How can I give NPCs a familiar?

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I'm playing a game where I'd like to give the arcane spellcasting NPCs familiars (as they're allowed in AD&D 2e). I'm starting the game in multiplayer, and then moving the characters to single player.

 

As far as I know, only the primary character can have a familiar, unless there is a mod out there that I haven't seen.

I just scanned PPL list and there doesn't seem to be a mod for that, but someone may know a way around it.

 

You can do it easily by starting them as single player and CLUAing in a Find Familiar scroll, then exporting them after casting. Then you import the character with familiar into your multiplayer to shift to single player, and hope they don't get whip-lash.

The one restriction which will make this nearly pointless, however, is that you can never get them out. Because a familiar will not talk to anyone except the main character. And even then it becomes the main character's familiar, changing along the Law/Chaos axis to match them (even if it doesn't match on the Good/Evil axis) and causing it to disappear the next time it's summoned. So basically all a familiar would do would be to give extra HP and take up an inventory slot. IMO, you might as well just SK the extra HP and save yourself the hassle.

What you really need is a full mod to allow familiars for NPCs. There are a number of unused familiars in the game that could possibly be assigned to Bioware NPCs by reworking the spell big time. And then you would also need dialog for the new ones and the NPC they match, as well as changing the existing ones so that they will respond to someone other than the main character (in case of MP characters or mod characters), but that's a minor matter.

 

Oh, I just want the bonus HP.

 

Then just SK it. This does bring up a good mod idea, though, and I'd like to discuss it further if you (and Tal) have no objection.

Of the six unassigned familiars, four are strictly evil; they're mephits. The other two are dogs: one wild dog, one war dog. The wild dog sucks pretty badly though. As animals, they could be of any alignment since they're only TN in the MM due to an animal's intelligence mitigating such complicated things as ethics. A familiar's intelligence, even that of an animal familiar, is a bit higher.

It's a given that Edwin, as the only evil caster, should get one of the four mephits: Fire, Lightning, Mist, & Radiant.

And I can just imagine the hilarity now when Jan tries to summon his very own minature giant space hamster and gets a monkey instead, which starts him on the path to building his monkey army.

I also can't help the feeling that the war dog should go to Haer'Dalis. He's always talking about "my dog of war", so why don't we just get him one already to shut him up.

Imoen I see as a raven kind of gal, to match her new gloomy side.

That leaves Aerie and Nalia. I'm afraid I can't be impartial here, as I keep imagining a winged familiar to taunt Aerie about the loss of her wings, and a mouse or rat to freak out Princess Nalia.

 

Will a player get the extra HP if you SK/CLUA a familiar into their pack? I am not home to check.

 

Fel, if you could work on that it would be awesome.

 

It sounds like a great mod to me, maybe someone will want to make it.

 

yes, sound like a good idea for a mod

 

You know, I think I will make this my first foray into serious modding. Now I just need to figure out Near Infinity & WeiDU...