Adding a template to a familiar or animal companion

[ThatWeirdGeckoGuy]

I know this is against the rules, but have any of you tried it? What cost did you charge for doing so? I was think about charging 1-3 effective character levels, depending on the template. Does anyone have experience with this, or an opinion on it? Thanks.

Nick

[Joyd]

As a DM, I've allowed it (working with the player) a handful of times, sometimes for minor tradeoffs, sometimes not. (Some templates are their own tradeoff, at least in part; for example, making a druid's companion something that isn't animal prevents things like animal growth from working on it.)

In general, whenever I'm working with a player to do something that's outside the normal rules, the number one priority is to make sure that it doesn't end up in a place where it feels to the rest of the group like the players is cheating or like his special exception is allowing him to be super dominant or do something bizarre. If a player wants an undead creature as an animal companion because it fits his character concept, possibly making certain tradeoffs elsewhere then I can try to make it work. If a player wants an undead creature as an animal companion because it's the missing link in an absurd chain of multiclass abilities, obscure feats, non-standard race choices and piles of dipped archetypes that somehow allows him to give his animal companion infinite attacks, I'm not particularly wiling. If it's just a power-up, like the advanced template, that's also a no.

I wouldn't just open up the doors on this - no "you can use templated creatures, at this cost" - but rather I'd handle it on a case-by-case basis.

In general, I think that it's okay as long as you understand the mechanics well enough to know what you're getting into. It also helps if the player is not much of a powergamer; if a player's character is making use of a special rules exception and appears more powerful than the other players at the table, that looks and feels bad.

[Tinalles]

I would allow a player with the Improved Familiar feat to apply a template to their existing familiar rather than picking a whole new one -- definitely a CR +1 template, or a CR +2 if the one they wanted seemed reasonable to me.

[ThatWeirdGeckoGuy]

Joy D, the template in question is fey animal from Land Of the Linnorm Kings , NOT fey creature from B3. It's my own idea for a sylvan sorcerer in my game, based on what I know my player wants from her animal. She's never seen it and doesn't know it exists, she just wants a smart, fey affected animal. What would you "charge" to add that to a wolf?

[ThatWeirdGeckoGuy]

Would it be balanced to just charge a feat for that? I didn't think of that.

[Tinalles]

Well, let's look at Improved Familiar.

The stock familiars have a CR between 1/8 and 1/2. At Caster Level 3rd, Improved Familiar lets you pick a Celestial or Fiendish version of any of the standard familiars. The Celestial and Fiendish templates are both CR +1. So evidently the game designers thought having a CR +1 familiar would be balanced at level 3 (the earliest you could take it).

The later improved familiar candidates all have challenge ratings of 1 or 2, with the CR +2 variants kicking in around caster level 7.

I've seen the Fey Creature template from Bestiary 3, but not the one from Lands of the Linnorm Kings. I don't know how it would stack up. But I think it'd be reasonably fair to charge a feat for it. If your particular sorcerer is playing a bloodline that doesn't usually get a familiar, I would charge them two feats -- Eldritch Heritage to get the first level Arcane bloodline power, entitling them to a familiar, and then Improved Familiar to get the template.

One thing to think about is whether the template will scale with the player's level. The familiar rules say "Hit Dice: For the purpose of effects related to number of Hit Dice, use the master's character level or the familiar's normal HD total, whichever is higher." So if you apply a template -- like Celestial -- whose effects vary based on how many hit dice the creature has, do they get the advanced benefits of the template as the caster increases in power?

I could see that one going either way, but personally would rule that as "no". That rule was intended to clarify things like Sleep, which might affect a fourth level PC's familiar, but not a 5th level PC's familiar. On its own, the familiar has only one hit die, but it shares its master's hit dice for purposes of spell effects and such.

I wouldn't allow a player to apply a template to an animal companion without a really compelling plot-based reason. Animal companions are combatants, which familiars generally aren't, and they also have a detailed advancement routine of their own already. Applying a template to a familiar makes it a moderately more useful helper/assistant; applying a template to an animal companion could make it a juggernaut.

If you're still worried about balance, you can phase in the changes from the template gradually over a few levels, to represent the familiar growing into its new abilities. Maybe it's still fairly young when it comes to its new master, and needs a little time to mature. I could see a player really enjoying that, especially if you don't tell them in advance exactly what to expect -- as they level up, they get to discover how their pet is changing in addition to their own advancement.

[Joyd]

The Fey Animal template you're referencing gives quite a bit of stuff, including a lot of SLAs that are much more useful in the hands of a PC than in the hands of a monster, +20 across four stats (granted, mostly in Int, Wis and Cha), DR/cold iron, SR, speed, the ability to talk, and so on. The extra spells on their own would be worth more than a feat. It's a pretty beastly template to give to a player's animal companion, because while it's only a CR+1 template, it's one that's much more powerful in the hands of the PCs than on a random monster.

What I would do is pick out a small number of benefits that you think the player might be most interested in, and just offer those for a feat. For example, +Int, 1 language, fey appearance, and so on. Maybe give it Dancing Lights 3/Day, Faerie Fire 1/Day, or other appropriate spells depending on what the animal should be like. (I wouldn't give it, like, Fire Storm at will or anything.) You could throw in Woodland Stride or Trackless Step (like the druid abilities) as well. (I would probably fudge it so that the intelligence granted by the template allowed the animal to speak and reason, but didn't give a huge pile of skill points.)

[ThatWeirdGeckoGuy]

I should have clarified. Here is whet I was thinking, for one feat:
Fey animal template.
Type, keep
Alignment, whatever
Armor class, drop
Special qualities and defenses, keep dr5, drop the rest
Speed, keep
Special attacks, drop
Spell like abilities, drop, our keep only hd1 abilities,
Abilities, keep
Skills, drop
Languages, keep

So, basically, for a feat gain stats, speed, speech, and maybe some dr, but lose animal boosting spells due to get type. Thoughts?

[malebranche]

I don't think that's imbalanced. Last session I applied the fey animal template to an NPC's magpie familiar, which allowed it to actually be useful--but not too useful. I charged the NPC one feat.

[ThatWeirdGeckoGuy]

Thanks for the input guys. Anyone else have suggestions?