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2018-01-13, 11:46 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2018
Quick question about Find familiar spell.
Hello all, just a quick question. It has been some time since I've played ad&d 1st edition and I can't seem to find the information on what the bonus hitpoints are for magic-users from their familiars. If someone would be able to tell me in what book and where I would find it that would be awesome.
Thanks in advance.
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2018-01-14, 01:07 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2013
- Gender
Re: Quick question about Find familiar spell.
It's in the spell description in the PHB. As long as the familiar is within range the MU adds the familiar's hp, which I think is 1d4.
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2018-01-14, 09:30 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2013
- Location
- Canada
- Gender
Re: Quick question about Find familiar spell.
They are listed as 2-4 hp.
However, many of the critters have a monster listing elsewhere (often MM2), so I tend to use whatever is better.
domestic cat mm2 pg 22
small hawk mm2 pg 64
ordinary raven mm2 pg 105 (PH HP)
owl mm2 pg 97 (but this is a large owl)
weasel mm2 pg 125 (PH HP)
and, of course, there are so many other possibilities. rat, parrot, snake, bat, etc
for the specials, see the monster entry (MM1).
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2018-01-14, 09:55 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2018
Re: Quick question about Find familiar spell.
Thanks, I assumed. It's just we all know Gygax wasn't the best at making things easy to read.
"Explanation/Description: A familiar is of certain benefit to a magic-user, as the creature adds to the spell caster's hit points..." Doesn't really say it adds it's own hp to the magic-user. Which was my downfall to assume it was else where.
But again, thanks for the quick replies.
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2018-01-16, 07:50 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2016
Re: Quick question about Find familiar spell.
This isn't RAW by any means but in 1&2E games my group typically treated the Familiar and Spellcaster as "sharing" a pool of HP. Simply put we looked up the creature's HP in the MM and added it to the Spellcaster's own and vice versa. It was sometimes a nightmare to track but it was a really good way of keeping our Spellcasters from treating familiars like they were disposable meat shields.
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2018-01-16, 12:06 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2013
- Gender
Re: Quick question about Find familiar spell.
If you were playing RAW, there's no way you'd treat a familiar as a meat shield. If it gets killed, the MU permanently loses not only the familiar's HP, but again that many (so if the familiar had 4, the MU loses 8 permanently) A low level MU could die from their familiar getting killed. And you can only cast the spell once a year.