Sounds boring
Then don't take the feat?
Where are the battle stats for the arcane familiars? Their attacks and health and stuff like that. In the Get Familiar article they showed the bonuses that various familiars give you, but not their battle stats. Is that going to be in Arcane Power, or is it in a previous or upcoming article?
A familiar is a conjuration. Please read up on the conjuration keyword for more information.
TBP
Ok. Hmm... I like everything the way the familiars work in 4e but I don't really like how they make all of the familiars have 1 HP. The Arcane Eye should probably have 1 HP, but the Badger, or Stone Fowl, etc.? Other than that fact I like the way they are designed.
Familiars are not combatants, and aren't supposed to be. They're from a feat; if they were intended to be more combative, it would be an alternate class feature (as it is with Rangers and their Beast Companions).
the feat allows you to summon and bind a willing spirit so it takes the form of an animal (this is actually closer to the real familiar) which then serves it's master for whatever purpose.
the spirit is not necessarily that of an actual cat, but it takes the form of one if only to lessen the shock of having some unearthly entity aid you in your tasks or follow you around.
when it takes damage, it temporarily breaks the summon and while the spirit is still bound to you, it requires some time to refocus and summon it back.
it's not the 3rd ed familiar, where you subjected some animal to a series of arcane rituals and bound it to you.
it's still a familiar though
I intend to offer an alternative to the 1hp familiar rule, making the familiar more like the 3rd edition one with half (or maybe even 100%) the caster's HP, the ability to make opportunity attacks, etcetera. However, this familiar counts as a class feature, replacing the wand/staff/orb option. In essence, more like the ranger's companion, including the requirement for a ritual to bring it back to life if killed.
Of course, I'll wait until Arcane Power comes out to make sure there isn't already something like this option available.
In my specific case my familiar for my Halfling Wild Magic Sorcerer is going to have a lot of character, and included in that I want him to be able to fight. Hopefully my DM will allow that when we start our campaign which was interrupted because the DM had a daughter and didn't have enough time to play.
Yeah, I realize what familiars are supposed to be. But in my case I wish there was at least someway to make your familiar able to actually fight, but that may happen in Arcane Power so like Tipop I'll wait.
In my specific case my familiar for my Halfling Wild Magic Sorcerer is going to have a lot of character, and included in that I want him to be able to fight. Hopefully my DM will allow that when we start our campaign which was interrupted because the DM had a daughter and didn't have enough time to play.
Actually, a good way to represent this - you could represent certain summoning spells as your familiar turning into whatever you summon. When the summon is defeated/goes away, it returns to its normal form. No real change to mechanics necessary, and it lets your familiar stay around in its normal form most of the time, and then fight alongside you in combat!
So making your familiar morph into spell effects and deliver them sounds like a great idea, since all it is is RP flavor. And that's IMHO what DND is all about.
Yep. Don't be afraid to ask your DM for some RP leeway here. I gave one of my players the right to rename all of his powers to whatever he liked. He wanted another feel to it. I also allowed him to change the energy type of one of his powers to best fit what he saw. No problem 'cause it didn't imbalance anything.
So making your familiar morph into spell effects and deliver them sounds like a great idea, since all it is is RP flavor. And that's IMHO what DND is all about.
Aggghhhhhh, the necromancy, it burns!
