Familiar Changes

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One Two Three Five
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Familiar Changes

Post by One Two Three Five » Thu Sep 06, 2018 3:38 pm

This apparently needed, so here we go.

so, to get things rolling: Remove the pixie's rogue levels and drop it's lockpicking skills by whatever amount. This prevents it from disabling high DC traps and reduces its usefulness slightly while still making it a semi-viable alternative to a rogue for low to mid level content.

I'm sure there's other ideas for making other familiars useful, right?

Unrelated: some way to get cosmetic/RP familiars/Familiar skins. I miss being able to have just a cat. Or a tiny construct.
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Nitro
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Re: Familiar Changes

Post by Nitro » Thu Sep 06, 2018 3:58 pm

Giving familiars some boons to the caster would be neat, pathfinder style. So the raven might give +spot, panther +hide/MS etc while summoned. Doesn't need to be limited to skills either, could swing for crazier ideas. +1 regen while a certain familiar is out, x/day spells from some familiars etc. Just little things that will incentivize keeping the familiar out but away from combat.

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Richørd
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Re: Familiar Changes

Post by Richørd » Thu Sep 06, 2018 3:58 pm

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing

There you go, a little something I came up with. Still needs to be worked on at the time of me posting it but I might aswell get to it now that the server is up for a restart.

EDIT 1 : I am done with filling out all the blanks. I'd really like to see feedback from anyone that sees this, player of mage-characters or not.
Last edited by Richørd on Thu Sep 06, 2018 4:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Nitro
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Re: Familiar Changes

Post by Nitro » Thu Sep 06, 2018 4:03 pm

Having a quick look at the spreadsheet I disagree with the notion that any familiar should be a "DPS". Traditionally familiars are utility for the master, not just another meatshield to throw on the line of combat. Rangers of druid have an animal companion that does that, no need to chuck one of those at wizards and sorcs as well.

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Richørd
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Re: Familiar Changes

Post by Richørd » Thu Sep 06, 2018 4:08 pm

Nitro wrote:
Thu Sep 06, 2018 4:03 pm
Having a quick look at the spreadsheet I disagree with the notion that any familiar should be a "DPS". Traditionally familiars are utility for the master, not just another meatshield to throw on the line of combat. Rangers of druid have an animal companion that does that, no need to chuck one of those at wizards and sorcs as well.
DPS does not mean that they will be comparable to any PC. Rather that , compared to other familiars , they would fill out such a role. Of course this is just all an idea of mine and can be overthrown by anyone who can come up with something better and more professional.

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One Two Three Five
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Re: Familiar Changes

Post by One Two Three Five » Thu Sep 06, 2018 4:13 pm

I think an important aspect of familiars vs animal companions, also, isn't how useful they are, necessarily, but when.

Animal companions are supposed to be helpful warriors throughout the druid/ranger's leveling life (and need to be there, as part of the, to steal an mmo term, 'class fantasy' of ranger or druid), but they're surprisingly weak at lower levels, only coming into their own with ice/flameberries, greater magic fang, and awaken available, at later levels. Which is fine for at least rangers, because they've got very little else going for them summon-wise. How strong they currently are is arguable but not the scope of this conversation.

Whereas mages are at their most squishy at low levels, which is where a lot of the familiars come in- becoming less useful as the mage gains better summons, protection spells, and offensive abilities. Really, pseudodragon, pixie, and to an extent panther are the outliers to this concept. Instead of tailing off as the mage comes into their own, they stay as useful as they were to start with, as: perma-detect, A Level 30 Rogue, and half-decent DPS if you can keep it alive.

I'd say fix pseudodragon and pixie, then take the above route. Familiars otherwise stay about the same, but offer a small boost to their mages while they're out. Also cosmetic familiars please.
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Hunter548
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Re: Familiar Changes

Post by Hunter548 » Thu Sep 06, 2018 6:44 pm

I'm all for adding more cosmetic options and buffing non-pixie/psuedodragon/beholder familiars (and fixing the panther to not hate the owner) to be useful past level 6, but I strongly disagree with removing the rogue skills from the pixie, and see a few big problems with passive bonuses while the familiar is out.

Removing the rogue skills seems kind of odd given that rogues now have their own pretty well established niche of doing stuff Other than picking locks and traps. A pixie isn't going to replace your rogue unless that's literally all the rogue was doing (And, frankly, that's the rogue's fault nowadays - rogues have a lot they can bring to the table), and chests/traps are already a pain in the Snuggybear to deal with if you don't have a rogue in the party. There's a number of dungeons that just straight aren't doable (Or aren't feasible without wanting to gouge your eyes out) without some ability to remove traps, and with all the expansions to chest loot that have been done recently, locking those to rogue-player-only seems like a step backwards. I'd wager that the vast majority of PvE parties don't have a rogue in them, and there's never a guarantee that your non-rogue character will make friends with one to bring on adventuring parties, and no other class has this sort of over-protective reaction towards its "niche": You can emulate casters with wands/scrolls/potions, and tanks/DPS (to use more MMO jargon) roles with summons. Why do rogues get so much protection to ensure they have to be in every party?

On the subject of passive bonuses, I like the idea, but the problem is 1) Making the bonuses actually useful to mages (Bonus damage on hit is worthless to non-spellswords, as an example) 2) Actually having the familiars in combat. Pretty much all of them are incredibly squishy, and the AI can be a pain in the butt to work with, especially if you're a necromancer (or enchanter with a summon and a dominated creature, or transmuter with golems), since that means you have no way to effectively command all of your non-familiar summons without bringing the familiar along for the ride. It just encourages mages to summon their familiar and park it in some far off corner of the map - and if we're going to do that, why not just make it a passive bonus whether you have the familiar out or not?


Also, if we're rebalancing familiars, the eyeball gets a saveless KD bolt at epic levels, and a saveless slow bolt at level 15 or so.
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Richørd
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Re: Familiar Changes

Post by Richørd » Thu Sep 06, 2018 7:10 pm

Someone with proper criticism ... finally! This should be fun.
Hunter548 wrote:
Thu Sep 06, 2018 6:44 pm
I'm all for adding more cosmetic options and buffing non-pixie/psuedodragon/beholder familiars (and fixing the panther to not hate the owner) to be useful past level 6, but I strongly disagree with removing the rogue skills from the pixie, and see a few big problems with passive bonuses while the familiar is out.

Removing the rogue skills seems kind of odd given that rogues now have their own pretty well established niche of doing stuff Other than picking locks and traps. A pixie isn't going to replace your rogue unless that's literally all the rogue was doing (And, frankly, that's the rogue's fault nowadays - rogues have a lot they can bring to the table), and chests/traps are already a pain in the Snuggybear to deal with if you don't have a rogue in the party. There's a number of dungeons that just straight aren't doable (Or aren't feasible without wanting to gouge your eyes out) without some ability to remove traps, and with all the expansions to chest loot that have been done recently, locking those to rogue-player-only seems like a step backwards. I'd wager that the vast majority of PvE parties don't have a rogue in them, and there's never a guarantee that your non-rogue character will make friends with one to bring on adventuring parties, and no other class has this sort of over-protective reaction towards its "niche": You can emulate casters with wands/scrolls/potions, and tanks/DPS (to use more MMO jargon) roles with summons. Why do rogues get so much protection to ensure they have to be in every party?
While you are right about "a pixie isn't going to replace your rogue" when it comes to fighting, it is sadly the oposite when talking about chests, lockers et cetera. I have invested around 1100 hours into Arelith (some veterans will laugh about that number) and in that time I have only encountered the problem of "Oh, this trap is too strong for our pixie to disable it!" once. Once.
And about locks ... you always got Knock for that. Either with a wand/scroll or by using an actual mage.
And therein lies the problem. Rogues are a rather big archetype. That's why they get "so much protection". One of the biggest endgame uses for rogues (at least from an outside perspective, not out of the rogues perspective) is opening high end chests and disabling traps so parties can get that sweet, sweet loot.
It should not be replaced by a simple familiar. That's a bit too much power in on one familiar and leads to the current issue of 90% of all mages running around with a pixie.
Hunter548 wrote:
Thu Sep 06, 2018 6:44 pm
On the subject of passive bonuses, I like the idea, but the problem is 1) Making the bonuses actually useful to mages (Bonus damage on hit is worthless to non-spellswords, as an example) 2) Actually having the familiars in combat. Pretty much all of them are incredibly squishy, and the AI can be a pain in the butt to work with, especially if you're a necromancer (or enchanter with a summon and a dominated creature, or transmuter with golems), since that means you have no way to effectively command all of your non-familiar summons without bringing the familiar along for the ride. It just encourages mages to summon their familiar and park it in some far off corner of the map - and if we're going to do that, why not just make it a passive bonus whether you have the familiar out or not?
The bonus damage on hit is at first glance only usefull to Spellswords, true. But now let's think about more creative, non-meta builds that might take wizard or sorcerer levels to get certain spells ... such builds might want to take a familiar that boosts their on-hit damage instead of a familiar that boosts the DC of their spells, right?
Hunter548 wrote:
Thu Sep 06, 2018 6:44 pm
Also, if we're rebalancing familiars, the eyeball gets a saveless KD bolt at epic levels, and a saveless slow bolt at level 15 or so.
Added as a change to the google doc!

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