GameBanshee Forums

I've been extremely curious about these little guys for quite some time, but i've only been playing fighters mostly. I decided to try an evoker mage and spelled up a familiar, totally oblivious to what it would be. I got this little dragon fairie... and i had no idea what to do. IS it a scout? does it fight well? does it cast magic? do different calsses have different familiars? is it just a baldur's gate version of tomagatchi? does it grow bigger?? what the heck is it?!?!

Do a search in this forum on "familiar," and you'll find out all the skills for every familiar in the game. But the best thing to do with a familiar is talk to it, and ask it to stay in your inventory. That's because you do not want to risk having a familiar killed. As long as it lives, you gain a certain number of hit points for your mage. When it dies, you don't only lose the hit points, you also lose a point of constitution--pemanently.

It's possible for any class to get a familiar. Simply get the scroll, get some potion, go the the inventory screen to drink the potion, then immediately (without going back to the game proper) swap the scroll for the potion. Your character will cast the spell.

and BTW the potion/scroll trick works for any scroll... imagine a powerful fighter protected by prot from magic wpns or casting a sunfire/timestop/black blade of disaster. thats just a fraction of the world of cheese open to you, should you decide to utilise this... skill

if youve been looking at lots of different stores, and still cant find one, i just suggest using shadowkeeper to drop one in the game

I've always found one in a chest near the forge in Nalia's Keep.

There's definately one in the De'Arnise Keep while you're taking it back from the trolls, and I think the magic merchant in the back of the Adventure mart sells them too.

They are just there to give mages extra HP. That don't do much else and the advice they give you is useless.

Originally posted by mynamewasstolen
They are just there to give mages extra HP. That don't do much else and the advice they give you is useless.

This is not true. If you are soloing a mage, a trap detecting cat or any other familiar with thieflike abilitys is very helpful, especially at the begining.

What's more, they're just plain fun.

And they're cute and cuddly and furry! Well... At least the ones with fur.

-Caster

.... 'Use any item' for the theif class should work too. If you want to make it all nice and leagal. Haven't tried it though... You only just got me thinking.

Obviously a familiar with theif like abilities is usefull. However, the one that you get is dependent on your alignment and while the pseudodragon is cute (maybe not cuddley) it really just serves to boost your HP. The others may have their various uses, but really even if they are cute they are only functional in one common manner, and that is extra HP. Even then Jan is cuter, and maybe even fuzzier, and likely has better thief abilities than a familiar.

I find it gets tedious listening to the same advice from your familiar over and over... I think it would have been cool if they just spouted of random things like Liliacor or if they had a story line. Hmm... Liliacor/Pseudodragon romance? I think so.

I can't fathom soloing a mage, but I am sure that a familiar of any sort would be an asset and you are obviously right in saying that a cat familiar would be priceless near the begining.

Except that the cat familiar specializes in "Hide in Shadows", not "Detect Traps". It's the rabbit familiar you're after.

Originally posted by Ode to a Grasshopper
Except that the cat familiar specializes in "Hide in Shadows", not "Detect Traps". It's the rabbit familiar you're after.

Well, the cat could be nice as well if you want to throw spells out of sight of your enemies. But the rabbit probably is better.