What’s your favorite improved familiar and why?

[mythikal]

I’ll go first, I think my favorite is the Calligraphy Wyrm. Probably because they’re just so darn cute! I would love to have one with a librarian-esq character

[VoodistMonk]

I really like the Faerie Dragon, but my favorite non-standard Familiar is the Poppet Familiar... although, I doubt that matters since it is not an Improved Familiar.

And why? A Faerie Dragon has flight, and can cast as a 3rd-level Sorcerer. She can use Greater Invisibility as an SLA 3/day, and can use wands. Pretty much an invisible, flying wand jockey.

Poppet Familiars get breath weapons that shoot needles and can be upgraded/tinkered with... adding different movement speeds, and all sorts of fun modifications to help you do specific tasks. Lots of fun.

[Doompatrol]

Lyrakien, Pooka or Liminal sprite, I just like the idea of fairy familiars, azata has the better stats though.

I use to think it was a shame there is no evil fairy but then there's nothing to stop you having a female Imp.

In general I favour humanoid familiars because they feel more like there own characters.

[Mark Hoover 330]

Honestly I never really delved too much into improved familiars. Still, the one time I did I chose the Homunculus. I like that it's a construct and thus upgradable.

Looking through them now, I suppose I'd also want any IF that gets a creature type that can wield weapons. Nearly every familiar I've ever taken or built NPCs around are scouts, aid another specialists or wand wielders, but if I ever took this feat I'd want the IF to be a combatant.

[zza ni]

Doompatrol wrote:

Lyrakien, Pooka or Liminal sprite, I just like the idea of fairy familiars, azata has the better stats though.

I use to think it was a shame there is no evil fairy but then there's nothing to stop you having a female Imp.

In general I favour humanoid familiars because they feel more like there own characters.

pooka can be evil.

as for myself my souldrinker\frogepriest loved his Cacodaemon familiar. (named Slimer, how else would you call a flying mouth and stomach that try to eat any soul he can find). he had to fight with him (and sometimes stick his hand into his mouth to pull out) for the soul gems he made out of their enemies. but they made up for all the crafting he had to do.

[Melkiador]

A small aether elemental has a lot to offer. Even if you don't let its abilities scale with the caster's hit dice, it's still a naturally invisible flying scout, who can attack from range.

[Mark Hoover 330]

How about a shikigami? If you take 2 levels of Eldritch Guardian fighter, you can share with it the Skikigami Style feat chain. Having a highly accurate Tiny sized fey by your side tossing rocks at foes 10' away that deal 2d6 base damage could be fun.

[Dragon78]

Faerie dragons and any dragon in general. Any fey in general. I also like the elemental wysps. The Lyrakien comes to mind as well.

I am mad that the soulbound doll is not on the list.

[Firebug]

Nycar, it has regeneration and ferocity... which means it cannot die(from hp damage anyway) unless someone uses cold iron on it.

[Senko]

I can rarely get an improved familiar due to my liking of templates that replace speaking but I'd go with a fairy dragon if getting one.

[Kaouse]

Inevitable arbiters.

Regeneration except vs chaos-aligned attacks is basically immortality.

Like all inevitables, it gets a bunch of construct immunities, meaning that it's the most survivable familiar available. It also gets truespeech, so it can be used to translate if the need arises.

[Sysryke]

I really like familiars, but I'm partial to animals. I wouldn't mind some of the magical beast type critters though. Are their rules for acquiring improved familiars that aren't on the pre-made lists?

I'm thinking of things like blink dogs, shocker lizards, ash rats, etc?

Alternatively, are there rules for adding templates to familiars to create your own custom critter?

Sorry, don't mean to derail. As to the OP, I also like fairy dragons, but I might go more for the pseudo-dragon just for the stinger. I like a familiar that has just a little offensive oomph.

Never seen an official rule on this one way or the other, so at my tables, we roll stats for our familiars.

[Melkiador]

Most improved familiars are based around CR 2 creatures. If one were much above that, then it would probably take an additional feat.

Also familiars usually aren’t above small size and are most often tiny.

[Reksew_Trebla]

I am fond of Caypups.

As a GM, I allow any Caypup with a Thundering Collar, to combine a use of both it and their own Thunderous Growl, to perform a Cayhound’s Thunderous Bark (with the save DC recalculated, of course). This prevents the Caypup from using both their Thunderous Growl and the Thundering Collar for 1d6 rounds. And it also costs them a full round action, rather than a standard action.

The logic behind this is that Caypups are the children of Cayhounds and mortal dogs, and Cayhounds themselves are the children of Cayden Cailean’s dog Thunder, and the Thundering Collar is an item used by members of his faith, and has the exact same effect as a Caypup’s Thunderous Growl, so rule of cool kicks in to allow the Caypup to tap into the power of their Cayhound parent, when thusly boosted in power.

[VoodistMonk]

Dweomercat Cub for a mage-slayer build, because they have that reactive Dweomer Leap thing... combine that with any ability to share Disruptive/Spellbreaker, and you have something that might just prove useful.

[Te'Shen]

mythikal wrote:

I’ll go first, I think my favorite is the Calligraphy Wyrm. Probably because they’re just so darn cute! I would love to have one with a librarian-esq character

Hmm... it's a shame the familiar archetypes aren't more flexible. This little guy just screams for the sage archetype, but I think it would actually be a step back for him.

[Mark Hoover 330]

One thing I did for a player in one of my games: upgrade his Improved Familiar. He picked up a Pyrausta dragon at 3rd level for his Fire Wizard. The PC found several good uses for the creature in and out of combat and it has become treasured by all the PCs in the party.

As the characters approached level 7 the player was looking through creatures to pick from in order to dismiss his Pyrausta and pick up something with more chance of survival long term. He seemed genuinely sad though that he couldn't keep his little fire dragon, since it had come to be like a symbol of his fire-based character.

Well, Pyraustas have an "Elder Pyrausta" version that gives them the Advanced and Giant templates along with expanding their breath weapon to a 15' cone. Being that we were upgrading the creature to be equivalent to L7 Improved Familiars, I also changed the damage on the BW to 1d6 instead of 1d4 and changed Fast Healing to Regeneration 1 (Cold) as well.

The creature grew to Tiny size, got better stats, slightly more firepower and so long as it doesn't take Cold damage is functionally immortal. It doesn't attack in melee ever, but it flies over dropping oil it ignites with Spark, it breathes fire on "minion" types, and occasionally receives a Floating Disk spell through Share Spells. The character got to keep his little buddy and got an upgrade in the process. All in all, everyone's happy.

[Darigaaz the Igniter]

I'm a fan of pseudodragons. You can give them the personality of a cat and it wouldn't be out of place.

[ErichAD]

Favorite would have to be a Fey touched fox with canopy troll as its 1 humanoid form.

Other than templated ones, the Sin Seeker sounds like the cutest thing ever, and if it wasn't so mechanically deficient I'd want one.

[Azothath]

for this non-preferred class option choose something that (ultimately) adds to the character's background and style and won't affect your WBL metrics too much (campaign dependent).
In order of preference
Humanoid: {Pixie}, Brownie(weapons, magic, & stuff), Soulbound Doll(durable, weapons, magic), Homunculus(durable & upgradeable), Imp(magic), Shikigami Kami(durable, throw anything w reasonable damage), Sprite(weapons).
Nonhumanoid: Faerie Dragon(magic), Silvanshee Agathion(healing).
Regular: Greensting Scorpion(Init), Blood Sentinel, Bat(flight + blindsense), Raven(language), Chicken(edible, non-threatening).