From: A Son of the Silent Age (wire@world.std.com)
Date: Thu 14 Jul 1994 - 14:21:56 EEST
> Kevin Rose writes:
> OK, Let me be more precise. No one, in any game I have been involved in
> or have personal knowledge of, has created a familiar. They have though
> about it and decided that it wasn't worth it. First you have to learn a
> bunch of create familiar spells and train them up to at least 50%. Then
Actually, they need only learn the spells: Create Familiar (Characteristic) is an Enchant ritual, so all the spells are cast at the sorceror's Enchant skill (which is one reason making a familiar is a test...it's a test of how good an Enchanter you really are). Also, most people don't learn _all_ of the spells: as explained below, most of my players only ever learn Create Familiar (STR), (CON), and (DEX).
> What do they do when they cast Create Familiar, sacrifice a couple of poin
> ts of INT and miss the roll. "Gee, guess I always wanted to be a
> familiarless 12 INT sorcerer. . .?"
Dismal results for failure are very much in keeping with my view of sorcery. But maybe that's just me...*smirk*
> The cheapest ones are Nymphs. They only cost you SIZ. [deleted]
> Or Vampires. They only need POW and SIZ. [deleted]
> After that it gets pretty bad.
Oddly enough, no-one in any RQ games I've ever run has really been into the "turning ordinary creatures into familiars" trend; they all prefer binding spirits of some sort into useful objects (staves, rings, whatever) and then giving them minimal physical stats (the spirit provides INT and POW, and the object already has SIZ, so the sorceror provides a point each of STR, CON, and DEX).
> An Ally is free. It is a significant combat multiplier for the RL, as it
> allows him to cast multiple divine and spirit spells each turn. A
> sorcerers familiar can't do that. He can cast spirit magic, but he can't
> know any, as it reduces the amount of INT available to the sorcerer. And
> he can't cast sorcery as it is all skill based. And dogs or staves have
> trouble with the mystic words and gestures anyway.
Actually, there's nothing that says a familiar can't know spirit magic (though I've never seen one that did); it reduces the _familiar's_ Free INT, but not the _sorceror's_. It does reduce the number of sorcery spells that can be kept in the familiar's mind, but it's not a question of can or can't, more one of whether or not it's worth it for you.
And a familiar can quite definitely cast sorcery; if a spirit (even a a bound Ally) can cast spirit magic (which technically requires mystic words, gestures, _and_ a focus), it shouldn't have any trouble with sorcery (which only has the first two requirements).
Because if you can get it to work, a familiar is a _very_ powerful asset. If you screw it up, you're boned, but that's pretty much par for the course for sorceror characters...
it's just for now; it's just for now; even if it makes you happy...
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