Worth of a Familiar or a Psicrystal?

[Roman]

OK, so I don't particularly like how all wizards automatically have animal compa..., erm, familiars. It's not that I dislike familiars in and of themselves, but they certainly need not be an accessory of every wizard. The same applies to psions and psicrystals.

Still, I feel the need to compensate equivalently those players who will forgo having familiars for flavor reasons. Giving a feat instead of a familiar is not sufficient - a familiar is way better than a feat - it adds a bonus equivalent to a feat and does lots of other stuff (such as scouting...). So how much, do you think, is a familiar worth?

I would guess a familiar is worth about 2-3 feats. What do you think?

How about a psicrystal?

 

[rgard]

OK, so I don't particularly like how all wizards automatically have animal compa..., erm, familiars. It's not that I dislike familiars in and of themselves, but they certainly need not be an accessory of every wizard. The same applies to psions and psicrystals.

Still, I feel the need to compensate equivalently those players who will forgo having familiars for flavor reasons. Giving a feat instead of a familiar is not sufficient - a familiar is way better than a feat - it adds a bonus equivalent to a feat and does lots of other stuff (such as scouting...). So how much, do you think, is a familiar worth?

I would guess a familiar is worth about 2-3 feats. What do you think?

How about a psicrystal?

Drive by response: in my campaigns it's worth one feat.

I'll do a search later tonight or tomorrow to find the threads where this was previously discussed; assuming somebody doesn't beat me to the punch and post the links first.

I remember at least 2 threads where we discussed this in great detail. As for the gist of the discussions and my recollection may be wrong, but I believe some said it was not worth even one feat and some said it was worth around one feat.

Thanks,
Rich

 

[rgard]

Here are some threads where we discussed familiars and relative worth or substitues:

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=202139&highlight=familiar

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=210062&highlight=familiar

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=214189&highlight=familiar

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=212698&highlight=familiar

I don't have any help for you with psycrystals. From what I understand they are similar in power to familiars so maybe 1 feat instead again.

Thanks,
Rich

 

[Aidan Milvus]

It must have been a while since you've looked at Psicrystals, huh? In 3.5 Psions don't automatically get them anymore. They have to take a feat in order to have a psicrystal. So for them, they're worth exactly one feat. (however, there are other feats that improve them...)

 

[Arkhandus]

In 3.5, they're worth a feat. There's a feat somewhere in Complete Arcane, Complete Adventurer, or one of the other books, or perhaps it was on the WotC website, that gives you a familiar. It's called Obtain Familiar. You just have to be an arcane caster, I think, to take it. Also, in 3.5, any psionic character can obtain a psicrystal through the Psicrystal Affinity psionic feat. Psion's don't get it for free in 3.5, instead they get a bonus psionic feat at 1st-level and every so often after that, which they could choose to spend on gaining Psicrystal Affinity for example.

However, I've always been of the opinion that familiars and psicrystals are worth more than a single feat, overall. A familiar gets you the Alertness feat when it's near, it can scout for you fairly effectively in many places, it can discreetly deliver a touch spell for you sometimes, and it can use Aid Another actions for you just about whenever you want it to. A second pair of eyes and ears doesn't hurt when you want to lessen the chances of a surprise, either.

A bat can scout out many places a human couldn't, and so too can a rat, hawk, or owl, without drawing attention to itself usually.

That said, I think familiars are unnecessarily fragile, which is annoying. I make various feats in my games to let players toughen up their familiars or empower them to be more useful.

Certainly, though, for the average powergamer, a familiar is just a liability and not worth much, because it's of no use during most combats. I've occasionally gotten some use out of a familiar in battle, though, albeit not as an attacker.

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

However, I've always been of the opinion that familiars and psicrystals are worth more than a single feat, overall. A familiar gets you the Alertness feat when it's near, it can scout for you fairly effectively in many places, it can discreetly deliver a touch spell for you sometimes, and it can use Aid Another actions for you just about whenever you want it to. A second pair of eyes and ears doesn't hurt when you want to lessen the chances of a surprise, either.

I don't know the drawbacks on them are rather intense, especially XP loss as a result of death. And like you said

I think familiars are unnecessarily fragile, which is annoying. I make various feats in my games to let players toughen up their familiars or empower them to be more useful.

All told the drawbacks may actually make them worth a negative feat. But it is entertaining for the mid-level wizard to buff up his housecat familiar and set it loose on low level NPCs.