Viper Familiar for Lv1 Wizard

[No brains]

I had a cool idea that if a wizard takes a viper familiar, directing that familiar can contribute a LOT to the low level encounter. I would like to see if this plan can really work or if I thought of the wrong things. Here's how I see it working.

1. Get your familiar at first level. Even if you don't have all 100gp yourself, ask your player partners and DM if you can pool money towards it.

2. A little tricky; ask your DM if your viper has to take weapon finesse as its feat. In the 3.5 familiar entry, the calculation for attack bonuses could use dex anyway, entitling you to a better feat for the bugger like maybe toughness?

3. The profit: You get to hit every round with a Con poison. DC 10 is pretty wimpy, but 1d6 con damage can hurt BAD. Your viper needs to enter the opponent's square to attack, drawing an AoO, but a tiny viper has an amazing +15 to hide, allowing it to ambush rather effectively. Even better, it has a whopping AC of 17! Give it the benefit of your mage armor and you don't need to worry about its itsy-bitsy hp. You need to worry even less if both you and the snake took toughness, giving it on average (1d4+>3/2)+3=>6hp to take a nick from the jerk who manages to hit it, if they weren't paying attention to the rest of the party. If the DM lets you direct the snake exactly as you want, you're on fire.

So that was my idea. Please tell me if there are any major holes in it, as I think this would make playing a low level wizard fun for me, and being a weak wiz can be a LOT worse if you built yourself wrong...

[Veyr]

Not needing Weapon Finesse is an interesting point; I'd never noticed that. But Toughness... is OK at level 1 but not generally all that good. If you really meant this thing to only be used at level 1, though, I suppose that's fine. I feel like Ability Focus might be more potent, though (+2 to the poison's DC).

[Dusk Eclipse]

I had a cool idea that if a wizard takes a viper familiar, directing that familiar can contribute a LOT to the low level encounter. I would like to see if this plan can really work or if I thought of the wrong things. Here's how I see it working.

1. Get your familiar at first level. Even if you don't have all 100gp yourself, ask your player partners and DM if you can pool money towards it.

2. A little tricky; ask your DM if your viper has to take weapon finesse as its feat. In the 3.5 familiar entry, the calculation for attack bonuses could use dex anyway, entitling you to a better feat for the bugger like maybe toughness?

3. The profit: You get to hit every round with a Con poison. DC 10 is pretty wimpy, but 1d6 con damage can hurt BAD. Your viper needs to enter the opponent's square to attack, drawing an AoO, but a tiny viper has an amazing +15 to hide, allowing it to ambush rather effectively. Even better, it has a whopping AC of 17! Give it the benefit of your mage armor and you don't need to worry about its itsy-bitsy hp. You need to worry even less if both you and the snake took toughness, giving it on average (1d4+>3/2)+3=>6hp to take a nick from the jerk who manages to hit it, if they weren't paying attention to the rest of the party. If the DM lets you direct the snake exactly as you want, you're on fire.

So that was my idea. Please tell me if there are any major holes in it, as I think this would make playing a low level wizard fun for me, and being a weak wiz can be a LOT worse if you built yourself wrong...

Personally I would give the viper Ability focus (poison) instead of tougness, the DC becomes marginally better (12)

[The Glyphstone]

Might I point out that Toughness on a familiar does absolutely nothing? It's max HP is always equal to half yours, so unless you have Toughness, the familiar doesn't care what its HP should be.

[No brains]

So all of this looks pretty reasonable? That's great! The allowance of the feat change might be a stickler though, as well as how the DM would rule on me directing my familiar. Does it get its own turn's worth of actions? What action does it take for empathetic direction?

I also worry about the party actually lending me gold, even after the DM says it is okay. Would a first level party make a reasonable contribution to a poison fountain?

I also wondered:(trouble brewing) Can I use the snake as a weapon? Snakes have been used as weapons in armed robberies, and having a snake waved at you might be strange enough for it not to provoke an AoO. Almost certainly not proficient with it though...

[KillianHawkeye]

The Tiny Viper (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/snake.htm#viperSnake) gains Weapon Finesse as a racial bonus feat. It is not eligible to be traded out. You may be able to get your DM's permission to trade out the viper's actual 1st level feat, Improved Initiative, for something else instead.

[No brains]

The Tiny Viper (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/snake.htm#viperSnake) gains Weapon Finesse as a racial bonus feat. It is not eligible to be traded out. You may be able to get your DM's permission to trade out the viper's actual 1st level feat, Improved Initiative, for something else instead.

Whoops. Was that errata'd in? My 3.5 MM hardback has finesse as the only feat for a viper with an initiative of +3. Sorry about that. Doesn't matter though; the point was that familiars essentially get weapon finesse anyway.

How reasonable is it to have your familiar's feat changed?

[KillianHawkeye]

Whoops. Was that errata'd in? My 3.5 MM hardback has finesse as the only feat for a viper with an initiative of +3. Sorry about that. Doesn't matter though; the point was that familiars essentially get weapon finesse anyway.

Yes, several creatures with 2 or fewer Hit Dice had Weapon Finesse changed to a bonus feat because they lacked the requisite +1 BAB at first level, and were given something else for their standard feat.

As far as familiars getting special permission to use Dex for melee attacks, I've actually never noticed that before. After all these years, I'm still learning!

[No brains]

Remember kids and geezers, reading rule books like novels DOES pay!:smalltongue:

[Amphetryon]

If I remember Akalsaris' handbook on poisons in D&D correctly, the Sea Snake from Stormwrack has a slightly better poison for the same CR, and also should be available as a Familiar.

[No brains]

If I remember Akalsaris' handbook on poisons in D&D correctly, the Sea Snake from Stormwrack has a slightly better poison for the same CR, and also should be available as a Familiar.

I will take a look into that! Thank you. :)
Waitaminute. Don't I need to be in the sea to have a sea snake? I know they don't have gills, but their anatomical adaptations might make them crappy on land.

[Veyr]

IIRC, they just move 10' slower on land than a usual Viper, but they can still move on land just fine.

[begooler]

You could also use the Unearthed Arcana variant to have a viper as an animal companion instead of a familiar, that way when your DM gets annoyed with the bugger and has someone step on it you can summon another one in 24 hours and not lose experience.

[dextercorvia]

You could also use the Unearthed Arcana variant to have a viper as an animal companion instead of a familiar, that way when your DM gets annoyed with the bugger and has someone step on it you can summon another one in 24 hours and not lose experience.

Since you gain an Animal companion at 1/2 Wizard level, you won't actually get one at level one, without Natural Bond.

[No brains]

O hai! I figured out that I can make my tiny viper small by sharing enlarge person with it! Yep, I checked, says right in the PHB. You can share a spell with your familiar even if it normally wouldn't affect a creature of its type. I also figured using Precocious Apprentice and Arcane Mastery to get Bear's Endurance early can get my familiar's poison up to a DC of 16! The extra hp doesn't hurt either!

I think I've got this one in the bag! Thinking out of the box right out of the box gets me the snake-as-weapon I've always wanted. :smallamused:

[The Glyphstone]

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