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| #1malignorJul 14, 2008 16:19:01 | Familiars and Transmutation - 3.5e In the SRD and PHB it says that familiars are treated as magical beasts. I find that following this to the letter goes against the purpose of some spells, especially those of the transmutation school. I'm sure if it was brought up before a D&D designers' grand jury, they would agree with my standpoint on this matter, which I The problem arises when one casts Alter Self on a familiar. The proposed Magical Beast type restricts the forms a familiar can take (as there are not very many little Magical Beasts), and gives it a form that is not much like a standard familiar at all - maybe an improved familiar at best. Alter Self is designed for a few purposes: To take advantage of certain abilities of different races in the same category, and to disguise yourself. A humanoid who casts Alter Self should turn into one of many possible forms of humanoid. An outsider would become one of many types of outsider. And (here's where the conflict arises) a familiar should become one of many types of familiar, and not some magical beast. That is to say a wizard+familiar, both before and after the casting of Alter Self, should appear as a wizard+familiar, but the power of Alter Self allows for some selection of the variant. Thus I propose the following: Familiar Rule #1: An (animal) familiar is of type Animal, but is not affected by spells which specifically target animals. Done! This still keeps the familiar from being affected by Charm Animal spells, and yet it provides the foundation for all other magicks which don't target specific types, but have different results depending on type. Thus the human wizard + falcon can use Alter Self to become a sailor + parrot, or a street performer + monkey; in essence, being able to use Alter Self for one of its intended uses - impersonation, disguise and changing identities. Another oddity arises with spells like Polymorph any Object, which is another weird one. Think of a Hawk becoming an Eagle. It's animal matter, it's a avian, it's got the same intelligence, and now we have +9 for permanent effect. So a hawk familiar can be made permanently into an Eagle. Similarly with the weasel to dire weasel, or Snake -to- Giant Viper, and so on. This issue is independent of the Magical Beast problem mentioned earlier. The problem arises when we ask: What happens to the familiar? Does it lose the intelligence gained from the bond in favor of the original creature? Is it, because of the permanent spell effect (not instantaneous, mind you, but permanent and thus dispellable), no longer valid as a familiar, and if so, wouldn't casting any enhancement on your familiar count as losing your familiar? So what happens to the link? Which familiar attributes stay and which are lost? It's a bit confusing. Especially if we're using Alter Self (the foundation for Polymorph and thus PAO) to make your familiar impersonate a different kind of familiar... I mean if all the familiar aspects are gone, how can it play along with animal intelligence? Does sharing Bull Strength with your familiar cause it to lose the link (and forcing a save for XP loss)? If not, why would PAO be any different? Well this leads to rule #2. Familiar Rule #2: The enhancements made by virtue of being a familiar are to be treated as class abilities, and thus applied after determining attributes of the base creature. In other words, if you use Alter Self to turn your familiar into a monkey, the results are as if you had a monkey familiar (with natural AC bonus, minimum intelligence and the like). If you use Polymorph to turn your familiar into a Hydra, the results are as if you had a Hydra familiar (with natural AC bonus, minimum intelligence and the like). If you use PAO to turn your eagle familiar into an Eagle, the result is as if you always had an Eagle as a familiar (with natural AC bonus, minimum intelligence and the like). But Wait! How is that fair? If some character picked Improved Familiar to get an Imp, why should another character who didn't spend the feat get to have a Dire Tiger just with a single casting?!?! Well the answers are thus: - The "Eagle" reverts back to the base creature after successful application of Dispel Magic, Greater Dispel Magic or Disjunction (again, read up on Permanent durations in the magic section), and temporarily returns to original form in an Antimagic field. - The "Eagle" is not the base creature. It's just the hawk familiar in that form by virtue of a Transmutation effect. So casting Alter Self will look to the original creature and size, which is a tiny animal, and select the results from that base. - Those who have improved familiars have more intense forms to choose from by nature of their base form. For example, the entire Polymorph subschool prohibits Outsider forms, but allows any form of the same type as the original... so only improved familiars of the Outsider type can be transmuted into an outsider. So while the regular wizard makes his familiar a Eagle, you make your Imp into a form of Devil with the same trick... how about a Hellcat or Barbazu? Suddenly that Eagle (or even the Dire Tiger) don't look so hot. Here's a list of possible "permanent forms". This is with minimal reference, so it's subject to change & further study. Bat, Cat, Rat, Weasel - Any animal that's a mammal (including most Dire Animals). Hawk, Owl, Raven, Celestial Hawk - Any avian animal (including Eagle) Lizard, Snake, Shocker Lizard, Fiendish Viper - Any reptillian animal (crocs, giant snakes) Imp - Barbazu, Kyton, Bezekira, Lemure Pseudodragon - Adult White Dragon, Juvenile Black Dragon, Very Young Blue/Green/Brass Dragon, Wymling Red Dragon Quasit - Dretch Toad, Stirge, Formian Worker, Homunculus - ... search me! Any Elemental, Small - Any Elemental (medium or small) Ice mephit - Pick a Mephit, any Mephit |
| #2wyld_mutationJul 14, 2008 16:35:40 | Hmmm... This is 4e, You might want to be in a 3.x thread. |