More Questions About Wizards & Familiars

[bkdubs123]

I have some questions: How many games have you played in which you used your familiar to actually do mechanical things? Of those games you played, how many times did the DM cry, "omfg broken!"? Is the DM well within his rights to call things like Familiar Concentration and Share Spell + Polymorph broken?

I ask these questions because I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that if I ever used a Raven Familiar to drop Shrink Item'd cannon balls on people my DM would throw a fit (and that's one of the most tame action economy uses for Familiars I can think of).

[PhaedrusXY]

It depends wildly on the DM and/or group. In some online games, DMed by people on these boards, I've pushed it to the max. In my table-top games, I've generally kept it a lot more subdued, but I have used them for scouting and things like that.

I've pushed the limit a bit more in table-top games with psicrystals, though, including relying on them heavily as scouts, coating them in contact poison (made via Minor Creation), etc.

[Lycanthromancer]

I usually don't use familiars, but the raven familiar I had I used to activate command word items (see: my tinfoil hat trick), and as a messenger, when needed.

But like PhaedrusXY, I use psicrystals ALL THE TIME.

[bkdubs123]

I usually don't use familiars, but the raven familiar I had I used to activate command word items (see: my tinfoil hat trick), and as a messenger, when needed.

The tinfoil hat trick is mostly a mid-to-high level thing, right? So might it be that DMs are more accepting of higher level familiar shenanigans than of lower level?

But like PhaedrusXY, I use psicrystals ALL THE TIME.

Could that be part of the reason Psionics gets a bad rap? Neither of you seem to use the action abuse of a Wizard's familiar to do much, but both of you admit to using your psicrystals constantly. Just thinking out loud here.

[The_Mad_Linguist]

Aid another.  Your familiar is a floating +2 on whatever skills you care about.

[bkdubs123]

Aid another.  Your familiar is a floating +2 on whatever skills you care about.

Good point. That's probably the one thing I could see most DMs being cool about at their tables.

[ImperatorK]

Improved Familiar to grab a talking creature with hands and UMD. Works good on Bards or Beguilers with Obtain Familiar.

[Lycanthromancer]

I usually don't use familiars, but the raven familiar I had I used to activate command word items (see: my tinfoil hat trick), and as a messenger, when needed.

The tinfoil hat trick is mostly a mid-to-high level thing, right? So might it be that DMs are more accepting of higher level familiar shenanigans than of lower level?

If you call Shrink Item a 'high level spell,' then I guess...

But like PhaedrusXY, I use psicrystals ALL THE TIME.

Could that be part of the reason Psionics gets a bad rap? Neither of you seem to use the action abuse of a Wizard's familiar to do much, but both of you admit to using your psicrystals constantly. Just thinking out loud here.

Psicrystals are required if you want to use metapsionics, and they're a lot more difficult to kill than a familiar. Plus, they get more halfway decent abilities at higher levels than a familiar, and they don't actively hurt you if they die.

So, not really, no.

Oh, and psicrystals also have lots more utility use. I mean, they don't eat, sleep, or breathe, are immune to damned near everything that's not direct damage, they can climb and fly, they can see and hear without light or sound, and they have telepathy.

How is that not awesome?

[bkdubs123]

I usually don't use familiars, but the raven familiar I had I used to activate command word items (see: my tinfoil hat trick), and as a messenger, when needed.

The tinfoil hat trick is mostly a mid-to-high level thing, right? So might it be that DMs are more accepting of higher level familiar shenanigans than of lower level?

If you call Shrink Item a 'high level spell,' then I guess...

What tinfoil hat trick are you talking about? Using it to block line of effect for an anti-magic field? Shrink Item isn't a high level spell, no. I was legitimately asking you whether your trick was mostly mid-to-high level, because I don't know what you're specifically talking about doing with a shrunken tin foil hat.

But like PhaedrusXY, I use psicrystals ALL THE TIME.

Could that be part of the reason Psionics gets a bad rap? Neither of you seem to use the action abuse of a Wizard's familiar to do much, but both of you admit to using your psicrystals constantly. Just thinking out loud here.

Psicrystals are required if you want to use metapsionics, and they're a lot more difficult to kill than a familiar. Plus, they get more halfway decent abilities at higher levels than a familiar, and they don't actively hurt you if they die.

So, not really, no.

I'm talking about psionics getting a bad rap from DMs who knee-jerk and call it broken. I know the major reason is that rampant misinterpretation of maximum PP per manifestation, but for DMs that work their way past that, could it be a contributing factor that players use their psicrystals, which are as you say better in just about every way than a familiar, to accomplish great deeds in the avenue of action economy far more often than their Wizard contemporaries?

Oh, and psicrystals also have lots more utility use. I mean, they don't eat, sleep, or breathe, are immune to damned near everything that's not direct damage, they can climb and fly, they can see and hear without light or sound, and they have telepathy.

How is that not awesome?

Again, I never said psicrystals were less than awesome, or that psionics is a bad system. I'm wondering how many of you actually feel like using a Wizard's familiar in gameplay to do provide better action efficiency is balanced, and how many of you have DMs that also feel that it's balanced (or vice versa).

I conjecture most DMs would respond to their Wizard concentrating on a spell while their familiar concentrates on a second one for them to be borderline "too powerful" and I wholeheartedly believe that most DMs would straight up "rocks fall; your familiar dies" a situation where a Wizard uses her familiar in creative ways to effective double her action economy.

Lycan and Phaedrus have both stated that they don't normally use their familiar much for these sorts of things, but that they regularly do use their psicrystals for the same sorts of things. Is it "broken" or "too powerful" for a Wizard to get time-and-a-half to double her effective action economy via creative Familiar use? If it is, would it be safe to say that doing the same thing with a Psion and his psicrystal is also "broken" or "too powerful?"

[Lycanthromancer]

I usually don't use familiars, but the raven familiar I had I used to activate command word items (see: my tinfoil hat trick), and as a messenger, when needed.

The tinfoil hat trick is mostly a mid-to-high level thing, right? So might it be that DMs are more accepting of higher level familiar shenanigans than of lower level?

If you call Shrink Item a 'high level spell,' then I guess...

What tinfoil hat trick are you talking about? Using it to block line of effect for an anti-magic field? Shrink Item isn't a high level spell, no. I was legitimately asking you whether your trick was mostly mid-to-high level, because I don't know what you're specifically talking about doing with a shrunken tin foil hat.[/url]

Take raven as your familiar, then have it ready an action to say the command word to your hat any time something bad is about to befall you, such as a save-or-die or a mounted charge attack. The hat blows up just before the effect hits you, meaning you have total cover and can then teleport out to rain death down.

But like PhaedrusXY, I use psicrystals ALL THE TIME.

Could that be part of the reason Psionics gets a bad rap? Neither of you seem to use the action abuse of a Wizard's familiar to do much, but both of you admit to using your psicrystals constantly. Just thinking out loud here.

Psicrystals are required if you want to use metapsionics, and they're a lot more difficult to kill than a familiar. Plus, they get more halfway decent abilities at higher levels than a familiar, and they don't actively hurt you if they die.

So, not really, no.

I'm talking about psionics getting a bad rap from DMs who knee-jerk and call it broken. I know the major reason is that rampant misinterpretation of maximum PP per manifestation, but for DMs that work their way past that, could it be a contributing factor that players use their psicrystals, which are as you say better in just about every way than a familiar, to accomplish great deeds in the avenue of action economy far more often than their Wizard contemporaries?

Oh, and psicrystals also have lots more utility use. I mean, they don't eat, sleep, or breathe, are immune to damned near everything that's not direct damage, they can climb and fly, they can see and hear without light or sound, and they have telepathy.

How is that not awesome?

Again, I never said psicrystals were less than awesome, or that psionics is a bad system. I'm wondering how many of you actually feel like using a Wizard's familiar in gameplay to do provide better action efficiency is balanced, and how many of you have DMs that also feel that it's balanced (or vice versa).

I conjecture most DMs would respond to their Wizard concentrating on a spell while their familiar concentrates on a second one for them to be borderline "too powerful" and I wholeheartedly believe that most DMs would straight up "rocks fall; your familiar dies" a situation where a Wizard uses her familiar in creative ways to effective double her action economy.

Lycan and Phaedrus have both stated that they don't normally use their familiar much for these sorts of things, but that they regularly do use their psicrystals for the same sorts of things. Is it "broken" or "too powerful" for a Wizard to get time-and-a-half to double her effective action economy via creative Familiar use? If it is, would it be safe to say that doing the same thing with a Psion and his psicrystal is also "broken" or "too powerful?"

Well, considering that it's built into the system (see Co-Opt concentration, for instance), and that both familiars and psicrystals can share powers and spells with their masters by default, this seems like it was something that was meant to be from the beginning.

And yes, psicrystals are better than familiars in so many ways, but it does cost a feat (whereas familiars don't). The big thing about familiars is that they're so damned fragile, and screw you royally if they die.

Psicrystals, not so much. And they're just so FUN.

[bkdubs123]

I usually don't use familiars, but the raven familiar I had I used to activate command word items (see: my tinfoil hat trick), and as a messenger, when needed.

The tinfoil hat trick is mostly a mid-to-high level thing, right? So might it be that DMs are more accepting of higher level familiar shenanigans than of lower level?

If you call Shrink Item a 'high level spell,' then I guess...

What tinfoil hat trick are you talking about? Using it to block line of effect for an anti-magic field? Shrink Item isn't a high level spell, no. I was legitimately asking you whether your trick was mostly mid-to-high level, because I don't know what you're specifically talking about doing with a shrunken tin foil hat.[/url]

Take raven as your familiar, then have it ready an action to say the command word to your hat any time something bad is about to befall you, such as a save-or-die or a mounted charge attack. The hat blows up just before the effect hits you, meaning you have total cover and can then teleport out to rain death down.

Right. Teleport, being a 5th level spell, is something I would consider mid-level. That's what I thought, I just wanted to be sure that's what you meant.

Well, considering that it's built into the system (see Co-Opt concentration, for instance), and that both familiars and psicrystals can share powers and spells with their masters by default, this seems like it was something that was meant to be from the beginning.

I definitely agree that the designer's clearly meant for a Wizard to be able to "do stuff" with their familiars for sure. What I want to find out is two-fold:

1) how many players actually consistently use their familiars for things like delivering touch spells, activating magic items, or share spells?

2) how many players have had bad experiences (or at least believe strongly that they would have a bad experience) with DMs thinking that using their familiars in that way is broken?

and a follow-up:

2)a) do those uses of a familiar border on the "too powerful" side of things?

[RobbyPants]

I have some questions: How many games have you played in which you used your familiar to actually do mechanical things? Of those games you played, how many times did the DM cry, "omfg broken!"? Is the DM well within his rights to call things like Familiar Concentration and Share Spell + Polymorph broken?

I'm running a Dread Necro right now with an imp familiar.  About the strongest things I've had it do include:

• Use Suggestion in combat to get a particularly nasty item away from the BBEG.
• Use Commune for various purposes (I have it as a Divine Oracle, but that costs XP).
• All sorts of scouting.  This has been improved with my Mind Bender telepathy.
• Sting my large skeletons with it's iterative attacks to break Hold Undead on them without me having to cast anything.

But I didn't really plan for this, so I never put any (cross class) ranks into UMD.  The extra action economy could have been really nice.  I suppose I could see about having the imp gather its poison and apply it to arrows or something, and just fly around and shoot things.


Anyway, the DM hasn't freaked up too much about these things.  This might be in part because I haven't taken UMD.

[Lycanthromancer]

Right. Teleport, being a 5th level spell, is something I would consider mid-level. That's what I thought, I just wanted to be sure that's what you meant.

Also see: Dimension Door, and any other low-level teleportation effects you can get your hands on.

I definitely agree that the designer's clearly meant for a Wizard to be able to "do stuff" with their familiars for sure. What I want to find out is two-fold:

1) how many players actually consistently use their familiars for things like delivering touch spells, activating magic items, or share spells?

2) how many players have had bad experiences (or at least believe strongly that they would have a bad experience) with DMs thinking that using their familiars in that way is broken?

It's part of a wizard, and benefits strongly from a wizard's spells and tactics. Of course it can be broken. We're talking about something that's in a 3-way tie for the most powerful base class in the game (with the other two being archivist and spell-to-power erudite).

and a follow-up:

2)a) do those uses of a familiar border on the "too powerful" side of things?

Really, that depends on what kind of campaign we're talking about.

Some campaigns, anything stronger than an unoptimized sword and bored fighter [sic] is too powerful.

[ninjarabbit]

Other uses for familiars:

-Imbue Familiar with Spell-ability spell, transfer some of your low level spells to your familar to break action economy even further

-Debuffing: I've used a debuff-focuced hexblade with a salt mephit familiar (which has a breath weapon that inflicts a -4 penalty to AC and -2 penalty to attack rolls) to completely ruin opponents.

-Free source of poisons: some familiars like vipers, seasnakes, imps, and more have natural poisons that you can milk. In addition a snake familiar can speak to other snakes to make it easier to milk those other snakes if your wizard has ranks in craft (poison) and handle animal. Useful if you take the poison spell feat.

-Free scry on your familiar once a day, useful if this spell isn't normally on your spell list.

-Free skill ranks. Many familiar already have skill ranks in skills you might not. For example a hawk has +16 to his spot check (not bad for something you can get at level 1) and some familars like cats, rats, and weasels can function as mini-scouts and can perform some skill checks better than a low level rogue.

There's plenty more you can do with a familiar if you're even moderately creative.