Familiar and food/drink

[schreier]

We have a lvl 14 party, and my character (wizard), just obtained a familiar. He will get a planar familiar downstream, but not yet.

I grabbed a lemming, because it seems a reasonable stop-gap pet and spot/listen gets rolled a lot.

I have a ring of sustenance, but then was just thinking about the familiar. Do I need to worry about feeding/watering the small lemming during an adventure? Do familiar's need food and water? (Looking at the belt of many pockets, it says "The familiar has no need for food, water, or air while inside the pouch" which implies a normal need for it. Could potentially share the ring of sustenance effect with the familiar maybe? A single iron ration could probably last weeks for a small creature, and a water skin would be easy enough to carry, but I hate the long-term risk of running out

Any suggestions?

[icefractal]

Ring for the familiar as well?
Based on other companion items like the collar of enlarging (not the exact name) and the various magic horse-shoes, you could make a reasonable case that it should be cheaper than a normal one.
Not that the normal one is usually expensive for a 14th level character, but YMMV.

[Bohandas]

your typical lemming eats mosses and grasses, which are rarely in short supply. I'd imagine a magic lemming would either do the same or else do the same but cook them first.

[Batcathat]

https://youtu.be/JOCtdw9FG-s
(But with a lemming).

[schreier]

I do like the idea of feeding a burrito ;) Water would be the primary concern, more than food as you guys pointed out. For now, I'll stick with a travel cloak, which will give enough water and food I think.

[St Fan]

Familiars are expected to need food and drink like a normal animal of their kind.

Being usually small, however, they don't need much. My guess is that, in most games they are handwaved as living off the scraps of the party's food (if omnivorous), and/or fending for themselves by hunting (if carnivorous) or foraging (if herbivorous) at any time their master doesn't need them. Thus, a familiar doesn't really weight on the party's supplies, unless in especially scarce circumstances (like crossing a desert).

[Maat Mons]

You're planning to replace the lemming with a different familiar later? Don't you have to wait a year and a day between dismissing your old familiar and obtaining a new one?

[schreier]

I remember a rule like that but I don't see it. In this case, I'm going from obtain familiar to planar familiar, so I think it being a new feat should be ok

[AnonJr]

You're planning to replace the lemming with a different familiar later? Don't you have to wait a year and a day between dismissing your old familiar and obtaining a new one?

Well...

Familiar: A wizard can obtain a familiar in exactly the same manner as a sorcerer can. See the sorcerer description and the accompanying Familiars sidebar for details.

... ok. Not as helpful. I kinda wish they'd just repeat the information than make you hunt down the other reference. But that's a separate issue.

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.

(snip)

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.

It's never come up for me since I almost always trade in the familiar for an ACF or take the flaw "Loner" to trade the familiar for a feat. As useful as they can be, I hate toting around a bundle of XP liability... the one exception was a Sorcerer ACF that traded the familiar for an animal companion (like a druid of 1/2 your sorcerer level - Blood of Eberron Sorcerer, DR351 p79).



I remember a rule like that but I don't see it. In this case, I'm going from obtain familiar to planar familiar, so I think it being a new feat should be ok

The feat has "Ability to acquire a new familiar" as a pre-requisite, so you'd either have to have not had a familiar (just because you can, doesn't mean you have to get one right away), be able to take an additional familiar (IIRC there's feats and classes that let you take more than one), or dismiss your current familiar (see earlier for the cost...) in order to get the planar familiar.

Unless of course your GM is kind and hand-waves the transition. But that's a GM conversation.