Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Familiar mechanics

Just wondering if there has been any talk/interest in changing the way summoning familiars works... currently they can "level up" and become a little more powerful which i believe is correct... but when you go for a long rest, mine unsummon and the process must be started again... this makes them much more "fluff" than they should be...

While they are at it, add in a mechanic to temporarily send them to a "pocket plane" in times of bigger danger(like in the book)... small details i know but they are often what make a game...

Or am i missing it/or it wasn't working correctly and it already has these features?...

Llev

I did not know they could level up. My Gith ranger's frog dies almost every battle so I guess he never got the chance.

Still love him though. The frog seems less good than the crab or raven, but he's still come in clutch in several battles. Usually finishing off enemies sitting at 1HP just to give them the most humiliating death possible; licked by a frog.

Best moment so far was against the harpies. My party took a ton of damage due to bad save rolls and just as we were closing in on the last harpy every single party member got charmed by her song at once. 100% someone was about to die.

But then my frickin' frog LEAPED INTO THE FRAY and licked the harpy, breaking her concentration and saving the day. It was glorious.

If my frog is supposed to be getting even mightier then I really hope they fix that! I've been treating it like a ribbon feature so far.

Aside from Wyll's anyway, as the imp is almost like a fifth party member it is so strong.

Haha that is a good story! Yeah particularly for the warlock chain pact familiar options its nice... never got one past 2nd before ive lost them but they gain experience just like the PCs...

In desktop you can send them them away without losing them too... that the can even level gave me a little hope they will impliment it a little better than an extended summon monster spell...

Unless I'm mistaken, they don't actually gain any stats when they level up. At least, I've explicitly seen that their HP doesn't change. I haven't checked any more detailed stats...

I'm assuming this is just a bug, where Larian has coded every playable creature to gain XP similar to a level 1 character.

For the Wizard (not to be confused with the Ranger animal companion that should not be called a Familiar), I really would prefer :
- one free cast per day to represent Ritual casting ;
- make them more similar to 5e (they do no damage as such), though the various effects per type is cool in BG3 ;
- unless destroyed, the Wizard can (5e) make the Familiar disappear and reappear using an Action.

- Additionally (not a priority) : It would be cool to if each Familiar was considered, by enemies, a normal animal (non hostile) when in a proper environment, until the Familiar does a hostile action. For example, a bird in the underdark would appear red/hostile as they are not normal animals in that environment.

( nb: the Familiar's levelling seems like an oversight / error. )

Yah, the normal animal familiars should be treated as neutral by enemy mobs. I had the bright idea to send my crow out and scout the goblin ambush to see if I could find a back way in, but they aggroed the raven and I was stuck in combat even though none of the goblins could see my party.

Very annoying. Scouting should be part of the familiar utility.

I haven't heard anything about familiars levelling up. When did Larian talk about that?

I made a ranger with the find familiar spell at lv1 and the animal companion at lv3.
I found out that you can only have 1 summon, so I called the raven familiar (can blind enemies and fly away without AoO, but no damage) but when I summoned an animal companion the familiar disappeared.

Animal companions are a nice meat shield, they can do some damage, they can flank enemies to get advantage and you get a new one if it dies.

I hope animal companions get stronger as their master levels up, else a lv3 animal would be useless later in the game.
My familiar did not level up, which is fine because they are not intended to be good in combat.

Upon further review, I can't really find anything 5ed saying anything about becoming more powerful in pnp either way... never came up in a table top session and probably wouldn't have really thought about until i saw them gaining XPs...

If they cant it would also explain why pact of the chain is probably the least desirable of the three options for the warlocks...

Familiars in 5e are not really meant to be used in combat offensively; nor do they level up or get more powerful as you gain levels. In my experience, the best way to use a familiar in 5e is to just have them spend their actions to take the Aid action, to grant you advantage on your attack and spell attack rolls.

Mhm, that is an interesting point, has anyone tried using something like the Ogre's horn while having a familiar out at the same time? Does it override the familiar? And will we be able to have traditional summons ala Monster Summoning? Or will it be like Divinity's summons where you could have one summon per character right?

It was a cheesy tactic in BG1 and 2 sure, summoning a pack of wild dogs or hobgoblins to tarpit a tough enemy but effective.

Divinity's summons were a little different in that they acted like secondary PC's with a handful of abilities and could be quite powerful. But you also had multiple summoning items/trinkets.

Oh! The Blighted Villages mage's imp should really be a trinket and not a scroll. It disappeared after I talked with it.

I haven't tried using the ogre horn while having a familiar out, but if I recall correctly, the ogres will spawn as completely separate allies that can't be controlled by you.