How do you create a familiar?

[arete]

I have a player who is becoming a Native American Shaman, and today he asked me how to get a spirit familiar.  I have a few ideas, but I wanted to get opinions from the boards. 

[Ryan_Singer]

I'd just make it an aspect. You can invoke for effect to have it do stuff for you, and it can be compelled to represent taking care of it.

[sinker]

More important is what does he want it to do? Once you have that figured out it's relatively easy to make something that does that.

[Nyarlathotep5150]

   And if you want it to take a more central role, you could make it an item of power variant (with the "It is what it is" aspect being the type of spirit it is). I mean, technically a spirit isn't indestructible, but true items of power always have a special way to destroy them (at dramatic story moments)... Which is about as likely to come up as killing off someones familiar.

[Mal_Luck]

   And if you want it to take a more central role, you could make it an item of power variant (with the "It is what it is" aspect being the type of spirit it is). I mean, technically a spirit isn't indestructible, but true items of power always have a special way to destroy them (at dramatic story moments)... Which is about as likely to come up as killing off someones familiar.

Statting it as an IoP might be best, or at least what I would probably do. Maybe increase the rebate bonus since I'm assuming it's an animal and has a mind of it's own.

What does your player want to be able to do with the Familiar?

[arete]

I will ask more detailed questions of my player.  From what I believe he wants is a guide spirit that can help him with knowledge and lore rolls.  I think I bit like Bob, but more friendly.

[Nyarlathotep5150]

I will ask more detailed questions of my player.  From what I believe he wants is a guide spirit that can help him with knowledge and lore rolls.  I think I bit like Bob, but more friendly.

   If thats the case, just make it an aspect that can  add to lore and Scholarship rolls. Bob isn't really a full character in the books, he's really more a way to add flavor to the scenes where Harry is doing lab work (because they would be really boring otherwise).

[Rel Fexive]

In terms of a familiar that shares/confers abilities to the character, you'd only need to use Item Of Power for the abilities it gives rather than all of the abilities it has.  So you'd need to stat the familiar out like an NPC to begin with (whatever you do with it) and figure out any conferrals later.

[sinker]

You could always take it as a stunt too but I like the aspect better.

[Wolfwood2]

I actually just did this with my PC, and I did it by taking the familiar as an Aspect.  I expect that it will be pretty good Compel bait, since the familiar is a physical animal one the one side (and can be put in danger) and can always be yanking my character off to attend to something on the spiritual side.  The key point is that this makes the Familiar "not a character".  It doesn't get its own actions, unless my PC uses his action to command it to do something using his own skill.  (So like, Survival to make it harry an opponent as a Maneuver.)  It doesn't have skills or stress boxes or any of that.  If it gets hurt, that's a Compel.  If it hurts someone, that's me invoking the Aspect to add to my attack roll.

I didn't have the Refresh left to pay for any power anyway.

[devonapple]

Listens-to-Wind has Little Brother simply defined as an Aspect.

This came up in last night's game: one of my players wants to get a pigeon familiar, with all of the D&D-associated benefits, such as sharing senses and such. I'm inclined to leave it as an Aspect, but we can't really decide which of his current Aspects would be replaced with it. We may simply have to create it as an IoP during the next major milestone.

[newtinmpls]

"This came up in last night's game: one of my players wants to get a pigeon familiar, with all of the D&D-associated benefits, such as sharing senses and such. I'm inclined to leave it as an Aspect, but we can't really decide which of his current Aspects would be replaced with it. We may simply have to create it as an IoP during the next major milestone."

This is one of my house rules: I currently have no limits on aspects that come out of role playing. If abused, sure, I'd bite down, but as far as making the character more interesting and fun to play (and especially giving me another tool to tag) I'm cool with that. As an adjunct to that, I don't think I'd make a character taking a en extreme consequence give up one of his usual aspects.

dian

[UmbraLux]

This came up in last night's game: one of my players wants to get a pigeon familiar, with all of the D&D-associated benefits, such as sharing senses and such. I'm inclined to leave it as an Aspect, but we can't really decide which of his current Aspects would be replaced with it. We may simply have to create it as an IoP during the next major milestone.

Have you considered leaving it as an aspect while still allowing sharing senses?  Sounds like a good Declaration to me. 

[devonapple]

Have you considered leaving it as an aspect while still allowing sharing senses?  Sounds like a good Declaration to me. 

It seems the most elegant way to do it in the system, but it could be Fate Point-heavy, especially since most people who have Familiars with that array of abilities tend to rely on them often for strategizing and scouting.

[UmbraLux]

You can use skills for Declarations also - Alertness or Lore would fit the familiar depending on whether you're sending it on a scouting mission or using it to help with spellcasting.  Depending on what the familiar is, you might allow other skills as well.