Discussion:Death of a Familiar! What do we do?

The Familiar was killed, what do we do now?

Mander 19:57, 31 January 2008

In last nights game, a new player (sorceress) was using her owl familiar to deliver a Shocking Grasp spell. During this the owl was killed. She is a rather new player and she is sad that she lost the owl so soon. What are some ideas for brining this owl back? Repairing this should be difficult because she should not have been endangering her friend owl like she was, but on the other hand it should not be to difficult to repair because I want her to have an owl.

Any ideas?

Eiji 20:58, 31 January 2008 (MST)

According to the rules... you lose some xp when it dies. However, after that you can raise it as per any character (minus level loss/Con drain since the familiar's powers are based on you, and you've already paid it through the xp loss at death).

I don't know what level you guys are at, but it sounds as if it was possibly low level, pre-raise death if you have a cleric on you. If you're asking for a suggestion on how to have them 'earn' a scroll of raise dead or a cleric's aid, I can do that too. Just off the top of my head here...

"The local cleric at the nearest town has been missing for some time after going out to Place X. Please see if you can find him, it should be far." And segway into a side quest, looking for the errant high level cleric and his fate. You save him from whatever delays him and in return he offers a rez, which you can use on your owl. Does this help? -- Eiji 20:58, 31 January 2008 (MST)

Aarnott 21:13, 31 January 2008 (MST)

If you can swing it, get the night chicken to have SRD:Reincarnate cast on it. First of course, swindle your DM into making an animal table. We did this once and reincarnated a hawk (which is better than an owl imho) into a horse. Sure we didn't get the brown bear on the table, but horses are a lot better than hawks. Level 4 druid spells are easier to get as well (level 7 characters). You could always have the player tough it out until then.

Pwsnafu 16:02, 6 February 2008 (MST)

Sure we didn't get the brown bear on the table, but horses are a lot better than hawks.

A bear familiar? Eeek! O_0;

Half HP of a d4 HD character means it can't engage in combat, and large size makes it harder to hide. A large walking XP sink tank is still an XP sink tank.

Aarnott 16:38, 6 February 2008 (MST)

Who cares about its hp. You put on spiked barding, some protection spells and let it grapple the crap out of stuff. Share spells is a first level ability. Mirror Image is a great way to stop it from dying. Displacement is also a great option. I just enjoy the mental picture of an armored bear grabbing an orc and rolling around with it until it dies. The horse probably is much more handy though. Good for mobile spellcasting since you don't have to make any action to direct your steed. I suppose it can also grapple well, but that seems a little stupid to me [1].

Penske 18:55, 6 February 2008 (MST)

Ahh.. I remember when my sorceress friend lost her familiar.. She didn't even have it for a day, and it died because she thought it would be a good idea for a hawk to swoop down, attack a goblin, and kill it. Turned out the goblin saw it coming, dunked, and the hawk crash landed into the ground. She morned about it for the rest of the day and we convinced our paladin friend to get it resurrected for her. Good times..good times!

This is almost exactly what happend in our game. Tomarrow is the next installment. I have decided her bird will stay with her, in a very hard to detect ghost form. If some one rolls high enough spot check they will be able to notice the faint outline of the owl on the sorcers sholder. They will still have to find a way to resorect it, but atlest they wont have to cary the dead bird around, basicly im giving them that for free.--Mander 19:13, 29 February 2008 (MST)

Eiji 21:12, 6 February 2008 (MST)

(Waxing nostalgic too) I remember Meon, my wizard tank with a ferret familiar. He had very good hp for a wizard thanks to high Con and which classes he eventually took. Anyway, it gave his ferret a fair amount of hp as well. So when we raided the castle of the BBEG and he sent his huge guards with warhammers after us, I eventually was stuck in position, so I sent my ferret to give a touch attack and deliver a powerful spell.

Well, I did the spell, and then immediately got smashed for massive amounts of damage on my poor ferret.... who survived the impact from something 20' tall and all muscle.

The BBEG was scrying on us at the time. I think he soiled his armor... we already had the reputation that were were unstoppable monsters. And apparently so are our pets. Good times, good times...

Sam Kay 12:25, 8 February 2008 (MST)

Whats even worse than a slain familliar is a slain spider rider's mount. Last time that happened to me, I was surrounded by two epicified mariliths and a daemon lord...

Othtim 23:46, 16 February 2008 (MST)

Did you live?

Sam Kay 09:27, 20 February 2008 (MST)

Yeah. We weren't supposed to win the battle... A portal appeared behind us and we ran. Somehow, my character managed to overcome his feelings of rage at the daemons and escape (bringing the spider) with the Spider Jump ability. Oh, and the Druid's Animal Companion died as well... It was farely useless anyway.

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