Familiars as characters/cohorts

[Silveras]

I think Lord Pendragon has covered most elements, but I will toss in a couple of others:

1) The DMG discusses combining Special Mounts with Cohorts as an option. That is as close as the core rules come to what you this topic is about.

2) The creatures that are suitable as familiars are on the same list as the core considers "not suitable for cohorts", which is one reason why the topic is not covered.

3) Cohorts are NPCs whose loyalty can vary over time; they *can* generally be bought off, blackmailed, charmed, or otherwise "persuaded" to betray their master. They can also become tired of being the errand-runner, and just up an leave (i.e., their level gets too close the master's). Familiars are nothing like this, and the mixture of their incorruptible loyalty with the increasing powers of a cohort makes the spellcaster potentially too potent.


All that being said, what you may want to consider is the notion of Improved Familiar. It is, like Leadership, a feat that the DM must decide to introduce. Most improved Familiars, though, are a little tougher in combat than the average familiar. See the DMG, pages 200-204. Adjacent sections also discuss using Leadership to attract a cohort that can serve as a Special Mount, which is the only combination the Core rules address.

If the selection of Improved Familiars in the DMG is not quite up to what you need, there are more in Complete Warrior that are specifically geared for a more combat-oriented role.

 

[Luthien Greyspear]

All that being said, what you may want to consider is the notion of Improved Familiar. It is, like Leadership, a feat that the DM must decide to introduce. Most improved Familiars, though, are a little tougher in combat than the average familiar. See the DMG, pages 200-204. Adjacent sections also discuss using Leadership to attract a cohort that can serve as a Special Mount, which is the only combination the Core rules address.

If the selection of Improved Familiars in the DMG is not quite up to what you need, there are more in Complete Warrior that are specifically geared for a more combat-oriented role.

Well, to start with with, the character already has a familiar, so choosing a different, more martially capable familiar is out of the question. Secondly, the character already has Improved Familar. The squirrel in question is a Celestial flying squirrel, fully capable of smiting evil (a little bit at a time ).

Full background: Character has normal flying squirrel familiar, doing normal squirrel familiar things like scouting in woodlands, climbing up tall buildings, begging for nuts (a lot). Character gets up to around 8th level, 4 of which are wizard levels (Int 7 familiar). Wizard and familiar become backyard barbecue when taking on a ghazneth in Cormyr (Luthax the Fiery). Player died, familiar rolled '1' on Reflex save to avoid death from nasty fireball, dies also (even with half damage from Improved Evasion). Character brought back, familiar not (who's gonna blow 10,000 on resurrecting a squirrel?).

Okay, so the party gains their next level, and the character (distraught over the loss of her familiar) researches some way to bring her back without waiting a year to get a new familiar. I decide (in my mercy) to allow her to summon a Celestial squirrel from the Beastlands if she takes the Imp. Familiar feat, basically calling her old familiar back infused with the divine plane she went to when she died. The character is now looking for whatever methods she can use to make her familiar tougher and less likely to die. She has willingly stunted her combat capability (she's pursuing the blade-singer class, and gave up Arcane Strike to do this), and I'm looking for a balanced way for her to do what she wants with her beloved familiar.

 

[Hypersmurf]

(BTW, how do you get the winking smiley?)

Try ;)

-Hyp.

 

[Luthien Greyspear]

Try ;)

-Hyp.

Ah, I was expecting a little short-cut icon.

 

[IcyCool]

Luthien, as Lord Pendragon mentioned, Familiars do not gain levels according to the rules.

However, this has come up before, and I'll give you the same suggestions I gave to those folks.

1. If you allow a familiar to also be a cohort, take a look in the DMG for the rules governing a Paladin having his mount also be his cohort. I believe the ECL (for purposes of determining its cohort level for the leadership feat) for the mount increases by +2 because of the Paladin mount boosts. I'd do the same for a Familiar. So, let's say you took the Improved Familiar feat and got yourself a Pseudodragon familiar. If you were to make it a cohort, you first factor up its ECL. A pseudodragon's ECL is (2HD + 3 LA) = 5. So a plain ordinary Pseudodragon is a suitable cohort for a 7th level character. If it were also a familiar, its ECL would be (5 + 2 for familiar abilities) = 7, and so would be a suitable cohort for a 9th level master. After that, the pseudragon can gain class levels, which add to ECL normally. (i.e. The master advances to 10th level, and the pseudodragon familiar (ECL 7) advances 1 level in a class.

2. If you allow a familiar to advance in class levels as a cohort, be sure to include wording that allows the familiar to use its own hit points instead of half its master's.

Good luck and happy gaming!

 

[Connorsrpg]

As an aside, what exactly is a ghazneth? I have just done a 10th level character from Cormyr and fought in the Cormyr Wars including defeating some of these, but I still aren't sure exactly what they are. I pictured some kind of winged fiend thing. Are they detiled anywhere?
Connors
BTW: Thanks (especially Pendragon) re advice on familiars. I must say I have always been very sceptical about allowing such things, and I am greatful for the ssuggestions made.

 

[Luthien Greyspear]

Ghazneth 101

As an aside, what exactly is a ghazneth? I have just done a 10th level character from Cormyr and fought in the Cormyr Wars including defeating some of these, but I still aren't sure exactly what they are. I pictured some kind of winged fiend thing. Are they detiled anywhere?

THe ghazneths are some of the principle bad guys in the Cormyr novel series (Cormyr, Beyond The High Road, and Death of the Dragon). While you don't get to see them in their full-on evil demonic forms in the first of these books, you do get to see their origins. Basically, all of them are traitors to the crown of Cormyr, specifically to the Obarskyr family. The first of them was Suzara Obarskyr, the wife of the first King of Cormyr, who left her husband because she hated the country they had settled in. The rest of them followed along similar lines: one was a War Wizard who decided to overthrow the king and establish a magocracy, one was a scheming noblewoman who tried to plunge the country into needless war, one was a royal father-in-law who sold Suzail to a pirate king, etc.

At the time of the second book, the ghazneth have been transformed by a mysterious force into six deadly plagues upon Cormyr, as was foretold in an ancient prophecy (ain't that always the way?). They basically started the wars in Cormyr, and are directly responsible for making Cormyr the embattled country it is now. Their leader (revealed in the third book) was an insane elf from ancient Cormanthyr that wanted to kill all the humans that had taken away her beloved woodlands and had killed her husband. She permanently transformed herself (with what must have been epic-level magic) into the biggest mama-jama red dragon anywhere, but was imprisoned along with a whole goblin army behind a magical ward in sub-dimension. The books followed the release of the ghazneths, which led to the release of the Devil Dragon, which led to many revelations, which led to a showdown between Azoun IV and the Devil Dragon, where both of them died.

A lot of this is also found in the FRCS, page 114. The last four paragraphs before the "Plots and Rumors" section on Cormyr tell the story.

 

[Connorsrpg]

Thanks for the background. I have read the FRCS stuff, hence I wound ghazneth's into my character's history.

What about their appearance? What would my character see if he was to battle one of these? Or do they keep original form? ie is there a 'ghazneth' form or are they just a term given to these traitors?

Thanks, Connors

 

[Luthien Greyspear]

Thanks for the background. I have read the FRCS stuff, hence I wound ghazneth's into my character's history.

What about their appearance? What would my character see if he was to battle one of these? Or do they keep original form? ie is there a 'ghazneth' form or are they just a term given to these traitors?

Thanks, Connors

They're all vaguely demonic, in the classic sense. Humanoid forms, wings on their back (mostly bat-like, but one has wasp-like wings), grossly exaggerated and distended features, etc. Each one has its own particular set of powers that match its personality and particular crime, such as Luthax the Fiery (he blows stuff up).

Keep in mind that these creatures were ABSOLUTELY IMPOSSIBLE to defeat unless you were a member of the Obarskyr ruling family. They were bound to their betrayals, and only absolution (of a sort) from the king or a regent that was related by blood could stop them. You can drive them off (with cold iron weapons), but they would keep coming back, regenerating every wound (with an obscenely high rate of regeneration, I might add).

They also fed on magic, of all kinds, making Cormyr a no-spell zone for the duration of the war against them. You see, every spell that they absorbed fueled their powers AND their regeneration. [I ruled it as a high SR; every attack that made it past their SR could hurt them, but every spell that didn't was absorbed by them, and made them stronger.] They were probably also immune to a wide range of conditions (petrification, stunning, sleep effects, domination, etc.), although the book didn't get a chance to directly show that. It just talked about one ghazneth killing about twenty or thirty War Wizards by himself. While torturing the Queen.

So, if your character is a mage, I hope he had a summer home in Suzail, because he would have been next to useless (except for making Knowledge skill checks) when fighting them.

 

[Connorsrpg]

Hmmm. Didn't mean to change the whole subject of this thread, but it was strange you mentioned these ghazneths when I had just put the name in my background.

Thanks for the background on them Luthien. Seems I may need to alter my character's background, even though he is a paladin. Not likely to have fought these things after all

I have never really been a fan of the FR, though I really like a lot of the 3E books for the setting. (Less focus on the NPC heroes - more to do with PCs). Still I don't use it, I just 'mine' ideas from it Still a fellow player wishes to run Queen of Spiders and I am all for playing a classic module such as this one. I usually DM all the time, but haven't read ths module, b/c campaigns have NEVER reached beyond 7th level (the current level of our other campaign - that I am DMing). This 10th level play will be odd indeed.

Anyhow, thanks Luthien.

Back to the familiars. What have you decided?

My player just wants his monkey to fire a hand crossbow. There was a debate re opposable thumbs. Monkeys have these don't they?
Connors