I have a wizard character who has a pet cockatrice. Although the animal is not on any list of familiars, is there an official or unofficial way to make my petrifying chicken into a familiar?
(Also, if there's any information available that explains why a cockatrice is absent from the list of wizard familiars, I'd be interested in reading it.)
Standard Familiars are all creatures of less than 1 CR.
A Cockatrice is CR 3.
A Wizard with the Improved Familiar feat can choose from a list of more powerful creatures, but must have a minimum caster level to do so. There are only a couple of CR 3 creatures on the list, and they require caster level of 7 or higher.
A cockatrice is too strong to use as a regular familiar. It has high ability scores, decent skill ranks and a petrifying bite, making it too powerful for your average low level wizard. But if you just want a cockatrice for the flavor of having a cockatrice, you could use the rules for 'approximating familiars' as read here. You could use the stats of a chicken or peacock. Just imagine it's a runt or something.
