Protecting your Item Familiar...

[St Fan]

Hey guys.

How would go on your way to have your character protect an Item Familiar? — or, for that matter, any magical item that you don’t want to be separated from, ever.

My personal choice for an Item Familiar would be a ring of sustenance. It is right in the correct price range without being too expensive, and is quite useful for the type of character (wizard spending most waking hours doing spell and magic research) I would play. Also, the 1-week attunement requirement means it isn’t the kind of item you exchange willy-nilly among the group, and gives the character the perfect excuse to never part from it. There’re other advantages, like the fact that Forge Ring is a rather high-level feat, but many ring powers are quite interesting, and Item Familiar allows to improve the item way sooner. My character would make it take levels in ring of wizardry as soon as she got the resources.

Now, as for the methods to protect it, my main tactic is complete secrecy. Nobody should know the true nature of the ring, not even other members of the party; hence no enemy can be tempted in exploiting this weakness. Okay, maybe her regular familiar might be aware of it... but I wouldn’t hesitate to hit the critter with a Forbidden Speech spell as soon as possible to be on the safe side. As well as one on myself too, that would take of charms and mind-reading, one can never be too paranoid.

As for other protective measures, I’m thinking about putting a permanent invisibility spell on the ring when possible. But there are certainly other ways to make it impossible to steal, or easily retrieved if ever lost...

[ExLibrisMortis]

A decent way to make them resistant to damage is to increase the hardness. Start with a glassteel ring (Races of Faerûn, will cost 1000 gold per pound, but a glassteel ring weighs only about 5g), which is as hard as adamantine, as light as mithral, and people take -4 on Spot checks to notice it. Then add spells and powers like matter manipulation, hardening and so on when you can get them. Wear a glove on top, to prevent line of effect, or wear in on the inside (around a finger-bone). Make sure to add an arcane mark, so you can find it later.

[Divide by Zero]

Have it made of riverine. Immune to almost everything, and the few things that do affect it would affect any other item just as easily. At high levels, you should have ways to protect yourself against disintegrate and disjunction, or just always be astrally projecting so your real equipment is never at risk in the first place.

[Gildedragon]

Make it into a foot-graft. Hide it in your lead lined boots

[Florian]

There´s a spell that let´s you meld an item into your body. Make it permanent.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

There are several items that are actually absorbed into your body. Go look at the kiira n'vaelahr (Player's Guide to Faerun), the power link shard (Magic of Eberron) and the Dukar hand coral (Champions of Valor). If you start with the kiira n'vaelahr, you can move it to any place within your body you like, at will. Store it in your chest cavity, and if there's anything that can get at it there, you have bigger problems than whether or not you're losing your item familiar. If you combine it with permanencied sequester and ghostform spells, it will remain in your body, untraceable by any magic that isn't a "device" (see Ravenloft: Legacy of the Blood), and incorporeal. There are a lot of incredibly valuable slotless item effects you can add to your item familiar, and there're a lot of low level slotted effects that are quite valuable even at an increased cost for turning them into unslotted effects (like the aforementioned ring of sustenance).

[Troacctid]

Simply wearing a glove or gauntlet over it will block line of sight and line of effect, making it very difficult to target with anything unless someone can forcefully remove the glove. (Of course, this works both ways—if your ring has abilities that require it to have line of effect to anyone or anything but you, it won't be able to use them.)

Lining the glove with lead will also block divination effects, although if someone notices that you have lead-lined gloves, they may become suspicious.

[Yogibear41]

Be a Warforged make it an internal warforged component, or better yet make your plating the familiar, now you can never lose it, aside from it being hit by a disjunction or similar effect.