Familiars

[Rothe]

What ForceUser said.

 

[LeapingShark]

My tabletop players just use em for scouting. A couple of times they may have used one to fetch a small item, and that's about it for creativity.

When I play-by-post, I use my own PC's familiar for "comic relief". E.g. maybe the familiar is smarter than my character, or maybe the familiar always manages to get my PC into trouble somehow (stealing things, or pulling the wrong lever in the dungeon...). I like to think of familiars as a roleplaying tool, not as a combat/dungeoneering advantage.

 

[Corbert]

I think some folks like to downplay the fact that they have one lest the DM go after it.

Exactly! Frankly, the penalties of losing a Familiar drive me away from having one, and I like to play wizards .

 

[ForceUser]

Exactly! Frankly, the penalties of losing a Familiar drive me away from having one, and I like to play wizards .

That's not an issue with familiars, but an issue with an immature DM.

 

[CronoDekar]

Personally, I like to house rule that there's no XP penalty upon losing a familiar as long as it's not abused ("Hey Softy, check that trapped door for me"), and shorten the time to get a familiar back to about a week. That way the liability issue goes out the window.

And to address the question, not much. There was once when my tiny earth elemental familiar (Softy) the DM allowed me to take turned invisibile to spy on some people, and another time he helped move some rocks. But otherwise, he was mainly another personality to bounce my character's off of. Though, I did have a very-short lived character with a rat familiar that I had conceived of using to snoop and ask around town.

 

[MerricB]

That's not an issue with familiars, but an issue with an immature DM.

Why would an intelligent monster in a D&D world not target the familiar?

Cheers!

 

[Ogrork the Mighty]

Because the wizard is usually a bigger threat than the familiar.

I find most players don't want a familiar b/c they think the DM will go out of his way to target it. Personally, I think they're overly paranoid but it couldn't hurt to take some of the familiar protection spells.

 

[ForceUser]

Because the wizard is usually a bigger threat than the familiar.

Quoted for truth. Unless the bad guy has the wizard over a barrel and is simply being malicious, there's little reason to target the familiar when the wizard is clearly the real threat.

 

[shilsen]

One of my groups has no familiar and the other has the foul-mouthed, homicidal and vicariously pyromaniac (he can't burn things, but he likes his master to) weasel Ahmus. The players love him and he's made himself indispensable in combat by helping revive his master and others a few times. It also helps that he has failed only one save in 22 sessions, which is why he's referred to as the ninja ferret.

 

[Wolv0rine]

If I use familiars, I try to think of interesting things to do with them. My favorite example is one of my NPCs, a mid-to-high level Wizard. His cat familiar Sasha is nearly as intelligent as he is and has the ability to polymorph into a human form. That was cute and all, but then I decided to keep pushing. And so Sasha the cat/woman familiar became not only his apprentice, but his lover.

I've had the NPC floating around my world for over a decade, and Sasha's still my all-time favorite familiar.