Hey. I've been having some questions about alternate familiars to the thrush, and I was wondering if you guys could give some input.
I know that in Animal Archives, a suggestion was made that, if a fire wizard wanted a cardinal familiar, just use the thrush statistics but remove the ability to speak. My question is...why? I mean, I think there's some reason that raven and thrush familiars are unique for having the ability to speak, but why wouldn't other songbirds like cardinals, blue jays, mockingbirds, and canaries have that ability? That's just something that bothered me a bit-out of the options I've listed above, only the canary and the mockingbird would be what I'd choose to allow to have the thrush's ability to speak (mind you those four options would still use the thrush statistics).
Another note is...if I allowed PCs to use said alternate familiars instead of thrushes, what alternate bonus would I give them if I didn't want them to have the thrush's +3 bonus on Diplomacy checks? I think that I would keep the +3 Diplomacy bonus to canaries (due to their popularity?), while with mockingbirds it would change to a +3 Bluff bonus (due to their ability to mimic other sounds), and blue jays they would have a +3 Intimidate bonus (sounds odd, but blue jays are actually pretty aggressive for birds-ESPECIALLY songbirds. I mean, I heard a story where one killed a mockingbird and her chicks). With cardinals...I don't know what to choose. It feels odd to me for them to keep the +3 Diplomacy bonus, but I'm not sure what other skill bonus I could give them? Maybe just trade it in for a +2 Reflex save bonus?
Any inputs on this will be most appreciated. Thank you.
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From a mechanics point of view, most of the familiar bonuses are pretty similar, so substituting one for another isn't really a big deal.
The reason the ravens and thrush speak, I believe, is largely due to the influence of Tolkien and specifically the Hobbit, in which the ravens are able to speak to anyone (the Dwarves in particular) and the Thrush speaks to Bard the Bowman.
From a mechanics point of view, most of the familiar bonuses are pretty similar, so substituting one for another isn't really a big deal.
The reason the ravens and thrush speak, I believe, is largely due to the influence of Tolkien and specifically the Hobbit, in which the ravens are able to speak to anyone (the Dwarves in particular) and the Thrush speaks to Bard the Bowman.
Don't forgot Poe when it comes to Ravens.
At least partially, ravens speak because (a bit disturbing here) in the real world, people have found that if they split the birds tongue, ravens can learn to speak in human languages. Not sure about thrush, never heard of that being done to them, thus Dave prolly has it with, because Bard could.
Also, I agree with Dave that swapping on the familiar abilities should be ok, though some GMs may have other ideas, but I would not have any issue with it in any games I run.
Don't forgot Poe when it comes to Ravens.From a mechanics point of view, most of the familiar bonuses are pretty similar, so substituting one for another isn't really a big deal.
The reason the ravens and thrush speak, I believe, is largely due to the influence of Tolkien and specifically the Hobbit, in which the ravens are able to speak to anyone (the Dwarves in particular) and the Thrush speaks to Bard the Bowman.
Nevermore.
Also, Parrots get speech.
/cevah