Which familiar should I go for?

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What's your thoughts / opinion on familiars? Making a mage or sorcerer, or in my case a dragon disciple, what alignment should I make him in order to get your familiar of choice?
Why should I choose your recommendation? What's your reasoning? I'm pretty much just going to have it in my pack for safe keeping so I don't lose a con point every time it gets killed. Unless you think I should use whatever familiar it is?

 

Personally i would go with chaotic good, which gets you a Fairy Dragon, which can cast Mirror Image and Invisibility 10' Radius - the mirror image is on itself so only ever useful for some extra protection if you don't keep him in your backpack, but the invisibility 10' radius can actually be useful at some points, especially if you have a party low on arcane casting or don't have any invisibility spells memorized yourself.
Also, having a small dragon as a familiar fits nicely with the dragon disciple kit

 

Chaotic Neutral - Cat.

My wildmage never leaves his house without the Cat.
Sneaky, fast and full of 'meh' 'tude. Best scout.

 

Is there any way that will show you your familiars HPs. Besides the "injured, badly injured, etc."
Also how can you tell how long their abilities last? The imp for example has a polymorphing ability but how long will it last? Or the duration of a Fairy Dragon with it's mirror image and invisibility 10' Radius?

And why does a cat have a much higher stealth than a ferret?

 

Not sure if there's a way to show the exact HP. The overhead HP display doesn't work? The penalties for losing a familiar are far too harsh to risk keeping them out until the last hit point anyway.

Did you try right-clicking on the abilities? A lot of the ability descriptions in the game are incorrect, but it's worth a try. Otherwise try reading the familiar's item description.

Although ferrets are pretty sneaky, they're nowhere near as sneaky as a cat that's stalking its prey.

 

The overhead display only says how hurt they are. Right clicking on them unfortunately does nothing. Also reading the familiars description only tells what they can do not the duration. If you knew how many hit dice were used you could go by that but it only says how many HPs it has not hit dice.

True true true about the stalking. Now that I think about it they tend to be more playful anyway rather than stalking. A friend of mine had one and it was so damn playful I couldn't imagine it even stalking never mine stealthy.

 

It seems a HP counter for familiars was simply never implemented, pressing TAB only shows the hp counter for party members, not your familiar - mouse-over tooltip also won't show you a number, just injured/hurt/etc. To be honest, you're probably be better off just keeping your familiar in your pack at all times - with their piddly HP they die relatively easy, and losing -1 constitution really hurts.

As for how long their abilities last, you could check it by setting the options to auto-pause after each round while in combat, have your familiar cast it's spell and check how long it lasts..
Some should work just as if you cast them yourself - iirc polymorph other is permanent. other abilities rely on caster level (like mirror image = 3 rounds +1 per level) but i have no idea what level a familiar is considered, or if they 'level up' at all.

 

You could also check the files. You know, if you really wanted to know.

 

Why do it the easy way if you can take the overly convoluted and inaccurate one though ?
To be honest, i hadn't even thought of that - checking the files would probably be the fastest and most accurate way to go about it.

 

How do I do that? DLTCEP? I don't see how if it is. Can you point me in the right direction please

 

It's probably easiest with NI. Just scroll down to one of the familiars' creature files, let's say FAMIMP.CRE, note the level (7 HD for imp), click on the Items/Spells tab, see which spells it has (standard Polymorph Self for imp), and then view the spells to determine how long they last. A familiar's polymorph effect lasts for 1 turn + 3 rounds/level = 31 rounds or 186 seconds.

 

Is there any way to keep my imp permanently polymorphed into a flind?
Is there a way to get it more HPs?

 

You would need to make a permanent version of the spell and assign it to the imp.

And no, aside from very temporary buffs, there's no way to increase their HP (they do get slightly buffed in ToB though).