What is the distance a familiar can travel away from a concentrating kineticist? The Rule in Horror Adventures (Page 57) says "As long as you concentrate, the familiar can take actions as a normal animal of its type. and it can move any distance away from you, though if it takes any damage or you cease concentrating, it returns to your mind"
Does this mean I can have my character meditating in a inn room concentrating, and have the familiar manifest and travel 20 miles away over a 8 hour period? or does empathetic link of 1 mile max stop this and give it a range of a mile?
Also if this creature is destroyed and returned to you. Can you immediately start concentrating again and create a new one.
Since the Elemental Whispers wild talent is like a familiar but not, the line about having your familiar so far away is possible, but after you cross the 1 mile mark you would lose your empathic connection to it.
Since it doesn't say it's like a normal familiar's death, the second question is also a yes. But if you pick up Greater Elemental Whispers, it becomes a real familiar and becomes subject to death as normal.
This is a very interesting conundrum. I would say that as long as you maintain your concentration without any break in it the Whisper could travel any distance you want. You would obviously lose the empathetic connection after 1 mile as outlined in the Familiar rules, so you would not know anything about what is occurring with your Whisper past that distance. As far as the creature getting destroyed, it doesn't have any HP so it basically cannot be destroyed. If it takes damage, it simply returns to your mind.
If you read the Greater version, that it when the Whisper actually gains HP as a normal familiar. It furthermore outlines what occurs should your Whisper be destroyed. Hopefully that helps!
*EDIT*
Ninja'd!
Would a character be able to have their familiar go out X distance. return to one mile and tell that character everything they saw. Or would the PC instantly gain "memories" of what their familiar saw? or have the familiar travel back into range and describe everything via empathetic link so it is useful for the PC to have the familiar go out that far.
Basically the Whisper could go scout out passed the 1 mile limitation of Empathic Link, then return to the 1 mile radius and report what it observed telepathically. Its actually fundamentally the best spy possible. If it ever takes any damage, it is immediately returned to your mind where it can then relate to you everything it saw. A regular familiar has the chance of dying and never being able to report what it observed.
Yeah! It's also a nice double-sided retrieval system. The kineticist can stop concentrating to retrieve their familiar, and the familiar can bite themselves to jump back.
Awesome, good to know.
Basically the Whisper could go scout out passed the 1 mile limitation of Empathic Link, then return to the 1 mile radius and report what it observed telepathically. Its actually fundamentally the best spy possible. If it ever takes any damage, it is immediately returned to your mind where it can then relate to you everything it saw. A regular familiar has the chance of dying and never being able to report what it observed.
Just saying as an addendum, a familiar's empathic link is not telepathy, it can't just easily relay to you what it saw through thought, nor is the empathic link complex enough for super complex emotions. It can tell you "scared" or "content", but not "Don't go to the forest, there are bad things there."
Basically the Whisper could go scout out passed the 1 mile limitation of Empathic Link, then return to the 1 mile radius and report what it observed telepathically. Its actually fundamentally the best spy possible. If it ever takes any damage, it is immediately returned to your mind where it can then relate to you everything it saw. A regular familiar has the chance of dying and never being able to report what it observed.Just saying as an addendum, a familiar's empathic link is not telepathy, it can't just easily relay to you what it saw through thought, nor is the empathic link complex enough for super complex emotions. It can tell you "scared" or "content", but not "Don't go to the forest, there are bad things there."
You are correct! I just read other the ability again and was mistaken. I had thought the connection with the Whisper was telepathic. Still... it's a great way to get a feel for what is up ahead.
So this manifested familiar when concentrating is part of the mind of the Kin. would the Kin. gain all the Familiars memories when the familiar returns? since it a manifestation from their own mind.
My character that I am playing is thinking of taking this at their next level up. It seems interesting because my character is already kinda off there rocker (Not in a insane way, but just different) and I think it would be interesting if this whisper became like a fragment of their original personality, and they were to talk to them self, and it really be this familiar.
So I guess what I am really asking is how does this 'Familiar' interact on a day to day basis with their Kin. ?