The Carrion Fields - Viewing topic #2924 - Conjurer familiar suggestion

Cathoir	Mon 10-Nov-03 05:28 AM
Member since 10th Nov 2003 34 posts

#2924, "Conjurer familiar suggestion"

I think most of the playerbase will agree that conjurer familiars are rather unbalanced. I'm not that much of a character perfectionist but even I will delete and reroll if I get the imp. The monkey's usefulness may outweigh the loss of detect hidden, but the imp, faerie dragon, and coyote are grossly underpowered compared to some of the best familiars. I propose that familiar be changed to a format similar to druid's call of the Wild and given a short timer (something between 10 and 15 hours maybe). Every conjurer will have access to the same set of familiars depending on where they cast the spell. This would be an excellent step towards fleshing out a somewhat shallow class (I do appreciate the modifications to elementals, that was a gigantic step in the right direction for the class). New familiars would more specialized and generally restricted to only one form of usefulness. Here are some quick suggestions for basic archetypes off the top of my head.

Sentinels-A couple familiars that will give the conjurer an echo if somebody walks into the room. Each familiar will be fairly weak and limited to only one type of detect. They can be conjured in places where it would be appropriate to the detect. If you're feeling generous, gives them some sort of ability to hide themselves in certain types of terrain.

Mana regen-A couple familiars that are similar to the current one with that effect. Gives conjurer the luxury of having to sleep less (not fun) but is extremely fragile. Can find them if you conjurer in mystical type forests or other havens of magic.

Combat-A couple familiars that are significantly useful until about the level a conjurer gets lightbind/darkbind. Have a defense one that is useful for tanking around 1-3 mobs per ranking round. Have an offense one that hits for a decent amount of damage. Mix it up some, maybe have one that is really hard to parry and hits for EVISCERATES for when you're ranking on higher level mobs with a good tank, and then have one that gets a lot of attacks for less damage for when you have to stick with low xp mobs. Can be conjured just about everywhere.

Pure Detect-A familiar or two that is around for the sole purpose of dectect hidden. Give them a little something defensive to allow the conjurer to walk around with and not be TOO woried about a familiar death.

Scout familiars-Familiars that can fly around but have no abiliy to detect hidden/invis/camo. Can conjure them around mountain peaks.

Utility casting familiars-Familiars that are designed purely for combat support. Can be very useful or very detrimental to a conjurers attack, generally only useful for higher level conjurers that can conjure it with a decent amount of hps. Adds an element of finesse to a generally simplistic attack class. Have their spell arsenal be just useful enough to want to take the chance of having them around in a fight, stuff like cure serious, poison, weaken, etc... Have the poison and weaken and stuff land a lot but be low level, like a -5 str weaken or a poison that hits for MUTILATES and lasts 4 hours or so.

The list can go on and on. Eavesdropping familiars, talking familiars, crappy stealing familiars, etc...

Anyways, just some ideas I think would add depth to the class as well as make them tremendously more fun to play. I always wanted to play a druid for Call of the Wild but never wanted to deal with the time you have to spend in the wilderness to have full effectiveness. The concept of just kind of wandering around the mud tinkering with areas to see what interesting little utility use animals I can get has always been a whole lot of fun.

-Cathoir, considering rolling a char with the primary requirement of being able to use staves of conjuration

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