Improved Familiar Death/Choices

[Xar Zarath]

The familiar is a creature that is bonded to the spellcaster. Through this bond many benefits can be received by both. Lets take the Imp for example. It is an ideal familiar and is useful and powerful to a certain degree. However like all fiends, they don't truly die, for when a fiend dies it goes back to its native plane/level/home of existence.

(Part A)
So...
what happens to the Imp familiar if it gets killed? Does the master lose xp as normal, or does he have to planar bind/summon/gate it back?

and on another note...

(Part B)
The improved familiar list is not so great in terms of choices-at least to me it isn't.
Would you allow your wizard/sorcerers etc to have the choice of any outsider or creature that they want? with limitations of course maybe in terms of levels, determined amount of points in a skill...etc?
For example, only a spellcaster of at least 17th level can have a say, Nalfeshnee as a option for a familiar while you have to be epic to have a Balor as an option?

[Ranos]

A)I think you're confused between summoned creatures and called creatures. Summoned creatures reform on their plane of origin within 24H. Called creatures die for real.

B)In my opinion, casters already have more than enough nice things.

[Blackjackg]

I'm all for making characters the way you envision them, so I say yes to Part B, within limits.

First of all, your numbers are way off. The CR of a familiar should never be more than half of the master's Class Level (maybe closer to one-third). I'm aware of exceptions to this in canon (Brood Keeper Larva Swarm from Dragon #329, CR 12, requires 19th level caster), but that's where I'm drawing the line.

I would also rule that only certain creature types qualify-- for me, I would exclude humanoids, monstrous humanoids, and giants, and maybe only allow some others under certain conditions (e.g., only Necromancers can have an undead familiar). Under no circumstances would I allow a familiar to have class levels.

And of course, any individual choice would be subject to DM approval.

[The Viscount]

The improved familiar list is only limited in core. There are pots of other familiars you can take tucked away in other books. This one (http://dictummortuum.blogspot.com/2011/08/familiars-handbook.html) is pretty complete in its listing.

[Xar Zarath]

The improved familiar list is only limited in core. There are pots of other familiars you can take tucked away in other books. This one (http://dictummortuum.blogspot.com/2011/08/familiars-handbook.html) is pretty complete in its listing.

Thanks for the advice and link.:smallsmile:

[Xar Zarath]

I'm all for making characters the way you envision them, so I say yes to Part B, within limits.

First of all, your numbers are way off. The CR of a familiar should never be more than half of the master's Class Level (maybe closer to one-third). I'm aware of exceptions to this in canon (Brood Keeper Larva Swarm from Dragon #329, CR 12, requires 19th level caster), but that's where I'm drawing the line.

I would also rule that only certain creature types qualify-- for me, I would exclude humanoids, monstrous humanoids, and giants, and maybe only allow some others under certain conditions (e.g., only Necromancers can have an undead familiar). Under no circumstances would I allow a familiar to have class levels.

And of course, any individual choice would be subject to DM approval.

So what would the numbers be? I mean is the idea feasible?

[Xar Zarath]

A)I think you're confused between summoned creatures and called creatures. Summoned creatures reform on their plane of origin within 24H. Called creatures die for real.

That would mean an outsider familiar, when killed would die for real? (Unless you have a contingency or clone as backup?

Speaking of which can a wizard create a clone for his/her familiar?

[Blackjackg]

So what would the numbers be? I mean is the idea feasible?

Is it feasible? I think so (although others could well disagree). For the numbers, I would rule that a caster who has taken Improved Familiar can have a familiar whose CR is less than or equal to one-third his arcane spellcaster class level, rounded down.

(I know in my last post I said one-half, but upon closer inspection I think that would allow too much abuse. Using this rule, casters will be giving up some of their raw power in exchange for options.)

So using the one-third rule, it would come out like this:

{table=head]Class Level|Max CR|Sample Familiar
3-5|1|Pseudodragon
6-8|2|Shocker Lizard
9-11|3|Hell Hound
12-14|4|Displacer Beast
15-17|5|Bearded Devil
18-20|6|Wyvern[/table]

It's a simple arithmetic progression, which is easy to adjudicate; however, it doesn't exactly follow the progression of options in RAW-- you gain access to some more powerful familiars earlier, but never get access to the most powerful familiars at all. If you want to stick closer to the progression available by RAW, you'll probably need to do an exponential progression, with the familiars available at low levels even less powerful and those available at high levels more powerful, but I don't have the experience or the math skills to balance that out properly.