Familiar Revision

[Salk]

Instead perhaps

Good: Pseudo Dragon (LG), Nixie? (NG), Fairy Dragon (CG) -fey/draconic

Neutral: Cat (LN), Ferret (TN), Spider (CN) -animal types

Evil: Imp (LE), Mephit (NE), Quasit (CE) -demonic types

This would work, if we can replace the cat with something animal mage type. Black cat? With Doom, Horror and Finger of Death.

 

It would work fine, yes.

 

But Cat should keep its CN place and Spider go to LN.

[Salk]

Demi,

 

could we possibly think of employing the baby wyvern animation as last draconic type?

 

The question is: what kind of familiar could suit such animation?

 

Is there a wyvern-like creature of small size?

[Demivrgvs]

Instead perhaps

Good: Pseudo Dragon (LG), Nixie? (NG), Fairy Dragon (CG) -fey/draconic

Neutral: Cat (LN), Ferret (TN), Spider (CN) -animal types

Evil: Imp (LE), Mephit (NE), Quasit (CE) -demonic types

This would work, if we can replace the cat with something animal mage type. Black cat? With Doom, Horror and Finger of Death.

I've already stated that familiar's classes don't play a major role at all, and a good example is that both Imp and Quasit are almost surely mage-like familiar and both are evil without doubts.

 

 

Familiar's alignments

 

LG: Pseudo Dragon actually is a NG creature, but it filled the LG "slot" and I don't see much problems about it.

 

NG: I'd love to implement either here or in the LG slot a Pixie/Nixie, but I don't have an animation for that. We may move here the Ferret if we want a good-aligned rougue-like familiar, though I like Eros' suggestion (good aligned: fey/draconics, neutral-aligned: animals, evil-aligned: demonic).

 

CG: Faerie Dragon is a CG creature and already filled the CG slot, which is perfect.

 

LN: I would have liked to use a Bat but the attack's animation looks really weird imo.

 

TN: looking at the lore Dust Mephit actually isn't evil at all! Thus if we want a mage-like familiar for the neutral alignment it's a sensible choice imo.

 

CN: Cat is a CN animal and will remain the CN familiar. Spider is a TN creature, it can fill either the LT or TN slot, but surely not the CN.

 

LE: Imp is a LE creature and already filled the LE slot, which is perfect.

 

NE: if we move the Dust Mephit to neutral creatures I've only two options in mind to fill this slot using the current animations at my disposal, either a Hellhound (as NWN) or a small Troll (which is interesting but unusual perhaps).

 

CE: Mephit is a CE creature and already filled the CG slot, which is perfect.

 

 

Familiars vs. Improved Familiars

 

Animal type familiars are the only ones taken from the common Familiar list in the manual, while draconic and demonic type familiars belong to the Improved Familiar list and in PnP they can be summoned only at higher level. Familiars from the latter list are clearly much more powerful than plain animals, because they generally have special qualities, resistances, immunities and spell-like abilities. Thus, unless we replace all animals with different creatures (I don't think we can) we have to consider them very special animals, not normal ones.

 

In PnP's Improved Familiar list normal animals are replaced with magical versions like a celestial hawk, a fiendish snake, and so on. Thus we may consider our Cat a sort of tiny "Displacer Beast", the Spider as a rare magical specimen, and so on.

 

A noticeable familiar type from the Improved Familiar list which we may think about implementing is the small Elemental (Air, Fire and Earth), but elementals probably suit a druid more than a mage.

 

P.S I can't promise anything, but if I'll ever work on kits for SR I'd give druids their animal companion, summoned with a sort of Find Familiar spell (e.g. Panther, Wolf, Leopard) and the Beast Master should have a similar treatment.

 

 

could we possibly think of employing the baby wyvern animation as last draconic type?

 

The question is: what kind of familiar could suit such animation?

 

Is there a wyvern-like creature of small size?

Actually both Pseudodragon and Faerie Dragon use a wyvern_familiar animation which is a even smaller version of the Wyvern. The baby wyvern is already too big imo to suit a familiar creature.

[Salk]

Demi,

 

the Pseudo Dragon fills both the NG and the LG slots so if the PnP alignment of the Pseudo Dragon is NG, there is no problem assigning that slot to him

 

Let's see what familiars we are sure about (both alignment and type):

 

- Quasit will be CE

- Imp will be LE

- Cat will be CN

- Fairy Dragon will be CG

 

All the rest seems to be needing further discussion.

 

And yes, eros' tripartition (good: draconic/fey, neutral: animals, evil: demoniac) is really very good and welcome. But without proper animation there is no way we can do that... unless we use again the same animation used for fairy and pseudo dragon for a third dragon-type creature that we might introduce.

 

About Improved Familiars vs Familiars, I think we should "promote" the normal familiars so that they can be on par of the Improved Familiars.

 

I don't think we need to change anything about their name, shape or look though: it's enough to make them special magical creature. After all, even a common animal type (spider, ferret, cat) to be a familiar must be special somehow.

 

Keep it coming, Demi!

[Demivrgvs]

Just a quick thought, aren't most of the current familiars too big to be able to rest in the backpack?! It's ok for the ferret and the cat, but a pseudodragon or an imp/quasit body is 2 feet long, not to mention the wings and the tail are quite cumbersome!

[Salk]

Suspension of disbelief is required here.

[Jarno Mikkola]

Ahh, but you haven't see the "Simon the Sorcerer" tricks we do everyday in the Forgotten Realms. Or how do you think the Orc Berserker can put 20 Full Plate Mails into his backpack.

[Icendoan]

You mean 16. There are 16 slots.

 

Icen

[Demivrgvs]

Suspension of disbelief is required here.

Ahh, but you haven't see the "Simon the Sorcerer" tricks we do everyday in the Forgotten Realms. Or how do you think the Orc Berserker can put 20 Full Plate Mails into his backpack.

You're right...but still I wouldn't consider to work on a hell hound familiar anymore due to this feature. I can barely tolerate an imp taking a nap in a backpack, but a bigger creature is really too much imo.

 

 

P.S. I have very little time and it seems I'm going to have even less time in the weeks to come, if there's anyone willing to help let me know! The biggest issues imo are the dialog files and the scripts for the level up system (especially for mage-like familiars).

[Icendoan]

Right, so my Firkraag Familiar suggestion is out of the window then.

 

Icen

[Salk]

Dust Mephit: Their alignment is reported to be "usually neutral" (as for all mephits) but having them on the NE slot is not a blasphemy so I would really think that no changes are needed across the Evil axis. However we could replace him (if there is a suitable animation available) with the Eyeball, which is a familiar with a Neutral Evil alignment.

 

About the animals: I think we can all agree about having the Spider as Lawful Neutral, the Ferret as True Neutral and the Cat as Chaotic Neutral. This would mean removing the rabbit completely from the list.

 

The draconics/fey: here is where the problems arise. We do not have animations for a nixie (which would just be the ideal choice, as per Eros' suggestion) so we must find an alternative. Ideally it should be another draconic creature of small dimension. In this case we could employ the same animations that Pseudo and Fairy dragons use already. The problem is that there is no such creature so we must think of something else. My suggestion is: we keep the Dust Mephit (Air) as NE familiar and we place the Salt Mephit (from the Earth Plane so ideally opposite to the Dust Mephit) as NG familiar. For the Salt Mephit we can easily use the Dust Mephit animations.

 

So that the new table would be:

 

Lawful Good: Pseudo Dragon

Neutral Good: Salt Mephit

Chaotic Good: Fairy Dragon

 

Lawful Neutral: Spider

True Neutral: Ferret

Chaotic Neutral: Cat

 

Lawful Evil: Imp

Neutral Evil: Dust Mephit

Chaotic Evil: Quasit

 

I hope we can soon be ready with this phase which has already taken too much time!

[Guest eros]

Dust Mephit: Their alignment is reported to be "usually neutral" (as for all mephits) but having them on the NE slot is not a blasphemy so I would really think that no changes are needed across the Evil axis. However we could replace him (if there is a suitable animation available) with the Eyeball, which is a familiar with a Neutral Evil alignment.

 

About the animals: I think we can all agree about having the Spider as Lawful Neutral, the Ferret as True Neutral and the Cat as Chaotic Neutral. This would mean removing the rabbit completely from the list.

 

The draconics/fey: here is where the problems arise. We do not have animations for a nixie (which would just be the ideal choice, as per Eros' suggestion) so we must find an alternative. Ideally it should be another draconic creature of small dimension. In this case we could employ the same animations that Pseudo and Fairy dragons use already. The problem is that there is no such creature so we must think of something else. My suggestion is: we keep the Dust Mephit (Air) as NE familiar and we place the Salt Mephit (from the Earth Plane so ideally opposite to the Dust Mephit) as NG familiar. For the Salt Mephit we can easily use the Dust Mephit animations.

 

So that the new table would be:

 

Lawful Good: Pseudo Dragon

Neutral Good: Salt Mephit

Chaotic Good: Fairy Dragon

 

Lawful Neutral: Spider

True Neutral: Ferret

Chaotic Neutral: Cat

 

Lawful Evil: Imp

Neutral Evil: Dust Mephit

Chaotic Evil: Quasit

 

I hope we can soon be ready with this phase which has already taken too much time!

 

 

 

That seems like a really good idea the idea of another mephit is perfect, and using an old animation should hopefully save Demi some time, which is as good for us as it is for Demi

[Jarno Mikkola]

Well, the at least in some mods or in the original game, I don't remember, the wizards eye has a floating eye animation...

Now, the spider... How in the Unheaven do you believe it to be a Lawful Neutral creature?

As there is only one Lawful Neutral spider in the whole game, and that's the Wraith Spider, all the others are either True Neutral or Chaotic Evil-> which leads me to believe that they should all be Chaotic Neutral!

 

Plus the Dragonic/Fey+ Animal + Demonic is kinda bad, as none of the dragons are actually metallic which the lore say to be good... and the Mephits are definetly all evil... and the common ferret today is a domesticated version of the original natural variant.

[Salk]

Jarno,

 

first of all both Pseudo and Fairy dragons are Good draconics as for PnP sources so their place in there is not under discussion. The Pseudo dragon is actually NG but in the vanilla he appears as both LG and NG choice.

 

Animals are TN in alignment but you realize that there are three slots to fill for them, right?

 

Spider's being LN was Demi's idea to let the Ferret take the TN place. And I think it's a good solution.

[Salk]

Dust Mephit: Their alignment is reported to be "usually neutral" (as for all mephits) but having them on the NE slot is not a blasphemy so I would really think that no changes are needed across the Evil axis. However we could replace him (if there is a suitable animation available) with the Eyeball, which is a familiar with a Neutral Evil alignment.

 

About the animals: I think we can all agree about having the Spider as Lawful Neutral, the Ferret as True Neutral and the Cat as Chaotic Neutral. This would mean removing the rabbit completely from the list.

 

The draconics/fey: here is where the problems arise. We do not have animations for a nixie (which would just be the ideal choice, as per Eros' suggestion) so we must find an alternative. Ideally it should be another draconic creature of small dimension. In this case we could employ the same animations that Pseudo and Fairy dragons use already. The problem is that there is no such creature so we must think of something else. My suggestion is: we keep the Dust Mephit (Air) as NE familiar and we place the Salt Mephit (from the Earth Plane so ideally opposite to the Dust Mephit) as NG familiar. For the Salt Mephit we can easily use the Dust Mephit animations.

 

So that the new table would be:

 

Lawful Good: Pseudo Dragon

Neutral Good: Salt Mephit

Chaotic Good: Fairy Dragon

 

Lawful Neutral: Spider

True Neutral: Ferret

Chaotic Neutral: Cat

 

Lawful Evil: Imp

Neutral Evil: Dust Mephit

Chaotic Evil: Quasit

 

I hope we can soon be ready with this phase which has already taken too much time!

 

 

 

That seems like a really good idea the idea of another mephit is perfect, and using an old animation should hopefully save Demi some time, which is as good for us as it is for Demi

 

Nice to see we are reaching the end of it...