Familiars

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OK, which is the best familiar for a wizard and why? Which familiars are rubbish?

Originally I always went with the pixie for the extremely useful trap and lock skills. But now I have added a level of rogue I can handle most of that stuff myself. So I have the opportunity to choose a new familiar with my next level of Wizard. What's the advice?

 

I guess it depends on what you are looking for in a familiar, and whether you are playing on your own or with a party.

Me, I don't like the idea of a "big" familiar, so the hellhound and the panther are inmediately discarded. However, they are very useful as melee counterparts to your henchmen and/or summons. Even though I don't really like using them, I wouldn't consider them useless, on the contrary. The panther is a real asset when used in conjunction with a powerful henchman. Its sneak attack can help ending a fight very quickly.

The pixie is my familiar of choice in the original NWN for the same reasons you mentioned, but I don't particularly like the idea of a little fairy as a familiar. And she's quite ugly if you zoom in.

Playing multiplayer with an Illusionist, I normally go for the fairy dragon. Once it gets Colour Spray, and a couple of Improved Invisibility uses, it becomes more useful than any of the tougher familiars. It can make your wizard invisible at the beginning of the fights, and blind or knock out the weaker enemies.

My favourite one, nevertheless, is the raven. It may not look powerful at all, but it suits well my Necromancer. Apart from that, its undocumented poison attack can disable enemies with low fortitude saving throws pretty quick, after connecting a couple of times. As with any familiar/summon, a couple of buffs like Cat's Grace, Flame Weapon, and/or Greater Magic Weapon can increase its effectiveness in combat quite a lot. It's also got damage reduction, although I'm not sure whether it improves with levels or not, I'll have to check that.

 

I've only ever really used panther and pixie. Now that i have a bit more experience using wizards, i do think a level or two of rogue removes just about any need for roguish familiar. It has sneak attack, but it never progresses.

Panther on the other hand can get pretty devastating if used right. It wont bear direct damage, but will do some, as long as he's in favourable position. I knew a wizard once, he summoned an elder elemental (before that dire wolf, then Skeleton Chieftain) and then totaly buffed him up. Water types are the best, if they survive the first fight, where they use Drown. Then he just healed them with healing packs and moved on. Having a panther behind the elemental raking everything in it's way even further improved everything. In the end, he didnt even have to use his spells for just about anything else than boss fights. It's best around lvl17-30, later the summon doesnt really cope with the enemies. Then it's time to find a stupid int 6 barbarian to distract the enemy while you loot all there is and get the hell outa there with imp. invisibility on


@Colthrun
Raven poison seems quite cool, never knew about that... what does it do and what's the DC if you know?

Also, are you sure you can cast Flame weapon on a familiar?
I was under the impression it only works on melee weapons, not natural attacks/unarmed strike (as in monk attacks).

 

I don't really know what's the save DC against the raven's poison. It may not even be poison, as the effect looks more like a level-drain ability, and it does lowers stats, like strength, whenever it's applied. I'll see if I can check the creature properties in the Toolset this evening.

The Pseudo-Dragon poisons too, and the effect is the one of poison/sickness.

Flame Weapon works for me when used on familiars and summoned creatures. I do it all the time both in the OC and multiplayer games. It could be a bug, but it's a very useful one.

 

BTA, a wizard doesn't need many skills so I ended up with about 20 unused skill points by the time I took my rogue level and I put them all into disable trap and open lock. With my high INT and high DEX, I have been able to deal with every lock and trap in the SoU interlude and Chapter 2 so far, especially with Thieves Tools to handle the odd tough lock.

I'm trying the pseudo dragon at the moment but he seems to bit lame so far.

 

@Gothmog, I checked the raven's attack and it is indeed poison. The name of the ability is "Shadow Essence" (quite cool, if you ask me) and the DC is 17.

Upon a failed save it poisons the victim, and a while afterwards the victim will take a strength damage unless it saves against fortitude.

When the raven has gained some levels, it also gains the ability to Slow the opponent, with a DC of 14.

 

Hmm, quite interesting. DC17 especialy, not that low, especialy at low levels. Could really cripple melees. No one really goes for the familiar first, they're more trouble than they're worth. Clerics and the like.. usualy around 14 strengh and wearing Full Plates and Tower shields, hehehe. Encumbered, they have a serious disadvantage. They'll never know what hit them

Now that i think about it, familiars really are pretty much uncharted teritory. Pixie is an obvious solution to most wizards, so others remain neglected for the most part.

Will make a little reasearch on them, when i get to my NwN computer in tuesday

 

I'm going to go with the Raven for a while, I think, seeing as that is my SP avatar....