Familiars are terrible and also difficult to fix

AD&D has some heinous familiar rules. What wizard uses Find Familiar? A shameful wizard, that who.

So here I am working on some new, awesome familiar rules for Gangs of New Wizard City. Here are my goals

• Add enough mechanical differences between a wizard with a familiar and a wizard without a familiar that it has an impact on game play. As it stands now, familiars are just crappy henchmen who reduce your permanent hit points when they die.
• Allow players to make any sort of familiar they want, because sparrows and toads are all well and good for boring people, but I think a better familiar might be a haunted femur or a giant daddy long legs. Also pokemon would make sweet familiars.
• I want to make familiars less fragile, while still keeping to the brutal style of old school D&D. Losing a familiar should still suck, but maybe 2HP 7AC isn't very feasible after first level.

As it is right now, I've got a workable system, but it isn't really singing. I'll probably tool around with it for a while, but I figured a second set of eyes wouldn't hurt, so comment below if you've got an idea on what to do with this mess.

A familiar

SUMMONING A FAMILIAR
Find Familiar is a spell known by all wizards. It can be attempted as often as the caster wishes (no one year limit) and costs 100gp per level of the caster.

Once a year? Sorry Gary, I ain't got time for that nonsense.

When a Magic-User summons a familiar, they immediately reduce their maximum hit points by 25% or 1 point, whichever is higher. Whenever the MU gains HP, they gain 25% less than normal, at minimum 1 hit point.  In return, the amount of health lost is the HP value of the magic-user's familiar. The familiar also gains 1 hp per level of the caster.

Whenever the magic-user regains health through any means, and the familiar is not at full health, split the healing 50/50 between the magic-user and the familiar.

I hear what you're saying - why not just make the MU lose 1hp/lvl, and give the familiar 2hp/lvl? Because this is old school D&D, and you roll for your hp. This way, a lvl 10 MU with impeccable d4smanship and 40 hp has an adjusted hp of 30 and a 20hp familiar (10+10hp) while his less healthy friend the lvl 10 wizard with 20 hp has an adjusted hp of 15 and a familiar with 15 hp (5+10hp)

A familiar reduced to 0 hp disappears in a puff of smoke, melts into a puddle, crumbles to dust, or other appropriately mystical event, but will heal at its usual rate on the astral plane until it is fully healed, at which point it will reappear somewhere near or on its master. Familiars always spend at least a full day in the astral plane, largely due to laziness. Familiars killed with enchanted weapons, spells, cold iron, or any of the various magic creature destroying tools employed in your setting do not reform after death, and are buried by their astral friends and family in an astral pet cemetery.

While this sort of scaling wouldn't make sense in most games, AD&D routinely features players interacting with a wide range of levels in combat, and more so, damage output advances far slower than HP growth. After all, lots of low to mid level monsters are still dealing damage comparable to a first level character using a long sword, and hordes of weak monsters are often used in place of a few level appropriate one.

Since magic-users roll d4s for hit points, and rarely have a high enough constitution to earn a bonus, you can assume a MU has 2.5hp/lvl. Their average health by level is thus: 3, 5, 8, 10, 13, 15, 18, 20, 23, 25

Familiars reduce this number, making MUs with familiars even more fragile. I mitigated this slightly under the heading Passive Mode, but we'll get to that in a second. For now, familiars have roughly 2hp per level of the caster, while their master's average hit points per level falls to 1.875 (Making their hp progression 2, 4, 6, 8, 9...) They are still very, very fragile, but, it means that a lucky familiar might survive two hits rather than one.

A familiar

Anyway, familiars have two uses. They can either hang out on a wizard's shoulder or run around on their own.

PASSIVE - While passive, familiars are in direct contact or close proximity with their master; sitting on shoulders, hiding in pockets, or orbiting his head like a tiny mystical moon. There, familiars whisper eldritch secrets and eat sugar cubes, but when something dangerous happens, they act as amplifiers to a wizards naturally occuring force field.

Any attacks that damage the magic-user reduce the familiars hit points instead, and only when those hit points are used up does the magic user begin marking off their own health. Any attack or spell that deals some sort of lasting impairment, such as ongoing damage, poison, and hexes effect the familiar instead of the magic-user. If an attack or spell carries some secondary effect and deals enough damage to dissipate the familiar, the secondary effect still only effects the familiar, although the damage will "spill over" to the magic-user as normal. GMs are free to rule that AOA effects like dragon's breath harms both the familiar and it's master.

Passive familiars do not die from this damage, even if it was a type of attack that would normally kill them, but all tuckered out from maintaining a force field, adorably pass out and return to the astral plane, to dream cute little dreams until they recover their health. Spells that cause instant death still cause real death though, damn.

This adds a tactical element and mechanically differentiates familiar users and normal magicians. While a normal magician has more hit points, which can be healed with magic mid adventure, the familiar using wizard has the ability to sometimes avoid afflictions, and benefit from using their familiar to bolster their reduced hit point pool.

A familiar

ACTIVE - While active, the familiar is a separate entity from the magic-user, and is treated as an NPC under player control like a henchmen. They fight with their masters to-hit tables and saving throws, and deal d4 damage, with +1 damage per two levels. They have an armor class of 7, which improves by one point for each level of their master up to level 3, and then by one point for ever two levels thereafter.

I thought about making up a quick point buy system to build familiars, but this is AD&D and frankly no one gives a shit about character parity or math or whatever, so for now I'm just going to use the stats for house cats if someone wants a black cat. This is also a good spot for reskinning, since a cat could just as easily by an iguana or a mechanical spider or whatever. I also hate point buys because I don't want to look over a list of options, I'd rather just make my own.

I'm considering some sort of Mad Libs familiar rule. Something like this

When you make a familiar, fill out the following sentence.

My familiar is a *type of familiar*. He can *type of movement*, and has keen senses, especially *type of sense*. I conjured him to help me *action*

"Action" is a broad class of things that the familiar is especially knowledgable about. When the familiar is in Passive Mode, it provides a +2 bonus on all related rolls, although not damage.

Some examples


My familiar is a CAT. He can SNEAK AROUND, and has keen senses, especially NIGHT VISION. I conjured him to help me STEAL SECRETS

Okay so this cat is stealthy (probably has thief skills, bonus to surprise, stuff like that) can see at night, and grants a bonus when it's master is breaking into magical laboratories, swiping spell manuals, or casting certain divination spells.

My familiar is a BABY FIRE ELEMENTAL. He can PASS THROUGH FIRE, and has keen senses, especially THERMAL IMAGING. I conjured him to help me BURN THINGS

Okay so this adorable little guy is immune to fire and might even affect normal fires, and maybe he can sense heat and detect fires nearby through some kind of secret fire language. He grants bonuses on fire spells, throwing molotovs, and felony arson.

My familiar is a FLOATING SKULL. He can LEVITATE, and has keen senses, especially ECHOLOCATION FROM HALLOWEEN CACKLING. I conjured him to help me DO NECROMANCY

This familiar can fly around, and detect invisible creatures while cackling. He grants a +2 on necromancy related rolls.