Does anyone know what you can do to trigger familars being attacked by NPCs?

You can get hit yourself and since it's automatically set to defend you, it will strike back.  Another option is to use its special scroll to get it to start.

Okay, but lets say this is a single boss in the room, and you start by not being in combat.

You have to attack the boss before you can get your familar to attack the boss.

So I guess the scroll won't work either?  I'm not sure then, sorry.

If you use the attack instruction on a combat familiar it should go and attack, but it won't keep fighting if your not in combat afaik.

Oh my god this problem at kalgerions is so annoying. So many nihils have been killed lol.

 

So provoke works for me usually. Though at kalgs (and i guess other stuff) my theory is that it switches if you leave attackable range and your familiar remains in range and continues attacking the monster. I might eventually do some more testing but I'd say just dont leave range and if your familiar starts getting targetted spam call familiar.

You may be able to do this by using Freedom or Anticipation, which put you in combat stance, then manually selecting your familiar to attack the target.