This is dumb, but I've developed an aversion to my wizard's toad familiar. After searching here, I discovered how to get rid of it again (I mean, apparently, just so that it doesn't show up on screen in the party), so I can just ignore it, I'm sure. But I've got a couple of questions: 1) Are any of the familiars useful? I'm not really sure what they do (increase spot and listen checks, I think), but I mean, are any useful in combat or anything? At my party's low level, the druid's jackal companion has been very useful. And, of course, I wouldn't expect a toad to be any big help in combat. Heh, heh. But are any of them useful in the party? 2) Is there any way to change my wizard's familiar. I don't suppose there's an in-game way, but can I edit her character file or anything? (It would have to be something very simple.) I said this was dumb, and it really is. The fact of the matter is that I've got a very, very bad habit of always wanting to start over in a game to tweak my characters a bit. I'm never satisfied, even when it's just the smallest change. It's dumb, because if I give in to it, I just keep playing the start of the game over and over again without getting anywhere! And in this case, I guess, the only thing I could find to dislike is this poor little toad. Heh, heh. Well, what can I say? It IS pretty dumb, isn't it? And I'm not going to restart the game just for that... But is there a simple way to change familiars? And if so, is there any reason to pick a different one?
The toad familiar grants your wizard +3 hit points, possibly the most useful power granted by the familiars in ToEE.
I agree. There was some talk about Psuedodragon, Imp, etc familiars a while back, more COMBAT familiars, but I believe it was dropped as it didn't fit the "spirit" of familiars. They AREN'T animal companions, and they should never be in combat, because if they die, you must wait 1 year in game time to get another... you'd have won (or lost) the game by that time...
Unless they do something cool like doubling all your 1st through 5th level spells, I would just get rid of it. Too much of a pain to deal with constantly, watching out for it and whatnot.
You do know to TALK to your familiar with a PC to get him to away, don't you? It will continue to provide its master with the benefits but not be a liability in battle
I didn't know that until this morning, but yeah, that's what I'll do. I guess I didn't notice the hit point increase. Really? My wizard has few enough hit points that I should have noticed. OK, I guess I like Toady the familiar after all. Thanks for the replies!
Meh. It's more hassle than it's worth. Unless it doubles all your daily spells or something. It's not going to provide you with anything significant. It's more of a roleplaying thing. If you still get the benefit of this thing and can just talk to him to make him go away, why would you ever summon him back and risk losing him to some monster or something? I want a sword that I can leave at home and give me an extra feat whereever I go. Is that going to be in TotWC? :yes:
75% more HP at lvl 1 is pretty cool. Heck, I've seen people passionately argue that fighters should always take Toughness at lvl 1, since 30% more HP is just the bees knees. As well as a PsuedoDragon and another familiar you might find along the way (which is so cool I don't dare mention it here) I was thinking of adding these from a splatbook: Box Turtle: +1 natural AC (remeshed umber hulk model) Raccoon: +3 Sleight of Hand, the little rascal (remeshed giant rat model) And the Lizard will have its Climb bonus reinstated in KotB. Any opinions on these? Or would people still go the Toad? (I always do )
I like the snake familiar personally, it's not too strong in combat, and your enemies are more than likely to be dead before the poison it injects into them acually causes negative effectson them, but I still get a kick out of it when it poisons my foes, as for the best combattant familiar, I think it's probably the cat familiar. You can dismiss your familiar if you really don't like it, then pass time for about 400 days or something to get the option to summon a new familiar - strange how Troika implemented this use of in game time but didn't add the time element for crafting magical weapons and armour.
TOEE and Co8 mods are geared towards the spirit of RAW as much as possible, are they not? I don't think use of familiars in combat should be encouraged if that's the case. The extra hps and skill ranks boosts they provide are plenty of nice freebies, plus if you simply keep them in the inventory they won't be in danger. And co8 already provides a nice freebie bag of holding type item so inventory space shouldn't really be an issue. Really, there's already lots of nice freebies provided by co8 that are not over the top; I don't understand why people would complain about familiars not being useful enough. Too many folks used to stupid nwn style uber tank familars...
I'm not trying to be picky, but according to RAW, familiars CAN be used in combat and other situations, although communication is limited before 5th level since it is only empathic communication. Most wizards I've seen don't dare risk their familiars, though, as they don't want to lose either it's bonues (bonusii?) or suffer the experience point loss.
Zagig is correct. Familiars can be used in combat. The problem is that most familiars of low level wizards are weak in combat. Therefore it is better for them to stay out of combat and simply provide the bonuses for your wizard. As your wizard goes up in levels your familiar gets stronger (intelligence increases, natural armor increases, can cast spells, gain feats etc) and it in turn strengths your wizard. At a high enough level the familiar may be able to enter battle and it may be necessary. But at low levels keep your familiar safe, it will grow as you grow.
I'm in the middle of my first game in which I've let my familiar (an owl) out of my backpack. It's great - sure it's horrible in melee but it can use items to summon fungi, lamia, and deliver potion effects. The last game I played I never once used a single potion (why waste a turn of combat to drink a potion?), but now I use them all the time with my familiar who has nothing else to do. My only issue is that the game does not raise the familiar's hit points appropriately. My Barbarian-Wizard (w/ a +6 Con Amulet) has over 120 hit points but the familiar doesn't have nearly the 60+ hit points it should have (or it wouldn't if I hadn't used the console to raise its hit points appropriately with every level). Anybody know if this is planned to be fixed at some point?
VERY INTERESTING... Never knew they could be potion givers... Must remember that at low levels, but at higher levels I have full party slots... so in the backback it would go...
