Familiar Attack Damage?

[Solamnicknight]

I'm a newbie DM writing a campaign that has a ton of wizards and sorcerers in it and I need some help. I'm writing up a cat familiar and I don't understand how much damage a cat does with its claw attack. Is it 1d2-4? So does that mean it does one point of damage per round since its a negative number? Also the bite attack is the same way 1d3-4? Sorry if I sound dumb but I'm confused by this.:smallannoyed:

[Dread_Head]

The attack does a dice roll of 1d3 like that of a weapon and adds strength bonus which in this case is -4 so the damage is reduced to 1 damage for both of them as that is the minimum.

Edit: although if the familiars strength is somehow increased it will do more damage. Bonus damage will also be applied, for example if the cat had a Necklace of Natural Attacks (SS) with the flaming enhancement it would do the extra damage from that.

[Solamnicknight]

Thank you, now it makes sense, the strength modifier completely slipped my mind there.:smallsigh:

[Ashtagon]

By RAW, that works out to one point of damage. Personally, I house rule that any attack whose modifiers reduce it to zero damage will inflict only one point of non-lethal damage; cats shouldn't be beating commoners so easily.

Although really, given the penalties for losing familiars, PCs shouldn't be risking them in melee anyway.

[Dread_Head]

By RAW, that works out to one point of damage. Personally, I house rule that any attack whose modifiers reduce it to zero damage will inflict only one point of non-lethal damage; cats shouldn't be beating commoners so easily.

Although really, given the penalties for losing familiars, PCs shouldn't be risking them in melee anyway.

That house rule actually makes a lot of sense.

With Improved Familiar and some of the familiar buff spells from SC your Familiar can become a melee monster but it's still pretty risky and works better on something like a Hexblade or a Bard with Obtain Familiar.

[Subaru Kujo]

By RAW, that works out to one point of damage. Personally, I house rule that any attack whose modifiers reduce it to zero damage will inflict only one point of non-lethal damage; cats shouldn't be beating commoners so easily.

Although really, given the penalties for losing familiars, PCs shouldn't be risking them in melee anyway.

Awww... But I wanted death by lizard...

[VoxRationis]

You can get free unlimited Dex poison from the viper familiar (I think it's Dex, though I'm not sure).

[Phelix-Mu]

You can get free unlimited Dex poison from the viper familiar (I think it's Dex, though I'm not sure).

Pretty sure that you need to refine that to actually use it on a weapon, which will still use the rather undesirable Craft(poisonmaking) mechanics.

There were a series of pretty cool snake-based spells in Dragon Magazine, though, that all needed a snake as a focus. Nice flavor, if nothing else.

[cosmonuts]

Pretty sure that you need to refine that to actually use it on a weapon, which will still use the rather undesirable Craft(poisonmaking) mechanics.

Believe this is the case as well. The viper is counted as a cheap source of poison (1/6 cost), not an actual poison dispenser.