familiars and experience

[xenopsyllus]

I may be picking up a familiar for my Lunar and using some of the Training charms on it. How does one handle the experience of the familiar? Do they just gain dots when I use the Training charms on them or are there rules somewhere to give them experience?

 

[Vanman]

I think that's up to your ST. If I were running it, I'd say the familiar would only get better through charms. Or, alternately, if you wanted to spend some of your XP and explain it as you training the familiar, I might allow that. But the familiar wouldn't get his own experience.....

 

[xenopsyllus]

Kind of what I thought. Thanks!

 

[Dracogryff]

Another way to do it is to treat them like henchmen, and give them half the XP that the player recieves...but not all STs would allow that...depends on the campaign. The Charm can't teach everything, and spending the PC's XP on the familiar for much of anything is going to end up making two creatures (the PC and their Familiar) much worse than everyone else in the party...I think it's a fair compromise. It's also the fact that the Charm specifically mentions that the creatures go into XP debt if you use it on them...it makes it a little difficult to justify buying them other stuff with XP when they're in XP debt already.


*shrugs* Just another perspective. Not all STs would see it the same. And it depends on the familiar too. If it's one you're intending to fight beside you...then I think that it's fair to consider it basically similar to a Henchman, myself. Otherwise...they're going to be useless 100+ XP down the road, even with the charm. If you split the PC's XP between the Familiar and the PC....then both of them are going to end up horridly behind 200+ XP down the road. Just how I look at it.


It's also a consideration that one of the Lunar Charms awakens their Essence and allows you to teach them Lunar Charms...but the Charm itself doesn't do so...so they need XP from somwhere to learn them. And splitting up your charms ontor your familiar and yourself is going to be suicide from what I've seen of high XP games. I could be wrong, though...I have yet to have a character with a fighting familiar get into the high XP range as of yet.

 

[Sherwood]

It would be like playing a multi-classed character in DnD when everyone else around you is a single class.  Starting out, you can do more, but you will be left in the dirt by a long shot once the xp starts piling up.

 

[Ledaal Kajiri]

*chuckles* Unless of course you've got just the right multiclass build, and then you don't need a party... Not that I've ever played such a character, really...


But yes, splitting xp in Exalted is going to end in a dead Exalt and a dead Familiar. Even more so if one has a method of gaining multiple Familiars... (Sidereal, or Path of the Arbiter Style spring to mind)

 

[Arthur]

It would be like playing a multi-classed character in DnD when everyone else around you is a single class.  Starting out, you can do more, but you will be left in the dirt by a long shot once the xp starts piling up.

Not really. You can do some insane builds, and all of them are multiclasses. You see, I must admit once I was kind of a munchkin (yes, God of the Roleplaying, please forgive me for my sins) and I made a level 15 mage/disciple of the sevenfold veil/master specialist/fate spinner that was effectively immortal...

 

[Moonsilver]

Just leave the Familiar as it is. When your ST feels he is becoming relatively underpowered, he can give it a xp boost.

 

[Haku1]

Familiars are usually essence 1 critters.


Also, note that blessings by various gods, elementals AND demons are free of cost for essence 1 beings. Like your familiar.


So... instead of spending XP like mad on it... get a god or summon up a demon or an elemental to bless your familiar with the good stuff.


And if you want to be REALLY evil, you can get it the awakened essence mutation via Endowment or a Lunar Mutation charm... spirit charms and martial arts are now available to it. Recommend that this be done once you've pimped up your familiar to the max.


Also, note that there are charms used by Solars and Lunars that can boost your familiar as well, and while the solar familiar boosting charms can do just about anything the lunars one does, the lunar familiar boosting charm can allow you to stack some mutations on it.


This is aside from the sidereal familiar boosting charm, which can make the familiar into a spirit...  


So, don't spend XP on your familiar... pimp it up with spells and charms... ^_-

 

[Dracogryff]

The challenge here is that one Lunar Charm (Sharing the Gifts of Luna, p. 164) allows the target to learn Lunar Charms at 12 XP apiece. Where is a famailar they going to get that XP, hmm? No Charm teaches another creature Charms. Nature Reinforcing Allocation (p. 163) can spiff up a familiar a little, this is true, but it has its limits. *shrugs* But, what is the point of being able to use Sharing the Gifts of Luna on a familar if you're not going to be able to have XP for them to spend on getting Charms?


Splitting your own XP onto them isn't going to be all that viable...it's not like D&D multiclassing very much...more like trying to have an Animal Companion or Familiar be more than aesthetics. You have to spend half your cash on equipment for them or they'll die in two hits (or less), and even then, you both merely end up under-equipped and thus less capable than the rest of the party. At least, that's been my experience, there.