Have you ever played with a Fiendish Familiar (symbiont)?

[Samael Morgenst]

Has anyone ever included a Fiendish Familiar in his game? (those tiny parasitic fiends looking like small demonic faces grafted somewhere on an host's body, appearing in Fiend Folio, but also mentioned on the Book of Vile Darkness)

Also, some questions (both RAW and RAI):

- since a quasit or an imp could become a familiar (with the Improved Familiar feat), could the same be done with a Fiendish Symbiont?
- the thing is intelligent, so... could it become a character with class levels? Mabye the PC cohort (using the Leadership feat)?
- if it can become a Cohort, could it takes levels in the Fiend of Corruption prestige class? And mabye the PC could sell his soul to his own symbiont?

[Chronos]

A Ghostly Visage is explicitly one of the options for a Dread Necromancer's familiar. The other options are an imp, quasit, or vargouille. Though of those four, the visage is definitely the most powerful, with the vargouille in second place, so that's not necessarily an argument that any other wizard/sorcerer should be able to get one as an improved familiar. Having a ghostly visage as a familiar means, at a minimum, that whomever it bonds to (which doesn't necessarily have to be you; it could be your meat-shield fighter buddy) gets immunity to mind-effecting and you get an at-will incapacitating gaze attack. You can also use it to try to forcibly bond with enemies to control them, and it's even better at that than a free-range visage, since ego score increases with number of special abilities, and a familiar gets a bunch of extra abilities.

[Zanos]

I've used them but generally just hit them with enough wisdom drain to knock them into permanent comas after attaching them to me for the free spells and spell slot. The thing has pretty poor mental scores compared to most casters so if it's getting one over on you, you must not be too bright.

since a quasit or an imp could become a familiar (with the Improved Familiar feat), could the same be done with a Fiendish Symbiont?

Not unless your DM explicitly adds it as an option. A Fiendish Familiar is a familiar in name only.

the thing is intelligent, so... could it become a character with class levels? Mabye the PC cohort (using the Leadership feat)?

As it has at least 3 intelligence it could advance by gaining class levels, but it has no printed LA and therefore isn't valid for use as a PC or as a cohort. Only monster entries that include a LA are valid for player use, and the fiendish familiar was not given an LA in the errata either.

if it can become a Cohort, could it takes levels in the Fiend of Corruption prestige class? And mabye the PC could sell his soul to his own symbiont

It wouldn't be a valid cohort but assuming that you're allowing a fiendish familiar to advance via class levels there's nothing that says that monster can't take levels in prestige classes that they qualify for. A fiendish familiar is going to have a hard time qualifying though. You'll need to get all the skill ranks and spells needed for the PRC from its class levels considering it doesn't get the necessary skill ranks or SLAs natively.

[Elkad]

...with the vargouille in second place...

What?

A weak aoe fear attack and a weak poison (plus the not very useful make more vargouilles unless you are starting a wightpocalypse) - VS martial weapon proficiencies (and hands to use them), flight, invisibility, fast healing, DR, alternate forms, plus hands and speech to borrow your UMD skill (and on Imp a nice charisma bonus too)?

Or am I missing something else?

[Chronos]

An at-will, area-effect, incapacitating attack opens up a lot of options, even if it is low DC.

[Elkad]

An at-will, area-effect, incapacitating attack opens up a lot of options, even if it is low DC.

It's worse than *low*. DC12 would be low at L1, and you can't even get one until L7.

The average CR7 mob has a Fort of +8.66, they need a 3.33 to pass the save. At CR10, it's 11.63, passing on a 1.

So unless you are doing some shenanigans I'm unaware of to stack a bunch of riders on the attack, I can't see how it's useful.

[Samael Morgenst]

From the Book of Vile Darkness:

Demonic Graft Machine: This machine is a
mass of metal tubes, gears, arms, and wheels
that turn and move silently. At the front of this
machine, a wide iron plate fashioned into the
form of a hideous face grins with a wide, open
mouth. Through the mouth, the innards of the
device are visible. The device is part machine
and part demon, infused with fiendish
essence and powered by evil magic. It is used
to graft demonic additions onto the bodies of
willing or unwilling victims.
Anyone that comes within 5 feet of the
open mouth must succeed at a Reflex save
(DC 15) or be grabbed by a tonguelike
appendage and dragged into the
machine.
Within the bowels of the machine,
the victim’s body is sliced,
burned, punctured, and
torn. These operations
deal 6d6 points of
damage to the victim
in 1 round. In the
next round (if the
character is still
alive), demonic flesh
and essence is added to
the victim’s body,
restoring 5d6
points of damage.
On the third round,
the character is spit
out with a new
demonic addition in place.


d% Demonic Addition
01–25 Left arm. The arm is long and flexible like a tendril, with a
crude, three-fingered claw at the end. It functions as a natural weapon dealing 1d4 points of damage plus the character’s Strength bonus. Weapons used in the hand take a –2
penalty on attacks. Once per day, the arm can produce
magic missile as the spell from a 5th-level caster.
26–55 Right arm. The arm is muscular and sinewy, with a clawed
hand. The arm confers a +2 inherent bonus to Strength. As
a natural weapon, the arm deals 1d6 points of damage plus
the character’s Strength bonus.
56–70 Thick and muscular legs. The character gains a +2 bonus to
his Constitution score.
71–85 Slim and agile legs. This addition increases the character’s
speed by 10 feet when not wearing heavy armor or carrying a
heavy load. The character gains a +5 competence bonus on
Climb and Jump checks.
86–100 Familiar. Grafted onto the shoulder, back, stomach or hand,
a demonic familiar is a small face with an evil expression.
This face has Intelligence 12, Wisdom 9, and Charisma 6. If
the character is a wizard, the face can teach him one new
spell for every spell level he knows. If the character is a spellcaster, the familiar povides a +2 inherent bonus to the ability
score that determines his bonus spells.
Good-aligned characters with a demonic addition must succeed at a Will save (DC 15) every day or take 1d3 points of
Wisdom damage as the experience slowly drives them mad.
Characters of a nonevil alignment must succeed at a Will
save (DC 15) each day or succumb to temptation and perform an evil act chosen by the DM. This may eventually
result in an alignment change.
When characters with demonic additions deal with
nonevil NPCs, they take a –6 circumstance penalty on all
Charisma-based checks, such as Diplomacy and Bluff.
The machine does not take a character more than once.
Removing a demonic addition requires severing the limb
and taking 6d6 points of damage. To regrow the original
limb requires a regenerate spell.
The Demonic Graft Machine has hardness 10, 200 hp, and a
break DC of 35. A victim inside the machine can make an
attack with a light weapon, or he can cast spells if he succeeds at a Concentration check based on the damage he has
taken. The machine can take two victims at a time, but only
victims of Large or smaller size. Each demonic addition
requires a soul fed into the machine.
Caster Level: 18th; Weight: 2,500 lb

Pure speculation:

1. " Within the bowels of the machine, the victim’s body is sliced, burned, punctured, and torn." "demonic flesh and essence is added to the victim’s body"

Those terms are vague, but they do not suggest a clean removal of a limb followed by a transplant. Rather, infusion, modificiation, injection.
So, I speculated, mabye the final result do not look like a frankenstein-like addition but more as a body part that looks warped, transformed.

2. The machine can create a demonic symbiont ex-nihilo, using the power of a soul fed into the machine. So a demonic symbiont isn't a classical fiend (a petitioner soul transformed into demonic entity), but rather a semi-intelligent creation?

3. The machine can create demonic flesh and essence by consuming a soul to power it...
there are implications. Mabye one could access to the Acolyte of the Skin or Tained classes bypassing the need to deal with an actual, sapient fiend?

4. Could a whole living being be infused by fiendish flesh and essence, piece by piece?

[Pugwampy]

I've used them but generally just hit them with enough wisdom drain to knock them into permanent comas after attaching them to me for the free spells and spell slot.

How did you do that and why would DM allow it ?

[Zanos]

How did you do that

Spells? In this specific case I used summon undead IV for an allip which has a wisdom draining touch.

and why would DM allow it ?

Because the rules said that I could and it wasn't enough of an advantage to break anything in the game, I guess. I just said I was doing it and pretty rarely has anyone protested. Fiendish symbiotes are kind of the bottom rung of outsiders and have no particularly useful powers to compel their hosts to do what they want in most cases, so it's not like they can do much about being abused.

[ShurikVch]

How about to take Imp or Quasit (as Familiar, Cohort, or even PC race) and use on them Polymorph Any Object for permanent Fiendish Familiar form?

[Chronos]

Once Polymorph Any Object is on the table, pretty much all bets are off. "But what if PAO" isn't that far behind "But what if Pun-Pun": You can nearly always relevantly say it, and once you do, it nearly always makes everything else irrelevant.