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| #1DoomDuckJun 10, 2008 20:12:13 | EDIT: Added Possess Familiar (idea from Nor'Morgwae) and Familiar Shield. EDIT 2: Reduced Familiar HP, added Familiar stat bonuses. EDIT 3: Minor edits per Grod_the_Giant's comments. Just an idea I was tooling around with. I think the Utility powers should be General. That is, anyone can take them in lieu of their normal Utility powers if they so desire. Current concern: Are familiars too easy to get rid of now that they have 1/4 the caster's HP? PEACH, por favor. And any helpful suggestions for improvement are, of course, welcome. Attune Familiar (Ritual) Level: 1 Component Cost: 100gp Category: Conjuration Market Price: 50GP Time: 1 hour Key Skill: Arcana (No check) Duration: Permanent You conjure forth a small beast and form an Arcane bond to it, making it your familiar and adding a unique visible characteristic to mark it as your own (Examples: wings, horns, colored eyes, unique fur/ feathers, ivory beak, twinkling emerald scales). As a move action, you can command a familiar to move 5 spaces using its normal mode of movement. However, your familiar is bound to your side and can only move up to 5 spaces away from you. If for some reason your familiar or you is forced to move further than 5 spaces away, you lose control of the familiar, are unable to use any Familiar abilities, and it will do everything in its power to return. This distance increases by 5 squares at level 11, and by 5 additional squares at level 21. If your familiar travels to another plane for any reason for more than 5 minutes, your connection is forcibly severed and your familiar dies. Familiars cannot attack. Your familiar can speak using normal sounds for its creature type, but only you can understand it. It uses your values for Defenses and Skills and has HP equal to your Healing Surge value (1/4 your HP). In addition, your familiar gains an Intelligence bonus equal to 1/2 your level which allows it to understand more of the world around it and communicate more ably with its master - this bonus is not factored into any skills/ abilities you use through your familiar or that your familiar uses. As long as your familiar shares your space, it is considered a part of you and cannot be damaged. Also, while sharing your space any healing you receive also heals your familiar for a fourth the amount. The bond between you and your familiar is strong; if your familiar is killed, you immediately take damage equal to 1/4 your Hit Points and if you are killed, your familiar also dies. Creatures are capable of identifying a Familiar via an Arcana check with a DC of 20. This ritual can also be used to either resurrect or dismiss your familiar. The component cost is 50g and 0g, respectively, for these uses of the ritual. Level 2 Utility Spell Empathic Familiar You make out the sound of footsteps echoing softly within the caverns and smile at the bat perched on your shoulder. At-Will * Arcane, Familiar Minor Action Personal Duration: Five minutes Effect: You strengthen your bond to your familiar, gaining a limited empathic bond with it. Gain a +2 to Perception and one other skill appropriate to the familiar's creature type (as determined by the DM) as long as the Familiar shares a space with you. In addition, you and your familiar gain the ability to share emotions through the bond. These effects lasts for five minutes. The bonus increases by +1 at 11th level and an additional +2 at 21st level (for a total bonus of +5 at 21st level). Level 6 Utility Spell Two Sets of Eyes With a moment of concentration, you attune your senses to those of your raven familiar. Ah, there's that goblin. Daily * Arcane, Familiar Minor Action Personal Effect: By concentrating, you can perceive things from your familiar's point of view as well as your own until the end of your next turn. In addition to allowing you to make Perception checks from your familiar's location, this allows you to gain Line of Sight to creatures that are otherwise concealed. It does not, however, grant you Line of Effect to creatures you could not otherwise target. In addition, your familiar does not draw Opportunity Attacks for movement until the end of your next turn. Sustain Minor: The effects persist. Level 10 Utility Spell Familiar Shield With a piercing shriek, your bat flies into the path of the deadly ray, saving you from its dire effects. Daily * Arcane, Familiar Immediate Interrupt Personal Trigger: You are hit by a Melee or Ranged attack while sharing a space with your familiar. Effect: Your familiar intercepts an attack intended for you. It suffers any effects the attack would normally impart on its target, including half normal damage. If the attack also targets other creatures, they are targeted as normal. Level 16 Utility Spell Familiar Spell Focus Your ferret crawls into the orc encampment, unnoticed until it suddenly emits a blast of energy! "Good job, Tiny," you think to yourself. Daily * Arcane, Familiar Standard Action Target: Your familiar Effect: You cast a Burst spell you have available through your familiar, treating it as the origin of the spell effect. All effects that would normally target the caster of the spell affect your familiar.The radius of the spell effect is reduced by 2 squares to a minimum of 1. At 21st level, the radius of the spell effect is only reduced by 1 square. Level 22 Utility Spell Possess Familiar You close your eyes and relax, sending your mind into that of your winged feline familiar. Daily * Arcane, Familiar Target: Personal Effect: You enter a meditative state and gain control of your familiar. You retain control of your familiar at any distance from your body, though inter-planar travel still retains its risk. This effect can only be ended at-will once your familiar returns within range of your body. If your familiar is killed while you possess it, your mind is forcibly returned and you are reduced to 0 hit points. The meditative state you enter is not restful, though you can receive the benefits of rest as your familiar. In addition, your body remains vulnerable to any effects as normal including dehydration and starvation. You are completely unaware of events around your body unless they cause you damage in which case you only become aware that your body is in peril. The skill bonuses from Empathic Familiar remain active while you possess your familiar. Two Sets of Eyes is usable, but functions in reverse allowing you to temporarily check up on your body. Lastly, you retain the ability to use Familiar Spell Focus while possessing your familiar. ~DD |
| #2nor-morgwaeJun 11, 2008 15:07:27 | I like what you have so far. It was something I had thought about a little but haven't gotten a chance to look into yet. I like the ritual and the first 3 utility powers. I can't see any obvious problems with them. I'm not sure about familiar mount though. It seems a little incongruous with the other powers. For the high level spells how about something like Possess Familiar that allows the Wizard to act as their familiar and move as far as they like from their normal body as the familiar? They might have to return to the normal range to move back into their own body, otherwise they're stuck as their familiar until they do. Or maybe not that last part. I'm just throwing out ideas. If you are worried about the flying familiars being better then you could have the familiar Utility spells grant better abilities to non-flying familiars. So for empathic familiar you normally only gain the perception bonus but for a non-flying familiar you gain the bonus to a second skill as well. That's all I can think of right now. Good luck with this. |
| #3DoomDuckJun 11, 2008 15:21:47 | I like what you have so far. It was something I had thought about a little but haven't gotten a chance to look into yet. Cool, thanks for the ideas and support. Yeah, the Familiar Mount was just something that spontaneously popped into my head. It doesn't fit, but I couldn't think of too much more to do. That said, I like your Possess Familiar idea. I might also let others use an Arcana check to identify the animal as a familiar, but otherwise remain incognito. And of course, if the Familiar uses Stealth they'd have to make a Perception check to find it in the first place. It could definitely be a very ability. Thanks *grin*. For the very last ability, the Level 22 Utility... I still kind of like my Empower Familiar thing, though maybe it can be more of a "Battlecat" type thing - make your familiar into a combat-ready summoned creature for the encounter. My only real issue with that is that it's definitely a combat power and not a Utility one. *shrug?* ~DD |
| #4DoomDuckJun 11, 2008 16:02:24 | Just a quick update on changes: I added a "unique visual characteristic" to your familiar upon casting the bonding ritual. I'm thinking something like a shock of white hair, purple feathering on a raven, that sort of thing. Just a way of making it YOUR familiar. Familiars can now be ID'ed with an Arcana check of 20. Not a terribly hard check - too easy? Possess Familiar's been added. While writing it, I grew more enamored with the idea. Roleplay-wise, it is now possible for a powerful mage to live through his/ her familiar so long as his body is kept in a safe place, and he occasionally returns to feed himself. Coupled with the skill checks, the familiar could make a great spy/ substitute for scrying at level 16. I still need a level 22 power. I've thought about it, and the Empower Familiar idea is poor. I need something better. Ideas? EDIT: Just avoiding a triple post with this Edit. I added Familiar Shield as an ability at 10th level, and moved the others down the line. ~DD |
| #5DoomDuckJun 13, 2008 14:23:01 | Meh, triple posting now anyways! But not within a day at least. My group's making characters, the wizard's taking the Familiar route (at least for now) so I'll get to see what happens. He wanted a bird of prey, so I'm thinking probably a harrier to keep it fairly small. Starting at level 3, so he took Empathic Familiari. I gave him a +2 to Nature, hunting and such being the thought process behind it. ~DD |
| #6aka_baitJun 13, 2008 15:01:51 | You might want to add a ritual or three to up the statistics of your familiar. Specifically, Int. |
| #7DoomDuckJun 13, 2008 18:26:53 | You might want to add a ritual or three to up the statistics of your familiar. Specifically, Int. A point I hadn't even considered. Well, rituals in general could be used to get "upgraded" familiars. i.e. Intelligence Should it be built in more, the way it was in 3e? ~DD |
| #8neokirby64Jun 16, 2008 0:02:23 | A question on the possess familiar power: can you still cast your regular spells? I think it should work like the star pact warlock's third eye power even if it would up the power level. Also: which class gets these powers added to its list? Can anyone summon a familiar? If anyone can, would they have to multiclass to wizard to be able to use arcane spell powers? |
| #9kenji508Jun 16, 2008 16:36:38 | Why not make flying familiars a seperate power, something that can be done when you first get the familiar (so you can get a bird of some sort) while still balancing flying ones. You should also be able to apply it latter, in the case of adding wings to something land based. Other than that, i dont think what your familiar looks like should matter at all. I would personaly rule its a creation of a new creature (or fragmentation of you) rather than an infusion into an existing one. Players should probably get to make up a creature rather than saying "I get a duck...." |
| #10DoomDuckJun 16, 2008 20:52:58 | A question on the possess familiar power: can you still cast your regular spells? I think it should work like the star pact warlock's third eye power even if it would up the power level. The familiar would be able to cast spells via the "Familiar Spell Focus" once a day, but nothing else. I didn't want it to be a great combat power, or a way for the wizard to be nearly invincible by sending in the familiar to fight while he/ she stays far away. For the second point, I figure everyone could get them, if they qualify for the Ritual. Warlocks, Clerics, Rangers all make easy sense for a familiar type creature (Imagine a Paladin of the Raven Queen with a Raven familiar with glowing purple eyes or the like). So, that was my thinking on it. ~DD |
| #11pontelonJun 21, 2008 23:28:29 | I agree with this. Having the flight ability being a level 10 ritual goes with 4E's "limited flight is Paragon, major movement is epic" idea. And adding wings to a cat or dog is amazing. Having familiars be summons makes sense as well. It would also reinforce the idea that the familiar is part of the caster. I would also suggest not to give them seperate HP. Instead, your familiar takes damage, it is decreased from your HP. This keeps the wizard from basically having +50% HP because of their familiar. Also, reinforces the idea that the familiar is "part of you." Obviously, this would have to change the "Familiar Shield" to either negate a % of the damage, or all of it. I personally really like this idea, and might use a modified version in my games. |
| #12wylanternJun 24, 2008 0:30:37 | I agree with this. What about giving them Minion stats? |
| #13DoomDuckJun 24, 2008 19:16:39 | Okay, I've made some changes! Firstly, Familiars have had their HP reduced to the Healing Surge value. That is, 1/4 HP. Though I agree with the criticism that 1/2 HP is a lot to give them, I also want the familiar to be something that can die on its own. As it stands now, if a familiar is managing to severely screw with an enemy's plan (probably by providing Line of Sight or maybe because they've seen the familiar use a burst effect) they can kill it without *too* much effort. I actually feel this limits it more than just having the Wizard take the damage, and retains more of the flavor I was hoping for. Of course, there may be disagreements *grin*. I also added a 1/2 level bonus to Familiar intelligence. I think Familiars would start @ 2 Intelligence (based on the majority of the 3.5e animals) so using this method is 1) easy to remember, since it follows the current model for stat checks and 2) Means that at around Heroic tier you'll have a pretty smart familiar. Lastly, I've been thinking about it, and I just don't think that a flying familiar would make a big difference anymore. With a range of 5squares @ levels 1-10, even if you had your familiar flying out of reach, it wouldn't be able to get very far. Any ranged attack could hit it, and it just wouldn't be able to scout very far compared to a ground-based creature. I think anyways - I'm not convinced completely. As a sort of compromise though, I think the idea of having winged cats, etc. would be a cool one. I see no reason that couldn't qualify as either 1) a standard creature per your DM or 2) The "characteristic" that marks that creature as your own. Thoughts on the changes? ~DD |
| #14theninjadJun 30, 2008 22:06:16 | So far, I like the look of this. I'm not the best at measuring balance without spending a lot of time on it, however, so I'm not looking much at that. Nothing, at least, stands out as being terribly broken. |
| #15theninjadJul 06, 2008 20:49:16 | This deserves a bump. |
| #16strange_guyJul 09, 2008 14:54:33 | I'd like a morph familiar ritual would be cool to change your falcon into a rat when your going in the sewers. |
| #17bennetJul 27, 2008 1:59:35 | Outstanding approach to the 4e familiar. People is actually very enthusiastic to playtest this option. Keep it up! |
| #18leo_davJul 27, 2008 5:33:07 | I applaud your dedication for a balanced use of familiars, I really think this is a good step in the right direction. Although I would rule that the shielding spell be only used while the PC is bloodied ( the familiar feels that the master is very hurt and dives in to save him) |
| #19DoomDuckJul 27, 2008 10:11:59 | I applaud your dedication for a balanced use of familiars, I really think this is a good step in the right direction. That might not be a bad idea. I was basing the ability off of a same-level Warlock utility power - Shielding Shades. The primary difference being that the Familiar power can only absorb Bloodied HP worth of damage, and that (if I'm reading Shielding Shades correctly) the familiar power will absorb any secondary effects of the attack, whereas Shielding Shades only absorbs the damage. ~DD |
| #20grod_the_giantAug 02, 2008 23:01:54 | very cool idea. Well done. I don't think flight would be that big an issue: a familiar can still only move 15 squares away at epic levels- not very far. I have only two comments: First, you probably mean 11th and 21st levels, not 10 and 20. At least, that's how most powers work. Secondly, Empathic Familiar's permanent effects are not consistent with standard utility powers. I think it would work better as a ritual. Oh, and on the subject of winged cats: has anyone played the Geneforge games, with Shapers? That's the kind of thing they did...screwing around with nature to create completely new creatures. |
| #21theninjadAug 14, 2008 20:17:55 | BUMP |
| #22stormonuAug 14, 2008 22:10:03 | Okay, I've made some changes! Perhaps you should have the character "give up" a healing surge, which becomes the familiar's hit points? You could put a height limit on how high a familiar can fly. Perhaps 2-3 squares for the Heroic Tier, 5-6 for Paragon and 10+ for Epic. Allows them to get around and over obstacles and do some scouting, but still within reach to be attacked/stay in the fight. Also, just put these together at a moment's thought for actual combat uses of a familiar...(note, these assume the familiar is a Conjuration, taking up a space but not preventing others from moving through it nor it being able to be hit or damaged). Familiar Flyby (Wizard Attack 1) Your bat dives at the opponent with a shriek, tearing flesh with its claws At-Will * Arcane, Conjuration, Implement (Bat) Standard Action, Melee touch Effect: Your move your bat familiar from its current location up to five squares. The bat makes an attack against one creature in its square. Target: One creature Attack: Intelligence vs. AC Hit: 1d6 + Intelligence modifier damage. Increase to 2d6 + Intelligence modifier at 21st level. With perhaps a later level ability of: Fiery Bat Claws (Wizard Attack 1) With a screech, you bat buzzes an enemy foe, burning them with fiery claws Encounter * Arcane, Conjuration, Implement (Bat) Standard Action, Melee touch Effect: You move your bat familiar from its current location up to five squares. The bat makes an attack against one creature in its square. Target: One creature Attack: Intelligence vs. Reflex Hit: 2d6 + Intelligence modifier fire damage. And so on... |
| #23DoomDuckAug 18, 2008 11:24:09 | Perhaps you should have the character "give up" a healing surge, which becomes the familiar's hit points? Certainly a possibility. I'm not sure if it's a powerful enough ability to require that, but if the power of the abilities were upped, that'd be an excellent balancing factor. You could put a height limit on how high a familiar can fly. Perhaps 2-3 squares for the Heroic Tier, 5-6 for Paragon and 10+ for Epic. Allows them to get around and over obstacles and do some scouting, but still within reach to be attacked/stay in the fight. Actually, there's already one built in. The familiar can only move so many spaces away from its master, and since spaces exist in three-dimensions, at the earliest level the familiar can only move 5 spaces away - five spaces up, two spaces up three forward, etc. This is why I changed my mind on how powerful flying familiars were vs. non-flying. At this point, I'm feeling like they're pretty close in utility. Also, just put these together at a moment's thought for actual combat uses of a familiar...(note, these assume the familiar is a Conjuration, taking up a space but not preventing others from moving through it nor it being able to be hit or damaged). Definitely a possibility. I'm more of a mind to keeping familiars as Utility powers, much like Familiars have been in the past. They could attack, but it was very rarely a good idea to send your cat familiar to strike. Perhaps something akin to a small +X to damage if you hit a target while it is adjacent to the familiar? That said, if I were gonna do Animal Companions, I'd run them more as attack pets. The idea of a monstrous bat companion with improving attacks... that's pretty cool in my mind. I'd even set it up with the same base structure - a Ritual (Nature based) along with increasing powers, though in this case I'd make them primarily attack with minimal utility, in order to differentiate the two. Another way I'd be interested in doing it - a Beastmaster Paragon path. Just thoughts. ~DD |
| #24otogi_2Aug 19, 2008 9:59:24 | A list of possible familiars you, the buyer, may consider for your adventuring and maruardering needs. Order now! |