AMIA ARCHIVE • View topic

While I'm aware you cannot force a creature to be your familiar unwillingly, will intelligent familiars leave you if you mistreat them? Does it stop you from going to get another one? Better yet, is there a good official source on some Familiar fluff?

I have looked into this before and I've never been able to find a lot of fluffy information about familiars from any DnD designers. There is a ton of mechanical information on how to set up your spellcaster with the right kind of familiar to shore up weak spots or create builds where you have a good synthesis with your familiar, but not much to answer the questions you have ask in a very direct and bold way. There are statements you can find in printed material here and there, however, that suggest a certain interpretation.

The bond a magician creates with his or her familiar is a sympathetic bond that goes both ways. The magician gets benefits from the familiar and the familiar also gains benefits from the magician. This relationship is an arcane one, but it is altogether separate from the emotional relationship, or the power politics that may exist between the magician and the familiar, especially when the familiar is also intelligent. Though your typical familiar is inclined to do as the magician wishes, it is not under the same compulsion as a summoned creature is to do the bidding. If asked to do something it does not want to do that is life-threatening, for example, or wicked if the familiar creature has a dispensation towards kinder acts, then it may simply refuse to perform the action. Disobey. Run away, disappear, crawl into a hole, whatever. Rarely would I see a familiar fighting the magician, because the arcane aspect of the relationship does hold forever true about one detail: the magician technically wears the pants in the relationship.

No, mistreating one familiar does not stop the magician from getting another when he has lost the other. The magician is free to "dismiss" his familiar, severing their bond (though I do believe that in doing so, the magician suffers the same losses as though the familiar died and, interestingly enough, the familiar retains the benefits it received, including always being a magical beast).

Though it is not DnD proper, Pathfinder did take the time to address this subject in a bit of detail. I prefer their approach: they realize that the relationship between magician and familiar can be complex; sometimes friendly, sometimes antagonistic; sometimes based upon two intelligent creatures sharing the same goal, and sometimes the magician desperately needing an overcharmed yes man.

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Nonsentient Companions: a nonsentient companion (one with animal-level intelligence) is loyal to you in the way a well-trained dog is—the creature is conditioned to obey your commands, but its behavior is limited by its intelligence and it can't make altruistic moral decisions—such as nobly sacrificing itself to save another. Animal companions, cavalier mounts, and purchased creatures (such as common horses and guard dogs) fall into this category. In general they're GM-controlled companions. You can direct them using the Handle Animal skill, but their specific behavior is up to the GM.

Sentient Companions: a sentient companion (a creature that can understand language and has an Intelligence score of at least 3) is considered your ally and obeys your suggestions and orders to the best of its ability. It won't necessarily blindly follow a suicidal order, but it has your interests at heart and does what it can to keep you alive. Paladin bonded mounts, familiars, and cohorts fall into this category, and are usually player-controlled companions.

Eidolons: Outside the linear obedience and intelligence scale of sentient and nonsentient companions are eidolons: intelligent entities magically bound to you. Whether you wish to roleplay this relationship as friendly or coerced, the eidolon is inclined to obey you unless you give a command only to spite it. An eidolon would obey a cruel summoner's order to save a child from a burning building, knowing that at worst the fire damage would temporarily banish it, but it wouldn't stand in a bonfire just because the summoner said to. An eidolon is normally a player-controlled companion, but the GM can have the eidolon refuse extreme orders that would cause it to suffer needlessly.

Magical Control: Charm person, dominate person, and similar effects turn an NPC into a companion for a limited time. Most charm-like effects make the target friendly to you—the target has to follow your requests only if they're reasonable, and has its own ideas about what is reasonable. For example, few creatures consider "hand over all your valuables" or "let me put these manacles on you" a reasonable request from a friend. You might have to use Diplomacy or Intimidate checks to influence a charmed ally, and the GM has the final say as to what happens. Though the target of a charm effect considers you a friend, it probably feels indifferent at best toward the other PCs and won't listen to requests from them. a creature under a dominate effect is more of a puppet, and you can force it to do anything that isn't suicidal or otherwise against its well-being. Treat it as player-controlled, with the GM making its saving throws to resist inappropriate commands.

Common Exceptions: Some companions are exceptions, such as an intelligent companion who doesn't bear exceptional loyalty toward you (for example, a hired guard), a weaker minion who is loyal to you but lacks the abilities or resources to assist in adventuring tasks, and a called outsider (such as from planar ally) who agrees to a specific service but still has a sense of self-preservation. You can use Bluff, Diplomacy, and Intimidate to influence such companions, but the GM is the final arbiter of their actions. For example, a PC might use threats to convince a caravan guard to hold back an ogre for a few rounds or to prevent her zealous followers from attacking a rival adventurer, but the GM makes the decision whether the guard runs away after getting hit once or the followers attack when provoked.

The GM may deviate from the above suggestions, such as allowing a druid to control an animal companion directly, creating a more equivalent or even antagonistic relationship between a summoner and an eidolon, or roleplaying a mentoring relationship between a veteran warhorse and the young paladin who inherited his loyalty. Before you create a character with a companion creature (or decide to add a companion in play), the GM should explain to everyone how much influence you and the GM each have over the creature's actions. That way, everyone is fully informed about all aspects of dealing with the companion.

The specifics of controlling a companion vary for different campaigns. a gritty campaign where animal companions can't do anything that real animals can't do forces the GM to act as a check against you pushing the bounds of creativity. a high-fantasy game where familiars are nearly as important to the storyline as the PCs—or are played as near-PCs by other players—is a very different feel and can create interesting roleplaying opportunities.

An evil campaign where companions are unwilling slaves of the PCs creates a dynamic where the PCs are trying to exploit them as much as possible—perhaps even sacrificing and replacing them as needed—and treat them more like living tools than reluctant allies.

Hope that proves to be some food for thought for you.

Whooa, this is pretty much exactly what I was asking. I don't know how much is relevant to Amia, but if history is anything to go by it's pretty flexible if the RP is good and doesn't go against current house rules. I gotta pour over this in depth next time i'm conscious.

Thanks again Yossarin!

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Nonsentient Companions: a nonsentient companion (one with animal-level intelligence) is loyal to you in the way a well-trained dog is—the creature is conditioned to obey your commands, but its behavior is limited by its intelligence and it can't make altruistic moral decisions—such as nobly sacrificing itself to save another. Animal companions, cavalier mounts, and purchased creatures (such as common horses and guard dogs) fall into this category. In general they're GM-controlled companions. You can direct them using the Handle Animal skill, but their specific behavior is up to the GM.

Would this be an awakened animal companion?

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Sentient Companions: a sentient companion (a creature that can understand language and has an Intelligence score of at least 3) is considered your ally and obeys your suggestions and orders to the best of its ability. It won't necessarily blindly follow a suicidal order, but it has your interests at heart and does what it can to keep you alive. Paladin bonded mounts, familiars, and cohorts fall into this category, and are usually player-controlled companions.

Kudark wrote:

Would this be an awakened animal companion?

Yes? Well at least in theory because of how Awaken works. However in practice?... Well in practice you can't for any reason have an awakened animal companion, now there are several reasons for this most of them having to do with the fact that making an animal a familiar or animal companion is a magic bond that enhances the animal (including an almost awakening like effect). However an awakened animal no longer really counts as an "animal" but as a "magical beast".

Basically an awakened animal companion would not be an animal companion since it is its own sentient creature, it would be like having a gnome as an animal companion.

The Great Equalizer wrote:

Well in practice you can't for any reason have an awakened animal companion

I'd like a DM ruling on this.

If that's the case, I was always breaking a rule when playing Diane, my urban druid. She regularly cast the Awaken spell on her animal companion Templeton, a dire rat who then proceeded to whine for food all the time. Funny, though, that the spell is in the druid spellbook but the PnP description states that once Awakened an animal companion no longer can serve in that capacity.

Must be an NWN thing.

No, the Amia awaken spell does not awaken your companion as by PnP standards.

Your companion won't be able to talk another language.

However, due to the bond a companion shares with the druid/ranger, they do understand orders given etc.

If you take a look at the PnP spell and the NWN spell, they have nothing to do with eachother. PnP spell gives Cha and Int (to animals) and lets them speak, NWN spell gives Con, Wis, Str and AD. So yeah.

Makes sense!

True you you can have an "awakened" animal companion in nwn, although it is irrelevant when then talking about the fluff around non-sentient and sentient companion since the nwn spell is basically just a (mostly) physical buff to animal companions that has NO effect on their sentience.

If you are talking about fluff for awakened animals you should probably be talking the PNP spell since it actually has a real effect on how the animals work the nwn one is just a buff (and not even an int one or cha enhancement as the PNP one).

Basically calling the nwn spell "awaken" in the first place was a stupid choice. So if you say something about and "awakened animal" it should be safe to assume to you mean awakened by PNP standards since the NWN spell doesn't actually do anything worth you saying the animal is "awakened".

That is of course unless for some reason the real "awaken" spell doesn't exist in amian cannon although that would be rather odd.

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An awakened animal can't serve as an animal companion, familiar, or special mount.

Also this. Amia's spell isn't "Awaken" it's stupid and should be considered something else.

Yes, the "real" awken spell is working on Amia of course.

We have a few awakned trees running about.

What's stopping some clever evil wizard from making friends, familiarizing them, and harvesting their organs? The difficulty of finding and binding them willingly?

If as I suspect the evil wizard suffers the loss of a familiar upon killing the familiar and harvesting its organs, it makes a lot more sense to get a familiar who is cool with the process and can help get organs from otherwise unwilling victims. Like, you know, an evil ice elemental that fills the wash basin with ice after the wizard has ensorcelled and scalpeled out that handsome farmgirl's kidney.

Mercedes wrote:

What's stopping some clever evil wizard from making friends, familiarizing them, and harvesting their organs? The difficulty of finding and binding them willingly?

Some people even do morally worse things to then.

Mercedes wrote:

What's stopping some clever evil wizard from making friends, familiarizing them, and harvesting their organs? The difficulty of finding and binding them willingly?

Keep in mind that the process of attaining a familiar takes time and money. Granted, not a lot, but still 24 hours of your time. If you can force an animal to be around you for a day, you probably have better means of getting one for spare parts so to speak. I.E. Even if your mage is harvesting Pixie Dust, the fact that he already has a Pixie familiar suggests he knows where to find/buy/steal another.

But if you wanted to? Sure, you can do whatever you want to the thing. But harvesting them for anything not only throws away a good deal of ritual time and work, but also hurts you in the process. Unless it's towards some bigger and better end, destroying your own familiar isn't practical.

Now manipulating, transforming, torturing, or abusing it are things altogether different. For some a familiar is a friend. For others it is a necessary nuisance. For others still, it is nothing more than a tool. Simple as that. Kind of like Pact-Beasts from Drakengard, in my opinion.

Edit: By necessary nuisance, I mean having a familiar is something a PC finds is worth putting up with for its benefits. Nothing requires a mage to take a familiar. I haven't seen anything that even points to it being a common practice, so it could be based upon culture or where you learn magic, how, why, and if you take a familiar. But in NWN, everyone is given one mechanically, though you can all the same choose not to have one, in RP.

Mercedes wrote:

What's stopping some clever evil wizard from making friends, familiarizing them, and harvesting their organs? The difficulty of finding and binding them willingly?

You also have to consider that when a mage's familiar dies, the mage takes however many points of damage. It may be trivial in our level 30 server, but the principle remains the same. The familiar's death does have a very real and painful detrimental effect on the mage.

Yossarin wrote:

The magician is free to "dismiss" his familiar, severing their bond (though I do believe that in doing so, the magician suffers the same losses as though the familiar died and, interestingly enough, the familiar retains the benefits it received, including always being a magical beast).

Scattered around the various D&D settings are disenfranchised wizard familiars with no place to go and nothing to do but turn to a life of crime... or become street performers.

That so very needs to be an alt-beginnings game. (Dibs on the pixie spot.)

Trololololo! Sounds like the default human bio, even. Somebody, make a bizarre version of that one!

Dibs on the speudodragon

I am thinking along the lines Derk does about this. I think killing and vivisecting one's own familiar is only a little less painfull then doing it on oneself directly. So only a true madman or masochist would even consider it I think.

Yes the mage would survive the familiars death but it still -hurts-.
If dr Wickedpants needs human blood he likely won't tap off his own either, far less painfull to take anothers. I think its the same with a familair.

Liz wrote:

That so very needs to be an alt-beginnings game. (Dibs on the pixie spot.)

I want the faerie dragon!!

Dibs on the toad.

New one: considering the target must be willing to become a familiar, on some level, how do animated objects or constructs work? I am aware of different situations where it has happened, where some elder wizard is running around with his animated orb or spellbook, as well as people who animate other useful objects as familiars.

Is it just then the time, money, and spellwork that go into creating, enchanting, and familiarizing the object? I don't suppose they can very well say "no," which means they also would hold no intelligence outside of what they are directly told to do.

Dibs on the skeleton who still has sexual feelings for his master the necrophant who would experiment on him.

GreatPigeon wrote:

Dibs on the skeleton who still has sexual feelings for his master the necrophant who would experiment on him.

What has Dead been telling you?

It works a bit different for objects in general. I would say that could be handled on a case by case basis, as it deals with exactly what type of bond the arcanist and the object will share.

If it is an animated or semi-sentient thing, like a golem or homunculus, then I imagine it to be more along the lines of a regular familiar-izing process. Might even be easier to make a bond with a facsimile creature you specifically create for the purpose of being a familiar, though probably takes a good deal of time to create it, as opposed to simply finding one.

Dark Immolation wrote:

If it is an animated or semi-sentient thing, like a golem or homunculus, then I imagine it to be more along the lines of a regular familiar-izing process. Might even be easier to make a bond with a facsimile creature you specifically create for the purpose of being a familiar, though probably takes a good deal of time to create it, as opposed to simply finding one.

Since you create a Homunculus yourself (Or rarely, have someone create it with your blood) I think thats easy. Its an extension of yourself so it'd never decline being a familiar (If it can be one.)

My take on a non sentient animated objects would be: You create it, you can bind it to you. If you didn't create it then I am not sure binding would ever work as it lacks a 'touch' of you and you can't become an objects 'friend' to forge a bond.

...Aha! What familiars can speak? I know animals become magical beasts through the process, and that familiars like the Pixie can most definitely speak on their own. What about animals, and creatures with no speech capability? Can a mage transmit their voice magically through a construct when controlling it directly?

Empathetic link I think its called. Familiars and their master communicate freely emphatically, however they cannot literally possess a familiar. If I'm not mistaken they can also communicate verbally to eachother but if the familiar isnt capable of speech third party listeners have to magically decipher what is said. The familiar can also be granted spells from the masters spells/day and can deliver touch-attacks from spells the master cast.

To be honest i ALWAYS wanted to play as a familiar/slave type character of ANY species. I wind it would be interesting and fun, i just find the slave rules kind of harsh and have been worried to do it (Seriously i have to walk around nude and more or less flail at things to defend myself?)

kalcibone wrote:

To be honest i ALWAYS wanted to play as a familiar

Heh. I have a PC version of Gagis's familiar in my vault. Made her when he stopped really summoning her and she got on with her own life, but gave it up when I realized that it probably would not exactly be legal to play characters that are linked in such a way. Was amusing, though.

Silvarus wrote:

Heh. I have a PC version of Gagis's familiar in my vault. Made her when he stopped really summoning her and she got on with her own life, but gave it up when I realized that it probably would not exactly be legal to play characters that are linked in such a way. Was amusing, though.

I played a pixie on another server, was fun till i got eaten by a flytrap.... *sweatdrop* But yeah i'd love to play as a slave or familiar for someone on the server but never asked a Dm if that is even possible In game/allowed or whatever? heck i'd pay DC's to do it if need be! O.o

Like maybe I cant go over the mage's level like a true familure and a special widget to raise me once a day by said mage xD rest can be roleplayed really...

Familiars are hardly slaves, they got a familiar bond which entitles a whole lot of magical stuff but they still have free wills.

From what I read and heard it is possible to forcefully bind someone as a familiar.

Bind someone as a familiar doesnt sound like it'd be easy. Normally you can only take animals as your familiar once they're bound as a familiar they become magical beasts in terms of racial type. The familiars on Amia are improved familiars and even them can only be lesser things such as:

*Quasits
*Mephit
*Imp
*Hellhound
*Small elementals
*Formian workers
*Critter swarms, like a swarm of rats or locusts
*Magical animals, like blinkdog, hippogriff
*Snakes
*Living spells

Its normally also not possible to have fey as a familiar, but having a fey as a familiar can be explained as the fey having its master as a rememberer (see fey in rules&lore).

Edit: Not saying its impossible but what I said here is what would apply to just yolo binding a familiar. Binding something else would either require feats or other magic. Such as necromancers getting undead familiars.

Living spells? Also, how do necromancer make a skellington a familiar anyway? Are they able to apply the process to all kinds of undead pending on the masters power?

Living spells

I assume it'd not be very hard to bind a unsentient undead as a familiar, pretty sure its just a standard familiar form you fill out and send to your government or however familiars are created. I havent read about it so the more necrosavvy people are gonna have to answer that one.

Mercedes wrote:

...Aha! What familiars can speak? I know animals become magical beasts through the process, and that familiars like the Pixie can most definitely speak on their own. What about animals, and creatures with no speech capability? Can a mage transmit their voice magically through a construct when controlling it directly?

Raven familiars speak by default. As for other familiars that speak, it's usually up to the DM, or whatever makes sense (fey creature familiars, for example, make sense; toads, which are awesome, not so much.) Some mages can transmit their voices through a construct, but do so by casting "magic mouth" on the construct as though it were an object.

Also, here is how WotC told us undead familiars come to pass. Which is not quite as cool as the stitched flesh familiar from Libris Mortis.

A spinoff of that question, since it's turned that corner: Can undead speak? We know Zombies can issue moans, groans, and whatnot depending on how much of their system is intact, but are too stupid to form thoughts and words themselves. What about... Skeletons? Sure, Skeletons wouldn't speak of their own accord likely due to the low Intelligence, but can their master will them to speak? They don't have the parts capable of enabling speech, but... they don't have the parts enabling Sight, either, and they seem to get along fine. Plus there are a plethora of Liches and Dead Knights and whatnot who seem coherent.

Oh, no ... now I'm questioning Undead and Construct senses and I'm not seeing a lot in Libris Mortis or the Monster Manuals. I'll save that one for a new topic!

Intelligent undead can speak, yes. Such as vampires, liches, etc. Non-intelligent undead like zombies and skeletons do not speak unless a specific sentient template is applied.

Yossarin wrote:

Intelligent undead can speak, yes. Such as vampires, liches, etc. Non-intelligent undead like zombies and skeletons do not speak unless a specific sentient template is applied.

But do they have the capability of speech, and can a mage order them to say things or otherwise project their own voice through their dumb, dumb familiars?

No, they do not, unless the template is applied.

Lovers of maniacal laughing skeletons everywhere are saddened as joy is taken from their life. I'll assume this all applies to Constructs and other non-sentient familiars as well. Thanks, Yoss! Ever the bebossomed font of knowledge.

Outsiders can be familiars, correct? Such as small elementals, minor fiends, what-have-you before needing to take special PNP feats ... what decides how "powerful" something is when trying to take it on as a familiar? I would assume some lesser fiend would be more powerful than a human child, though I am near positive no one's ever had a human child familiar before because the idea is ridiculous.

EDIT: In addition, are all caster PCs assumed to have the PnP "Improved Familiar" feat?

By correct terms the undead are in two categories when it comes to intelligence.

Unsentient Undead
Skeletons and zombies for example go to this. It means they don' have competences for speaking or intelligent thinking.
However, as mentioned if the skeletons or zombies are somehow modified or existed long enough, it could be
possible them to become sentient undead.

Sentient Undead
More powerful undead that have intelligence to form trail of thoughs, plan battle approaches.. Speaking and thinking, vampires, liches and usually the more powerful undead are here.

All of this can be found in library section if bothered for searching. They are IC books and based on Libris Mortis and some other D&D books.

With conscrtuct it depends on the way they were constructed and enchanted. Sentient Constructs are extremely hard to build, there are no known ways ro duplicate intelligence, to create artificial intelligence. Just to make sentient item is extremely difficult. You can find of these in IC by asking right individuals.

Outsiders can be had as familiars, not as easy to get one but still. Players handbook explains familiar thing if I remember correctly

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