Suggestion: Familiars
Lucoire
Posts: 1,245 ✭✭✭✭✭
https://community.harrypotterwizardsunite.com/en/discussion/1619/i-really-want-a-familiar has brought inspired me to put a bit of time and thought into a (reasonably) fleshed out Familiar system.
"basic functionality":
- You only can have 1 Familiar at any time.
- Depending on how much time you spend with the Familiar (using its active and passive skills), the Familiar will get more familiar with you (pun intended) and gain new skills as well as strengthen the ones it already has.
- Once you switch your Familiar, your familiarity will instantly reset to ZERO - even if you switch just for 1 second.
- Familiars have active skills (that you need to unlock first) and passive skills. The active ones will - for their duration - deactivate the passive ones.
- Familiar-familiarity-Levels are "unfamiliar" (initially), "friendly" (after 7 days), "supportive" (after 30 days), "trusted" (after 90 days)
Familiar-Families (inspired by "classic D&D Familiars"):
Spiders
- (passive) Grants you 1 Energy per 1000m walked. (on higher familiarity, the distance required for 1 Energy will be reduced to 900m, 750m and 500m)
- (active) (unlocked on "friendly") Can be sent to find herbs specific potion ingredients. The Familiar will return after 10 minutes with 3 of the desired item.
- (passive) (unlocked on "supportive") Reduced the distance required to unlock Portkeys by 10%
- (passive) (unlocked at "trusted") Increases damage against Enemies by 10% for each consecutive attack. (debuff stacks)
Bats, Weasels
- (passive) (only at night) Grants 1 Energy per 500m walked. (on higher familiarity, the distance required for 1 Energy will be reduced to 400m, 250m and 100m)
- (active) (unlocked on "friendly") Can be sent to find specific potion ingredients. The Familiar will return after 10 minutes with 3 of the desired item. Reduced to 5 minutes at night.
- (passive) (unlocked on "supportive") Grants visibility to additional rare Trace-Encounters. These can not be seen and interacted with by players without Bat-Familiars.
- (passive) (unlocked at "trusted") Increases chance to successfully return a Trace by 5% each consecutive spellcast. (debuff stacks)
Cats, Rats
- (passive) Increases the amount of Registry-XP gained by 1 on successfully returning Traces or Completing Challenges. (on higher familiarity, the amount of XP gained is increased to 2, 5, 10)
- (active) (unlocked on "friendly") Can be sent to find traces of a specific family and rarity. "Low" requires 5 minutes, "Medium" requires 10 minutes, "High" requires 15 minutes, "Severe" requires 20 Minutes and "Emergency" requires 30 minutes. Once your Familiar returns a trace appears nearby that is visible for you ONLY.
- (passive) (unlocked on "supportive") Increases amount of Player-XP gained from all sources by 5%
- (passive) (unlocked on "trusted") Reduces Chance for a Trace to flee by 10%
Frogs, Lizards
- (passive) Increases the amount of Ingredients you pick up by 1. (on higher familiarity, the amount is increased to 2, 3 and 5)
- (active) (unlocked on "friendly") Can be sent to bring a potion to a friend. Takes 1 minute, when the player is in the same L12 S2 Cell, 2 minutes when the player is in the same L11 S2 Cell, 5 Minutes for L10, 10 Minutes for L9, 20 minutes for L8, 30 minutes for L7, 45 minutes for L6, 90 min for L5, 3 hours for L4, 6h for L3, 12h for L2, 24h for L1 and 48h otherwise
- (passive) (unlocked on "supportive") Increases the amount of Brewtime-Reduction from 15% to 25%
- (passive) (unlock on "trusted") Grants a 5% chance that a potion isn't consumed on use.
Hawks, Owls
- (passive) Doubles the Distance at which you can see Traces, Ingredients and Seeds.
- (active) (unlocked on "friendly") Can bring a potion to a friend. Speed is 2x of that of a frog - meaning 30 seconds on L12 cell and 24h when the players don't even share an L1 cell
- (passive) (unlocked on "supportive") Doubles the Distance at which you can interact with Inns and Greenhouses.
- (passive) (unlock on "trusted") Grants you a 10% chance to dodge an Enemy attack during a Challenge.
Pseudodragons, Fae
- (passive) Grants you a chance to not consume Energy on unsuccessful Spellcast. Chance is 1% on "unfamiliar", 2% on "friendly", 5% on "supportive" and 10% on "trusted"
- (active) (unlocked on "friendly") Can be sent to an Inn to retrieve energy.
- (passive) (unlocked on "supportive") Doubles your Accuracy
- (passive) (unlocked on "trusted") Doubles your Critical Power
6
Comments
Footnote (after proofreading):
Pretty good but I think the time taken or quantity for ingredients fetching should depend on the rarity of the ingredient. So more common ones return quicker or with more, while rarer ones will take more time or with only 1 or 2.
Good idea, @binondogurl.
What would you say to binding the "return" time to the time required to grow them in a Greenhouse?
Obviously that only works for herbs that can actually be grown. For other ingredients like Abraxan hair, Re'em blood and Butterscotch that won't work but I think that even these could be fit into that pattern somehow 🤔
I really, really liked it (probably because I like the D&D mechanic as well).
Also, the familiar could be associated with your own Patrono animal.
@OzTheWise Thanks.
As for the "Familiar" vs "Patronus", this is what the source-material says:
@OzTheWise That being said, what use is there for a Patronus?
Similar to a Wand, the Patronus is a representation of a Wizards personality. The Patronus choses the Wizard, not the other way around. And aside from the Patronus Charm, it isn't really that useful, isn't it?
I mean, the "most useful" Patronus was the Doe of Severus Snape - who guided Harry to the Sword of Gryffindor (without revealing that Snape was actually helping our "hero) and who served as undenyable evidence that Severus was still in love (and mourning for) Lilly Potter.
But aside from that Patronuses are mostly "comforting", a symbolic representation for happy times that the Wizard can use to fight dementors.
Whereas a Familiar is actually pretty useful. Crookshanks, a cat-kneazle-hybrid and Hermione's Familiar, did his very best to protect his mistress and their friends from Peter Pettigrew in his Animagus-Form. Crookshanks even took a liking to Sirius and actively helped Harry's Godfather and thereby was crucial to the plot of "Prisoner of Azkhaban"
So I would draw a very clear line between Familar and Patronus.
I love the basic idea, and I am right there with you for the concept. I can see hiccups in the specific points, from the game makers view, such as the granting of spell energy for walking with your familiar: While I love the idea from this side of the game, the game designers do want us to donate to their lunch money fund occasionally, and spell energy (and in my case, extra keys for portmanteau) seem to be their main point for that.
And I agree that familiars and patronus should be separate.
Not a new idea but definitely the most in depth version, kudos on your diligence to deliver a well thought out template!!!
The only thing I disagree on is the instant zero if you switch. I would like the ability to level up my Familiars and choose which one to take out patrolling with me for the day. Perhaps implement a requirement that you have to designate a specific locked location (ideally your home) to swap or only permit swapping after 'x' hours.
Love the homage for DnD btw. To many whipper snappers these days don't know the history of stat based gameplay. Respect the D20!
@CytopeAchen I've looked at this from the perspective of "Hard Magic"-Systems, which are defined by Rules, Consequences and Limitations (that often come in the form of costs)
My choice of rule is that in order for the bonus to work, you need to have a bond to your familar. That bond is based on trust, love and faithfullness, it isn't a choice that you make lightly and given the power you get in exchance, it is an unbelievably meaningful choice.
Switching your Familiar in my system is equivalent to betrayal. You've abandoned your old familiar and it has abandoned you. Once you've destroyed the mutual trust, it is irrevocably gone. That's the consequence of your choice - and it has to be a very hard consequence in order to give meaning to your decision.
I did however chose to not add an additional "cost" (aside from your faithfullness)
I choose magizoo actualy because of hoping will have some pets/familiar not because the magizoo lessons. LoL
Good idea...
Hope they implement some sort of Familiar functionality into game, it would make game more interesting (if you had to feed your familiar and do stuff with him/her). I am not really on board with switching familiar though...
Wonderful idea @Lucoire . It'll keep engagement in the game alive. Personally: it was the revised buddy system that dragged me back to PoGo recently. I'd love it.
@AndyRozman @Punkyfins For me, a "Pokemon GO buddy" and a "HPWU Familiar" are 2 very different things.
Whereas a Pokemon Buddy is merely a glorified pet, one among many, that can (and as shown in the anime will) be replaced once the opportunity arises.
To me, HPWU is more than just a "re-skinned" PoGO.
That's why I continuously try to distinguish the two games from each other.
It is certainly a very different game @Lucoire , sorry if I was unclear in my enthusiasm to respond. I just meant that a mechanic like the one you propose would engage me with the game, analogous to the way it did another game. In any case, the mechanic you describe is rather different. I should have been clearer :) sorry for that.
@Lucoire
I haven't played Pokemon, so I am not sure what "Pokemon GO buddy" is... But like you said for me Familiar is something permanent, so "exchanging" familiars would be No-no for me...
I am not really sure about self-sufficient though... I mean most of familiars know how to hunt, so they wouldn't need regular feeding, but Harry feeds Hedwig, at least with treats sometimes, and I would imagine Hermione does the same with her cat...
But first we need to get Niantic on board to our idea of Familiars... It would be nice feature to have...
@Lucoire your idea is very good, you have my support. Regards