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Familiars Overview: Familiars are magically linked to their masters. In some sense, the familiar and the master are practically one being. That's why, with appropriate enhancements, the master can cast a personal range spell on/through a familiar, even though he can normally cast such a spell only on himself. A familiar is a normal animal that gains new powers and becomes a magical beast when summoned to service by a priest or wizard. It retains the appearance, base hit points, base attack bonus, base resistance rolls, skills, and enhancements of the normal animal it once was, but it is treated as a magical beast instead of an animal for the purpose of any effect that depends on its type of determination. Only a normal, unmodified animal may become a standard familiar.
A familiar also grants special abilities to its master (a priest or wizard typically), as described below. These special abilities apply only when the master and familiar are within 1-mile of each other.
Familiar Basics: Use the basic statistics for a creature of the familiar's kind, as given in the creature record sheet (Creature Catalog), but make the following changes:
Resistance Rolls: For the purpose of Resistance Rolls, the familiar receives +1 to its normal base if his master possesses better ratings. If the master, usually in lower levels, is of equal or less rating, than the familiar creature saves normally.
Hit Points: Familiars gain +1 hp per every 8 possessed by the master (rounded down); this bonus is applied only once, but GMs can grant additional hit points to the familiar as the master gains in hit points if they so choose (8:1 ratio is still recommended).
Attacks: Damage equals that of a normal creature of the familiar's kind, but the familiar becomes more cunning through its association with its master and can add a +1 hit bonus to natural attack forms as a result.
Skills: Unless otherwise noted, animal familiars cannot possess any intelligent skills. Natural skills like spot, listen, hide, or even track are carried over from those possessed by the base animal type. These natural skills gain a +1 bonus for every 5 years the familiar remains with the master.
Extended Lifespan: most natural animals are shorter-lived than their masters and thus gain a lifespan boost when they become familiar. This boost can be determined by rolling a 20 + 3d10 in a percentage. Lucky familiars can gain a full 50% longer life as a result.
Intelligence Enhancement: natural animals typically have a D2 or in rare cases D3 intelligence rating. These creatures upgrade to a D4 to this score, virtually doubling their intelligence rating. They are three times as smart and cunning when compared to their respective animal races.
Communicate with Master: though true communication does not exist between the familiar and master, a limited empathic bond does. This allows the master to issue simple orders to an animal familiar and expect them to be followed. Conversely, the master will be aware of the animal’s emotional status through the empathic link.
Speak with Animals of Its Kind: a familiar can communicate with animals of approximately the same kind as itself: bats with bats, rats with rodents, cats with felines, hawks and owls and ravens with birds, lizards and snakes with reptiles, toads with amphibians, weasels with similar creatures of the family Mustelidae (weasels, minks, polecats, ermines, skunks, wolverines, and badgers). Such communication is limited by the intelligence of the conversing creatures though simple ideas such as follow, danger, and flee can be easily communicated.
Many superior familiars exist; however, acquiring them is more difficult. The GM can provide additional information regarding advance and magic familiars. Psionic familiars also exist and can be bonded to mages, priests, and individuals of other vocations.
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