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View Full Version : Share Spells - What's the Point?



Jack Zander
2010-09-15, 02:51 PM
At the master’s option, he may have any spell (but not any spell-like ability) he casts on himself also affect his familiar. The familiar must be within 5 feet at the time of casting to receive the benefit.

If the spell or effect has a duration other than instantaneous, it stops affecting the familiar if it moves farther than 5 feet away and will not affect the familiar again even if it returns to the master before the duration expires. Additionally, the master may cast a spell with a target of "You" on his familiar (as a touch range spell) instead of on himself.

A master and his familiar can share spells even if the spells normally do not affect creatures of the familiar’s type (magical beast).

Emphasis mine. I was hoping I could buff myself and my familiar at the same time and then have my familiar deliver touch attacks for me, but there is no way I am going to send my familiar into combat if it loses all its buff and it seems such a waste of spells to buff the both of us.

Endarire
2010-09-15, 02:59 PM
Maybe if you cast instantaneous spells on it, like if you were a Cleric/Wizard, it would help. Then again, familiars are mostly meh to me. Psicrystals, because they gain feats, are cool.

Snake-Aes
2010-09-15, 02:59 PM
Emphasis mine. I was hoping I could buff myself and my familiar at the same time and then have my familiar deliver touch attacks for me, but there is no way I am going to send my familiar into combat if it loses all its buff and it seems such a waste of spells to buff the both of us.

It's more evident with characters that go into melee, but suppose your familiar is busy unloading a wand on enemy face. You'll want it to be protected from arrows!
Or, if you want to scream bloody murder, polymorph. Your familiar also polymorph. Now both of you scream "WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH" and attack.

The actual touch spell delivery is going to see more use through the bit you didn't bold: You can cast personal powers on it. Give it a nice dose of tasty personal powers.

Toliudar
2010-09-15, 03:14 PM
Polymorph and Bite of the X spells, in combination, may not be the BEST choice for a wizard, but turning your rat into a rampaging hydra that you ride into battle is hilarious.

jiriku
2010-09-15, 03:15 PM
The option is quite powerful if you are sharing spells with your mount.

Jack Zander
2010-09-15, 03:48 PM
The option is quite powerful if you are sharing spells with your mount.

Ah, there's a good use. Polymorph reeks of cheese. What I wanted to do was buff myself and my familiar, cast chill touch for my familiar and have him make constant touch attacks for me while I spend my actions commanding my undead minions. But i guess I can't have everything that I want all the time. I'll have to use spectra hand instead.

Magic Myrmidon
2010-09-15, 04:10 PM
Or, if you want to scream bloody murder, polymorph. Your familiar also polymorph. Now both of you scream "WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH" and attack.

I'm going to do this the next chance I get.

Only once, though, so as not to get my character paired up against an epic level spellcaster.

ericgrau
2010-09-15, 04:18 PM
1. You can still give the familiar it's own buffs in the morning. Like magic circle against evil is a nice one because, unlike characters, the familiar won't mind withholding his attacks. Or he still has all the other familiar features, like delivering touch attacks, scouting and otherwise acting as a proxy character.
2. I think it's meant more for effects like invisibility, mirror image and other protective buffs where you keep the familiar with you. That way you don't have to pay twice what you would without a familiar, putting you behind another character without one. I don't think it's meant for you to find ways to get 2 for 1 deals on your spells.

Thurbane
2010-09-15, 09:18 PM
There's a feat in Dragon Magazine Compendium (Enspell Familiar) that increases the range to a mile, from memory...

Eldariel
2010-09-15, 09:29 PM
Share Spells also allows casting Personal spells on your Familiar (only on your familiar) which is all kinds of awesome; you can both Shapechange for example. Of course, you could share it but just casting it allows it to move wherever it pleases. And if fighting alongside your familiar, it's not hard to remain adjacent while both are polymorphed into something that eats things.

Flickerdart
2010-09-15, 09:43 PM
The awesome starts when you take a bunch of Extra Familiar and Improved Familiar, then Enspell Familiar to share your buff with them, and let them all hammer away using your one casting of the spell.

Zaydos
2010-09-15, 09:49 PM
As has already been mentioned Polymorph.

Also already mentioned Enspell Familiar (unlike Extra Familiar it is in the Dragon Magazine Compendium).

Improved Familiar + Personal range spells.

Also for druids there's Companion Spellbond (only increases the range to 30-ft, or close if you're using it as a touch spell on the familiar).

On an arcane hierophant Share Spells + Companion Spellbond = awesome sauce.

John Campbell
2010-09-15, 11:38 PM
Another fun bit worth emphasizing:

A master and his familiar can share spells even if the spells normally do not affect creatures of the familiar’s type (magical beast).

In other words, you can share enlarge person with your basic Magical Beast familiar. Or with one that's been polymorphed into a hydra or wyvern or war troll or other combat form that can really benefit from a size increase, but which the spell won't normally affect.

There are probably more broken uses for that little loophole out there, too.

Kelb_Panthera
2010-09-16, 01:06 AM
It's absolutely fantastic if you focus on buffing your familiar to the nines then sending it in to do the dirty work while you sit back and watch the carnage.

Morph Bark
2010-09-16, 02:58 AM
It's absolutely fantastic if you focus on buffing your familiar to the nines then sending it in to do the dirty work while you sit back and watch the carnage.

You have to keep standing 5 feet behind your familiar though.

Thurbane
2010-09-16, 03:14 AM
You have to keep standing 5 feet behind your familiar though.
Or be riding it! :smallbiggrin:

Peregrine
2010-09-16, 03:47 AM
You have to keep standing 5 feet behind your familiar though.

Or be riding it! :smallbiggrin:

Or buff it and not yourself. :smallsmile: As Eldariel pointed out (in a brief remark that many may have missed), sharing spells means you have to stay within 5 feet. Giving Personal spells to your familiar and not yourself means the familiar can go where it pleases.

Fizban
2010-09-16, 04:08 AM
For example, use one of the polymorph subschool spells, such as Trollshape or Lesser Dragonshape. They're swift actions to cast so you don't lose any momentum, and they grant temporary hp, so your familiar won't die in a single hit. Back them up with a few buffs (Mage Armor, Shield, etc) and let 'em loose.

Jack Zander
2010-09-16, 08:52 AM
This thread is now about optimizing familiars to be your melee tank, thus further reducing the usefullness of fighters and proving again that a wizard can solo all encounters 1-20.

Zaydos
2010-09-16, 09:32 AM
The silly thing is unless you have an improved familiar with a nice special ability it is still worse than a fighter with similar buffs. The fact that you can abuse personal buffs, and spells that only affect certain types helps, but it is still better to polymorph the fighter... unless you are going into melee at the same time where it's a two for one. Even then you need to check with your DM about how the familiar's natural armor bonus works, is it a part of the base creature, or is it something applied to all forms.

John Campbell
2010-09-16, 11:04 AM
And unless you're an optimized fighter/mage, sending your familiar into melee is a really bad idea, anyway. Remember, he's using your probably crappy BAB and gets only half your probably already crappy HP. Polymorph doesn't change that. All it takes is one solid hit and he's toast and you're eating the XP penalty for getting him killed.

I did it a lot with the PC in my avatar, but he was a dwarf with a base 20 Con and a lot of d6 and d10 HD class levels (Fighter, Runesmith, Abjurant Champion, Eldritch Knight), and above-average rolls, so even with only half my HP, my weasel had more HP than our sorceress, and we had roughly 3/4 BAB. And I'd be right there beside him swinging my axe and distracting enemies from attacking him. And I had Power Attack, so I was getting good mileage out of wraithstrike and true strike.

I still managed to get him killed once, by leaving him in combat a round after he really should have withdrawn... but that extra round of the enemy focusing on him instead of our cleric probably averted a TPK. (He almost killed the enemy cleric from beyond the grave, too, with the secondary effect from his wyvern poison. Wyvern's a good combat form; independent flight and one of the few decent poisons in the game, which polymorph does grant. Possibly rideable, too, which conveniently keeps you in range for spell-sharing.)

The sorceress tried to emulate me once, sharing displacer form with her cat, and nearly got both her familiar and herself killed... the only reason the familiar survived is because the displacement mostly worked, and the DM rolled poorly on damage for the attack that landed. They staggered back out after one round of combat with the familiar in single digits and the sorceress down 3/4. She traded that spell out for something else at her next opportunity.

Snake-Aes
2010-09-16, 11:10 AM
Straightforward solution: Play a hexblade. Or a duskblade. Or a suel arcanamach/abjurant champion. Or a bard with a fancy arcane 4-through-9 prestige class.

Jack Zander
2010-09-16, 11:13 AM
I can see a Wizard 5/Fighter 1/Eldritch Knight x being able to do this effectively. Polymorph both forms (or even just the familiar) and let the familiar enjoy his higher BAB and HD.

Fax Celestis
2010-09-16, 11:14 AM
Ah, there's a good use. Polymorph reeks of cheese. What I wanted to do was buff myself and my familiar, cast chill touch for my familiar and have him make constant touch attacks for me while I spend my actions commanding my undead minions. But i guess I can't have everything that I want all the time. I'll have to use spectra hand instead.

Actually, I think there's a feat somewhere that extends that range to 30'. I thought it was Combat Familiar from PHB-II, but apparently that's not it.

Jack Zander
2010-09-16, 11:22 AM
Actually, I think there's a feat somewhere that extends that range to 30'. I thought it was Combat Familiar from PHB-II, but apparently that's not it.

That would be really helpful for my build, since I could spare a 2nd level spell for something other than spectral hand.

Zaydos
2010-09-16, 11:29 AM
Actually, I think there's a feat somewhere that extends that range to 30'. I thought it was Combat Familiar from PHB-II, but apparently that's not it.

Companion Spellbond; only works for Animal Companions though.

I used it on an arcane hierophant.

If you can swing the Dragon Mag Compendium you can get a better familiar only one (Enspell Familiar, 1 mile range).

Edit: Combat Familiar lets your familiar avoid AoOs for moving into a target's space and I've never found it worthwhile using small+ sized improved familiars instead.

jiriku
2010-09-16, 11:31 AM
It is in PH2, but the feat is called Companion Spellbond. It only works with animal companions, but creating a Familiar Spellbond feat that does the same thing for familiars would be a very reasonable piece of homebrew.

Dralnu
2010-09-16, 12:59 PM
Outside of turning your familiar into a fighter, I believe there are also spells that you cast on yourself that deal damage to enemies that suddenly have double damage output with a familiar around.

I may be wrong, but I think spells like Cloud of Knives would also be casted on the familiar and then be doubly effective.

There's one in particular that I saw once and have to find again, I think it's in CM or CAr, it's a personal Lightning Bolt (one level higher) that transforms you into the bolt, deals the damage, and teleports you to wherever the lightning bolt would end up. Stylish!

Susano-wo
2010-09-16, 03:36 PM
I just have to say this: not the best thing to do, probably, but it doesn't specify class with shared spell, right? so your cleric wizard can divine power the familiar. (I know there are better choices, like the wiz just polymorphing and comboing up, but the idea of you both divine powering together and going to town just cracks me up :D)

Jack Zander
2010-09-16, 04:31 PM
I just have to say this: not the best thing to do, probably, but it doesn't specify class with shared spell, right? so your cleric wizard can divine power the familiar. (I know there are better choices, like the wiz just polymorphing and comboing up, but the idea of you both divine powering together and going to town just cracks me up :D)

That's right. In fact any wizard or sorcerer with UMD can have all sorts of fun with spells not normally on their spell list.

Douglas
2010-09-16, 04:34 PM
Try a Wu Jen with Giant Size. Have fun with a Colossal familiar!:smallcool:

Lord Denyuar
2010-09-16, 04:59 PM
So technically, what would happen if you cast (Tensor's) Transformation on your familiar and then polymorph or shapechange (i.e. a hydra). I see you really increasing the fighting power of your familiar's base attack and then allowing it to run off and have fun.

Optimator
2010-09-16, 07:06 PM
Using the Urban Companion from this brilliant page (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20070228a), A Ranger's Familiar would get 3/4 HP and the full BAB. Not a ton of useful spells in which to share (or are there?), but I guess something could be made with Mystic Ranger and Sword of the Arcane Order.

Fizban
2010-09-17, 12:37 PM
The silly thing is unless you have an improved familiar with a nice special ability it is still worse than a fighter with similar buffs. The fact that you can abuse personal buffs, and spells that only affect certain types helps, but it is still better to polymorph the fighter... unless you are going into melee at the same time where it's a two for one. Even then you need to check with your DM about how the familiar's natural armor bonus works, is it a part of the base creature, or is it something applied to all forms.
Wish I'd caught this before the second page, but: that's why you use a polymorph subschool spell instead of actual polymorph. The subschool basically says you replace your whole statblock with that of the monster, including BAB and all special abilities and attacks. This doesn't help standard polymorph, which then explicitly removes all those benefits, but on the spells the subschool was made for it's pretty awesome. So if you cast Trollshape on your familiar it gets the BAB and regeneration of the troll as well as the usual ability scores and armor and such, and the spell even gives you some temporary hit points. A familiar fighting under trollshape is safer than just about any other because of the troll's regeneration. Later, you use Lesser Dragonshape for a large sized dragon complete with breath weapon, plus more buffs than a dragon that age could ever muster.

Using the Urban Companion from this brilliant page (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20070228a), A Ranger's Familiar would get 3/4 HP and the full BAB. Not a ton of useful spells in which to share (or are there?), but I guess something could be made with Mystic Ranger and Sword of the Arcane Order.
I just want to say, this alternate features really ticks me off. Yeah, I know, casters already have all the nice things, but familiars really suck. The only thing they have over any other companion is being intelligent, and then they go and give it to rangers and druids, whos companion's only weakness was being unintelligent. Okay, sure, it's still a small familiar instead of a big animal companion, but then oh hey, even though you have more hp for the familiar to work with, we'll just give you a bigger multiplier too! Anyone can try to get their familiar more hit points by increasing their own, but only Druids and Rangers, who aren't even supposed to have familiars, can actually increase the multiplier, making them the only ones that can actually make a serious difference in it.

The only nice thing about that variant is that it let the ranger get something more useful than his craptastic animal companion. I've always thought it was funny how they suggest sending your animal companion, that can't talk and only has 2 int even if you use Speak With Animals, to scout (of course, a ranger's Familar won't be able to speak for a long time either). And hey, if he sinks a feat into it he can get a hippogriff with 3/4 of his own hit points, making it one of the better flying mounts.

Zaydos
2010-09-17, 12:57 PM
Wish I'd caught this before the second page, but: that's why you use a polymorph subschool spell instead of actual polymorph. The subschool basically says you replace your whole statblock with that of the monster, including BAB and all special abilities and attacks. This doesn't help standard polymorph, which then explicitly removes all those benefits, but on the spells the subschool was made for it's pretty awesome. So if you cast Trollshape on your familiar it gets the BAB and regeneration of the troll as well as the usual ability scores and armor and such, and the spell even gives you some temporary hit points. A familiar fighting under trollshape is safer than just about any other because of the troll's regeneration. Later, you use Lesser Dragonshape for a large sized dragon complete with breath weapon, plus more buffs than a dragon that age could ever muster.

Yeah I had forgotten about those; I didn't really look at them until after my wizard/druid was done (and he didn't bother with Polymorph anyway because it was already an animal companion), glanced over them with my next wizard who the DM had suggested a pixie familiar for and due to pixie's racial traits it was better not to use them (DR 10/cold iron and superior invisibility; yes please). As a side note pixies are broken as familiars.


I just want to say, this alternate features really ticks me off. Yeah, I know, casters already have all the nice things, but familiars really suck. The only thing they have over any other companion is being intelligent, and then they go and give it to rangers and druids, whos companion's only weakness was being unintelligent. Okay, sure, it's still a small familiar instead of a big animal companion, but then oh hey, even though you have more hp for the familiar to work with, we'll just give you a bigger multiplier too! Anyone can try to get their familiar more hit points by increasing their own, but only Druids and Rangers, who aren't even supposed to have familiars, can actually increase the multiplier, making them the only ones that can actually make a serious difference in it.

The only nice thing about that variant is that it let the ranger get something more useful than his craptastic animal companion. I've always thought it was funny how they suggest sending your animal companion, that can't talk and only has 2 int even if you use Speak With Animals, to scout (of course, a ranger's Familar won't be able to speak for a long time either). And hey, if he sinks a feat into it he can get a hippogriff with 3/4 of his own hit points, making it one of the better flying mounts.

I don't like that variant either on looking at it. I might let rangers have a familiar as a sorcerer of their class level starting at 4th instead of an animal companion; reversing the ACF in UA that lets a sorcerer/wizard have an animal companion at 1/2 their class level instead of a familiar... for druids, play an urban druid or beat it. Although druids do lose out on a fair bit by using this. They lack wizards' familiar only buffs, and can't use animal specific buffs on their familiar unless they can target themselves with animal specific spells.

Fizban
2010-09-17, 01:03 PM
The familiar only buffs aren't worth it anyway, only Teleport Familiar and of course Imbue Familiar with Spell Ability are of any use. Not being able to use animal buffs could be annoying, but Druids still get all the Bite of the WearX spells and a few personal buffs of their own. I'd expect a DM that was being that nice to druids would let them use Animal Companion spells on their familiar anyway, like Heal Companion.

Why yes, I am putting words in the mouth of phantom DM to make him look worse. He's got it out for us I tell 'ya.

Zaydos
2010-09-17, 01:12 PM
The familiar only buffs aren't worth it anyway, only Teleport Familiar and of course Imbue Familiar with Spell Ability are of any use. Not being able to use animal buffs could be annoying, but Druids still get all the Bite of the WearX spells and a few personal buffs of their own. I'd expect a DM that was being that nice to druids would let them use Animal Companion spells on their familiar anyway, like Heal Companion.

Why yes, I am putting words in the mouth of phantom DM to make him look worse. He's got it out for us I tell 'ya.

The level 3 familiar buff is good if you're sending it into combat regularly. +2 to saves, attacks, damage, and AC for an hour/level. Fortify Familiar and the level 2 one aren't worthwhile though.

I will also admit I never bothered with Animal Growth on my familiar companion because the benefits weren't worth it with the short duration, there was a 2nd animal companion in the party but it was at the same level as a ranger's would be and even doubled was negligible in combat.

ericgrau
2010-09-17, 01:29 PM
Ah, there's a good use. Polymorph reeks of cheese. What I wanted to do was buff myself and my familiar, cast chill touch for my familiar and have him make constant touch attacks for me while I spend my actions commanding my undead minions. But i guess I can't have everything that I want all the time. I'll have to use spectra hand instead.

You can do all that... it just takes twice as long to lay down the buffs unless you only tag yourself or your familiar. Maybe something like greater invisibility can help keep him safe.

Coidzor
2010-09-17, 02:44 PM
Why yes, I am putting words in the mouth of phantom DM to make him look worse. He's got it out for us I tell 'ya.

DMs: Because who else would kick a guy in the face for eating ice cream?

What's the source on Trollshape and such, btw?

Snake-Aes
2010-09-17, 02:47 PM
DMs: Because who else would kick a guy in the face for eating ice cream?

What's the source on Trollshape and such, btw?

Trollshape's from player's handbook 2