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My groups have a tendancy to have something unique as far as familiars or animal companions go. This is mostly always done for flavor (ie, having a mini elephant instead of a rhino, or a creature that can take 3 differant shapes of small animals but always keeps the same head).
And the last session, one of my players asked me as the DM to come up with somehting for his familiar. Sadly, I am drawing a blank. Anyone have any advice?
It's hard to offer advice, without knowing something about the character. But, what about a swarm of something. It's a little extreme for a familiar, but it could be a very evocative image and variously cause problems or grant tremendous benefit to the PC. He would be unable to conceal it, and may have to make some minor concentration checks (at lower levels). It might be a headache for you, as DM.
Immature rust monster.
An intelligent, talking, venus fly trap-type potted plant with a taste for flesh, like in "Little Shop of Horrors" - a character should name themselves "Seymour" as an appropriate homage, of course
my vote is for a little gelatious cube.
A diminutive Tarrasque? When it wakes up, kingdoms will die.
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It's definitely weird, but you need Improved Familiar to get one.
AS a biologist I'd recommended that for normal familiars, he try any of the strange looking real world animals. A few good examples: tenerecs, elephant shrews, caecillians, hellbenders (genus Cryprobranchidae), Pangolin, star nosed mole, pygmy anteater, aardvark, burrowing owls, water voles, flying snakes (Genus Chrysopelea), flying frogs (Either Hyla or Rhachophoridae), the Moloch lizard from Australia, or ANY Australian bird, mammal or reptile for that matter.
Once you hit level 5, you can take improved familiar. It allows you to add the fiendish or celestial template to your familiar. At level 7 you can start picking up a ton of different and unique familiars. With the release of Bestiary 2, your list is now quite expansive. Arbiter (Inevitable), Brownie, Cassisian (Angel),Cacodaemon (Daemon), Cythnigot (Qlippotht), Dire rat, Carbuncle, Elemental (Small), Lyrakie (Azata), Stirge, Dweomercat Cub, Faerie Dragon, Homunculus, Imp (Devil), Mephit (any type), Paracletus (Aeon), Pseudodragon, Quasit (Demon), Silvanshee (Agathion), Voidworm (Protean).
In our homebrew Rise of the Runelord Campaign, I allowed the Witch at level 5 to add a "Protean" template to his owl familiar. At 7th level, we had it transform into a full Voidworm. Its fun and it has really fit well with his character background (and the fact his patron is one of the Great Old ones).
Edited for grammar.
How about an Alaspinian Minidrag. Basically, it's a snake with flight and poisonous acidic venom.
At lower levels, use a small snake and give it flight, with no bonuses. At level 7, the wizard takes improved familiar and it grows into a regular snake, gains a 1d6 ranged acid attack which poisons if it hits, and gains empathy (treat like a blind sense that only works on creatures with minds).
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Protean, Voidworm
Pg. 217 Bestiary II
- Tiny Outsider (shapechanger)
Blindsense
Detect law
Darkvision
Fly 50ft. perfect
Defensive
- Amorphous Anatomy: 50% chance to avoid extra damage from crits/sneaks
- immune Acid
- reists 10/electric and sonic
- Freedom of movement
A few spell likes
Change Shape - as Beast shape II but tiny animals only.
Special ability:
- Confusion - creature stuck by its tail attack must make DC-12 Will st or be confused for 1 round.
Is the character evil? I always thought an eyeball would be fun.
Not official, but what the hey...
Is the character evil? I always thought an eyeball would be fun.
Not official, but what the hey...
Wow, I never thought I'd see a picture of a Beholder that looked cuddly. You just want to scratch it under its...er...chin-substitute.
A diminutive Tarrasque? When it wakes up, kingdoms will die.
But only very small kingdoms!
A construct or zombie baby.
A pet rock. (no mobility or attacks other than as a thrown object, but has blind or tremor sense)
Talking dog. (re-skinned raven)
Two-headed parrot.
Assassin vine sapling.
Gir. (dooooom!)
An air-planar jellyfish.
a tiny size behier
winged cat or monkey
a snake that has the shadow form ability
A construct or zombie baby.
Where do you get a zombie baby? Wait, don't tell me.
If you go with this, you need to tell Dead Baby Jokes all the time. You're going to hell, anyway! :P
Bestiary 2 has a few familiar options in it that would be really interesting. One's a Daemon, another is a globe of light with swirling crystals around it. There may have been one for the good equivalent of the Daemons (starts with an A) but I don't remember.
Dragon issue #341, available as a download, has a bunch of construct familiars in it.
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My groups have a tendancy to have something unique as far as familiars or animal companions go. This is mostly always done for flavor (ie, having a mini elephant instead of a rhino, or a creature that can take 3 differant shapes of small animals but always keeps the same head).
And the last session, one of my players asked me as the DM to come up with somehting for his familiar. Sadly, I am drawing a blank. Anyone have any advice?
FAMILIAR: YELLOW MOULD
Your PC has two common phrases...Instruct Familiar to attack opponent:Get um Jeremy, Get um!"
Favourite Hobbies:"I collect Spores, moulds, and fungi."
A tiny sized unintelligent Rath or Neogi would be awesomeish.
Tiny Rath Familiar:
Gain +1 hp per HD when using natural healing, auto-stabilize when dying, add 1/2 wizard level to -HP total for actual death. (Pick two.)
Tiny Neogi Familiar:
Immune to the effects of web, and web-like effects. +2 save vs poison.
Immune to Wisdom Ability Damage. (Pick two.)
Faerie Dragon from the 3.5 draconomicon.
Faerie Dragon from the 3.5 draconomicon.
I believe it was also in PF's Bonus Bestiary. You have to be within one step of chaotic good, be level 7, and have Improved Familiar to use it though.
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There's also the Troble. I wasn't able to find stats for it, much less a picture, but it's a standard familiar (so no imp familiar feat) that gives +2 to craft (alchemy).
It's a little ooze monster.
EDIT: okay, I've been looking for an image of this thing for half an hour. I'm rather frustrated at my search-fu-failure. A little help?
darkmantle that you have to take with improved familiar and it gives you blindsight