Best Magical Item for the Item Familiar Feat?

[WhiteBread]

A question that I already have for some time. My googlefu wasn't strong enough so I thought of simply asking the community. If you were allowed to take the feat what item would you love to have as your item familiar? Why? How would you integrate it in your backstory if you are above lvl 3?

[martixy]

An ancestral relic is your best bet.

Artifacts are other good candidates.

[noob]

Try cursed items you can not lose.
That makes it easier to not lose your item familiar then you can stack enchantments on it.

[Gildedragon]

Quite class dependent.
A magical prosthetic is always pretty handy
A riverine gauntlet
A blessed book or aureon spellshard that's been protected up the wazoo
Piercings of any sort

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Make it start as a Ring of Protection +1, it meets the minimum value requirement and you can do all the future upgrades yourself at half price.

As a ring, you can always wear a glove or gauntlet over it so opponents never have line of sight or line of effect to it. It can never be attacked directly or slight of handed. Since it's an intelligent item, it's treated as a construct (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/intelligentItems.htm), and constructs cannot be disabled or destroyed by dispelling or disjoining and continue to function in antimagic and dead magic areas, but such effects can suppress the benefits you get from it as a magic item.

As an intelligent item, it gets actions every round just like any other creature, and it can use its actions to activate its own abilities.

You can upgrade it as though you possessed any magic item creation feats required, such as Forge Ring and others (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/feats.htm#forgeEpicRing) (but you still need to meet any other prerequisites of the item you intend to upgrade it to). "A creator can add new magical abilities to a magic item with no restrictions. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/creatingMagicItems.htm#addingNewAbilities)" However putting multiple effects on it will usually make all but the most expensive item effect cost 50% more, but you're still paying only 75% of the actual price of those item effects by crafting it yourself. A Deflection bonus to AC actually doesn't cost any extra to include on a magical ring with other abilities (MIC p234), which is part of the reason why a +1 Ring of Protection is the best starting item.

Add a Ring of Invisibility effect, it costs 10,000 gp, 800 xp, 20 days, and casting Invisibility twenty times. Each round the ring can hold its action until after you've gone, and then activate its own invisibility effect on you every round.

Item Familiar allows you to add intelligent item lesser and greater powers at certain levels, at full price. There's nothing preventing you from adding intelligent item powers to it via the normal item creation methods, even before the required level to add them via the Item Familiar feat. After all, "A creator can add new magical abilities to a magic item with no restrictions. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/creatingMagicItems.htm#addingNewAbilities)" All you need in order to add something is the prerequisites to make the item, the base caster level is not a prerequisite (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/magicItemBasics.htm#magicItemDescriptions) after the DMG errata, and you've already got Craft Ring with no minimum caster level.

Don't make it an Ancestral Relic or combine it with any similar effect, since that will only serve to limit the value of the effects you can put on it. You can already upgrade it with just about anything you want.

[thorr-kan]

Try cursed items you can not lose.
That makes it easier to not lose your item familiar then you can stack enchantments on it.
That's an angle I hadn't thought of...

[thorr-kan]

Ring of invisibility is traditional...

Keeps it separate from your other customizable magic items:
Ancestral Relic
Weapon of Legacy
Legendary Weapons
Relic

[unseenmage]

An Ancestral Relic, Weapon of Legacy, Bonded Item (DMG2 IIRC), Intelligent Magic Item with the Flying weapon enhancement from Magic of Faerun so it can act like a flying Animated Object.

Thar was always my go-to anyway.

[Gildedragon]

Oooh. Psi or magical tats. Hidden under clothing, hard to misplace...

[AOKost]

How about a construct intelligent item that's also a ring? It looks like a good luck dragon wrapped around the finger biting it's tail, but it could also move, and act as a familiar possibly?

Or am I completely mistaken?

[thethird]

Hand Coral enhanced to be a magic trap of spell storing infusion complemented with several poison rings.

[Thurbane]

Maybe something that goes inside your body, possibly a Tooth of Dahlver-Nar or something similar?

[Vogie]

That's an angle I hadn't thought of...

Something like the Cursed Ax of Tloques, which teleports to your hand whenever you draw anything without it in your hand.

Even if they disarm you, take everything away, you can later grab anything and it will appear.

[WhiteBread]

So I notice a lot of players are afraid that they will get their item stolen and therefore take precoutions against this. Hiding the Item Familiar or similar. My DM generelly tends to do the same but in this case would wave the "you loose the bonus forever" part, basically you get everything back upon rejoining with your item.

I know that might be over the top but is it possible to make a flying ship your item familiar? If yes would that be an awesome addition to a bard?

[DeTess]

I know that might be over the top but is it possible to make a flying ship your item familiar? If yes would that be an awesome addition to a bard?

A flying intelligent ship? There's not a single character that this would not be awesome for, though it's most awesome for artificers, I think.
If it's allowed? Ask your DM.

[Story_Teller]

So I notice a lot of players are afraid that they will get their item stolen and therefore take precoutions against this. Hiding the Item Familiar or similar. My DM generelly tends to do the same but in this case would wave the "you loose the bonus forever" part, basically you get everything back upon rejoining with your item.

I know that might be over the top but is it possible to make a flying ship your item familiar? If yes would that be an awesome addition to a bard?

Ive been playing a wizard with a flying boat for years in many editions of D&D (and other games) since bout 2nd AD&D. Its been a wizard, a generic spellcaster from the UA, a sorcerer windwright captain with the mark of syberis from eberron and a variety of other incarnations. Its also a high level NPC from a game I wrote. The character has been an elf, half-elf, a Star Elf, dragon blooded and a celestial. Every time I make the character on a new world, he 'gets amnesia' and levels up to regain his powers, and unlock secrets of the ship.

The ship is called the Dragon's Wing and is as much a character as its captain, Goodman Starchild. The Item Familiar on this is a Folding Boat. I invest flight, rope trick, unseen servant, create food and drink etc in the ship, ultimately Plane Shift and it works as a makeshift spelljammer.

Im trying to get into a game now in 5e, where Im hoping to create him as a shadar-kai loremaster and run through Tyranny of Dragons.

Item Familiars are great and can be the stuff of legends. Best item familiar? a Folding Boat is my go-to awesome.

[Yogibear41]

I've had an Item Familiar once. You know what I used?

Warforged's Adamantine Plating :smallcool: