I was curious to know a few things about the peckers that stick to your side, and also wanted to hear peoples oppinions on certain matters.

First off, do you go through the one day ritual of bonding with it? Tome and Blood describes the process vaguely and brings up an interesting point. You cannot bind yourself to an unwilling or hostile creature, although you can bribe it, persuade it and such. Charms won't work.

A good example here is the pseudodragon, which everyone and their mummy has nowdays.
"Pseudodragons resemble miniature red dragons, but in looks alone. They do not commit evil acts; in fact they dislike evil acts very much".
Would an evil person be able to link himself/herself with a NG familiar just like that? Surely there can be exceptions, but you can't charm nor force an unfriendly familiar into servitude (lifelong friendship/trust even). Eyeball as a familiar of a LG mage is just as odd as a pixie siding with a CE mage. I mean to say that your most trusted companion in life must have a certain bond, beyond that of a ritual, right? Just being curious as to what you think, since the limited familiars have certain ways of living, viewing the world and has their own morals, if being sentient.

What are your thoughts on this?

Lastly. How would you view the death of a familiar? In PnP it doesn't work without cost. Does it teleport away in the last seconds before it anticipates a fatal outcome as I saw someone RP it as, or..?
When it dies, you cannot bring it back for one year and a day, unless ressurrected (outsiders through wish or miracle). How to tackle this with mechanics and Amia lore?

(I know that the eyeball and pseudodragon are powerful, so please refrain from bringing up mechanics and stick to lore and IC situations).

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No. All of the feats that allow improved familiars require you to stay within one step of alignment.

Blame Bioware.

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Davion Telemos - Monk of the Four Winds
Korthan Isharnos - Dragon Shaman of Thunder Spirit Zamasham

But there could still be rulings from the upper management to have the one-step alignment rule put into place.

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Probably won't happen given that psuedodragons got true sight. People will say it's unfair etc. Which it is.. but.. sticking to lore is never really fair

Personally I rather like my spellblade's raven. Ravens are awesome, because they are the only familiar you can pick (from nwn's selection anyway) that can actually TALK! 1 language and such, but hey.. lorewise you're covered :3 Psuedodragons and such can't talk, though people still RP it. Not sure if Eyeballs can.

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Adair - Druid and part time treant cosplayer

That would be difficult due to the number of DC requests with changed familiars, including a few that turn the Pseduo into an actual evil wyrmling, which eliminates the alignment issues. It would almost be easier to add more familiars. But I can see Mosh rolling in his grave at balancing them.

There's a not a whole lot we can do, I don't think. Familiars were never meant to be combatative anyways.... at least, not without feat investments in PnP.

Re: Grave: All of the familiars except the Hellhound, the bat, and the panther can talk. Normally pseudos only communicate telepathically but since we don't do telepaths its normal communication.

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Davion Telemos - Monk of the Four Winds
Korthan Isharnos - Dragon Shaman of Thunder Spirit Zamasham

I had a hunch it might be a hazzle to deal with in terms of requests.

Can a familiar and master (exclusively) not communicate telepathically?

Any thoughts on the death of a familiar?

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This was my belief as well, which is how I've seen some RP the possess familiar ability.

1. When you possess and move it about, some people RP that everything it sees of import, it tells you telepathically.
2. You actually possess the familiar and thus everything it sees, you see.

I've mostly done the latter since it seems more in spirit with the actual possess familiar ability, placing my char in a medative trance while he controls it.

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Adair - Druid and part time treant cosplayer

Aye, I have done so as well, due to the meditive state. You are actually knocked out of trance and familiar control if someone runs into you, which is an awesome nwn feat.

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On the familiar ritual: If my mage character hadn't had his familiar before he came to Amia, I believe I would have RPed it here. In his story, the creature that is now his familiar actually followed him for a good while without actually being attached to him. And since he is a sorcerer, when he performed the ritual, he wasn't especially certain of what he was doing, other than it felt right. For him, it consisted of spending a day "thinking" at the creature until it eventually "thought" back. Or at least, it "felt" back. As a sorcerer, I RP his link as a lot more emphatic, than explicitly telepathic, though after being at someone's side for 100+ years, I imagine there's not much difference in the end game. They're to a point now where to anger one is to anger the other. And even more interesting, their emotions sometimes seek through the other, the familiar betraying feelings that the master might be masking and the master subtly getting feedback upon the familiar's contentment near or far. He may even use it as an emotional reservoir at time. If he's in a situation that he can't afford to be angry in, he briefly shunts a bit of that emotion over to his familiar, though he doesn't often do this, because as the two are one, it eventually comes back to him in one form or another anyway.

On the death of a familiar: I actually RP the familiar's body staying a lot of the time. If the master wants him to teleport away before he gets killed, he usually unsummons him manually. Beyond the initial pain(magical damage), I don't RP any extra penalties. On an emotional level, if the familiar dies, my mage feels a brief emptiness or loss of a subset of his consciousness. But after that, nothing. And that nothing is actually the sensation that lets him know the thing has been killed, as he's used to getting constant feedback. Like feeling the clothes on your body, you feel them throughout the day to the point where it kind of falls to the background of your senses, but if your shirt were to suddenly disappear you'd become well aware that you didn't have one on very quickly.

Telepathy: Again, my mage does not usually consciously communicate with the familiar on a telepathic basis. Instead, he subtly experiences what it does, is doing, and what is being done to it when in proximity. However, he does possess it quite often. And the familiar sometimes gives him an emotional "heads up" to let his master know that "There's something you'd probably like to see now" or "there's something I can't understand/confused/help me." If he wants the familiar to do something on its own, he communicates it by simply the emotion or feeling itself. Instead of "pick up that box, familiar" like telepathy would have, he creates the sensation in his head of picking up the box as his familiar. And this intent of will alone is enough to let the familiar know what is request of it.

Possessing: When possessing it, he fully sees, experiences, and feels the familiar's body. And he can still feel his to a certain extent, though his body now feels like the familiar's body usually feels, distant and only subtly. He could be alerted to come back to his body by pain, his name called or a good shove, but by no means would he have to. It kind of sucks that NWN mechanics make you auto-un-possess on being damaged, because my mage actually uses his familiar tactically, and sometimes taking the brunt of the enemy's blows while possessing his familiar to carry out an intricate action is part of the plan. I'd at least wish there was a concentration check and just an alert that you were damaged.

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I've always played my fey as a nightmare court fey familiar, giving Calthir her own personality fitting for a character of this mentality.

Of course, Im no lore genius, so for all I know nightmare court feythings might not even become familiars of evil spell casters.

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Slander [Zanthair Akarupa of the Horsemen of the Apcalypse] - Sorcerer 'Mediocreare'
Isendu't'tar Ussen'd'Vhid d'My'ana'd'Xull'd'Vharcan - possibly the longest name in Amia
Tiffany Seagrass - weak and fragile weaver of words

Please change the title of this thread. I am sick of seeing that cliché phrase repeated as though it were clever.

kk. Was meant to point out what the thread was about. The familar and you, ie. the link between caster and familiar, but you know that. Done. No more "... and you".

Thanks for the responses so far. Anyone rp reviving their familiar if it dies?

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I've done that, yes. ...I think with my companions too-- like if the bird gets struck down ((and then mechanically unsummoned)), I'll RP scooping it up and carefully putting it in a bag, bandaging it up, etc. ...Hard when they're large though. And I always wondered if Tulip goes "pop" when he gets struck down. Considering I realize now (...I blame my ignorance when I created Bubbles all those years ago) that the way I've RPed Tulip is crap for lore, however, I think I'll shut up on the rest of the topic. I've honestly wondered how I can repair that now that I know my lore better.

Edit. . . I'm working on something to make that better lore . . . . didn't mean to derail.

BUT... Yes, I RP when they get struck down.

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(Haha, I love what you changed the thread title to.)

On Amia, summoning familiars (and having them disappear when they die/coming back at full health when they return) always struck me as very similar to those little stone figurine magic items that spend all their time in the Astral Plane. I just RP that (sans the Stone Figurine, I figure it's a summon you develop as part of the spell to get the Familiar in the first place). Like, it shows up and then you place an enchantment on it so that its life force is linked to yours, and as long as you're still around, you can keep bringing it back.

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Mathus, Void Apostle of the New Moon

So I take it that when a familiar dies, the master does not have to wait a year and a day, or the Fort saves, etc. ?

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Ravens can talk? OMG. Vindels getting a new bird >.>

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Christopher Von Gradwitz- Weapons Master
Vindel Rastana- Spellsword

typically i dont rp my familiar dying due to maggot not actually caring if he does. i would say that because of the way the mechanics look, (and im only thinking about outsiders right now so bear with me) that they take lethal damage but it only breaks the magic bind on them holding them in the material (or wherever you are) plane. this interruption causes the mage some stress IE: damage and the monster is "unsummoned" against the masters will. when it is instantly resummoned at full health, well, the closest thing i know of that does that are those figurines that were mentioned. so idk the whole thing is wonky.
also someone mentioned that the familiars werent meant to be combative? panther... end of story, it can basically solo everything youll ever need to get to 30.
beside the point...
as for possession, i think it is a telepathic bond type of thing where the master is NOT in a trance (unless your busy doing something intense with your familiar like directing an entire fight far away) and the familiar relays all information. when i do this i often switch between the familiar and master to emote them interacting with each other. this is also very doable with the emote widget now but less time consuming and obvious. im sure some people RP much more heavily with their familiars than I do but maggot just doesnt think that way, his pet is nothing more than a tool, not a friend. He only keeps him around with fear and dirty dealings with higher ups in the abyss. he has had the same familiar for his whole career (although i admit to using the panther for a few levels but the rp was crap) beginning at lvl 1. its in his backstory as are most of the mages i make, i rarely every switch familiars so i cant say anything on that rly.

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Plays-
Maggot Bucktooth (Retired)
Giando Paladrious (Retired)