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Familiar pets limited to one per party

Aozgolo108Aozgolo108 Member Posts: 79
in Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition
"A familiar has already been summoned" - This is the text you receive when a different party member attempts to summon a familiar. Whether this is a bug or an intentional design is unknown.

Familiar perks are mostly caster-only, while it's true they offer some added benefits like find traps or detect invisibility, I don't see how the inclusion of additional familiars would be particularly game-breaking.

I can see many party builds where 2 arcane casters might be useful, or as a beast master with an arcane caster. The limits on Find Familiar (which is selectable as one of the starting spells) seems to sorely limit these kinds of class combinations.

What say you? Would you like to see all party members capable of casting Find Familiar?

Comments

  • hexxactlyhexxactly Member Posts: 40
    I think it's intentional as in the BGs only your PC could cast it, not the NPCs. Since there's no NPCs in IWD, all PCs, I suppose the rule is same.

    Although if I remember correctly, in the BGs of you created a multiplayer game any created mage you imported could cast Find Familiar. Say you had 6 created mages, they could all cast it. Perhaps this is possible in IWD:EE as well?
  • JalilyJalily Member Posts: 4,681
    One familiar per party is intentional.
  • JarrakulJarrakul Member Posts: 2,029
    edited November 2014
    I think you're sorely overestimating the importance of Find Familiar. It's... nice. Convenient to have. The fact that you can only have one does not substantially limit you in any way.

    I'm also pretty sure the one-per-party limit is in the spell description.
  • KenjiKenji Member Posts: 251
    Man, I can't imagine someone would be happy commanding 12 characters/creatures in an IE game all at once.. It'd be a macro nightmare
  • KloroxKlorox Member Posts: 894
    I never use a familiar for more than some bonus HP. I hope I find a scroll for my sorcerer along the way or I'll never cast the spell.
  • AedanAedan Member, Translator (NDA) Posts: 8,550
    Spell description clearly says that you can summon just one familiar.
  • hexxactlyhexxactly Member Posts: 40
    Since every possible bag or container seems to be available in IWDEE I don't see why one wouldn't have the one Familiar. I don't think it would be too gamebreaking in the long run for multiples.

    Although I think that would have gone over better in something like vanilla BG where slots were more important because of the lack of cases... Even in BGEE the addition of Neera through many of my play throughs was for the gem bag.

    IWDEE I doubt many people run a straight Mage at the start. Usually seems most will dual in later or multi. So the half HPs from a Familiar aren't really a big deal.

    If I ran a Mage at start I'd go Chaotic Neutral for the cat, or the other alignment for the Ferret, it's a way around pickpocket points a Bard would have to gank the 2 rings and necklace early game. And to boost early mage HPs. That's pretty big early game if you don't want to run a Bard. The rest of the Familiars are just taking up space imo.

  • Aozgolo108Aozgolo108 Member Posts: 79
    The bottom line I think is that what mage isn't enhanced by having a familiar? Even if it's just taking up a bag slot. I can see many party combos where 2 arcane casters are useful. I originally had a Wild Mage and Sorceror in the same party.

    Also for anyone curious, I have discovered you can purchase the Find Familiar scroll from the mage in Kuldahar
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