Granted By Familiar Question

[Danukian]

All of the questions floating around about Duration of Summoned Allies has sparked a question for me, and rather than derail the questions on duration, I'll start a new thread.

Q= If you have an ability Granted by Familiar (-40%), and that Familiar isn't available that day, do you loose access to that ability?

My gut says you loose it: If the familiar is separated from you for any other reason, you cannot access it's ER, why should you keep the Darkvison it grants you? Either pay more for higher Frequency of Appearance or pay the full cost without the GbF if you want to keep the trait.

After a quick forum search, Kromm seems to support this:

Originally Posted by Kromm

I'm just pointing out that "familiar must be within X yards" and "familiar must be within X yards and is vulnerable" aren't the same thing:

• "Familiar must be within X yards" can be priced analogously to the Environmental limitation. It's probably a -10% limitation, as "present most of the time, but a resourceful foe could arrange for it to be absent" sounds right, while "present all the time" and "often absent" do not.
  
  
• "Familiar must be within X yards and is vulnerable" has the first aspect but also tacks on what amounts to -30% for a gadget (call it DR 2 or less, subject to breakdown, but small and/or capable of hiding).

I quite agree that the second -30% wouldn't be valid without the first -10% to put the familiar in harm's way. However, the initial -10% is comparable to things like the presence of air or microbes, so I wouldn't be too harsh with range. If it's legit to claim -10% because you brought your lucky bacteria that might die if somebody uses a UV lamp or an aerosol antibiotic, then it's legit to claim -10% because your macroscopic familiar is within range of, say, an artillery barrage or massed archery.

Specifically, "within arm's reach" is overly restrictive. I'd settle for "is touching the wizard, is within normal earshot of him, or has a line of sight to him." That ought to be -10%, exactly like the "any one of three senses" version of Sense-Based.

So if you're breaking it down:

Granted by familiar, -40% = Touch-, Hearing-, or Vision-Based (Reversed), -10% + Gadget, Breakable (DR 2 or less, Can break down, SM -7 or -8), -30%

"Can break down" should be read as "subject to things like Sleep spells and disease," while "SM -7 to -8" is the net effect of a small animal using its Stealth skill to hide. And in effect, the first -10% assumes the role of "Can Be Stolen," in the sense that stealth or trickery would be needed to find the familiar, and finding it wouldn't let the seeker use the granted abilities.

So, am I correct in this? Do you only have GbF traits when your familiar is present?

If so, does the Owl Familiar (DF5:p23-24) only grant Flight: Gliding for 1 minute? Dog, Rat, etc grant Reduced Consumption, and Rat also grants Resistant to Metabolic Hazards – these make little sense for 1 minute durations, especially at the listed costs!

[the_matrix_walker]

That is absolutely the case. If your familiar isn't there, neither are the powers it grants, hence the massive limitation value.

it's right in the description of page B38
"You have no access to these abilities on a failed appearance roll; if your familiar is stunned, unconscious, or dead; or in areas where your special link does not function (GM’s decision). Buy these abilities with a -40% Accessibility limitation: “Granted by familiar.”"

[Danukian]

Right - but the new ruling by Kromm is that Summoned Familiars are only there for 1 minute at a time: So, Flight (GBF-40%) seems really overpriced at 24 character points if it only lasts a minute, and I cannot even imagine how Reduced Consumption even works for 1 minute at a time...

[Anaraxes]

Familiars aren't generally summoned, as in the I-drew-a-pentagram-and-summoned-this-demon sense. They're usually regular Allies, even if they have supernatural origins.

Any bit about having cast a special summoning ritual to get the familiar in the first place is flavor text in the origin story for your familiar. (Let's pick on Vlad Taltos for an example; lots of work to acquire Loiosh in the first place, but he's not summoning him every day or in every book. Classic D&D is the same way. You theoretically cast Find Familiar once per familiar, but that's all off-screen.)

Go with the standard Ally interpretation for familiars.

For contrast, let's say the character concept is a demonologist as Swiss army knife, who picks a bunch of powers appropriate to the problem at hand by whipping up a few demons (spirits, etc). In this case, feel free to treat them as special effects of a spell that lasts one minute.

[Danukian]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

Familiars aren't generally summoned, as in the I-drew-a-pentagram-and-summoned-this-demon sense. They're usually regular Allies, even if they have supernatural origins.

Any bit about having cast a special summoning ritual to get the familiar in the first place is flavor text in the origin story for your familiar. (Let's pick on Vlad Taltos for an example; lots of work to acquire Loiosh in the first place, but he's not summoning him every day or in every book. Classic D&D is the same way. You theoretically cast Find Familiar once per familiar, but that's all off-screen.)

Go with the standard Ally interpretation for familiars.

For contrast, let's say the character concept is a demonologist as Swiss army knife, who picks a bunch of powers appropriate to the problem at hand by whipping up a few demons (spirits, etc). In this case, feel free to treat them as special effects of a spell that lasts one minute.

That's how I normally run allies but in this thread, Kromm is saying that is not the case, due to the fact the the PC can smuggle a dog into a castle without the guards having any chance at all to notice the dog and stop it, and you don't have to feed it or pay for its passage on a ship, when you summon the dog inside the castle, it only lasts 1 minute - and only grants Reduced Consumption for 1 minute. THAT is where the confusion lies.

[Kromm]

Please note that in the thread in question, I said that you could interpret Summonable Allies either way. It's getting the best of all worlds that isn't cool. If you want a Summonable Ally as a familiar, and said Ally stays all adventure once summoned, then great. If you insist on it being something you can literally produce or dispel at will infinite times as long as you keep making dice rolls, then the GM is within his rights to set a duration so that you actually have to roll the dice once in a while. In either case, the ability only matters while the Ally is present, yes . . . but because you have a choice in behavior, you can choose whatever works best given the abilities granted.

[Danukian]

Originally Posted by Kromm

Please note that in the thread in question, I said that you could interpret Summonable Allies either way. It's getting the best of all worlds that isn't cool. If you want a Summonable Ally as a familiar, and said Ally stays all adventure once summoned, then great. If you insist on it being something you can literally produce or dispel at will infinite times as long as you keep making dice rolls, then the GM is within his rights to set a duration so that you actually have to roll the dice once in a while. In either case, the ability only matters while the Ally is present, yes . . . but because you have a choice in behavior, you can choose whatever works best given the abilities granted.

Okay, I get that. But going off of the description in Basic, I always assumed you could summon your familiar, but dismiss it when you came to a group of guards, hard to scale wall, submerged tunnel, etc. Then, when you needed it's services, say for ER or to guard you while you sleep, etc, you roll again to re-summon it. The summoning and dismissing willy-nilly sounds like your Spell-Like description, but the 1 minute duration makes the ally useless for anything but combat. I'm not trying to be belligerent or anything, I am just trying to figure out, since you could interpret it either way - when you would interpret it as spell-like 1 one minute for the same price; or why you would pay 29 points for an ally that can only show up for a minute at a time...

[the_matrix_walker]

Originally Posted by Danukian

Right - but the new ruling by Kromm is that Summoned Familiars are only there for 1 minute at a time: So, Flight (GBF-40%) seems really overpriced at 24 character points if it only lasts a minute, and I cannot even imagine how Reduced Consumption even works for 1 minute at a time...

No actually, Kromm did not rule that that is exactly how they work, he said a GM would be within his rights to give it that duration. I think you're blowing it a bit out of proportion... it's not an errata moment.