Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 mb_webguy Sep 20, 2009 18:30:35	(I originally posted this in the General Discussion forum before I noticed this one.  I don't usually cross-post, but the thread seems more appropriate for this forum.)   Fierce Familiar Prerequisites: Any arcane class, Arcane Familiar feat Benefit: Your familiar gains a melee basic attack.  When you take this feat, choose one ability as the ability score you use when making attack rolls with your familiar. You also choose the attack's damage type: acid, cold, fire, force, lightning, necrotic, poison, psychic, radiant, thunder, or normal.  The attack gains your chosen ability modifier +2 to hit against the target's AC, and deals 1d6 + your chosen ability modifier acid, cold, fire, force, lightning, necrotic, poison, psychic, radiant, or thunder damage, or 1d8 + your chosen ability modifier normal damage. Special: As a Tiny creature, your familiar must be in the target's square to attack, and cannot flank. Hardy Familiar Prerequisites: Any arcane class, Arcane Familiar feat Benefit: Your familiar gains Resist 5.  Increase to Resist 10 at 11th level, and Resist 15 and 21st level.   I love the familiar rules presented in Arcane Power and the Dragon #374 article "Get Familiar", but while they're great for traditional familiars, more martial-minded characters might want a familiar with a bit more bite. For those unfamiliar with familiars, they can't normally attack (except for the a few that allow you to use them as the source for your arcane powers), use the minion rules (i.e. are destroyed if they take any damage), and use your actions (e.g. you use your move action to allow them to move, your standard action to allow them to do anything that requires a standard action, etc.).  They also provide various benefits that you lose when they're destroyed (until they reform after a rest). So familiars according to RAW have quite limited combat applications.  I'd like to create a few feats to give players the option to have more burly familiars.  Since familiars use the character's actions and are Tiny (and therefore can't flank), I don't think a feat that grants them a basic melee attack is game-breaking.  The option of dealing a specific damage type at the cost of a lower damage die seems appropriate considering the variety of familiars available, but I'm not completely sure whether a single drop in die type is enough to balance the damage type.  Is 1d6 instead of 1d8 appropriate, or should I drop it to 1d4?  For that matter, is 1d8 for the untyped damage too much?  The (few) Tiny creatures in the MM, MM2, and other source books mostly deal 1d8 on a melee basic attack, so it seemed appropriate. I'm a bit less sure about how to go about making familiars a bit less fragile.  I figured Resist 5 is fairly reasonable, with Resist 10 at the Paragon tier and Resist 15 at Epic.  I played around with the idea of giving them an amount of HP, but figured that would add too much record keeping.  Resistance is a much simpler route.  Several familiars already have resistance or complete immunity against a particular damage type, so it doesn't seem too outrageous, but it still seems a bit on the powerful side.  Is it fine as-is, or should it have higher prereqs?  I thought a prereq of Constitution 13 might be appropriate, since this feat would be more appropriate for a combat-oriented character and only the combat-oriented arcane classes like Warlock and Swordmage would likely have much of a Con score. 57609928 wrote:
#2 mb_webguy Sep 24, 2009 11:06:42	So I guess no one sees any problems with these feats?