How to release familiar?

Oxford_Guy

I haven't played a mage with a familiar for while, and am having a problem in a BGT-Weidu (http://www.shsforums.net/forum/261-bgt-weidu/ ) game I'm playing with a fighter/mage mutliclass as a trial run for my BGEE party. I took "Find Familiar" as one of my initial spells (as wasn't sure if they'd be any scroll for it, as its a BG2 spell) and can cast the spell and create my familiar (an Imp, as I'm Lawful Evil, and polymorph could be handy, for the Ooze if nothing else), and I can talk to it and put it in my back, but can't seem to release it again.

If I right clock on it I get the information pop-up and a button that says "Release Familiar", but when I click on this, nothing happens - I thought this would release my familiar and put it outside my pack, but it doesn't. Do I need to cast the spell again? I thought it only needed to be cast once. Perhaps its a bug in BGT-Weidu?

Also, whilst I think familiars are fun, and I would like to see them in BGEE, they do need toning down for BGEE (as do some of the Kits, I think, as some of them start off OP in BG1), so I hope the Beamdog team do something about this. There is precedence, as the familiars get boosted from their SOA stats in TOB, so why not toned-down (less HP, at least, or at least less HP gained by CHARNAME) in BGEE?

BTW I also recently disovered that the Ranger Beastmaster kit can cast Find Familiar as an innate ability, which I hadn't realised before, which is nice, though its still an underpowered kit compared to the Stalker and Archer ones, both of which I think are more fun than a straight ranger, I prefer my rangers in leather armours anyway.

ajwz

When you click release familiar, leave your inventory and wait a while - I believe it counts as an action -so it can stake a few seconds to activate - Then it spawns next to charname a bit like you have cast a summon. I think if you released a familiar but then did something else like move or drink a potion then it would cancel the release a familiar action

Tanthalas

Oxford_Guy said:

If I right clock on it I get the information pop-up and a button that says "Release Familiar", but when I click on this, nothing happens - I thought this would release my familiar and put it outside my pack, but it doesn't. Do I need to cast the spell again? I thought it only needed to be cast once. Perhaps its a bug in BGT-Weidu?

That's the way to release familiars. If it doesn't do anything you have a bug.

Oxford_Guy

@ajwz and @Tanthalas, okay, thanks, will try this out and feedback

Oxford_Guy

@ajwz and @Tanthalas - that worked, yay! As things stand (i.e. without toned-down familiars in BG1), I'm not letting myself use this spell in BG1 until I've reached Level 5 mage, as otherwise is OP IMHO

Oxford_Guy

BTW which of the evil familiars do you think is best? I quite like the Imp, but in SOA (not TOB, strangely) it has less HP (and for CHARNAME) than the other ones. I don't really see CHARNAME as Chaotic Evil, though, so its probably only really a choice between the Imp (Lawful Evil) and Dust Mephit (Neutral Evil). The former can polymorph (mustard jelly is immune to magic, so handy against Liches), the Dust Mephit can cast Glitterdust, which is one of my favourite part-friendly AOE spells.

Oxford_Guy

Have dust noticed that, as well as being able to cast Glitterdust once a day, a Dust Mephit has the "Glass Dust" as an innate ability it can use twice a day - does anyone have any idea what this is?