Familiar Problems?

[Neal Litherland]

So, I was messing around with the folks at Dungeon Keeper Radio recently, and we put together a silly little episode called Familiar Problems. The basic gist is that it's an agony aunt style show, where familiars write-in with their problems. The ones we hit on were how casters will often send their familiars into danger to keep themselves safe, how familiars used for buffing and healing might not feel their jobs are all that important, and how a caster who starts turning toward corruption can drag their familiar into wickedness with them.

Basic stuff.

I was curious, though, what sorts of familiar problems the community has experienced apart from these three scenarios? Have you had familiars who were capricious, and unhelpful? Did they constantly fail will saves, or always wind up injured, or captured? What's a common scenario out there?

[Melkiador]

Not a joke to lead off with, but the familiar who is all but forgotten, as it rides along perpetually in its satchel.

Low level familiar dealing with no one ever understanding him. Can't talk to master or others if it's kind yet? So lonely.

[Neal Litherland]

Melkiador wrote:

Not a joke to lead off with, but the familiar who is all but forgotten, as it rides along perpetually in its satchel.

Low level familiar dealing with no one ever understanding him. Can't talk to master or others if it's kind yet? So lonely.

I'd forgotten about that one! Adding into the next episode if/when we get it penned.

[Coidzor]

The familiar that actually was forgotten and left in the satchel underneath some loot for days.

[Neal Litherland]

Until he becomes the feral penny dragon of Internet fame?

[Gisher]

How about the standard familiars that get replaced with Improved Familiars? It's horrible that they get downsized to ordinary animals after tasting the joys of higher intelligence and improved evasion. Stop the outsourcing!

[Neal Litherland]

Ooooh.... good one Gisher. That's definitely going onto the list. I hadn't thought of that.

[Azten]

To take it another way, what if they don't want to become something else? Why should the Raven lose its pretty, sleek feathers to become a some gangly rat-looking thing with a Venus flytrap growing out of its back? Talk about depressing.

One of my familiars saved my character's life. It knew that a basilisk's blood, if applied in time, could reverse petrification. Add in that it was actually helping fight the thing and that group still talks about our "Most Valuable Familiar."

[Gisher]

Azten wrote:

To take it another way, what if they don't want to become something else? Why should the Raven lose its pretty, sleek feathers to become a some gangly rat-looking thing with a Venus flytrap growing out of its back? Talk about depressing.

I don't think the standard familiars become the improved familiars. My understanding is that the improved familiar is a new creature, and the old familiar is released back into the wild.

[Azten]

That is true, I'll admit. No reason you couldn't flavor it that way though.

[Neal Litherland]

Hmmm... I know there are accursed rules for animal companions. Can those rules also apply to familiars?

[Mark Hoover]

You could do something with the Familiar or PC Class Archetypes:

"What do you mean, I'm just a FIGMENT of his/her imagination? I can think and feel; I'm as real as the next raven!"

"We formed a support group: Former Paladin Loved Ones Now Soulbound, or F-PLONS for short. We not only help each other through this difficult period of limbo between our mortal death and the time our souls can actually reach the afterlives we all became holy warriors to express faith in, but we also do outreach, counseling living paladins on the dangers of being the kin or loving partners of wizards"

These sort of go along with the "dismissal" in favor of Improved Familiars.

[Set]

I'd love to see a scenario in which a familiar has grown accustomed to the perks that come with being a familiar, such as intelligence and a longer lifespan, and begins to fret when their wizard (or witch, or arcane bloodline sorcerer) begins to decline as they get older. Can they steal a dose of Sun orchid elixir, or find some alternate means of making their master immortal, so as to stay on this train forever?

It's gotta be weird when your familiar is researching what will happen to them if you get turned into a ghoul or vampire, just so that they won't have to worry about what happens when you die for good!

Failing that, an 'accident' involving the wizard / master being turned to stone, or locked in temporal stasis, or zapped by imprisonment, could be other alternatives.

A secret 'Bellflower Network' of liberated familiars keeping a cockatrice locked up to 'stone' bad masters and 'free' their familiars (and since the 'master' isn't technically dead, just 'on hold,' indefinitely, the familiar should retain it's intellect and status, without that pesky mortal master to worry about) could be funky.

Familiar to an overbearing master - "What? You don't have a master? How are you still able to think and talk and use wands?"

'Liberated' familiar recruiter - "My master gazed into a mirror life trapping and got stuck. His companions were looking for a solution when they, uh, all died when the bad-guy got some convenient help ambushing them by someone who knew all their tactics and defenses and didn't like them very much. I've arranged for the best hospice care for his soulless body with my share of their treasure, which, uh, I found, or something."

Familiar to soon-to-be dead jerk master "Really... And where is that mirror now? Asking for a friend..."

[Dragonborn3]

Set, that sounds like an amazing idea. Like a little prestige class for familiars.

[Bwang]

We encountered a 'home for abandoned familiars' once. Several had become drunks and addicts, and included a high end badger abandoned by a high level Wizard (it was 14th level when abandoned) with a dislike for Wizards. Being a Eberron Changeling, I shifted into his form and we became drinking buddies. He is now my #1 contact in that region.

The running joke was about AA meetings of Familiars and my character getting visits by Ravens.

[Azten]

Set wrote:

A secret 'Bellflower Network' of liberated familiars keeping a cockatrice locked up to 'stone' bad masters and 'free' their familiars (and since the 'master' isn't technically dead, just 'on hold,' indefinitely, the familiar should retain it's intellect and status, without that pesky mortal master to worry about) could be funky.

I just realized this reminds me of the Flushed Pets from The Secret Life of Pets.

[Neal Litherland]

Wanted to say thanks to those who left new comments! I've been out for the day, but I think a lot of these have real potential. I particularly want to do something with archetype familiars. Maybe a Mauler who has to be enchanted in order to be smart enough to dictate his issues, so the letter comes in fits and starts as he keeps going feral. Figment is a fun one, too.

[Cevah]

What about the familiar that is smarter than his master? [Sorcerer that dumped Int for example.]

What about the familiar to the non-caster? Getting nerfed when they could have been a real familiar.

/cevah

[Tim Emrick]

Gisher wrote:

Azten wrote:

To take it another way, what if they don't want to become something else? Why should the Raven lose its pretty, sleek feathers to become a some gangly rat-looking thing with a Venus flytrap growing out of its back? Talk about depressing.

I don't think the standard familiars become the improved familiars. My understanding is that the improved familiar is a new creature, and the old familiar is released back into the wild.

That seems to be the case normally, but the cythnigot's entry in Bestiary 2 specifically states that the master infuses an existing familiar with the spores that create it. Obviously, anyone who would consider bonding to a qlippoth familiar is already rather unhinged...