Familiar Ground

So WotC is coming out with Arcane Powers, a new supplement for the game detailing various things of importance to Wizards, Swordmages, Bards and other classes using the Arcane power source.

One of the things that will be described in detail are the rules surrounding Familiars.

How does this impact the story?  Well, it won’t…much.  I’m pretty much guaranteed to use some aspects, but the “physics” of the story won’t correspond exactly to the rules.  It’ll come close, but not quite.

One of the major differences is that Familiars in the new edition are more magical extensions of their creator’s will.  They are magical constructs that just happen to have a physical form.  Killing the body won’t really affect it other than forcing the familiar to have to reform a new body after some effort.

Toad is different.  He was an actual cave frog that was granted sentience and a connection with his wizard, similar to how the older edition familiars worked.  There are familiars in this story that fit the 4e mold however, and they’ll be popping up later on in the story, but just be aware that Toad, Lady Sasha and especially Coco won’t correspond exactly to the rules on Familiars or Paladin Companions.

More info on the upcoming supplement can be found here:  http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=products/dndacc/9780786949571