How important is your character's familiar or animal companion to the game? Do they actually matter...

How important is your character's familiar or animal companion to the game? Do they actually matter, or are they just there because you have the relevant class feature?

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It depends. Sometimes it's as disposable as a piece of gear you throw away the moment you get better one.
Other times several PCs dies over it.

I at most have the animal just be a pet or something. Often I forget that I even have it which is a shame when it is like a mouse in your pocket that could easily get that jail key for you or something.

One of my players has a familiar. She uses it pretty well as a spy and scout. I like to give them a personality when they're around, and hers is a bit of a coward.

One of my players, a wizard, in Pathfinder got himself a pair of Squirrels as his familiars, how should I GM this?
Should he control the squirrels? Give commands and I respond on what they do?

Anyone has any experience with this?

My wizard's familiar, a viper named Merlin, actually is useful. Not always, but I've used him for a variety of things, including a possession vessel, a source of weak poison, a communication device, a page turner and more importantly, spying on allies.
He's also smarter than some of the party members, so I roleplay him as sort of frustrated by his role. He can't speak of course, but he can express himself well enough with eyerolls and tongue flickers.

Bump

How did he get two? Assuming they're following standard wizard familiar rules, they're sapient and under his command. He ought to control them.

Generally, you should let a player control their minions, UNLESS they either regularly make them do grossly out of character or suicidal actions (e.g. squirrel charges in to distract a dragon while the party escapes), OR they take way too much time controlling their minions in combat.

He got them in the 5th session IIRC, my 5th session as a GM too, so I didn't know all the details.
The squirrels were 2 wild ones since he needed a familiar and the other closest animal was the party's donkey.

A familiar is an extension of the character and should act as such. Whatever the player wills it to do, it should do. It doesn't get a vote like an animal companion does.

It's more or less an imaginary friend that others can see

So, I should just tell my player what happens to them, but not what they do? "They fall down a hill, get drugged, fainted, wounded, killed, etc"?

My character's familiar is his Comrade, because I'm playing Only War.

He's pretty important, because he's my driver. Without him our vehicle would be undermanned.

Man, I miss Shattered Horizon

I once played the animal companion to our ranger. Was pretty fun. We were playing GURPS, though, so powerlevels were a little more equal than they'd be in D&D.

Someday Im going to play an awakened housecat wizard with a human familiar that pretends to be the wizard

I know that feel.

There's an archetype in Gonzo 2 for that, I think.

Our artificer has a robot-scarab familiar (5e DnD in an MtG setting-he's from Kaladesh). They've used it pretty extensively for scouting and lamp-holding. Last session they traversed a disabled magical elevator (read really long vertical shaft) by having several party members climb into a bag of holding and having the scarab carry it down the shaft.

Follow this:
goblinpunch.blogspot.com/2014/06/youre-doing-familiars-all-wrong.html

Aerial-recon-birds seem woefully underused. Send that owl or raven scouting around and have it report back at the first sign of roaming humanoids, horses, monsters, etc. It's practically a staple of low-level wizards at our table.

Mmmmm, garbage

It's absolutely critical to my build. I need that flanking bonus, man.

Also, the knot.

>Pathfinder

Tell me more.

Rogue/ranger with that Natural Bond(?) feat that boosts your pseudo-druid levels so you can have a tough wolf or dire wolf companion. Two weapon fighting, plus a flanking ally, plus a bit of feat investment into EWP and Oversized Two Weapon Fighting (is that it?) gives me two bastard swords doing sneak attack damage with every strike while my faithful wolf companion chews the fuck out of some schmuck.

And also, the knot.

Tell me more.

Now, admittedly, TWF is not a perfect concept to build around, I think everyone knows this, but on the other hand... it's fun, I'm sorry, it just is. It's mechanically inferior to other forms of melee combat, which are in turn naturally inferior to casting, but TWF is just a ton of fun. And, if you make a build that stacks damage not based on strength (already less of a concern with OTWF, since you're no longer halving your strength bonus to damage), it allows you to get a lot of extra damage effects out there. I've played a few TWF characters, my favorite was a scout/swashbuckler/dervish dancer, but that was a high level character. Rogue/ranger almost works right out of the PHB, and if you have access to other books, you can throw in that feat that makes ranger and rogue levels stack for sneak attack, natural bond to improve your companion, OTWF to get a good off hand weapon, and also the knot.

Treat them as another character in that regard

Tell me more

My paladin that's good at cooking has a Ram named Gordon

The benefits of a ranger are limited, admittedly, but the animal companion can easily provide a mobile flanking bonus with a decent AC and the knot.

I had a ranger with a badger companion, who used a modified bow to fire his animal companion at people.

Am I the first furfag in this thread?
Cause no one has pointed out OP's furry image,
unless Veeky Forums is more /trash/ than I remember...

i wanna comPACKED my dick in your arse

Slimes are objectively the best familiars.

To be fair, the pic isn't really furry. Sure, you got lizard hands, feet, and a tail. However, they are attached to a human body with human tits and a human vagina. Honestly, I'd rate this a fifteen percent on the not-furry-to-furry scale.

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but im a chaos player so

Have you been reading ?

One game we had a Shai'r from Al'Qadim when it came out (so like... '92?), their main class feature being a tiny genie buddy (a Gen?) who is both a familiar and would go and get them spells to cast. Honestly, it was a very clever idea, of questionable implementation.

The GM ran the little fire genie girl as a full bore NPC, who mostly listened to requests by her Sha'ir. Unfortunately, she was also the most interesting character in the group. Her subverting and manipulating her orders and poking into things was more interesting than anything the PC's did. Oddly though, everyone enjoyed it. Instead of some BBEG in the background complicating everything for them, we had the little genie that complicated everything.

That's my familiar story. Decades of gaming I have that and a guy almost quitting the game because his familiar got sucked through a portal.

I don't think I've ever had an animal companion. My familiar has usually just been a stat boost. I did have a bunch of mules in a campaign to carry loot, and in another game where I built a paladin designed for charging lance attacks, I had a warhorse with a name who I always made sure to keep careful care of. That's about it. I've never played a class that comes with a pet or bought one in a classless system.

I think that so many experiences with players fucking over the party and getting other PCs killed in order to save their precious animal companions has soured me on the whole concept of pets in games.

...

That's true, however it's from the comic Two Kinds, one of the most well known and popular comics in the furry fandom

My kinfolk has a Raven spirit familiar that was his fathers packs totem. Its very weird but very useful.

It's by the artist of Twokinds, but she isn't actually in the comic. The image in OP also isn't even the character's true form; she an honest-to-God dragon normally, but she can shapeshift into this form. And then has a familiar who acts as her "clothing" since the shapeshifting doesn't come with clothing, which is both realistic and hawt.