In D&D 3.5, can a familiar be temporarily dismissed?

Question

I am thinking of getting the Improved Familiar feat and obtaining a Hippogriff, but as a large creature, it could be hard to carry around especially when I am walking around in the city. Is there a (legal) way to temporarily put it somewhere else like the pocket dimension in 5e?

Answer 1

Try a belt of many pockets

A familiar that's bigger than Tiny like a hippogriff (Monster Manual 152 and that's available as a familiar through the feat Improved Familiar (Dungeon Master's Guide 200 and Complete Warrior 100)) won't fit into the extradimensional space created by the 2nd-level Sor/Wiz spell familiar pocket [univ] (Spell Compendium 88), but any size familiar can fit in a belt of many pockets (Complete Arcane 147–8) (11,000 gp; 1 lb.). The belt, in part, says

[I]f the wearer has a familiar, any pouch [of the belt's 64 pouches] can hold it [i.e. the wearer's familiar] no matter what its size or weight. The familiar has no need for food, water, or air while inside the pouch, but any other living creature of suitable size placed within a pocket has enough air for only 1 minute, after which it suffocates. (147 and emphasis mine)

This is, so far as I'm aware, the best way that the master can carry a hippogriff familiar (instead of the more common scenario of the hippogriff familiar carrying the master). There are alternatives, but they require taking a feat. For example, there's the aforementioned general feat Lurking Familiar (Player's Handbook II 80) that might work, and there's the general feat Token Familiar (Dragon #280 62) that likewise might suit:

Your familiar can, on command, assume a small, inanimate form, much like a figurine of wondrous power…. The form can be any Diminutive, stone, hand-held object, typically a statuette of the familiar. In this form, the familiar does not require food or care, and it is easy to hide, but its powers are unavailable to you while in its statue form. The familiar in its statuette form still has a mind, but it cannot use any of its senses, special attacks, or special qualities. If its inanimate form is broken or destroyed, the familiar is slain. It can return to its normal form upon command.

These are all familiar specific, but your options don't have to be. Essentially, with the belt, you're paying for the familiar to survive in the extradimensional space for longer than 1 min., but if money is no object, you can have the familiar wear a necklace of adaptation (DMG 263) (9,000 gp; 0 lbs.) and a ring of sustenance (DMG 230) (2,500 gp; 0 lbs.) and dump the familiar in a portable hole (DMG 264) (20,000 gp; 0 lbs.) and forget about it. (Still, I'd check up on it occasionally lest its confinement make it ornery.) Likewise, a powerful enough wizard can just employ the 4th-level Sor/Wiz spell polymorph [trans] (PH 263) to turn the hippogriff familiar into something innocuous as the master roams around town.

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Note: A PC in a campaign that I ran had a hippogriff familiar, and the player's solution to dungeoning with it was the belt. We found nothing better for the price.

Answer 2

With a Necklace of Adaptation (Dungeon Master's Guide page 263) to allow them to breath you can put them in a Bag of Holding (Dungeon Master's Guide page 248) or a Portable Hole (Dungeon Master's Guide page 264). You'd need a Type III Bag of Holding at minimum to fit a Hippogriff, possibly a Type IV, so this solution is pretty expensive. (9,000 gp for the Necklace of Adaptation, and either 7,400 gp or 10,000 gp for the Bag of Holding, or 20,000 gp for the Portable Hole).

A somewhat cheaper solution to the problem (if not a direct answer to the question) is the Shrink Collar (Arms and Equipment Guide page 80) which reduces its wearer to small size. It can explicitly be used on animal companions. Though this still isn't the cheapest at 10,000 gp.

Answer 3

I don't think there is any way to keep a non-tiny familiar hidden (see the Spell Compendium for the Familiar Pocket spell for tiny creatures), but there is a way to keep a familiar out of sight - sort of. This would be a bit silly, but working by RAW. Get the Combat Familiar feat at level 1 or 3, get your Hide skill as high as possible, then at level 6 get the Lurking Familiar feat:

Lurking Familiar

Your familiar hides within the folds of your robe or takes cover behind you as your opponents close in. When it moves to attack, its sudden appearance might catch your foe by surprise.

Benefit: If your familiar occupies your square, it gains cover against all attacks. As a consequence, it can make a Hide check to avoid your foe's notice. If your familiar then leaves your space to attack an opponent, it gains the normal benefit for attacking from a hidden position.

How would a Large creature hide within the robes of a Medium creature? Don't know. But this is RAW territory, so logic and reason hold no sway here.

There's also the old evergreen of the Invisibility spell. Keep your familiar outside the city until you have found a place to store it, then Invis it and yourself and fly to that place. If you get there within (Level) minutes, you got away with it.

It can't physically fit somewhere? Cast Reduce Person on yourself, then Share Spell it with your familiar.