Hello Everyone,
I have had a case come up where a player wants to take a familiar but is aiming to play a very clockwork oriented wizard. Unfortunately, no clockwork familiars are available until 7th level which does not dovetail well with the characters background.
It has been suggested to take something like a raven and do the following:
1. Give it the construct type.
2. Remove it's Con score.
3. Give it the Construct Traits quality.
4. Give it the Weakness to Electricity quality.
5. Leave everything else as is...
The planed course is for him to take Improved Familiar and 'upgrade' the creature at 7th level into the standard clockwork familiar.
My question here is if anyone can see this as being unbalanced within the first seven levels. The construct traits grant a number of immunities but the low hit points and electrical weakness should keep that in check.
It was also suggested that the bonus granted be altered to match the later Improved familiar for flavor purposes. That would change it from a +3 to Appraise to a +2 on Sense Motive (matching the improved version).
Any thoughts?
The construct traits grant a number of immunities but the low hit points and electrical weakness should keep that in check.I doubt that. How often do PCs get hit by electricity? And how often by:
- charms
- compulsions
- morale effects
- patterns
- phantasms
- bleeding
- disease
- death effects
- necromancy effects
- paralysis
- poison
- sleep effects
- stunning
- ability damage
- ability drain
- fatigue
- exhaustion
- energy drain
- nonlethal damage
- anything requiring a Fortitude save (unless the effect also works on objects)
- Any mind-affecting effect
- lack of air
- lack of food
- lack of sleep
It was also suggested that the bonus granted be altered to match the later Improved familiar for flavor purposes. That would change it from a +3 to Appraise to a +2 on Sense Motive (matching the improved version).
Do clockwork Familiars grant a bonus to their master? If so, they're the only ones who do that I know of.
Overall, I think it's a bad idea; mostly because Clockwork creatures cannot be healed (and are destroyed when they hit the zero hitpoints mark). You could always reflavour the Raven as being mechanical - or partly mechanical. But an actual construct at low levels would probably be more bother than it's worth. Too many invulnerabilities, and a few very nasty weaknesses.
You could give the familiar clockwork fluff, then when he actually takes the improved familiar feat in the future, he can, you know, benefit from it.