carrying stuff and avoiding item checks. For instance in Bg2 certain very powerful items are only available for a limited time, and then they get .. destroyed. Not if the familiar was having them, cause the game doesnt check on them.
If pseudo dragon had its sleeping claws it would murder any living enemy in BG with ease. Now it is either bugged or nerfed and never works. Still it has good AC and attacks, can bolster its AC even more with blur, has %50 mr and heals itself by regeneration. Healing familiars is hard work since they can not drink potions and you need to waste cleric spells on them. Pseudo dragon can regenerate very fast back to full health.
holy crap some of the imp shapeshift forms are beast. Note these stats aren't fully correct despite being listed as such in the game.
Brown/Black bears come with perm haste and have 4 apr, 16 THAC0, 18/00 str, 12 dex and an AC of 7 Flind comes with perm haste, 3 apr, 17 THAC0, 17 str, 17 dex and an AC of 2 and a chance for 1-2 bonus fire damage on hit Wolf comes with perm haste, 1 apr, 19 THAC0, 15 str, 18 dex and an AC of 2 Ogre comes with 1 apr, 16 THAC0, 18/00 str, 9 dex and an AC of 5 Spider comes with 4 apr, 19 THAC0, 16 str, 16 dex and an AC of 1 Mustard Jelly comes with 1 apr, 19 THAC0, 14 str, 9 dex and an AC of 4
I'm pretty sure some of the AC's and APR calculations are incorrectly listed in the game - The spider without haste definitely doesn't hit at 4 apr and the wolf with haste definitely hits faster than it's listed 1 apr. The THAC0's look to be correct but I'm not so sure about the AC's, some of them look off by a bit. After a bit of testing I found that the Flind gets a chance for a bonus 1-2 fire damage upon a successful hit. Conclusion = Bears and Flinds are insanely overpowered with haste. It's honestly pretty ridiculous to think you can have access to these over powered haste machines right from Candlekeep.
I chose Faerie Dragon because it is the familiar I most often use. The chance to inflict sleep is incredibly useful, and it's impressive THAC0 and AC make it a viable disabler for most of the game.
Quasit comes in a close second for the reasons that Roller12 mentions. Lacking a good THAC0 or a potential disabling effect prevent it from coming in first though, after all, I tend not to use my familiars as front line damage dealers.
I'm not even sure the Pseudo Dragon's chance to sleep on hit ability works either. Just tested it out for a while and never proc'd it once. Pretty sure they nerfed all on hit procs for all the familiars which is actually just the Imp's poison and the Pseudo Dragon's sleep.
Quite confident in saying the Imp's shapeshift Flind form is the only form of familiar with any on hit proc's, that being it's randomly occuring 1-2 fire damage on hit.
edit - Oh I forgot about the rabbits phantom fire damage :P so that makes it the Flind and the Rabbit with fire damage procs... okay cool. everything else doesn't work though
Depending on my alignment/current mood I use familiars in combat. If I want a combat familiar, I'll play a lawful evil Mage. If I want bonus HPs on my bard or f/m, I'll be Chaotic good. I've never tried the cat interestingly enough...
For a jester/bard, it's the mephit. I never played other arcane casters, so no idea. But Glitterdust is an essential to go with the jester song, therefore the mephit takes the cake.
Dust Mephit is my favourite too, and not just for a Jester (though the synergy with that class is great). Can cast Glitterdust (aka mass blindness / detect invisibility for enemies that fail their save) once a day and Glass Dust twice a day. For descriptions of why I like both spells, see here: http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/comment/240938#Comment_240938
BTW it's not listed as an ability in the description, but it looks like the Dust Mephit also regenerates. Also has the follwing resistances in BGEE:
Magic 10%, Fire (including Magic Fire) 100%(!), Slashing/Piercing/Missile 50% (I found this out using NearInifinity)
Only 6 AC, though - don't even think about using it in melee unless enemies are asleep or something similar, the 50% missile resistance helps vs. ranged attacks, though
Imp is also very good, though I think the BGEE version is nerfed a bit compared to the SoA version, some of the forms (e.g. spider) are less powerful.
Fairy Dragon rocks too - Invisibility 10' radius is great, it's a pity you can't be a chaotic good Bard!
BTW as others have pointed out, many of these stats are wrong e.g Pseudo Dragon (according to the DAMSPD.CRE in NearInfinity) only has AC=4, THAC0=17, weapon is 2 x S1-3.ITM, which does slashing damage, not piercing, has no resistances. I'm not 100% sure, but I *think* it does get the "chance of sleep on hit" effect via MOVRAT10.ITM
It *does* regenerate 1HP/round (as do some other familiars not mentioned as having this...) and have Blur as a spell, though.
This is just one example, most (all?) of the rest of the familiars are messed up too.
The familiars really do need some attention, am pretty sure both their descriptions *and* actual assigned abilities are wrong
@oxford_guy yeah I tried to touch on that in my post above, probably should of put that in the OP. I was trying to verify the stats with CTRL+Q but even the information listed in the records page is skeptical. Oh and CTRL commands only work if you have the CLUA console enabled - CTRL+Q = creature under cursor joins party.
CTRL+1 Change armor level animation CTRL+2 Fade screen to black CTRL+3 Fade screen to normal CTRL+4 Highlight background-interactive objects CTRL+5 Displays animation information CTRL+6 Change avatar animation previous CTRL+7 Change avatar animation next CTRL+8 Highlights the text boxes CTRL+9 Highlight the sprites CTRL+0 Unknown CTRL+A Animation avatar (see CTRL+S) CTRL+C Jump to next chapter CTRL+D Display some numbers (framerate related?) CTRL+E Alters visual range CTRL+F Turn the character CTRL+G Display list of areas loaded in cache CTRL+H (TOB only) Sets a specific Surge for wild magic 1-100 CTRL+I Selects animation (see CTRL+L). Can force banters. CTRL+J Teleport to cursor position CTRL+K Creature under cursor kick out party CTRL+L Plays animation (selected by CTRL+I) CTRL+M (Followed by ENTER) Debug Dump CTRL+P Keep screen centred on selected character CTRL+Q Creature under cursor joins party CTRL+R Heals character under cursor CTRL+S Select avatar animation CTRL+T Advance game time 1 hour CTRL+U Temporarily highlight Doors + Ground Objects CTRL+X Extended position information CTRL+Y Kills creature under cursor
@toanwrath All the imp forms remain at 18 HP despite some changes in Con score
For BGEE they should be, as it is they're almost OP in BGEE, or at least one of their main effects is - up to 12 extra HP available at Level 1 (Level 2 or later for a Bard or a Sorcerer who doesn't want to waste a spell slot and needs to wait for the scroll to drop), and some of the Familiar's abilities are pretty powerful in BGEE. They're quite fragile in the later game, though
None of the above. The only use for a familiar is the extra hitpoints and then it sits in your backpack.
In BGEE that's a waste (though in BG2 my familiar is mostly in my backpack), I use my Dust Mephit's Glitterdust and Glass Dust spells alot, but keep him at the back out of harm's way and make sure he joins my party for pre-buffing Bless/Chant spells etc. to protect him even more. 50% Slashing/Piercing/Missile and 100% Fire resistance also helps.
Honestly I almost never use familiars but I voted for the one with the spell I figure is most useful, invisibility 10' radius. Can come in handy in some spots.
Other than that the cat is ok I suppose with stealth scouting and the Quasit's horror is good (but only in BG 1).
I find it fascinating how many people are basing their opinions on one-off uses of spells that you can memorise and use yourself, and don't risk permanent constitution loss if you do so.
Comments
Brown/Black bears come with perm haste and have 4 apr, 16 THAC0, 18/00 str, 12 dex and an AC of 7
Flind comes with perm haste, 3 apr, 17 THAC0, 17 str, 17 dex and an AC of 2 and a chance for 1-2 bonus fire damage on hit
Wolf comes with perm haste, 1 apr, 19 THAC0, 15 str, 18 dex and an AC of 2
Ogre comes with 1 apr, 16 THAC0, 18/00 str, 9 dex and an AC of 5
Spider comes with 4 apr, 19 THAC0, 16 str, 16 dex and an AC of 1
Mustard Jelly comes with 1 apr, 19 THAC0, 14 str, 9 dex and an AC of 4
I'm pretty sure some of the AC's and APR calculations are incorrectly listed in the game - The spider without haste definitely doesn't hit at 4 apr and the wolf with haste definitely hits faster than it's listed 1 apr. The THAC0's look to be correct but I'm not so sure about the AC's, some of them look off by a bit. After a bit of testing I found that the Flind gets a chance for a bonus 1-2 fire damage upon a successful hit. Conclusion = Bears and Flinds are insanely overpowered with haste. It's honestly pretty ridiculous to think you can have access to these over powered haste machines right from Candlekeep.
Quasit comes in a close second for the reasons that Roller12 mentions. Lacking a good THAC0 or a potential disabling effect prevent it from coming in first though, after all, I tend not to use my familiars as front line damage dealers.
Quite confident in saying the Imp's shapeshift Flind form is the only form of familiar with any on hit proc's, that being it's randomly occuring 1-2 fire damage on hit.
edit - Oh I forgot about the rabbits phantom fire damage :P so that makes it the Flind and the Rabbit with fire damage procs... okay cool. everything else doesn't work though
Does the imp still have 12 HP in those forms though? I didn't get very far with my imp Mage so I am curious about trying one.
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/14879/request-an-extra-familiar-to-fill-all-alignment-possibilities
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/comment/240938#Comment_240938
BTW it's not listed as an ability in the description, but it looks like the Dust Mephit also regenerates. Also has the follwing resistances in BGEE:
Magic 10%, Fire (including Magic Fire) 100%(!), Slashing/Piercing/Missile 50% (I found this out using NearInifinity)
Only 6 AC, though - don't even think about using it in melee unless enemies are asleep or something similar, the 50% missile resistance helps vs. ranged attacks, though
Imp is also very good, though I think the BGEE version is nerfed a bit compared to the SoA version, some of the forms (e.g. spider) are less powerful.
Fairy Dragon rocks too - Invisibility 10' radius is great, it's a pity you can't be a chaotic good Bard!
It *does* regenerate 1HP/round (as do some other familiars not mentioned as having this...) and have Blur as a spell, though.
This is just one example, most (all?) of the rest of the familiars are messed up too.
The familiars really do need some attention, am pretty sure both their descriptions *and* actual assigned abilities are wrong
This is just a random post to break up the gray a little...
CTRL+1 Change armor level animation
CTRL+2 Fade screen to black
CTRL+3 Fade screen to normal
CTRL+4 Highlight background-interactive objects
CTRL+5 Displays animation information
CTRL+6 Change avatar animation previous
CTRL+7 Change avatar animation next
CTRL+8 Highlights the text boxes
CTRL+9 Highlight the sprites
CTRL+0 Unknown
CTRL+A Animation avatar (see CTRL+S)
CTRL+C Jump to next chapter
CTRL+D Display some numbers (framerate related?)
CTRL+E Alters visual range
CTRL+F Turn the character
CTRL+G Display list of areas loaded in cache
CTRL+H (TOB only) Sets a specific Surge for wild magic 1-100
CTRL+I Selects animation (see CTRL+L). Can force banters.
CTRL+J Teleport to cursor position
CTRL+K Creature under cursor kick out party
CTRL+L Plays animation (selected by CTRL+I)
CTRL+M (Followed by ENTER) Debug Dump
CTRL+P Keep screen centred on selected character
CTRL+Q Creature under cursor joins party
CTRL+R Heals character under cursor
CTRL+S Select avatar animation
CTRL+T Advance game time 1 hour
CTRL+U Temporarily highlight Doors + Ground Objects
CTRL+X Extended position information
CTRL+Y Kills creature under cursor
@toanwrath All the imp forms remain at 18 HP despite some changes in Con score
Edit : oh I see now. So u can keep black razor while good with this method?
Horror is greater.
Why?
If you get lost in Cloakwood with nothing to eat...well you get my point.
Cat...imp...ferret...don't think so!
And afterwards you can keep the feet for good luck
Other than that the cat is ok I suppose with stealth scouting and the Quasit's horror is good (but only in BG 1).