Familiars and their Masters.

[SoulCatcher78]

So here's my dilema, I was used to the familiar being "bonded" with a spellcaster in OD&D and I'm wondering what happened to that rule along the way. I just rechecked the PHB and can't find anything about what happens if your familiar get's killed. I suppose you would lose the bonus you gained from the familiar but are there any other consequences. They definitely beefed up the familiar (HP = half of master...that's one heck of a cat/weasel/bat you got there) for survival purposes but now they seem unbalanced.

1st edition consequences were quite dire, xp loss, etc. So where'd they go and why?

[Dark Knight Renee]

There IS xp loss if the familiar is killed. It's in there somewhere.

What bugs me, is what happens to the familiar if the master dies?

[SoulCatcher78]

That's what I thought but I can't seem to find it anywhere.

[Shhalahr Windrider]

"If the familiar dies or is dismissed by the sorcerer, the sorcerer must attempt a DC 15 Fortitude saving throw. Failure means he loses 200 experience points per sorcerer level; success reduces the loss to one-half that amount. However, a sorcerer’s experience point total can never go below 0 as the result of a familiar’s demise or dismissal. A slain or dismissed familiar cannot be replaced for a year and day. A slain familiar can be raised from the dead just as a character can be, and it does not lose a level or a Constitution point when this happy event occurs. (http://www.systemreferencedocuments.org/35/sovelior_sage/sorcerer.html#sorcerer-familiar)"

Naturally, the description on wizard familiars refers to the familiar entry in the Sorcerer description.

[Icewalker]

What bugs me, is what happens to the familiar if the master dies?

Somebody made a homebrew monster which is the ghost of a familiar who's master was killed. It's pretty cool, though I forget who made it.

[Thomix]

I think it's said somewhere that if the master of the Familiar die, the familiar become a normal animal of his kind, losing all his magical ability...something like that.

[SoulCatcher78]

Thanks for the help!

[Skyserpent]

My DM killed my cat familiar in a malicious fashion. (Kicking it off of a 80 foot high platform)

I decided to go batman and utterly destroy every villain for the rest of the session. Godmoding DM is nothing to the enraged wizard with the ForceCage+Cloudkill+Dimensional Lock combo at his disposal.

[Foxtale]

What bugs me, is what happens to the familiar if the master dies?Maybe it's sort of like a summoned animal (or similar to a daemon from His Dark Materials) in that it vanishes when it's master is killed. So it maybe goes to the Celestial Realm?

[Fizban]

Tome and Blood suggests that the familiar be treated as if it's master was two levels lower. If it's effective master level is still above one, it retains it's intelligence and other abilities, excepting those that require it's master to be present. If the master is revived, the bond is restored to normal with no additional harm done.