Familiars

[Nuristas]

Good Afternoon all of you,

I have been looking through several books but I can't find the answer to this:
How many familiars can a mage have with spells like: vampire familiar (rifter) and others.

Thanks a lot

[Nekira Sudacne]

The books seem to assume that you only have one familiar (they do all say the familiar and not familiars), but nowhere does it actually specify a limit.

[drewkitty ~..~]

In the 'Through the Glass Darkly' book on page 45 is this line. "Note that a magician may only have one familiar at a time" This is in the sections talking about Familiars.
However, this is from a different PB game so how it applies to Rifts games is up to your GM.

[Orin J.]

it seems to be implied that you can only have one familiar link at a time, but it's not stated outright. that said, familiars cost hit points (permanently) so i don't know there's any great advantage in having a bunch...

[Nuristas]

it seems to be implied that you can only have one familiar link at a time, but it's not stated outright. that said, familiars cost hit points (permanently) so i don't know there's any great advantage in having a bunch...

In Rifter 65 there is a spell: vampire familiar on page . Those don't cost you HP as far as I can read gives you a vampire familiar without the risks which are mentioned.
I am now wondering when rereading it whether a vampire created by your vampire (who sees you now as it's intelligence and if you die, it dies) can create new Vampires which are subservient to you too.

[Axelmania]

it seems to be implied that you can only have one familiar link at a time, but it's not stated outright. that said, familiars cost hit points (permanently) so i don't know there's any great advantage in having a bunch...

The advantage in many if you have vision-sharing is multiple fields of observation being wired into your brain.

IE how Odin has two ravens.

Costing permanent HP definitely seems like a balancing mechanism enough that we shouldn't need a numerical limit, TBH

Even with the classic spell, if you had 10 familiars to get 60 extra HP that sounds awesome, but it's also that many more opportunities for an enemy to kill the familiars and permanently deprive you of HP.

[RockJock]

As I recall there are several ways to get a familiar. You have several versions of the book legal spell across different titles, plus things like the Summoner/Shifter familiar, demonic familiars, and so on.

[drewkitty ~..~]

there is the spell 'summon greater familiar' that summons a lesser SN being for the spell caster to play 'summoner' with and have a battle of will with.

[Killer Cyborg]

it seems to be implied that you can only have one familiar link at a time, but it's not stated outright. that said, familiars cost hit points (permanently) so i don't know there's any great advantage in having a bunch...

The advantage in many if you have vision-sharing is multiple fields of observation being wired into your brain.

IE how Odin has two ravens.

Costing permanent HP definitely seems like a balancing mechanism enough that we shouldn't need a numerical limit, TBH

Even with the classic spell, if you had 10 familiars to get 60 extra HP that sounds awesome, but it's also that many more opportunities for an enemy to kill the familiars and permanently deprive you of HP.

Agreed.
I think it's safe to say that the rules were not intended to allow people more than one Familiar, but I don't think it'd be very unbalancing to allow it, because familiars tend to be more of a risk than an asset.

Of course, there are plenty of ways to abuse things if you have a permissive GM and/or the right situation.
For example, if you subject your familiar to Biowizardry, you could make your cat/toad/whatever into a MDC monster!
IF the GM doesn't rule that changing the creature too much makes it no longer eligible as a familiar.

You could technically make a small robot vehicle for your familiar(s) as well, using the Robot Creation Rules to make what is basically pet-shaped power armor.
The pet wouldn't have the Pilot skills to fully use the armor/vehicle, but they could still benefit from the MDC, strength, and other stuff.

You could also cast a beneficial spell on your pet, then have a diabolist sew a Permanence Ward into the animal to make the spell permanent.

There are ways to buff out familiars... but as they're written they don't seem much worth the effort.

[Axelmania]

The pet wouldn't have the Pilot skills to fully use the armor/vehicle

That's what RUE Rogue Scholars are for. Or barring that, the 5th level spell "Instill Knowledge"

I guess you could permanence-ward that, but given that the effect is the mage is -60% to use the skill he imparts, you're basically indefinitely sacrificing it until the familiar dies. I assume once the target of a spell dies that the spell would count as having ended.

The complicated thing is you'd basically want to learn RPA: Elite for whatever specialized animal-sized power armor you'd design, so the mage would probably need to use metamorphosis spells during the time they were training to learn it, or else find some other means of adopting the proper form (maybe possession on your familiar?) during the training period.

You could also cast a beneficial spell on your pet, then have a diabolist sew a Permanence Ward into the animal to make the spell permanent.

There are ways to buff out familiars... but as they're written they don't seem much worth the effort.

Much like Animated Dead in Rifts, though they're a bit easier to buff out with your standard vibro-sword and MDC armor and lower-risk since their death loses you no HP

One other useful thing for familiars introduced in FoM (pg 144, 8th level) would be "Lifeward" since you just need to have some paltry MDC armor for your familiar (surely someone could design a pet jumpsuit with at least 1 MDC even for a raven or crow or cat?) to cast it on, at which point they'll have a backup period of being temporarily MDC if their armor gets busted up.

This also makes me wonder if you could train familiars to do stuff like operate talismans. They obviously can't (without a lot of buffing) do stuff like read scrolls, but maybe if you could enchant a nametag on their collar as a talisman, you could have your pets activating Invincible Armor to protect themselves, Fly as the Eagle for your cat to get away, etc....

Reviewing BOM 150 it merely says "can be used to cast its one spell" and I can't really see any restrictions on WHO (or WHAT) can cast it... did we ever get any errata on that?

I'm now picturing Zombies/Golems/Mummies/Animated Dead activating talismans, or giving talismans to summoned elementals / temporary Magic Warriors / summoned Shadow Beasts / purchased bot (Dyna-Bot or Robot Horse) from NGR to use...

Like.... just how flexible is a mage in being able to fight by proxy of his minions? Should there be some kind of IQ cutoff, or just really RP the difficulty of giving the command to activate talismans?