Elves and Familiars

[Séadna]

I was just wondering is there a reason the Core explicitly states that Wizards can use Find Familiar in the class description. Everywhere else in the book it seems to be a typical Level 1 spell. I assume Elves can have it as well and can get it the same way when determining spells?

[Ravenheart87]

No need to get stuck on wording, go with what makes sense for you. It won't break the game.

[Séadna]

Oh I don't mind veering from RAW, I was more curious about the intent. Just wondering why it's called out in the Wizard's class description, i.e. purely for Appendix N flavour reasons of Wizards having familiars, or was there some difference in Wizard familiars in the rules I was missing.

[Bilgewriggler]

I think a certain amount of deliberate ambiguity is baked into the rules to reflect the foibles of old-school RPGs (and maybe even to force judges to make the game uniquely "theirs" through house rules). Unless I'm remembering wrong, you could also read the RAW such that only wizards, not elves, use mercurial magic with their spells. (Or maybe it's that the ability score table specifies bonus wizard spells for high intelligence but doesn't indicate that the column applies to elves.)

[GnomeBoy]

Broadly speaking, references to Wizards include Elves.

But I can't remember where that's covered...

[Bilgewriggler]

It does say under the general description of "Elf" that "Elves can cast spells as wizards do," which implies that all of the mechanics should be identical.