Familiar Hit Dice and Templates

[Odin's Eyepatch]

I'm pretty sure this has done to death already, but I can't seem to find any other threads discussing it, so maybe it's just really obvious, and I'm missing it, I don't know.


The SRD for the familiar states:

Hit Dice: For the purpose of effects related to number of Hit Dice, use the master’s character level or the familiar’s normal HD total, whichever is higher.

So if I applied the Fiendish or Celestial templates to my familiar (via Improved Familiar), does that mean that their template abilities increase with level, as technically, the template effects depend on the Hit Dice?

If this is true, what templates would you suggest to add to a wizard's familiar (going unseen seer)? Is celestial or fiendish good? I've got a rat familiar for the moment, and I'm not at all interested in choosing another one. However, if there is a good template out there, I'm all for it.

Thanks in advance

[Flickerdart]

A template is not an effect.

[Odin's Eyepatch]

A template is not an effect.

Yeah, but it's not the template which is increasing, it's the effects of the template, no?

The templated familiar becomes a creature, that, when it gets a certain amount of hit dice, has increases in DR and whatnot. No? Or are those abilities that increase basically lumped into the "feats and skills" bin?

[Âmesang]

Would it really be so bad if the template's abilities did improve alongside Hit Die? After taking a momentary glance…

Your typical fiendish familiar possessed by a 7th-level spellcaster would have:

• Darkvision out to 60 feet
• Damage reduction 5/magic
• Resistance to cold and fire 5
• Spell resistance 12

Where as a quasit familiar from the same spellcaster would have:

• Darkvision out to 60 feet
• Damage reduction 5/cold iron or good
• Resistance to fire 10
• Immunity to poison
• Fast healing 2
• …at the very least

Now on the one hand you have to be at least 7th-level to obtain a quasit familiar, so it would make sense to have a lot more to it as opposed to the earlier-obtained fiendish creature; but what's wrong with the creature's abilities improving so as to at least try and come close to matching the quasit's abilities?

(This also makes me curious about the improvement of natural abilities, such as the DC for the poison attacks possessed by viper, imp, and quasit familiars.)

[Urpriest]

Yeah, but it's not the template which is increasing, it's the effects of the template, no?

The templated familiar becomes a creature, that, when it gets a certain amount of hit dice, has increases in DR and whatnot. No? Or are those abilities that increase basically lumped into the "feats and skills" bin?

It's more that "effect" is a (really-poorly defined) game term. It's the class of things that include "spell effects". It's not effect as in "caused and effect", which it would need to be for your argument to work.

Basically, if you look at how "effect" is used in the rules, it doesn't typically cover things like the effects of templates.

[Âmesang]

So I double-checked the DUNGEON MASTER'S Guide (why didn't I do this in the last post? XÞ), the improvement of an improved familiar's abilities seems to be confirmed by the stat block on pages 200; the normally 1HD hawk is treated as being 3HD as a celestial hawk (because you must be at least 3rd-level to obtain one), and its listed as having "spell resistance 8" (3HD + 5). The same goes for the fiendish viper on page 201.

Of course they're also both listed as having a smite attack doing +1 damage instead of +3 for the "3HD," and knowing Wizards of the Coast it's possible that either one of these stats is a typo (both the FAQ and the Errata are mum on the matter). It's doubly troubling because the quasit's alternate form was a copy/paste of the imp's (the monsters are correctly switched out, but it still refers to the quasit as an "imp," so it's likely the fiendish viper stat block started as a straight copy/paste of the celestial hawk).