Posted by Master~DDD on November 6, 2000 at 15:06:34:
I just thought of that Simpsons episode where Homer gets a helper monkey, and got an idea:
Homer says to Marge "He can do anything you show him."
Why not make conjurors be able to teach a familiar to do some relatively simple things. For example, giving things, instead of just dropping them and letting the people picking them up, filling containers, looting pits/corpses, or buying things from shopkeepers.