What would make a familiar worth a feat?

[Endarire]

Greetings, all!

I'm aware of Complete Arcane's feat Obtain Familiar.  I'm aware that a familiar isn't a feat for the classes that get it (Sor/Wiz, some others), but it can be traded for alternate class features (like Abrupt Jaunt) as if it were a feat.

These are my current revisions to making a familiar useful.

1: Full summonling benefits!  I treat a familiar like any other summoned creature.  (The Sor/Wiz ability is called "Summon Familiar."  If your familiar dies, you can summon another one later.  You may use Summon Familiar once per 24 hours, and each summoned familiar has a duration of 24 hours.

Also, since a familiar is summoned, it's affected by Augment Summoning and all other abilities which affect summons.

2: HD scaling and feats a la psicrystals! Psicrystals get real, actual HD as their masters gain levels in the appropriate classes.  This grants them feats.  Mind you, they can't get much in terms of feats, but it's something

[TC X0 Lt 0X]

But Familiars are already useful.

There are at least two handbooks dedicated to Familiars even.

[Endarire]

I considered the handbook aspect.  However, in my experience, I have never actively used my familiar.  If I had one, it was for a prereq or its passive effect, basically forgotten on my person.  And I never spent a feat to get a familiar.

Extra actions from a Raven UMDing a wand/scroll/staff is cool, but I've never been able to do it in a game.

Changing my familiar's form (alter self, etc.) can be useful, but the penalty for losing my familiar is too great for me to risk it.  Sending him on stealth or scouting missions I've also never done due to risk.  I've never milked a familiar for poison or another similar resource, due to lack of opportunity and inclination.

Ultimately, it may be my experiences, but a familiar your GM forgets about (or just treats as being in the background) is more useful than one I try to use.

[zook1shoe]

but ravens can drop trees on people

[Jackinthegreen]

Instead of saying "worth a feat" perhaps say "worthwhile to use given X restrictions."

Getting rid of the idiotic XP loss if it dies is one way to help things.  Turning it into a summon sounds like a good idea, although more than once per day might be warranted since bad things do happen.

How hard did you try to use your familiars?  There are a lot of spells to get something from them, and putting effort into casting spells on them might send a message to the DM along the lines of "I want to actually do something with this class feature."

[Endarire]

I didn't much care to use my familiars once I saw the replacement cost.  Being able to have a raven as an artillery platform got vetoed, but it would have been worth the risk.  Beyond that, they just stayed out of harm's way.

[veekie]

You just explained the entire reason that they don't see more use. The fear of the replacement cost. Eliminate that and you're fine.

[zugschef]

take a flying familiar and benign transposition. that's how useful familiars are. from 1st level on. familiars are good as is. the only problem is that the class feature "familiar" is worse than the feat "obtain familiar", which is fuckin stupid.

[Prime32]

Even if you just have your familiar sit in your pocket (with or without casting familiar pocket), the benefits can be huge. With Improved Familiar/Dragon Familiar/etc. you can pick up stuff like blindsense, telepathy, continuous magic circle against evil, continuous true seeing, continuous tongues, at-will greater teleport, +4 to your spells' save DCs, and so on.

In any case, picking up a familiar is better than taking Alertness for prereqs.

[Aliek]

+4 to your spells' save DCs

Wait, what? How?

[Prime32]

+4 to your spells' save DCs

Wait, what? How?

Pick up a familiar with the Dragon type or dragonblood subtype (there's an ACF in Dragon Magic which grants the latter to any familiar), then have it take the Draconic Aura [energy: cold] feat. Now take Snowcasting (or just cast a lot of spells which have the cold descriptor or inflict cold damage).

There's another aura that grants +4 Spot/Listen/initiative. All of them extend to 30ft, and there are probably items out there to make them larger or stronger.

[zook1shoe]

Not to mention its a primary component in the ubermount build

[FlaminCows]

I think it just might be your experiences. Familiars are extremely useful. To the point that its generally agreed that Obtain Familiar is OP and the only sane reason a character would trade away his familiar for a class feature is that they're going to take Obtain Familiar to replace it.

However, I agree with ditching the XP loss for familiar death. It is meant as a balancing factor but tends to be more of a nuisance. Getting rid of the XP loss can also make it easier to deal with for groups that use nonstandard XP progression (such as "we ignore XP and just level up at appropriate moments determined by the DM").

[zugschef]

the xp loss rule is just a leftover from the gygaxian days of dm dickery in former editions.