Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Familiar

First, a feat:
Ritual Knowledge (Familiar)
Prerequisites: Trained in Arcana, Ritual Caster Feat
Benefit: You learn the Familiar Ritual

Then the ritual:

Familiar
You call a portion of your being into the world as a small creature. This creature will be your new familiar.
Level: 4
Category: Creation
Time: 1 hour
Duration: Permanent
Component Cost: 400 GP
Market Price: Unavailable
Key Skill: Arcana
You bring into being a small animal of a type chosen by you. While in all respects it looks like the real thing, it is in fact a part of you. It communicates with you verbally, and speaks the languages you speak. Your familiar possesses a number of Hit Points equal to your Healing Surge value. At the time of creation you lose one healing surge to your familiar and it is only regained on it's destruction or dismissal. The small animal gains all movement types but none of the special abilities of the animal you chose. It must remain within 20 squares of you at all times, or it is dismissed. If your familiar is destroyed by any means you must wait until you take an extended rest to call another. During combat a familiar shares your actions. You may at any time elect to have your familiar take any of your standard, move, or minor actions. A familiar has no natural attack. Your familiar uses your defenses.

Calling a familiar grants the following utility power:
Alter Familiar
With a thought your companion melds into a different, more useful shape
Daily✦ (twice daily) Arcane, Polymorph
Minor Action Ranged 10
Target: Familiar
Effect: Your familiar changes shape into another small animal. As the original it gains the movement types but not the special abilities of the animal it resembles.
Special: At 11th level this becomes four times daily, at 21st it becomes six times daily.

And we add a second feat:
Close bond (Familiar)
Prerequisites: Ritual Knowledge (Familiar) Feat
Benefit: You learn the Deliver Spell Utility Power

Deliver Spell
You gesture with your implement and magic power bursts from your familiar.
Daily ✦ Arcane, Implement
Standard Action Ranged 10
Target: Familiar
Effect: You make all attack rolls and determinations as normal, but the power emanates from your familiar. Powers with the weapon keyword or other powers that rely on a melee or ranged attack do not function in conjunction with this power.

Jay

2 comments:

Noumenon said...

Your familiar sure makes more sense than 3.5E's 30-hit-point lizards.

Jay said...

I like that about it, but since this was worked out I have been converted to the familiar-as-an-implement school of thought. It makes a lot of sense, and granting them a 1/encounter ability would not be any sort of power creep.

However, we had agreed on this one, so Dan will be using it for his Wizard. It has a really nice Golden Compass type feel that we dig, so it stays.

Jay