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Summoning Familiar Details - Albino Rat Summoning Familiar Details - Compost Mound

If you’ve ever visited the kalphite lair and wished that you could take one of the giant bugs home as a pet, your wish has been granted. Well, sort of. J It’s not a pet, it’s a familiar, but it will do your bidding for a limited amount of time. The spirit kalphite isn’t really the best of familiars, due to being hampered by an underpowered special move—a problem that’s all too common in the Summoning skill. Even so, it can be of assistance, either by carrying a couple of items for you, or helping out in battle.

The spirit kalphite is one of the most visually striking of all the Summoning familiars. It looks very similar to a kalphite worker, except that it is colored various shades of blue and gray instead of green. It also sports white spikes on its back and lavender-colored pincers. It has the same general style of animation as a kalphite worker as well. As for dialog, well, let’s just say that this fellow is very much part of hive mentality—if you’re a Star Trek fan and remember the interactions between the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise and the Borg, chatting with the spirit kalphite will seem rather… familiar. J See Figure 277 for an example of what I mean.

This big blue bug is the second-lowest level beast of burden in Summoning, capable of holding two regular items (not rune or pure essence) in its inventory—this is its sole non-combat ability. The spirit kalphite can engage in battle, and like the albino rat it has at least a modicum of combat prowess. Its combat-related special move, unfortunately, is a major disappointment.

The details for the spirit kalphite can be found in Table 62; for an explanation of the table’s entries, see the topic Explanation of the Familiar Summary Tables.

The spirit kalphite’s only non-combat function is to serve as a two-slot, general purpose beast of burden. I am a big fan of beasts of burden due to their many uses, but the value of this ability really depends on the number of items the familiar can carry. I said in my description of the thorny snail that I thought its one slot was not worth the bother; two slots is obviously better, but still “borderline” in terms of usefulness.

The value proposition of the spirit kalphite for beast of burden use is especially problematic when you consider what its pouches cost. The spirit kalphite is a pouch that uses a blue charm, whereas all other beasts of burden (except the level 96 pack yak) use a cheap gold charm and few spirit shards. This results in the weird situation where a level 25 spirit kalphite with two inventory slots has a pouch costing more than double that of a level 67 war tortoise that carries six items. This is simply poor design on Jagex’s part—the spirit kalphite should never have required a blue charm, in my opinion.

In practice, this familiar won’t often be used for its carrying abilities, except by low-level players who either can’t yet summon a bull ant, or want the longer duration of the spirit kalphite due to its lower level.

The spirit kalphite behaves very similarly in combat to the albino rat, which has almost the same combat level and hitpoints total, and the identical maximum hit of 4. I said that the rat was the lowest-level Summoning familiar that I felt has a reasonable combat ability for its level, and thus I’d say the same about the spirit kalphite. It was interesting seeing it fight against a kalphite worker (Figure 278)—they were about an even match, except that the kalphite worker gets in two attacks for every one of the spirit kalphite. (The attack speeds of familiars really need improvement.)

This familiar could have actually been a lot better in combat than the albino rat, if its combat-related special move were really, well, special. Jagex’s description of it says it “strikes up to 5 nearby opponents for up to 2 damage”. Well, the first problem is having “five nearby opponents”—how often does that really happen, unless you’re using a cannon or something similar? There are just very few situations in which you are in a multicombat area, with a lot of monsters around you, and the monsters are low enough level for a level 25 summon to be able to damage them and not get killed immediately if the monsters attack it.

An even bigger issue is the damage done. Human nature is to instinctively multiply that “5” and “2” in the scroll description, and start thinking about each scroll doing 10 damage—unfortunately, that’s not how it really works out. Sandstorm usually hits only 3 or 4 monsters at most (often only 1 or 2), and “up to 2 damage” means 0 or 1 as often as it means 2. So the scroll usually does 2 to 4 damage, spread out over several monsters—this has little real impact on monster killing (Figure 279).

When you consider that each scroll costs about 140 gp to buy and even more to make, and that you have to interrupt your own combat to use them, this special is simply not worth it. You’re far better off using chinchompas, even the less potent gray ones—they cost three times as much as a Sandstorm scroll but do a lot more than triple the damage, with a great deal less hassle.

I can say with no exaggeration that the thorny snail’s special attack is better than that of the spirit kalphite—and the dreadfowl’s might be, too!

This isn’t the worst familiar around, but considering that it uses one of the rare and valuable blue Summoning charms, it should be a lot better than it is. A two-slot beast of burden capability is of value to low-level summoners only, and even then, it’s only worth the cost of the pouch if the extra items you are carrying are fairly valuable. In combat, the spirit kalphite is nothing to write home about, and its special attack is so underpowered that it’s hard to believe that anyone at Jagex thought it would be attractive.

None.

Summoning Familiar Details - Albino Rat Summoning Familiar Details - Compost Mound