NWN2 Familiars/Animal Companions

[420]

J.E. Sawyer
Lead Designer

Familiars are summoned creatures. You can summon or unsummon them freely unless the familiar has been killed. They do not try to engage in combat, and usually just follow behind the master. While out, they grant a bonus that is roughly the equivalent of a feat. As the master advances, so do the familiars. They gain more hit points, better saving throws, and so on. They also gain evasion and spell resistance. During character creation, they can be named and tinted. Some creatures have multiple tint maps.

Familiars cannot be directly controlled. They are intended to essentially be small buff totems and cool looking pets.

If a familiar is killed, the master suffers -2 to Con for 8 hours and cannot summon the familiar again until he or she has rested. Masters are encouraged to unsummon familiars when the going gets tough. Our current list of familiars follows:

Bat: Master gains +3 to Listen checks.
Cat: Master gains +2 to Move Silently and Hide checks.
Rat: Master gains +2 to Fortitude saves.
Rabbit: Master gains +1 bonus to all saves.
Weasel: Master gains +2 to Reflex saves.
Spider: Master gains +3 to Bluff checks.
Pig: Master gains +3 to Diplomacy checks.
Beetle: Master gains +1 hit point per level.

Animal companions also cannot be controlled, but they are essentially aggressive tanks. They also become more powerful as the master advances. Currently, the only penalty the master suffers from the animal companion's death is that they cannot summon the companion again until they have rested. This may need to be adjusted. We are currently supporting the following animal companions with the listed special abilities.

Badger: Rage
Wolf: Knockdown attacks
Brown Bear: Most powerful attacks
Boar: Highest health
Giant Spider: Poisonous attacks

Animal companions can be named, but cannot be tinted.

Looks like familiars will be a lot more like PnP than the NWN ones.

-420

[Elessar Telrunya]

Rather small list of them though... =/


-Elessar

[420]

Rather small list of them though... =/
-Elessar

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There is speculation that it's a base list and there could be additional familiars available with the Improved Familiar Feat (Imps, Quasits, Eyeballs, Pseudo Dragons).

Looks to me like their trying pretty hard to stay true to the official 3.5E rules by making Familiars more like a non-combat companion that provide a stat bonus than just another summoned tank. Unfortunately the "druid enthusiasts" are currently freaking out about their Animal Companions being treated too much like summoned tanks and not enough like Familiars in NWN2.

OY!

-420