Winning Races: Eladrin

Beyond the Spiral Tower is a four-page article that provides a quartet of feats for unorthodox eladrin that want more support for arcane classes that aren’t wizard–specifically artificers and warlocks–since as it stands they have two feats for artificers and jack shit for warlocks (note that I’m only counting heroic feats since that’s what the article mostly provides). I suppose swordmages should have gotten some props since they have all of one so far, but then I like artificers and warlocks more so, fuck it, I’m happy.

The synergy here is great. Artificers can take feats that grant them a bonus on a few class skills (effectively Skill Focus doubled), teleport their conjuration effects or summons, grant a free save with bonus when using healing infusion on the target (including yourself), and at 11th-level Feywild Propulsion gives all summoned creatures a teleport speed. At a glance Arcane Repositioning seems weak since it can only teleport one thing within 5 squares, while Redistribute Minions lets you teleport all your shit no matter where they are, but keep in mine that Arcane Repositioning triggers as a free action and can move your conjuration effects: it’s not limited to only creatures.

For warlocks, you can take Eldritch Blade to get an attack bonus when using longswords with eldritch strike, deal Int-based bonus damage on eldritch blasts (all the time), regain fey step instead of the normal pact boon once per encounter, or render yourself invisible to enemies that take curse damage. Very fucking cool.

As an added bonus, there’s also three new familiars, complete with a feat. Fey Familiar lets you teleport your familiar when you use fey step, so long as they aren’t too far away. The new familiars are fiddling grig, faerie dragonling, and coure attendant.

• The grig lets you master and perform bard rituals, acts as a focus for bard rituals that demand an instrument, and when active can immobilize adjacent enemies that you hit with arcane attacks. I think I found a new familiar for Liz. >_>
• The dragonling grants a Bluff bonus, a one-time penalty to saves against charm and illusions, and has a close blast 3 breath attack that it can use when active. Doesn’t deal any damage, but makes them vulnerable to radiant damage.
• Finally, the coure attendant is a pixie-ish eladrin type thing that grants an Arcana bonus, can grab items for you, and makes enemies count the area around you as difficult terrain. When active it can turn into a ball of light that makes it harder to hit, creates light, and causes enemies that end their turns in the light to grant combat advantage (to you only).

Dragon: Familiars by Artifice

Just in case you play D&D in several temporal dimensions at the same time, and managed to play out all of the existing familiar options, Wizards has seen fit to push out another article chock full of the Tiny bastards.

Its primarily geared towards Eberron, but you can use them anywhere with a few name changes when it concerns stuff like dragonshards/marks. The author is quick to point out that magical tattoos, which can be found in Adventurer’s Vault 2, work great for replacing dragonmarks…not that we actually know what those will do until next month.
The article has a few quips from future releases that it “recommends”, its just too bad that we have no fucking clue what they are/do. As an avid Eberron player, this doesnt effect me at all. Hell, it wouldnt even matter if I wanted to use it in my homebrew games, since I’m perfectly fine to change a few names or fiddle with the prereqs.

Concerning the actual familiars, there are quite a few: 14 Heroic, 7 Paragon, and 2 Epic, and there arent any reprints. Some of them have leader-like qualities, such as the dragonmark reflection which buffs your healing infusion when active, or the clockwork scorpion which lets you or an adjacent ally benefit from its stored poison.
Best Heroic-tier familiar goes to the tome caddy, which lets you use a tome as an implement even if you cant, and when active lets you use a tome hands-free in addition to boosting summoned monsters.
Best Paragon-tier goes to the minor foulspawn, which looks like, “an inside-out cat with three eyes and two mouths.” What can I say? I like cats. That aside, it gives you a bonus to Dungeoneering and fear effects, but also can babble a bunch of insane shit at something you hit with an arcane power, dealing bonus psychic damage.
There are only two Epic-tier familiars, so I’ll just give best familiar to the lingering nightmare by virtue that the other one is thematic to the Silver Flame, and I just dont care for them. A lingering nightmare is psychic residue that looks like a small cloud that changes with the master’s mood. It gives you a bonus to Intimidate and resist psychic when passive. When active it lumps on a random condition whenever you hit something with a fear effect. Each time. Very cool.

There are seven feats, each of which obviously boosts your familiar in some fashion. You can make it bigger, allowing it to flank for a bit, let it move 20 squares farther away than normal, or create an energy shield that reduces damage but also shields your familiar completely from harm. Ranges from nifty to meh, but mostly good.

There’s also a set of four magic items, three of which are for the Familiar item slot. One of them is a magical jar that your familiar can ‘port into when destroyed. The others are basically various collars that let you teleport to your familiar, grant a bonus to defenses, and provide cover when your familiar is in the same area as a larger creature.

The paragon path, familiar bloodsmith, is an artificer paragon path that lets you regain bonus hit points when you burn a healing surge and your familiar is in passive mode, originate attacks from your familiar when you spend an action point, and get two familiars at level 16 (one be Heroic tier).
Bloodbond rebuke lets you knock an enemy back if they use an attack that has your familiar as a target, rescue familiar lets you teleport your familiar to your square in passive mode immediately after slain, and bloodbond swarm lets you turn your familiar into a mobile zone that deals automatic damage with a slow effect (your familiar is restored when the power ends).

People Actually Hate Familiars?

Clearly, some people are not satisfied with familiars. The OP on the thread doesnt like them because he thinks they are somehow too…weak? I’m sorry, but this is bullshit.

In 3rd Edition, familiars had half as many hit points as the master did, rounded down. A level 1 wizard probably had 4 hit points, meaning that the familiar had all of 2. If it was a toad, it then got 3 since they granted the Toughness feat (+3 hit points, flat rate). On average, its going to go down on the first hit, even on extremely low damage roll: your average goblin has a 66% chance of taking it out on any given hit, assuming it even wants to bother. I mean lets be honest: why would anyone want to attack your familiar? Its not like its doing anything except standing in as Skill Focus or Toughness.

Thats all well and good for single-target attacks, but lets take into account area-effect attacks. Familiars do not by default have any way of avoiding an attack, and while they have improved evasion, it will be harder and harder for them to successefully avoid area attacks as the party increases in level since their saves are based on the master (and wizards have shit for Reflex). If the monster has some kind of aura effect that just deals flat damage, then the familiar is screwed.

And for what? What does a familiar actually do? Not much.

You can share your spells with your familiar, so mage armor and shield can benefit the both of you with one casting. You can have your familiar deliver a touch spell, and while this might be handy in some cases its probably not a very intelligent move to try (especially if the monster has reach and/or can see it coming). Umm…it can speak with animals of its own type, and eventually can even speak to you.

You cant even argue that a familiar can be used as a role-playing foil since it cannot even talk to you until about midway through your career. Its also not very intelligent until that point, so its not like you can engage in conversations about the nuances of arcane theory or anything more complicated than eating or taking a dump.

Familiars in 4E each provide useful benefits for your character. Much of the time they grant bonuses to skills, or perhaps damage resistances. Sometimes they give you bonus languages. The point is that one feat gives you benefits that can add up beyond a feat. This isnt even counting the bonuses gained from active mode, which are certainly worth more than that. The caveat is that active mode carries risks, but not the kind that basically make you waste a feat for a year or so.

The fact that familiars do not permanently die has lead to the bizarre conclusion that these are World of WarCraft pets (because apparently association with WoW is a hell-worthy sin). First of all, if you want to argue about familiars being WoW pets you should be complaining about the beastmaster ranger class feature, especially given that you even have to use your own actions to command the thing (although to be fair you could set pet behaviors in WoW).
I frankly do not understand why some people see a mechanic, and clamor that it sucks because this-or-that game already did it. Part of good game design is playing other games and discovering what makes them work. If you see a good design element, why not use it for your own game? Halo had their own regenerating shield gimmick that was later cribbed for Resistance and Uncharted to great effect.

However…familiars are nothing like WoW pets, they just operate in a different manner than what you’re used to. First of all, they arent magically enhanced animals, but arcane energy given shape. Who are you to say how magic operates in a fantasy world? Why cant wizards have functionally useful magical companions that they can reshape given a sufficient amount of breathing room? Because its “not how it used to work”, or “because I dont like it”? If you want people to burn a feat that they will randomly lose access to for however long you feel like, then houserule it. Make them have to wait a year, or 1001 days, or whatever floats your boat, to get it back.

There’s no reason why you cant use familiars now and not have them fulfill the same function as they did before, except that now they’re smart enough to actually interact with you instead of playing the part of Lassy and forcing to figure out what the fuck they want.

Its a fucking game, and the designers want us to have fun with it. Its not fun to have your class feature killed off by accident, take a XP dive, and then have to wait around for a year or so before you can get it back. I’m glad they changed them. I want to use them, and I feel that its worth the feat. If anything I feel sorry for beastmaster rangers because they cant just pull another beast companion out of their ass if they lose one in the middle of combat.

What it all boils down to is that they’re still companions in every sense, they’re just useful companions. They can actually help you out and can provide entertaiment, especially if you give one a personality and play out some of the many recommended quirks. Sorry, there’s no possible way I can agree with either stance.

Dragon: Get Familiar

This. Is. Awesome.

Before Arcane Power is even out, we get a slew of new familiars for all tiers: 13 for Heroic, 14 for Paragon, and 4 for Epic. There’s a section on choosing a familiar based on your personality, class, or spell style, personalities and quirks given for each individual familiar, a paragon path that enhances it, and four new feats.

This is an excellent article, filled with crunch that everyone can use if you like familiars at all. There’s a lot of cool stuff packed here that I’m looking forward to using with my tiefling bard and fire-based wizard. Hell, I’m tempted to take Arcane Familiar with basically every arcane character I play, now.

Arcane Power "Prerelease", Part 2

SpringsBoundlessThorns has posted like, all of the familiars on RPGnet. If you like these, then look forward to this Monday when Dragon introduces even more familiars to the mix.

FEATS

First, feats. You need to take Arcane Familiar to get one, and you can apparently take the feat more than once to give it a defense bonus.

Bonded Familiar allows you to communicate via telepathy.

Shielding Familiar grants you a Reflex bonus while your familiar is passive, and you can destroy your familiar to reduce the damage from an attack that hits you.

Spellseer Familiar grants you a bonus to attacks against creatures next to your familiar and lets you reroll a missed arcane attack once per day.

I like these because these are feats I’d actually want to take. 3rd Edition had some minor feat trees for familiars, but were generally far too underpowered to make it worth your while. I can see many arcanists picking up at least Spellseer Familiar just for the reroll. I mean, I’d even consider Shielding Familiar for the Reflex boost and ability to take half damage from an attack. Those are pretty cool.

FAMILIAR LIST

Bats have blindsight, can fly, grant you +2 on Perception and Stealth, and can remove concealment from enemies adjacent to them.

The book imp flies, grants a bonus to Arcana and History, helps you understand Infernal, grants fire resistance, and it can turn invisible until the end of your next turn. I really wanted a bat familiar just to irk Adrian, but this seems perfect for a fire-based tiefling. Le sigh…

Cats can have vestigial wings as a quick (see below).

A craft homunculus not only turns enemies into statues, but also imposes a penalty to use alchemical items and is itself immune to them.

Dragonlings can fly, give you Draconic, grant bonus hit points with a healing surge usage, and it can use a breath attack.

Falcons can fly, grant a bonus to Perception and against opportunity attacks, let you determine range from their position once per encounter, and can go twice as far from you as normal.

Owls have low-light vision, fly, add a variable bonus to Insight checks, and you can see through its eyes as a standard action.

Rats grant a bonus to Stealth, can carry objects up to 2 lbs., and can make Thievery checks with a +2 bonus! Thats fucking rad. Also, they get a +5 to Stealth.

Serpents grant a bonus to Bluff, let you ignore a difficult terrain space for shifting, and they can stop all adjacent creatures from making opportunity attacks for a turn.

Spiders can climb, grant a bonus to Athetics for climbing purposes, impose a penalty to saves against immobilize and slow conditions, and can slide an object within 5 squares 2 squares as long as it doesnt weigh more than 5 lbs.

Ravens can fly, grant a big Perception bonus to find hidden stuff, and can speak any language you know. They can converse with other creatures, and you can hear everything it says and also dictate what it says. Interesting.

Now, these are much, much better than their 3rd Edition counterparts, which were almost entirely character dressing that didnt do much except perform as a Tiny-sized XP writeoff. They couldnt really do much of anything because they were too stupid until you hit a certain level, and honestly you were probably better off just not taking one until higher level because they instantly got all the cool shit. That is, assuming you didnt prestige-out into something actually useful, like elemental savant or mage of the arcane order, of course.

I have a couple arcane characters right now, and I’m going to give a bat to my tiefling cunning bard, and probably a book imp to my tiefling summoner wizard.

Quirks are suggestions for various familiars to make them more interesting, I suppose. SpringsBoundlessThorns didnt really go into detail on this. There is apparently a section on how your familiar changes from passive to active mode (appearing in a puff of smoke, changing from a stone statue to flesh, etc).

Familiars cannot be attacked unless they are in active mode. This makes it a lot easier to manage them in 3E where it was possible for t hem to randomly die due to an area attack unless your DM was kind and/or forgot that they were even there.
They only got 1 hit point, basically functioning as a minion. If they die, they dont hurt you in any way, and reform after a short/extended rest. They arent magically treated animals: they are “mystic energy given form”, which sounds a lot more thematic and interesting than before.