem with it. Familiars aren't that great of an ability and a d6 hit die won't increase a mage's HP significantly at high levels.

 

[Dog Moon]

I see no real reason it would be unbalanced except perhaps in groups where no one wants the familiar anyway. Look at OotS. The familiar basically is nonexistent and only makes an appearance. In my group, it's basically like that, so you'd pretty much be getting something from nothing.

As for the summoning, in Complete Arcane, I believe, there is a feat Obtain Familiar which basically gives you a familiar for Arcane spellcasting classes. After that, you could go to Improved Familiar, etc.

 

[Thanee]

What's wrong with posting a comment that is relevent to the thread?

How's that not relevant?

IcyCool got the meaning of my post at least.

Sure it won't help through the very first levels, but later it's the same as a d6 HD on average.
You could also just replace the Summon Familiar ability with a free feat choice, for example, and leave the decision, whether more resiliance or something else is preferred, to each player.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Thanee]

In my group, it's basically like that, so you'd pretty much be getting something from nothing.

Just because it isn't wanted, doesn't mean it's worthless. Poor familiars!

Bye
Thanee

 

[Sravoff]

Why not give them a choice of feats at first level. They either get obtain familiar or improved toughness.

-Sravoff