Overly familiar
FredN
Member Posts: 243
.....I learned the Find Familiar spell and cast it, eager to see what my new servant would be. To my consternation, I got ... a cute fluffy little bunny! OK, functionally it should serve, but from a cosmetic viewpoint, I'd really like something different. But how do I get rid of the wretched thing? Unlike other summonings, it follows me everywhere, and never vanishes due to timing out.
.....According to the game docs, simply recasting the spell should do the trick. It doesn't. I tried 3 times, and each time no new faliliar appeared, while Mr. Cottontail stayed. I tried casting regular dispel magic at it, as well as remove magic, and nothing worked. I will try sending it into battle next time we are in combat, and hope it gets killed off, but there really should be an easier way.
.....According to the game docs, simply recasting the spell should do the trick. It doesn't. I tried 3 times, and each time no new faliliar appeared, while Mr. Cottontail stayed. I tried casting regular dispel magic at it, as well as remove magic, and nothing worked. I will try sending it into battle next time we are in combat, and hope it gets killed off, but there really should be an easier way.
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Addendum: OK, I tried to have my rabbit steal from me; the result? "Pickpocket attempt failed". Great; he is a thief, but an inept one. He can actually attack, though, and is he ever fierce in combat! He attacked a Ghast and did 2 HP damage! How OP is that? "That rabbit's a killer!"
https://tenor.com/view/monty-python-and-the-holy-grail-rabbit-bunny-gif-11190286
https://giphy.com/gifs/white-rabbit-UVhPBsKStxehy
Familiars vary by alignment. The good familiars are little drake things, the neutral familiars are cute animals, and the evil familiars are imps or similar. All of them can attack, though they deal very little damage under normal circumstances. The special abilities are more useful; the good and evil familiars have daily abilities, while the neutral familiars have thief skills. (Under the hood, they're actually thieves)
When you use one of the neutral familiars to pickpocket something, you can retrieve that item by talking to the familiar; one of the options is to give you what they've taken, and they'll also dump whatever they've taken into your inventory if you pick them up.
Those quick item slots? Familiars have them because every creature does. They're not supposed to be filled.
....Just for laughs, I tried having him steal from an NPC on the street. Needless to say he failed, and the target immediately took umbrage. We were in the temple district, and it turned out he was some god's prophet; the guy turned hostile and began casting a spell. I had Mr. Cotttontail jump up and do a killer rabbit number on him, hitting for 6 HP damage; nice one! That's when the fecal matter hit the rotating air circulation device. Since he was an enemy casting a spell, my crew attacked him in return. This caused several nearby observers to also become hostile. I could see where this was heading; there would be blood running in the streets from multiple casualties, and we would end up outlawed and on the run from the gendarmes. I quit immediately and reloaded, since all this was pure experimentation.
....So now I have to ask: why bother to give familiars those abilities if they are so utterly inept at performing them? Also I picked him up; he now resides in an item slot. Is there anything he can actually do from there?
Incidentally, each of the three neutral familiars has different skill specializations. Ferrets (LN) are better at picking pockets, cats (CN) are better at stealth, and rabbits (TN) are better at trap detection. You chose to use the skills your particular familiar was worse at.
....>"That familiar can passively give you a hit point bonus. Which is probably what you cast the spell for anyway."<
Umm, actually, no. I wanted a familiar for all the other things that the docs said it could do. I'm a blade bard with a lot of defensive spells, who sits in back of the party using offensive spin and Melf's Meteors. I rarely take much damage in combat.
Addendum: I just checked. Picking the little beggar up did not give me any extra HP.
.....BTW, I can see why ferrets are good at the pick pocket skill; those guys are natural thieves. Mine loved to steal old socks.
You can't unsummon your familiar or replace it.
He will only leave you if it dies, and only then you could cast again the spell, and you will then receive the same familiar again, because the type depends of your character alignment.
And yes, casting the spell the first time gives you HP.
....Indeed, the in game description does not. But when I Googled a question about how to change a wizard's familiar,
I got this:
People also ask
Can you change your familiars form?
Even though your PC's familiar takes a single form after casting the spell to summon them, you can choose to change the familiar's form each time you cast the spell.
Mind you, this is a bit incomplete, making it rather misleading. It doesn't say that the first familiar has to die before you can recast the spell, which is what you are stating. Since I cannot in fact recast the spell while I already have a familiar, it would seem that you are correct.
Yes, I know alignment affects what you get. However, the wretched in game spell description doesn't mention that the alignment subclass ... i.e. lawful vs true neutral vs chaotic ... is part of that determination. I had to do another Google search to confirm this fact. So I am stuck with the gods-bedamned rabbit for all eternity? Bah!
Always an option, of course ... but how lame! After due consideration, I think I will use him as a scout, keeping him about a move in front of the group. He's actually pretty good at finding traps. He can't disarm them, but at least we will know they are there. He can also bait an enemy into chasing him, thus leading them back to the main group, who willl be waiting to pick off the pursuers as they appear. I'd still really rather have a ferret, for both aesthetic and sentimental reasons. But, as the song says, "you can't always get what you want". So, I'll make use of what talents he actually has.
Spell description in game, manual, even the wiki would be a far better doc source. It's not a "subclass". Alignment in DnD is define by the position on two axis, and law and chaos are not subclass after good and evil, they are as important. When you look at the character sheet, the alignment is always "lawor chaos"then "good or evil".
Mere technical quibbling. Fine, call it variant, flavor, faction, type ... whatever floats your boat ... from a practical viewpoint, MC would behave the same whatever category of neutral he was. For me, the moral stance is more pertinent than how you express that stance.
Full alignment (good or evil AND lawful or chaotic) is a data used in the game far various things, like familiar type. The Equalizer longsword is another example.
RP wise, no, a lawful neutral character would not act the same way than a chaotic neutral character.
A lawful character, either good or evil, would avoid stealing, lying, breaking woes...
....Let's expand our boundaries and look at some in game Neutral characters. Anomen is Lawful Neutral. He has a plan for his advancement, and usually acts in a more or less coherent fashion. Neera is Chaotic Neutral, and, to be blunt, is a bit of a ditz. Expect her actions to be far less well thought out, and often spontaneous.
....Lawful Good. Let's take a Paladin, like Keldorn. Rigid moral code, very straightforward in their plan of action to combat evil. He belongs to the Radiant Heart, an order of like minded individuals, who often act in concert. I can't think of any Chaotic Good character offhand, although there probably is one somewhere. Someone like that would not do anything dishonest, and would strive to oppose evil, but in a more disorganized manner. They would probably not be part of any organization; they would find it too confining.
You are, indeed, not allowed to move that item around normally. It has the "undroppable" flag.
Edit: You can't put the familiar in your backpack if you do this. If you do, the wands will be put in your inventory and will be flagged as unstealable, meaning those particular wands won't be usable in that way again.
That would have been fine if I had fully understood how the spell worked at the outset. But I have played for a fair amount ot time at this poiunt, and have no desire to start the campaign over again from scratch. Oh well, live and learn.