When I introduced my kids to Dungeons and Dragons, my youngest (who was 7) wanted to play a bunny. So I made her my son’s wizard character’s familiar. I just used the stats for a cat when I needed them. The bunny, being a familiar, has her own personality and can make her own decisions when not instructed to do something by her wizard. It’s great fun!
I had something like this in mind for a player who would join only every so often. If controlled by said player, the familiar would get it's own set of spells and attacks. If the player is not playing, it's just a normal familiar.
As Liam O'Brien showed on Critical Role, an octopus familiar can also be used as night-vision goggles under some cricumstances - although you might be mistaken as a Mind Flayer.
I have darkvision on my toon. But if I ever need my imps devil sight I just have her sit on my head and look through her eyes. Makes so many DMs facepalm. But it works
@@Gadgets2059 My Eldritch Knight (currently on hiatus), uses his Hawk Familiar as a mapping tool and aerial scout. It's fitting named 'Atlas', and I love sending it up into the sky to scout for enemies nearby when we suspect there's a fight coming. Or, for instance, we need to travel through a swamp towards a statue in a clearing: Send up the Hawk to check which direction, and a rough estimate on how long it'd take to get there. (DM loved it when I got a Nat 20 on my Perception roll for that one, and we could just make a straight line there instead of muckin' about in the swamp)
@JoshuaDavis That's such a brilliant use of a familiar that I'd be annoyed by anyone that didn't allow it. These are the ways we're _supposed_ to hack the game.
Guys I came home from living abroad went to visit an old friend. Him and his buddies were playing D&D. They offered to let me play a side character they had and so I joined them for the evening. I Fell in Love with D&D. Im just starting out and your videos have been a Godsend! You guys always break things down and explain the uses and benefits. Great content. Keep making your videos guys. I look forward to joining the D&D community :)
@@buckhunt6832 Yes i have started playing over a discord server. its not exactly conventional play, but as close as i can get since i live in China and English speaking DnD gamer's is limited. I will be returning to Canada in a few weeks and i plan to get together with my buddy who got me into DnD and play!! I have collected a massive DnD Mini set!! game boards, thousands of minis, 3D game pieces, buildings and small additive content (barrels,rocks,trees etc) I also started crafting my own game pieces! Golem's, Goblin Huts, Terrain etc.
My 3 intelligence warlock only functioned while his imp familiar was around to direct him, translate for him and speak the complex verbal spell components. Most fun character I've ever run
with three intelligence how was he even smart enough to agree to a pact at all? He couldn't read or write or even speak with int that low, more or less reason enough to agree to a pact or spend time learning to use weapons, armor, etc. 3 intelligence is the BARE minimum to even be sentient and aware in 5e, so how did he learn the magic / rituals involved to cast find familiar in the first place? There is so much wrong with this idea its astounding. Was he just forced into a pact? 3 Int is amazingly stupid. Over the top slapstick monty python levels of stupid. Cannot dress himself stupid. The actual definition of mentally retarded. Considering in the MM, any creature below int of 5 cannot understand any of the common or exotic languages, he shouldn't even be able to speak AT ALL. An IQ of 100 is solidly average (90-110 is considered normally intelligent), and equivalent to the base 10 int in DnD. Assuming a linear correlation between Int and IQ, 3 Int would be an IQ of 30, putting the PC solidly in the "Severely Retarded" bracket. 3 or lower int is the threshold for the Awaken spell, so he's about as smart as a potted plant ( or more realistically, a wolf ). In 5e you need an INT of 6 to even understand spoken language, outside of being trained to follow simple commands like a persons dog ( which also has 3 int ) There is simply no way this character is possible or even logical at all. He wouldn't even be capable or making the hand gestures needed to cast most spells.
@@smilingbear7430 he was cursed by his jealous younger brother who initially sought other powers to remove him from being the next head of the household and the devil that the deal was made with saw a pawn that had tonnes of raw potential and no will to go against her schemes. She sent the imp to watch over him and ensure that he could protect himself all the while manipulating my character through said imp into achieving her goals, lots of fun to play and the DM had a blast building incorporating the backstory into the game. Plus it's fun so why not?
I know this is a reply to an old comment, but I got too excited when I saw this! My character just got the find familiar spell, and I’m so tempted to have a weasel familiar a la Pantalaimon’s most common form!
If you're a high elf noble and you don't put your owl familiar in a bow-tie, name him Reginald and make him your personal butler, why do you even have the spell in the first place?
Same, my dm tends to try taking out my familiar(s) in combat earlier when it starts helping, so I don’t throw it out there super often. I go for utility and roleplay as much as I can, but I feel it can hog the spotlight if done too much.
No there's no attack roll so it's totally legal. It just takes an action to use the effect. Also, since the spell itself is a bns action touch spell you can even cast it through your familiar on itself at a distance if necessary.
A fun roleplay opportunity is make your wizard/warlock blind but with a familiar you can see through them especially with warlock you can flavor it as your eyes were the price for your power.
I like the idea of a patron being able to see through the eyes of their warlock's familiar to keep an eye on them, or possibly even taking actions with it if the warlock is acting out of line.
Crazy idea -- the Warlock gets knocked unconscious during combat, things look bad, then she stands up and blasts all the enemies with ungodly damage. The rest of the party is WTF, then the warlock looks at them with eyes turned completely black (or green, or white, or red, etc), says something in a different language, and falls back to the ground. The warlock has no memory of the actions, and the party treats them with suspicion for a few sessions. Was that your Patron? Did something else use your body? Maybe a side quest is needed to find an answer.
@@FtonDavid This is exactly what my character is like except Mephistopheles can use the familiar to teleport to wherever it is. My warlock's goal is to come face to face with Asmodeus and let Mephistopheles surprise attack him
None of my players are Warlocks, I just thought it would be a cool idea. I understand the need to limit the amount of direct intervention by an all-powerful being, but that would be a hell of a cinematic ending to an adventuring session. "As the warlock's body slumps back to the floor, the screams of the Orcs die out, their shriveled husks testament to the power of the Great Old One. So, same time next week?"@@momqabt
Crows & ravens are super smart - not only can they use tools & learn complex tasks, but they are smart enough to recognize human features & if you hurt any of them, the ones that see you, will warn others, even their children down a couple generations - equally, if you are kind to them, they will sometimes bring you gifts & I've seen even created art from them, like a soda can tab, with an evergreen twig through it - one of my favorite creatures - Octopi are also brilliant, I've seen stories of kept octopi leaving their own tank, walking across the floor, climbing into another tank to kill & eat fish, then sneaking back to its home, leaving the human keepers stunned until they put a camera in the room -
To add to this, I saw videos at Yellowstone Park that showed ravens opening motorcycle cargo containers, pulling out ziploc bags, and opening them up to get at the food inside. Not even tearing through the bag, actually opening the zipper.
@@observantowl1726 I believe it is first level, though it doesn't count strictly as a familiar. There are some things a familiar can do which this can't, and I don't believe Voice of the Chain Master applies to it. But it also has some cool abilities you could never do with a regular familiar, like merging with it after 6th level and flying around.
I adore crows/ ravens and really any corvidae including blue Jays etc. On the other hand octopi creep me out. Yes they are super intelligent, but I'm convinced they are evil and hate humans. There is a REASON mind flayers look like octopi.
One beautiful idea for Find Familiar that would be great for most everyone but especially Arcane Trickster Rouges. If you have the Mage Hand cantrip, temporarily dismiss your familiar then return them, and here's the good bit, on the other side of a door. Then summon a Mage Hand that's also on the other side on the door and use the familiar's senses to guide the Mage Hand in opening the door!
Or use Misty Step (which you can pick with the Fey Touch feat) and just teleport yourself on the other side of the door, using your familiar's line of sight.
Oh my gosh! I’ve got to try this for my druid! I love Tasha’s option of burning a wild shape for find familiar! (He’s a Fey spirit, which pairs nicely with my Fey touched feat)
@@conradkorbol The spell duration is instantaneous, which means the spell ended and now there's a thing. The same with the basic undead spell that I totally remember the name of.
One of my players surprised me with some interesting creativity. He cast Dragon's Breath on his spider familiar. It's not technically an attack, so we had a sneaky little spider spewing lightning across the battlefield.
Very cool. Stealing that idea. Of course, an evil DM might start rolling on a specific body part hit location table, when your PC takes damage. "Sorry, Jerry, that Orc rolled a 78, and that means your right hand gets chopped off. Say goodbye to Twinkles The Cat."
Your not wrong except it's worded incense and brazer with herbs...but incense is commonly made with that so yes. Weed is the component for find familiar.
Find Familiar + Polymorph. Facing a Medusa, my Sorcerer polymorphed the medusa into a stink bug. My familiar (gained through RP), then took the stink bug an flew upward to the edge of the spell. I dropped the spell, and the familiar was forced to drop the medusa.....who fell to their death.
@@xRedivivus That's my play, never tried and Inquisitive before, not saying they are good, they'll just be something new, I play Rogues pretty much all the time, be it a dip for Cunning Action or full on shadow dwellers.
So at my table I had a warlock who was bound to a celestial patron who was strongly anti undead and anti fiends but used an imp as his familiar. At first he argued that his patron would be ok so long as it was under his control but as the DM I just couldn't agree. So instead I made a "light spirit" homebrew familiar. "Puffle" as she came to be called has her own personality and stats and became essentially the mascot of the group. Because I allowed her to speak and think on her own she actually became a VERY powerful tool for me as a DM as the group tended to split up and disagree a LOT! But one little squeak from Puffle and they all came running! So I certainly say don't be afraid to get creative with your players. It may become something that's not only unique and fun to talk about, it could become something useful to everyone! PS.... that same character would later dual class into sorcerer and take flock of familiars. I then made two more completely unique "Sisters" for him that made this become one of my favorite things to ever come out of D&D
@@roboticd yup, the "Imp" could just be a celestial spirit in the form of an Imp. One could even flavor it as a Cupid type small angel with a bow and arrow for the sting.
As a DM I always prioritize logic and realism over the rules, often using house rules to allow things that should be possible but just aren't for reasons I can't find a justification for. As far as familiars, I would absolutely allow them to attack but would simply have them do rather minor damage (with some exceptions); I can see no reason why a crow couldn't peck you or a snake bite or an imp sting or so forth. As far as I'm concerned the DM's most important job is to immerse the players in the world and nothing is quite as immersion breaking as thinking of a perfectly logical tactic and being told it doesn't work for no reason beyond it simply doesn't; if I can't find a justification for why something isn't possible that makes sense from a lore perspective rather than just a rules perspective, I will usually allow it.
You *could* also just say that the familiar not attacking any creature is a part of its bindings which let it stay in the material plane. It could certainly try to attack, but it would just poof back to its home dimension before the attack landed. Everybody knows this, and the familiar especially knows, so nobody ever bothers. Of course, this could open it up to dying to a single Command telling it to attack, I think, but you could also just say that the bindings make the familiar physically incapable of causing direct harm through an attack.
Find Familiar may be the best 1st Level Spell in the game. I can’t really think of a 1st level spell that is more of an auto-pick if you have access to it.
Shield? Guiding Bolt? Shield of faith? Mage armor? Lots of good ones, I think :D I love early spells that aren't mainly for damage. This way, they are just as useful at later levels. For melee characters, swinging a sword is always useful. It's great for casters to have that same staying power imo :)
As great of a spell find familiar is in both combat and roleplay. The fundamentally best 1st lvl spell in dnd 5e is bless. It completely destroys bounded accuracy which is the whole point of keeping 5e balanced.
I just hate dealing with and keeping track of familiars, plus when people I’m playing with act like animals instead of intelligent communicative people, but it has a ton of advantages that add interesting gameplay :) it just bugs me when a person has a cat familiar and refuses to speak any English and is obnoxious about it, but that’s cause I’m judgmental 😅
Also Familiars + Dragons Breath, the familiar can give itself dragon’s breath and then use that as an action (cause using the dragons breath spells effect does not count as an attack action). This is especially cool with flying familiars
I reckon you don't even remove this comment, but here i go anyway. This comment got me thinking. Artificer + Generous DM + Pseudodragon familiar + dragons breath = a mini dragon with mechanical wings flying around the battle field breathing fire on everything
In last campaing, my character, a dashing sea captain, rogue/warlock, had a familiar from the pact of chain, and since his patron was a soul of his ship, who was also a fine lady, the familiar (sprite) was played as their supernatural daughter, so yeah there can be many ways to spin the familiar.
I remember one of my players were playing a human. His familiar’s favored form was that of an owl. If he was in a dark room, he would have the familiar perch on his shoulder, effectively giving darkvision until combat starts.
A raven re-flavored as a mini yellow lion with wings, change the names of certain spells (Darkness as the Shadow or Fog as the Cloudy) and you got your self Card Captor Sakura!
I was given the option for my eladrin fey-lock to attain a young (red/orange) faerie dragon instead of a pseudodragon. Many, many shenanigans were had as the two were in an eternal contest to see who could be the better prankster. I encourage DM's to reach beyond RAW an make your world a living thing, where your PC's might entice the service and companionship of the most unlikely creatures through their actions and personalities. Be flexible and imaginative. If they try to abuse their newfound friends (emotionally or in a mechanical sense) it would make more sense for these NPC's to feel used, manipulated or unloved, depending on the circumstances. An example: We had one campaign where the party had the equivalent of a Mysterious Stranger that would show up. It was a doppleganger that in some circumstances would offer cryptic hints, combat aid or just randomly do whatever before it disappeared. Those odd times we would crit our perception taking watch we would see it off in the distance peeling a banana, writing a book or making funny faces at us when it realized it was seen. That kind of thing. The party eventually thought to use their face to charm/convince it to solve a very sticky situation we had gotten themselves into, resulting in the death of a prominent NPC in the gameworld. The magic on the Stranger faded and realizing what it had done, sought revenge on the party for single handedly making it into one of the most wanted criminals this side of Faerun. It was three months since that mistake, and the stranger had made a number of ambushes using alternate identities and knowledge of our activities against us. By the time it decided to retreat to plan and gain allies the party was leaping at shadows and absolutely terrified. The Stranger eventually became a BBEG of our own making. Woops.
Using the breath requires an attack action though. I mean you can cast it on your familiar but they can't use it. The spell says you can't make an attack, not you can't make an attack roll.
@@JazzOfTheStinson Jeremy Crawford has responded on this particular combo here: mobile.twitter.com/JeremyECrawford/status/943256832969019393 So yes we can have fire breathing owls or lightning spewing toads. 🤓
Lyra and Pantalaimon. And hey the example you used for delivering touch attack spells, Shocking Grasp, stops the target taking reactions - so they could run up, shock the enemy and run away safely if they started near enough and there were no other enemies around. Also the owl doesn’t provoke opportunity attacks at all when it flies away.
This is an awesome combination. You can have your familiar fly 15 feet above the ground and make strafing runs for 10 rounds of combat. They stay out of melee and can breathe fire, rost, poison, acid, or lightning.
@@timothyleblanc9769 You can cast touch spells through your familiar. I might be wrong but I don't think you can "ready" a breath spell into it for it to use later
As a bard, I don't think this is a very competitive pick when you've got so many other good spells to choose even at the earliest Lore Bard level. It's a *possibility* but very low probability that you'll get it this way.
@@neoshinkuri Yeah if you want a pet as a bard you should probably pick find greater steed instead of find familiar. You can't cast touch spells through your steed but it actually has hp and doesn't take any money to summon. You can also ride a pegasus and who doesn't want to do that?
17:15 There's no rabbit familiar because there is no rabbit stat block in the basic rules or Player's Handbook. They have, however, released the Almiraj and Hare stat blocks in later books that you can use.
Pact of the chain warlocks can take an invocation that allows them to use their familiar to communicate. Summon a bunch and use them all as a party-wide PA system.
@@andrewpenn1145 pact of chain allows to pick familiars that can speak yes, and even regular ones can summon ravens with the mimicry ability to speak. But the idea of summoning a 'bunch' for PA doesn't really work, because each familiar is tied to its own master. Not all to the same one.
I built a Brightlock with Pact of the Chain and a Celestial Owl (commonly) as the familiar of choice. Given that a familiar can deliver touch spells, and allies can relent to healing spells, it's a fantastic tactical advantage, and allows my character to stay back from melee launching countless Eldritch Blasts. Given that I chose Agonizing Blast, I've never seen such an effective heal blaster! After your video, though, I may have to use the Sprite to best assess the amount of pain a character is in, so I don't use actions on Medicine rolls to determine the harm dealt to an ally. Sure, it won't help me know if they're poisoned or if they're afflicted in other ways, but my DM agrees that laboring through tough pain is a detectable state. Great tip!
I'm so glad you guys touched up on the pact of the chain familiars being able to attack. I joined in a friend's campaign with a pact of the chain warlock and for the first half of the night that I was there the DM and I let the party believe that I was my Quasit (shown to them as it's centipede form) and even do the first two fights and long rest as such until they found out that I was just a warlock who had simply taken an interest in them. And at lv4 a Quasit is pretty damn good on the battlefield. To the point where I used most of my spells as buffs or debuffs and let my familiar do the dirty work for the first few levels
The DM was definitely working in your favor. Technically this isn't possible because such magic items, whether having a physical action tied to them or not, involve activation words or phrases to activate. Familiars being unable to say these words to be able to activate them does cause a problem. The same is an issue for things like wands.
@@Quandry1 Actually that's not entirely correct. Not every item requires magical incantation, necklace of fireballs doesn't even need attunement. It says "you can use an action to detach a bead and throw it up to 60 feet away", you needn't say anything
@@xRedivivus Things like activation words are the typical means by which anybody can use a magical item without needing such things as attunement if they don't have always on effects. it's a part of the nature of magical items that is often overlooked or skipped.
I had a warlock that I used to make my own Iron Man (works really well with at-will mage armor and repelling eldritch blast to name a few). I couldn’t decide at first whether to go Tome for more cantrips, but then I decided to make an imp I named Pepper Pots. She worked well in helping scout ahead and gather intel as well as made an excellent +1 to social gatherings.
The ultimate familair form will always be of the noble Potoo bird. Seriously, look it up. It's like someone put a pair of googly eyes on a trash can. Glorious.
Thinking of dual classing my Way of the Shadow monk with an Arcane Trickster rogue. I’m thinking one could Shadow Step to a point the familiar can see - around corners, other rooms, etc.
This reminds me of how I utterly destroyed an entire ship with a single Fireball in a pirate-themed campaign. To make a very long story short, I sent my familiar into the powder storage of the ship and exploited "a point you can see" from Fireball's rules. The ship exploded. No time to react, no saving throws, just a massive damage roll behind the DM screen. I was really proud of that one.
@@c.g.278 My one argument with this is that most people seem to ignore the 100ft rule. "While your familiar is within 100 feet of you, you can communicate with it telepathically. Additionally, as an action, you can see through your familiar's eyes and hear what it hears until the start of your next turn, gaining the benefits of any special senses that the familiar has. During this time, you are deaf and blind with regard to your own senses.". This might seem a lot, but 100ft isn't a massive distance. Thats only 20 tiles if you were to use models and a tile system. Which is also smaller then the average size of a 3 masted sea ship which you would expect most pirates to be using in a setting like this. This would mean you would have had to have either been on deck or so close by that you'd had been damaged in the blast. I mean don't get me wrong, still would have done it myself.
@@philiop1986 Fiend Patron Pact of the Chain Warlock with the Invocation Voice of the Chain Master. Fireball? Check. Familiar? Check. Unlimited familiar sight and communication range? Check. Close enough to cast the spell? .... Well now that may be an issue since Fireball is only 150ft range to begin with, but I'm gonna assume circumstances allowed to get that close. Maybe you're on another ship or maybe a rowboat passing by, or hiding underwater as the ship passes overhead. Lot's of ways this could be possible and since we don't know the specific circumstances it's impossible to say either yes or no. So this one is an assumed Check. Out of blast radius? Probably. While the ship itself may be bigger than 150ft, you're only targeting a point within the ship to cause a chain reaction with the gunpowder and other explosive/flammable substances stored throughout the ship. The size of the ship is completely and utterly irrelevant, only the distance to the initial target point matters. So Check. Familiar will die, but just resummon it. It's totally doable, even without the Warlocks unlimited familiar range. As mentioned before the only distance that matters is the distance to the point the spell is being cast at, and since cannons (and consequently the gunpowder) are at the edge of the ship, the total size of the ship is irrelevant. The only thing the DM needs to decide is how much damage it would cause.
Ive been a big pathfinder player for a few years...... a friend of mine is taking the leap into dm'ing a taldorei setting 5th edition game. Your channel has been a massive help into background of classes, feats etc for me and some of my other m8s, i've been binging your excellent videos over the last 2 weeks. Really huge thankyou for the entertaining and informative vids :)
My wizard has the shard of a demon kings soul in him. So his familiar is a imp in the form of a great horned Owl with actual horns curling off his head.
@@TerrariaGolem i prefer the because at a quick glance you wpuldnt noticed so it draws less attention. Where as with a Quasit its very obvious that its a demon. Now i have people asking me why did i call a Quasit? Why am i cohorting with demons? Am i some kind of demon worshiper? Then i need to be killed before i kill them to my demon mater... In fairness my guy doesn't dress in robes just normal travel gear.
What do you think about the idea of using the command "drop" to force an enemy to drop their weapon and then have the familiar to swoop/run in and steal it?
I'm a bard and got a ring of spell storing, asked the wizard of my party to cast Find Familiar on the ring and then I used to cast as my own so we both have familiars. I still have to choose what form I want but an owl seems pretty cool 'cause it can fly away without the attack of opportunity or take a snake and use it to intimidate people we want to interrogate and be sneaky :)
@Nicolas Hmm. Since your character is unable to cast the spell, you have to rely upon the wizard to recast Find Familiar into the ring, whenever you want to change the form of the familiar, correct? As a DM, I'm also thinking that rings of spell storing are about to become very rare in campaigns I run. 😜
@@Hawkwinter01 Yes, But I don't intend to change its form. I chose a bee for flavor purposes. And I will be very protective of it. Well, even though I got lucky and got 5 slots for the ring, I think there are more overpowered magic objets to ban from campaigns ^^ it just allows me to cast several more spell, but I still need the slots available before going to bed to refill the ring. It's a matter of control of the slots. It picked it because I'm versatile as a bard, but to a cleric or druid who can cast a spell one day and chose others in their spell lists it's less restrictive. Giving them more freedom in spells they pick from one day to the next. 'Cause there are spells you almost never use, but wish you had prepared ^^
@@Hawkwinter01 Not true, that ring could have been a ring of regeneration or a cloak of protection or any number of other things. And you gain two cantrips with that feat, so I'd hardly concider it burning a feat.
A particular build idea I had was of warlock that could have its imp form familiar act as a buddy cop by providing help on almost every skill check, from investigation and perception of two sets of eyes, to trying to recall information, due to a reasonable intelligence and communicating thoughts telepathically rather than just verbally. I would guess the familiar has knowledge from either the player character and or the patron.
I had a player that in his back story he said that his Familiar was actually his sister who was cursed into that form so he devoted his life to study magic and try break the curse. I liked it so I allowed a family member be a familiar. But restricted to the fiscal body of the creature. So no talking out loud like a pokemon. Unless it's a crow/raiven
Alternate familiars are amazing. I played a campaing were my Wizard had a Flying Sword as a familiar and latter had a bunch of knives he would use animate objects on.
@@MagusAgrippa8 Perhaps a Sir Stabbington, who naturally belongs to one of the most influential families of Daggersdeep. Rumor has it that a Stabbington is even counted amongst the dark and mysterious Edged Lords.
Spectre Dan Named it Flying Edge, but it actually acted cherfull most of the time. Pretending to be a normal sword and then jumping to life. Even stuck some mook with it once or twice.
This is my absolute favorite spell ever. I built a Human Rogue for a Dragon Heist campaign and chose the Magic Initiate for the feat at level 1. Got myself Gambit, an owl familiar...and has been one of the most useful items both mechanically and combat ever. He has died twice now, but oddly enough, not to enemies but by friendly fire (first was killed when a teammate rolled a nat 1 on an attack and hit Gambit instead of target. Second was compliments to our wild magic sorcerer electrifying him when his magic went off the rails).
I know this video is 3 years old and the comments probably are not monitored anymore. However, I would like to thank you for adding timestamps in the description. I know most of your newer videos have chapters, which are even better, but in both cases, I would sincerely like to thank you guys for respecting my time. ♥
2nd edition my sorcerer ended up with a slime familar it had some unexpected powers one power was a meld option which basically ment it could hide on my body with out harming me 2 it had a lash attack that did a d6 of acid damage 3rd it could hold a potion in its body for 24hrs without consuming it. Man i love homebrew.
Sheepicus Bahimus :Wow. Imagine if it had eight long tentacle legs dude? You woulda looked like some kind of a spider.Man, it's a good thing that symbiotic agent of yours couldn't hold and spew toxins or venom, or it could've caused some maximum carnage in a flash.
Bard/Arcane Trickster Find Familiar: frog. "Hello, my baby! Hello, my hunny! Hello, my ragtime gaaaaaallll! Send me a kiss by wire, baby my heart's on fiiiiiire!" Oy! Where'd my purse go?!
Find Familiar is the reason I'm giving my Bard Magic Initiate at level 4. I'm using one of Reaper's winged Imp familiar models, with the stats of an owl or hawk.
My Wife's familiar does some serious damage when combined with the dragon breath spell, gives her a dive bombing owl that just flys in, breathes and flys out of range.
Actually, it is: Dragon's Breath Xanathar's Guide to Everything, p154 2nd-level transmutation Casting Time: 1 bonus action Range: Touch Components: V, S, M (a hot pepper) Duration: Concentration, up to 1 minute You touch one willing creature and imbue it with the power to spew magical energy from its mouth, provided it has one. Choose acid, cold, fire, lightning, or poison. Until the spell ends, the creature can use an action to exhale energy of the chosen type in a 15-foot cone. Each creature in that area must make a Dexterity saving throw, taking 3d6 damage of the chosen type on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one.
I have a Mizzium Ooze as a familiar and used Dragon Breath with him! He pretends to be armor when he is not being active. So the enemy was VERY surprised when my neck armor moved and breathed fire on them!
Surprised, i don't think they mentioned the combo of rogue with Magic Initiate feat, taking find familiar, and using the familiar to get advantage on every attack for sneak attack.
I never thought of having them attune to magic items and never realized they COULD use magic items. I think you could allow them to attune to magic items but I think they should be limited to 1 Item they can attune to. And I think They should be able to use magic items that cast spells but only non-damaging spells that are concentration. This is perfect because if your Owl Familiar is holding a Wand of Webs and an enmy kills them then that magic item drops to the ground ready to be picked up. They shouldn't be allowed damaging wands like Magic Missile because then down the line they could use a wand of Fireballs. If anything a familiar holding a Ring of Spell storing (or something of a similar nature) would be perfect because they could store a stack of invisibility. To Limit this I would make it so that they can only activate 1 spell at a time. Like you'd have 5 feather falls stored in the ring and the owl could activate just that spell any other you'd have to re-teach the familiar to cast a different spell all of which would be over at the end of a long rest. I would only allow the Wand of Magic Missiles (if any attack item) You could make it an 'Animal Handling' check to see if the animal can handle the magic item properly to use it. I always treated Familiars as Actual animals that have their own personalities and Identity that WILL always obey their master but is still its own being that acts like an animal despite not really being a beast.
My favorite use of a familiar is to cast Dragon's Breath on my owl. Then I can use it to fly to the back of the bad guys and breath fire on them. Dragon's Breath is not an attack so the rules against familiars attacking don't apply. Owls also have the fly through ability so you can use them for a help action by flying into the face of you opponent to distract them.
note, simply if your have the spellcasting focus feature, having your spellcasting focus near the burning, that the herbs can be burned anywhere (as the brazier does not have a listed value and is not consumed)
Great episode and insight! Great ideas. I’m surprised you didn’t mention the Rogue as being one of the best classes for Find Familiar though. Familiar uses the help action, and the Rogue attacks with advantage and gets Sneak Attack every turn. Keep up the good work, guys! Love your channel! 👍👍
The initiate feat also gives any character access to cantrips, which means any character can cast utility spells like dancing lights or mage hand, or bundles of awesomeness like Prestidigitation. (I always try to get this cantrip no matter what character I play since depending on edition, it can do more individual things than any other spell barring wish. And turning your paladin's armor electric pink is hilarious.)
Back in my first table in 5th edition, i played as Petrus, the crow, an arcane trickster with a raven as a familiar. I liked using the minor ilusion or silent image spell and use my familiar to imitate the sounds
You forgot to mention the Gazer familiar option from Volo's Guide, which is by far the coolest familiar option, especially for great old one warlocks. :)
I'm currently playing a "Pact of the Tome" Warlock that took Find Familiar as one of his ritual spells in his book. It's a cool two-headed raven with one head being blind. Thank you for the advice on how to use it!
Worth mentioning: recently an Unearthed Arcana "Class Feature Variants" came out and *Druids* can have a Wild Companion by expending a use of a Wild Shape. I personally loved it.
17:25 On the subject of Rabbit familiars. It's VERY easy to reskin one of the existing familiars as another small mammal or whatever. I've had a Stoat familiar that used the Weasel stat block. A Finch familiar that used a slightly edited Raven stat block. It's very easy to work with your DM to shift to a different but similar animal. For a Rabbit I'd probably use a Weasel stat block, remove the stealth bonus and add in something relating to longer jumps or another 5/10 ft of movespeed instead.
Ah. One of my DMs is about to run a modified ToH into a homebrew. My backup is Order Cleric/Archfeyloc. Taking Pact of Tome and Book of Secrets for Find Familiar. Gonna be such a good support character. I'm probably going to meta-game it up and go into College of Whispers for more infiltration and fright abilities to go with my other race/class charm and fright features and Actor feat. Ahhhh... Gonna be so fun. Sad I didnt take a Sprite familiar in a way. Order Cleric allowing a deadly archer familiar to reaction attack is gnarly. Edit: Owl is the best for combat. Flyby negates opportunity, so they can move 60ft freely, other than readied actions meant for the Owl. Keep your owl 30ft away from enemies. Charge in 30ft, fly away 30ft. Thief Rogues using objects twice a turn, as well as their familiar taking one... Go 3 Mastermind Rogue to help from 30ft away as a bonus action, help another ally from 30ft as an action, familiar to help another ally. Stay safe.
First, and currently only thing I have used my warlock's spider familiar for was put it on the back of a Druid in wolf form. DM ruled that since the spider was an ally within 5ft of the wolf, it triggered pack tactics.
In reference to the "their isn't a rabbit familiar!" comment, as a DM I personally allow the familiar to have the form of any CR 0 beast, per DM approval.
Great combo, Find Familiar and Dragon's Breath. Since you can use the familiar to cast spells with a range of touch, Dragon's Breath has a casting time of one bonus action and breath weapons don't use the attack action you can give your familiar a breath weapon no matter how far apart you are, attack with a cantrip then it can surprise the enemy by breathing fire, ice, lightning, poison or acid on them.
My wizard has a poisonous snake familiar, because it helps deter potential assailants during the night. Very few people are willing to try and mug someone with a snake that's sitting on top of them, and others unwilling to take on a snake that's sitting on top of an unconscious body. My ranger meanwhile, is planning on multiclassing into wizard, and while he's not a Beastmaster, he does have a pet hawk. So I'm chatting with my DM about whether or not I can reflavor Find Familiar as closer to a transmutation spell to more closely fit his school and to allow turning animals into familiars (with all the restrictions of course, the hawk hasn't been trained for battle like a Beastmaster companion), instead of summoning some otherplanar being that then you can use all these transmutation-like effects on, such as changing its shape, blink between a pocket dimension and back out somewhere else as actions, or being able to converse within a set distance (Message is a transmutation while Sending is an evocation and Telepathic Bond is a divination, the lines between spell schools are really vague). Also, Flock of Familiars is a newish spell from Lost Laboratory of Kwalish lets you have two more familiars (or three familiars if you don't currently have a regular familiar) for one hour at concentration, on both Wizard and Warlock spell lists, so go nuts with that everybody.
I'm playing a Yuan-Ti pureblood wizard/bard that obviously has a poisonous snake familiar too. I like to have it coil around the other players legs to cast currently wounds. One of the characters is afraid of snakes so she get freaked out when I do it. My character is like "Do you need help? Are you hurt" and she's like "Nope! Nope! I'm fine!" Haha.
Use find familiar. Give it a spell ring with find familiar stored. Have it summon it's familiar. Repeat the cycle until you are the ultimate cat lady.
OMG lol!
Are you using catnip as incense?
I came down here to comment this but ya beat me too it lmao
This is evil. I love it.
You'd need a crap ton of spell rings but definitely worth it.
When I introduced my kids to Dungeons and Dragons, my youngest (who was 7) wanted to play a bunny. So I made her my son’s wizard character’s familiar. I just used the stats for a cat when I needed them. The bunny, being a familiar, has her own personality and can make her own decisions when not instructed to do something by her wizard. It’s great fun!
That sounds so wholesome
I had something like this in mind for a player who would join only every so often. If controlled by said player, the familiar would get it's own set of spells and attacks. If the player is not playing, it's just a normal familiar.
Your a great Dad 😁
Aww if only my parents liked dnd
@@ItzBeepBoopTheCastaway Your the feared king of demon you can do something about it 😁
As Liam O'Brien showed on Critical Role, an octopus familiar can also be used as night-vision goggles under some cricumstances - although you might be mistaken as a Mind Flayer.
That's an interesting way to get around your character not having darkvision.
I have darkvision on my toon. But if I ever need my imps devil sight I just have her sit on my head and look through her eyes. Makes so many DMs facepalm. But it works
Do you fear dead, Jack Sparrow?
@@Gadgets2059 My Eldritch Knight (currently on hiatus), uses his Hawk Familiar as a mapping tool and aerial scout.
It's fitting named 'Atlas', and I love sending it up into the sky to scout for enemies nearby when we suspect there's a fight coming.
Or, for instance, we need to travel through a swamp towards a statue in a clearing: Send up the Hawk to check which direction, and a rough estimate on how long it'd take to get there. (DM loved it when I got a Nat 20 on my Perception roll for that one, and we could just make a straight line there instead of muckin' about in the swamp)
@JoshuaDavis
That's such a brilliant use of a familiar that I'd be annoyed by anyone that didn't allow it. These are the ways we're _supposed_ to hack the game.
Guys I came home from living abroad went to visit an old friend. Him and his buddies were playing D&D. They offered to let me play a side character they had and so I joined them for the evening. I Fell in Love with D&D. Im just starting out and your videos have been a Godsend! You guys always break things down and explain the uses and benefits. Great content. Keep making your videos guys. I look forward to joining the D&D community :)
Welcome to the hobby! It really is a unique form of creative expression; I hope you continue to have a blast with it!
Any update on your gaming experience nine months later?
@@buckhunt6832 Yes i have started playing over a discord server. its not exactly conventional play, but as close as i can get since i live in China and English speaking DnD gamer's is limited. I will be returning to Canada in a few weeks and i plan to get together with my buddy who got me into DnD and play!!
I have collected a massive DnD Mini set!! game boards, thousands of minis, 3D game pieces, buildings and small additive content (barrels,rocks,trees etc) I also started crafting my own game pieces! Golem's, Goblin Huts, Terrain etc.
@@adreabrooks11 Thanks, im loving this community and creative game! its a blast
I thought you were gonna say that you played the familiar in the game.
My 3 intelligence warlock only functioned while his imp familiar was around to direct him, translate for him and speak the complex verbal spell components. Most fun character I've ever run
with three intelligence how was he even smart enough to agree to a pact at all? He couldn't read or write or even speak with int that low, more or less reason enough to agree to a pact or spend time learning to use weapons, armor, etc. 3 intelligence is the BARE minimum to even be sentient and aware in 5e, so how did he learn the magic / rituals involved to cast find familiar in the first place? There is so much wrong with this idea its astounding. Was he just forced into a pact? 3 Int is amazingly stupid. Over the top slapstick monty python levels of stupid. Cannot dress himself stupid. The actual definition of mentally retarded. Considering in the MM, any creature below int of 5 cannot understand any of the common or exotic languages, he shouldn't even be able to speak AT ALL. An IQ of 100 is solidly average (90-110 is considered normally intelligent), and equivalent to the base 10 int in DnD. Assuming a linear correlation between Int and IQ, 3 Int would be an IQ of 30, putting the PC solidly in the "Severely Retarded" bracket. 3 or lower int is the threshold for the Awaken spell, so he's about as smart as a potted plant ( or more realistically, a wolf ). In 5e you need an INT of 6 to even understand spoken language, outside of being trained to follow simple commands like a persons dog ( which also has 3 int ) There is simply no way this character is possible or even logical at all. He wouldn't even be capable or making the hand gestures needed to cast most spells.
@@smilingbear7430 he was cursed by his jealous younger brother who initially sought other powers to remove him from being the next head of the household and the devil that the deal was made with saw a pawn that had tonnes of raw potential and no will to go against her schemes. She sent the imp to watch over him and ensure that he could protect himself all the while manipulating my character through said imp into achieving her goals, lots of fun to play and the DM had a blast building incorporating the backstory into the game. Plus it's fun so why not?
@@codyouellette6936 that's what I call a good pc
Smilingbear chill out it’s just a game
@Barry Clown Some people like rules more than they like fun. "Homebrew" is a dirty word to them.
"golden compass" is a good example of a familiar too if anyone's looking for rp inspiration
I know this is a reply to an old comment, but I got too excited when I saw this! My character just got the find familiar spell, and I’m so tempted to have a weasel familiar a la Pantalaimon’s most common form!
I’m making my familiar a weasel by default because of Pan.
If you're a high elf noble and you don't put your owl familiar in a bow-tie, name him Reginald and make him your personal butler, why do you even have the spell in the first place?
So what you're saying is
Get a Rowlet
@@brunop.8745 Or more like it's evolution, dartrix, but essentially, yes. Whatever you have to do to get a hootler
Man, I'm just creating a noble high-elf rogue, and I was going for Arcane Trickster, thanks
To get a weasel and name him either bobby hernan or screeching.
@@kylestillwell7031 hootler
A necromancer with a vulture familiar would be slick. It could pick flesh off your undead plus scout for bodies.
I have to admit, my wizard's snake familiar is more a fashion accessory than anything else. But it is glorious.
just get dragons breath and now you have a living flamethrower
Same, my dm tends to try taking out my familiar(s) in combat earlier when it starts helping, so I don’t throw it out there super often. I go for utility and roleplay as much as I can, but I feel it can hog the spotlight if done too much.
@@davidborn5393 wait that's illegal
No there's no attack roll so it's totally legal. It just takes an action to use the effect.
Also, since the spell itself is a bns action touch spell you can even cast it through your familiar on itself at a distance if necessary.
Wizard snake? Slytherin 😅
A fun roleplay opportunity is make your wizard/warlock blind but with a familiar you can see through them especially with warlock you can flavor it as your eyes were the price for your power.
Seeing through your Familiar's Eyes uses your action.
@@twicedeadmageit wouldn't be a disability if it were easy.
@@fenixmeaney6170 Yeah, like that horrible wheelchair homebrew.
I like the idea of a patron being able to see through the eyes of their warlock's familiar to keep an eye on them, or possibly even taking actions with it if the warlock is acting out of line.
I had my regularly familiar replaced by an imp while on a side mission from my character's patron, never good having a Mephistopheles spy so close.
Crazy idea -- the Warlock gets knocked unconscious during combat, things look bad, then she stands up and blasts all the enemies with ungodly damage. The rest of the party is WTF, then the warlock looks at them with eyes turned completely black (or green, or white, or red, etc), says something in a different language, and falls back to the ground. The warlock has no memory of the actions, and the party treats them with suspicion for a few sessions. Was that your Patron? Did something else use your body? Maybe a side quest is needed to find an answer.
@@FtonDavid This is exactly what my character is like except Mephistopheles can use the familiar to teleport to wherever it is. My warlock's goal is to come face to face with Asmodeus and let Mephistopheles surprise attack him
None of my players are Warlocks, I just thought it would be a cool idea. I understand the need to limit the amount of direct intervention by an all-powerful being, but that would be a hell of a cinematic ending to an adventuring session.
"As the warlock's body slumps back to the floor, the screams of the Orcs die out, their shriveled husks testament to the power of the Great Old One. So, same time next week?"@@momqabt
I do approve, it does somewhat depend on the pact though.
I like this idea:
Warlock
Pact of the Tome
Book of Ancient Secrets
Find Familiar
Summon a Raven
Sign of Ill Omen
Cast Bestow Curse with the Raven
Quoth the raven, Nevermore
And name the raven Lenore!
Hexblade too, so you serve the Raven Queen
Crows & ravens are super smart - not only can they use tools & learn complex tasks, but they are smart enough to recognize human features & if you hurt any of them, the ones that see you, will warn others, even their children down a couple generations - equally, if you are kind to them, they will sometimes bring you gifts & I've seen even created art from them, like a soda can tab, with an evergreen twig through it - one of my favorite creatures - Octopi are also brilliant, I've seen stories of kept octopi leaving their own tank, walking across the floor, climbing into another tank to kill & eat fish, then sneaking back to its home, leaving the human keepers stunned until they put a camera in the room -
To add to this, I saw videos at Yellowstone Park that showed ravens opening motorcycle cargo containers, pulling out ziploc bags, and opening them up to get at the food inside. Not even tearing through the bag, actually opening the zipper.
As a warlock serving the Raven Queen I think you automatically get a raven at 1st level (not sure)
@@observantowl1726 I believe it is first level, though it doesn't count strictly as a familiar. There are some things a familiar can do which this can't, and I don't believe Voice of the Chain Master applies to it. But it also has some cool abilities you could never do with a regular familiar, like merging with it after 6th level and flying around.
I adore crows/ ravens and really any corvidae including blue Jays etc.
On the other hand octopi creep me out. Yes they are super intelligent, but I'm convinced they are evil and hate humans. There is a REASON mind flayers look like octopi.
@@Lionrhod212 you should look up the blanket octopus, it might change your mind the way the rainbow jumping spiders make people like arachnids.
One beautiful idea for Find Familiar that would be great for most everyone but especially Arcane Trickster Rouges. If you have the Mage Hand cantrip, temporarily dismiss your familiar then return them, and here's the good bit, on the other side of a door. Then summon a Mage Hand that's also on the other side on the door and use the familiar's senses to guide the Mage Hand in opening the door!
Or use Misty Step (which you can pick with the Fey Touch feat) and just teleport yourself on the other side of the door, using your familiar's line of sight.
@@princevesperal OOO! Now that's an interesting thought.
Oh my gosh! I’ve got to try this for my druid! I love Tasha’s option of burning a wild shape for find familiar! (He’s a Fey spirit, which pairs nicely with my Fey touched feat)
Incense for Find Familiar, 10 gp.
Replacing Xanathar’s goldfish Sylgar, priceless.
Some one should tell Xanathar about the Find Familiar spell so his gang does not go on red alert every 10 some thing years
@@ty2z You mean you intentionally want to place a spell magical effect in front the main eye of a beholder? I'm sure that will turn out well ;p
@@007solstice fortunately familiars aren't affected by antimagic fields.
Shrek Hentai where does it say that?
@@conradkorbol The spell duration is instantaneous, which means the spell ended and now there's a thing. The same with the basic undead spell that I totally remember the name of.
One of my players surprised me with some interesting creativity. He cast Dragon's Breath on his spider familiar. It's not technically an attack, so we had a sneaky little spider spewing lightning across the battlefield.
How would you feel about when a player dismisses their familiar, that pocket dimension taking the form of a tattoo on the player character's body?
That's a fun and cool idea. I like it!
Do as you please. It isn't 100% true to RAW, but I doubt your DM will have any problem with that
That whould be awesome.
What are you staring at?.... No my raven tattoo did not just blink.
Very cool. Stealing that idea. Of course, an evil DM might start rolling on a specific body part hit location table, when your PC takes damage. "Sorry, Jerry, that Orc rolled a 78, and that means your right hand gets chopped off. Say goodbye to Twinkles The Cat."
I thought of that before reading this and I'm glad someone else thought of it
"Expensive herbs burnt in a portable brazier."
"So, weed. Find Familiar's components are weed and a pipe?"
Plot twist, the familiar doesn't exist and the campaign was a dream. Your PC is passed out on the couch next to an empty canister of Faerune Pringles.
Jeebus, how expensive is YOUR weed? I can get it pretty cheap (if I wanted to, of course).
Pseudodragon explained
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chasing_the_dragon
Your not wrong except it's worded incense and brazer with herbs...but incense is commonly made with that so yes. Weed is the component for find familiar.
Find Familiar + Polymorph. Facing a Medusa, my Sorcerer polymorphed the medusa into a stink bug. My familiar (gained through RP), then took the stink bug an flew upward to the edge of the spell. I dropped the spell, and the familiar was forced to drop the medusa.....who fell to their death.
Fantastic.
Awesome idea but one could reasonably argue that the familiar would be making an attack to pick up the stink bug.
Couldn't the familiar just... Eat the bug?
@@sipjedekat8525 as a DM I definitely would require an attack roll for something like that.
@@SiberianPhoenix oh, off course. But as a stink bug the Medusa would have a lousy AC. Also, the familiar might be able to swallow it whole, right?
Clerics with familiars are deeply underrated. Having your familiar cast cure wounds or even rivivify while you hang back and don't get hit? clutch.
I do this with my Divine Soul sorcerer. It's great!
Step 1 get owl.
Step 2 get advatage on every attack
Step 3 ???
Step 4 profit.
Fun Fact. Be a rogue. Pick Arcane Trickster and get this spell. Advantage on every attack means sneak attack on every attack.
This man (WiSpKing) knows his stuff.
Step 3 is be Arcane Trickster/Any Rogue
@@knightghaleon or just take magic initiate and be any rogue you want
@@xRedivivus That's my play, never tried and Inquisitive before, not saying they are good, they'll just be something new, I play Rogues pretty much all the time, be it a dip for Cunning Action or full on shadow dwellers.
So at my table I had a warlock who was bound to a celestial patron who was strongly anti undead and anti fiends but used an imp as his familiar. At first he argued that his patron would be ok so long as it was under his control but as the DM I just couldn't agree. So instead I made a "light spirit" homebrew familiar. "Puffle" as she came to be called has her own personality and stats and became essentially the mascot of the group. Because I allowed her to speak and think on her own she actually became a VERY powerful tool for me as a DM as the group tended to split up and disagree a LOT! But one little squeak from Puffle and they all came running! So I certainly say don't be afraid to get creative with your players. It may become something that's not only unique and fun to talk about, it could become something useful to everyone!
PS.... that same character would later dual class into sorcerer and take flock of familiars. I then made two more completely unique "Sisters" for him that made this become one of my favorite things to ever come out of D&D
Well, per find familiar and pact of the chain, it's not actually an Imp, but a spirit taking the form of an Imp...
@@roboticd yup, the "Imp" could just be a celestial spirit in the form of an Imp. One could even flavor it as a Cupid type small angel with a bow and arrow for the sting.
There's also "find change under the couch cushions", but that's a bit less important in D&D campaigns
Not less important when it comes to buying pizza!
A raccoon can probably be taught to use Thieve’s Tools
Bold of you to assume that raccoons don’t already know how to use thieves tools.
Bold of you to assume raccoons didn’t create thieves’ tools in the first place
Bold of you to assume raccoons can't inherently pick locks and disable traps without Thieves Tools
Bold of you to assume that raccoons are not semi-god that bend realities to match their vicious ambitions and steal from the mortals
bold of you to assume racoons are not the creators of all reality and have specifically designed their hands to use thieves tools
Me, 27th of March: "Hmm, it would be cool if the Dungeon Dudes did a video on familiars.". Me, 29th of March: "... holy shiii...".
As a DM I always prioritize logic and realism over the rules, often using house rules to allow things that should be possible but just aren't for reasons I can't find a justification for. As far as familiars, I would absolutely allow them to attack but would simply have them do rather minor damage (with some exceptions); I can see no reason why a crow couldn't peck you or a snake bite or an imp sting or so forth. As far as I'm concerned the DM's most important job is to immerse the players in the world and nothing is quite as immersion breaking as thinking of a perfectly logical tactic and being told it doesn't work for no reason beyond it simply doesn't; if I can't find a justification for why something isn't possible that makes sense from a lore perspective rather than just a rules perspective, I will usually allow it.
You *could* also just say that the familiar not attacking any creature is a part of its bindings which let it stay in the material plane. It could certainly try to attack, but it would just poof back to its home dimension before the attack landed. Everybody knows this, and the familiar especially knows, so nobody ever bothers. Of course, this could open it up to dying to a single Command telling it to attack, I think, but you could also just say that the bindings make the familiar physically incapable of causing direct harm through an attack.
Find Familiar may be the best 1st Level Spell in the game. I can’t really think of a 1st level spell that is more of an auto-pick if you have access to it.
Shield? Guiding Bolt? Shield of faith? Mage armor? Lots of good ones, I think :D I love early spells that aren't mainly for damage. This way, they are just as useful at later levels.
For melee characters, swinging a sword is always useful. It's great for casters to have that same staying power imo :)
As great of a spell find familiar is in both combat and roleplay. The fundamentally best 1st lvl spell in dnd 5e is bless. It completely destroys bounded accuracy which is the whole point of keeping 5e balanced.
Healing word
I just hate dealing with and keeping track of familiars, plus when people I’m playing with act like animals instead of intelligent communicative people, but it has a ton of advantages that add interesting gameplay :) it just bugs me when a person has a cat familiar and refuses to speak any English and is obnoxious about it, but that’s cause I’m judgmental 😅
Also Familiars + Dragons Breath, the familiar can give itself dragon’s breath and then use that as an action (cause using the dragons breath spells effect does not count as an attack action). This is especially cool with flying familiars
I reckon you don't even remove this comment, but here i go anyway.
This comment got me thinking. Artificer + Generous DM + Pseudodragon familiar + dragons breath = a mini dragon with mechanical wings flying around the battle field breathing fire on everything
Every time I see the Find Familiar spell, I automatically think of Frumpkin, Caleb's cat. ^_^
why my Ek's familiar Amusement (nicknamed Muse) spends the majority of her time as a Siamese or Calico
You’re not the only one
Me too!
They never mentioned the interaction between find familiar and dragon's breath which is a missed opportunity.
In last campaing, my character, a dashing sea captain, rogue/warlock, had a familiar from the pact of chain, and since his patron was a soul of his ship, who was also a fine lady, the familiar (sprite) was played as their supernatural daughter, so yeah there can be many ways to spin the familiar.
That sounds like an epic anime!
84elmer Dude you made a claubaterman familiar what’s up Ussop
@@dragonmaster613
I'd love to see that isekai!!
@@DkKombo Sword Art Online!
@@dragonmaster613
Wat?
Having a familiar use help is amazing as an arcane trickster
In a game we are playing there is a character with a badger companion that wears the skull if one of his first kills like a helmet.
Cubone
I remember one of my players were playing a human. His familiar’s favored form was that of an owl. If he was in a dark room, he would have the familiar perch on his shoulder, effectively giving darkvision until combat starts.
A raven re-flavored as a mini yellow lion with wings, change the names of certain spells (Darkness as the Shadow or Fog as the Cloudy) and you got your self Card Captor Sakura!
You have just caused me to completely rethink one of my favorite series! Well done.
Can also just go for a Tresym. Those are legal familiars and literally flying cats!
I was given the option for my eladrin fey-lock to attain a young (red/orange) faerie dragon instead of a pseudodragon. Many, many shenanigans were had as the two were in an eternal contest to see who could be the better prankster. I encourage DM's to reach beyond RAW an make your world a living thing, where your PC's might entice the service and companionship of the most unlikely creatures through their actions and personalities. Be flexible and imaginative. If they try to abuse their newfound friends (emotionally or in a mechanical sense) it would make more sense for these NPC's to feel used, manipulated or unloved, depending on the circumstances. An example:
We had one campaign where the party had the equivalent of a Mysterious Stranger that would show up. It was a doppleganger that in some circumstances would offer cryptic hints, combat aid or just randomly do whatever before it disappeared. Those odd times we would crit our perception taking watch we would see it off in the distance peeling a banana, writing a book or making funny faces at us when it realized it was seen. That kind of thing. The party eventually thought to use their face to charm/convince it to solve a very sticky situation we had gotten themselves into, resulting in the death of a prominent NPC in the gameworld. The magic on the Stranger faded and realizing what it had done, sought revenge on the party for single handedly making it into one of the most wanted criminals this side of Faerun.
It was three months since that mistake, and the stranger had made a number of ambushes using alternate identities and knowledge of our activities against us. By the time it decided to retreat to plan and gain allies the party was leaping at shadows and absolutely terrified. The Stranger eventually became a BBEG of our own making. Woops.
Dragon's Breath + Snowy Owl = Hedwigs Revenge!
Can this be done considering the Familiar can't Attack? If it can be done... Please let me know!
Using the breath requires an attack action though. I mean you can cast it on your familiar but they can't use it. The spell says you can't make an attack, not you can't make an attack roll.
@@JazzOfTheStinson Would it work with The Pact of Chain Familiar?
@@JazzOfTheStinson
Not an attack action, so no problem. The dragon's breath just says "use an action", which is separate from "use an attack action".
@@JazzOfTheStinson Jeremy Crawford has responded on this particular combo here: mobile.twitter.com/JeremyECrawford/status/943256832969019393
So yes we can have fire breathing owls or lightning spewing toads. 🤓
Lyra and Pantalaimon.
And hey the example you used for delivering touch attack spells, Shocking Grasp, stops the target taking reactions - so they could run up, shock the enemy and run away safely if they started near enough and there were no other enemies around. Also the owl doesn’t provoke opportunity attacks at all when it flies away.
You want your familiar to be useful? There is this nice second level spell called... DRAGON'S BREATH!
This is an awesome combination. You can have your familiar fly 15 feet above the ground and make strafing runs for 10 rounds of combat. They stay out of melee and can breathe fire, rost, poison, acid, or lightning.
or any of the investiture spells
If dragons breath is a touch spell, then yes... Otherwise a familiar can't channel your spells etc
@@Portsai You cast it on your familiar and they can use it as an action after that. The familiar is not attacking or casting a spell.
@@timothyleblanc9769 You can cast touch spells through your familiar. I might be wrong but I don't think you can "ready" a breath spell into it for it to use later
Usually don't like duos talking like your setup, but you two play off each other's style very well. Idk how you do it, but keep it up
Did I miss it, or did you forget Bards with Magical Secrets?
They did
Everyone does haha!
As a bard, I don't think this is a very competitive pick when you've got so many other good spells to choose even at the earliest Lore Bard level. It's a *possibility* but very low probability that you'll get it this way.
way way better to get Magic Initiate feat as bard to get FF than to waste a Magical Secret on it.
@@neoshinkuri Yeah if you want a pet as a bard you should probably pick find greater steed instead of find familiar. You can't cast touch spells through your steed but it actually has hp and doesn't take any money to summon.
You can also ride a pegasus and who doesn't want to do that?
17:15 There's no rabbit familiar because there is no rabbit stat block in the basic rules or Player's Handbook. They have, however, released the Almiraj and Hare stat blocks in later books that you can use.
Be a good mage... put find familiar spells in a ring of spell storing. Give EVERY MEMBER OF THE PARTY familiars.
My friend made a ring wizard and made everyone rings for this reason.
Gawd damn!
Pact of the chain warlocks can take an invocation that allows them to use their familiar to communicate. Summon a bunch and use them all as a party-wide PA system.
@@andrewpenn1145 pact of chain allows to pick familiars that can speak yes, and even regular ones can summon ravens with the mimicry ability to speak. But the idea of summoning a 'bunch' for PA doesn't really work, because each familiar is tied to its own master. Not all to the same one.
@@danzai So just trade familiars with another warlock or a wizard so you can use them as walkie talkies.
When talking about the Help action in combat, I'm surprised Flyby wasn't mentioned.
I built a Brightlock with Pact of the Chain and a Celestial Owl (commonly) as the familiar of choice. Given that a familiar can deliver touch spells, and allies can relent to healing spells, it's a fantastic tactical advantage, and allows my character to stay back from melee launching countless Eldritch Blasts. Given that I chose Agonizing Blast, I've never seen such an effective heal blaster!
After your video, though, I may have to use the Sprite to best assess the amount of pain a character is in, so I don't use actions on Medicine rolls to determine the harm dealt to an ally. Sure, it won't help me know if they're poisoned or if they're afflicted in other ways, but my DM agrees that laboring through tough pain is a detectable state. Great tip!
5:00 Don't forget that a bard can also gain find familiar through magical secrets as well.
You gentlemen get props (& a thumbs up) for the Dr. Claw reference
Go Go Gadget like button
Flotsam and Jetsam.
Best evil minions any sea witch could have. The way Ursula was devastated when she zapped them to oblivion was touching.
Almiraj from Tomb of Annihilation is a rabbit familiar option.
Rabbitcorn.
I'd rather have a Jackalope. ;)
Shit reskin a weasel. Done.
I'm so glad you guys touched up on the pact of the chain familiars being able to attack. I joined in a friend's campaign with a pact of the chain warlock and for the first half of the night that I was there the DM and I let the party believe that I was my Quasit (shown to them as it's centipede form) and even do the first two fights and long rest as such until they found out that I was just a warlock who had simply taken an interest in them. And at lv4 a Quasit is pretty damn good on the battlefield. To the point where I used most of my spells as buffs or debuffs and let my familiar do the dirty work for the first few levels
familiar dropps a nekless of fireballs form 240 feet higt to give use a head start in a combat encounter
DM alows it
ther was no combat after that
The DM was definitely working in your favor. Technically this isn't possible because such magic items, whether having a physical action tied to them or not, involve activation words or phrases to activate. Familiars being unable to say these words to be able to activate them does cause a problem. The same is an issue for things like wands.
@@Quandry1 Raven form.
@@Quandry1 Actually that's not entirely correct. Not every item requires magical incantation, necklace of fireballs doesn't even need attunement. It says "you can use an action to detach a bead and throw it up to 60 feet away", you needn't say anything
@@xRedivivus Things like activation words are the typical means by which anybody can use a magical item without needing such things as attunement if they don't have always on effects. it's a part of the nature of magical items that is often overlooked or skipped.
Could you use magic mouth to activate items that need activation words?
I had a warlock that I used to make my own Iron Man (works really well with at-will mage armor and repelling eldritch blast to name a few). I couldn’t decide at first whether to go Tome for more cantrips, but then I decided to make an imp I named Pepper Pots. She worked well in helping scout ahead and gather intel as well as made an excellent +1 to social gatherings.
The ultimate familair form will always be of the noble Potoo bird.
Seriously, look it up.
It's like someone put a pair of googly eyes on a trash can. Glorious.
I legitmately have a party mate that wants a Potoo as a familiar!
Thank you for your suggestion, it's beautiful.
I looked it up, like you sugested. Your right. It looks really funny! 😋
OMG I actually did look it up and it's epic. It's the eyes that do it.
Okay, if you want another really creepy looking familiar, look up the muntjac.
@@Lionrhod212 That has "Druid Wild Shape" written all over it.
Thinking of dual classing my Way of the Shadow monk with an Arcane Trickster rogue. I’m thinking one could Shadow Step to a point the familiar can see - around corners, other rooms, etc.
Scott Bender smaaaart
This reminds me of how I utterly destroyed an entire ship with a single Fireball in a pirate-themed campaign.
To make a very long story short, I sent my familiar into the powder storage of the ship and exploited "a point you can see" from Fireball's rules. The ship exploded. No time to react, no saving throws, just a massive damage roll behind the DM screen. I was really proud of that one.
@@c.g.278 My one argument with this is that most people seem to ignore the 100ft rule.
"While your familiar is within 100 feet of you, you can communicate with it telepathically. Additionally, as an action, you can see through your familiar's eyes and hear what it hears until the start of your next turn, gaining the benefits of any special senses that the familiar has. During this time, you are deaf and blind with regard to your own senses.".
This might seem a lot, but 100ft isn't a massive distance. Thats only 20 tiles if you were to use models and a tile system. Which is also smaller then the average size of a 3 masted sea ship which you would expect most pirates to be using in a setting like this. This would mean you would have had to have either been on deck or so close by that you'd had been damaged in the blast.
I mean don't get me wrong, still would have done it myself.
@@philiop1986 Fiend Patron Pact of the Chain Warlock with the Invocation Voice of the Chain Master.
Fireball? Check.
Familiar? Check.
Unlimited familiar sight and communication range? Check.
Close enough to cast the spell? .... Well now that may be an issue since Fireball is only 150ft range to begin with, but I'm gonna assume circumstances allowed to get that close. Maybe you're on another ship or maybe a rowboat passing by, or hiding underwater as the ship passes overhead. Lot's of ways this could be possible and since we don't know the specific circumstances it's impossible to say either yes or no. So this one is an assumed Check.
Out of blast radius? Probably. While the ship itself may be bigger than 150ft, you're only targeting a point within the ship to cause a chain reaction with the gunpowder and other explosive/flammable substances stored throughout the ship. The size of the ship is completely and utterly irrelevant, only the distance to the initial target point matters. So Check.
Familiar will die, but just resummon it. It's totally doable, even without the Warlocks unlimited familiar range. As mentioned before the only distance that matters is the distance to the point the spell is being cast at, and since cannons (and consequently the gunpowder) are at the edge of the ship, the total size of the ship is irrelevant. The only thing the DM needs to decide is how much damage it would cause.
Ive been a big pathfinder player for a few years...... a friend of mine is taking the leap into dm'ing a taldorei setting 5th edition game.
Your channel has been a massive help into background of classes, feats etc for me and some of my other m8s, i've been binging your excellent videos over the last 2 weeks.
Really huge thankyou for the entertaining and informative vids :)
I used to play back at the start of the 90s. Find familiar back then was very different if I remember it rightly.
My wizard has the shard of a demon kings soul in him. So his familiar is a imp in the form of a great horned Owl with actual horns curling off his head.
Should be a Quasit
@@TerrariaGolem i prefer the because at a quick glance you wpuldnt noticed so it draws less attention.
Where as with a Quasit its very obvious that its a demon. Now i have people asking me why did i call a Quasit? Why am i cohorting with demons? Am i some kind of demon worshiper? Then i need to be killed before i kill them to my demon mater... In fairness my guy doesn't dress in robes just normal travel gear.
What do you think about the idea of using the command "drop" to force an enemy to drop their weapon and then have the familiar to swoop/run in and steal it?
I'm a bard and got a ring of spell storing, asked the wizard of my party to cast Find Familiar on the ring and then I used to cast as my own so we both have familiars. I still have to choose what form I want but an owl seems pretty cool 'cause it can fly away without the attack of opportunity or take a snake and use it to intimidate people we want to interrogate and be sneaky :)
@Nicolas Hmm. Since your character is unable to cast the spell, you have to rely upon the wizard to recast Find Familiar into the ring, whenever you want to change the form of the familiar, correct? As a DM, I'm also thinking that rings of spell storing are about to become very rare in campaigns I run. 😜
@@Hawkwinter01 Yes, But I don't intend to change its form. I chose a bee for flavor purposes. And I will be very protective of it.
Well, even though I got lucky and got 5 slots for the ring, I think there are more overpowered magic objets to ban from campaigns ^^
it just allows me to cast several more spell, but I still need the slots available before going to bed to refill the ring. It's a matter of control of the slots.
It picked it because I'm versatile as a bard, but to a cleric or druid who can cast a spell one day and chose others in their spell lists it's less restrictive. Giving them more freedom in spells they pick from one day to the next. 'Cause there are spells you almost never use, but wish you had prepared ^^
In a game where Magic Initiate exists, even the Barbarian can get a Familiar.
@@CallenExile True, but you've just burned a feat to get it. That's different from getting it in a ring of spell storing.
@@Hawkwinter01 Not true, that ring could have been a ring of regeneration or a cloak of protection or any number of other things. And you gain two cantrips with that feat, so I'd hardly concider it burning a feat.
17:09 I convinced the barbarian he was magical after he pulled an almiraj out of my witch's hat in ToA. Good stuff.
There’s a unicorn bunny familiar in Tomb of Annihilation. I believe there are also flying monkey and flying cat stats somewhere as well...
The bunnicorn is called an Almiraj and the flying cat is a Tressym.
Karpmageddon thank you! I didn’t have the books on hand so I didn’t want to misspell it.
A flying monkey?!?! I want this for the rough I have been planning with a familiar. (The reason I clicked on this video.)
Got Pact of the Chain just because i wanted a small dragon. I'm so glad it's much better than i expected
I went pact of the chain because my princess-in-hiding warlock needed a pet to love.
A particular build idea I had was of warlock that could have its imp form familiar act as a buddy cop by providing help on almost every skill check, from investigation and perception of two sets of eyes, to trying to recall information, due to a reasonable intelligence and communicating thoughts telepathically rather than just verbally. I would guess the familiar has knowledge from either the player character and or the patron.
I had a player that in his back story he said that his Familiar was actually his sister who was cursed into that form so he devoted his life to study magic and try break the curse. I liked it so I allowed a family member be a familiar. But restricted to the fiscal body of the creature. So no talking out loud like a pokemon. Unless it's a crow/raiven
Alternate familiars are amazing. I played a campaing were my Wizard had a Flying Sword as a familiar and latter had a bunch of knives he would use animate objects on.
A flying sword would make a hilariously awesome familiar.
I couldn't help but use puns with such a familiar causing my DM to immediately regret their choice in letting me have it.
Karpmageddon Please tell me someone forced the player to name the flying sword Stabbitha or Slashley?
@@MagusAgrippa8 Perhaps a Sir Stabbington, who naturally belongs to one of the most influential families of Daggersdeep. Rumor has it that a Stabbington is even counted amongst the dark and mysterious Edged Lords.
Spectre Dan Named it Flying Edge, but it actually acted cherfull most of the time. Pretending to be a normal sword and then jumping to life. Even stuck some mook with it once or twice.
This is my absolute favorite spell ever. I built a Human Rogue for a Dragon Heist campaign and chose the Magic Initiate for the feat at level 1. Got myself Gambit, an owl familiar...and has been one of the most useful items both mechanically and combat ever. He has died twice now, but oddly enough, not to enemies but by friendly fire (first was killed when a teammate rolled a nat 1 on an attack and hit Gambit instead of target. Second was compliments to our wild magic sorcerer electrifying him when his magic went off the rails).
Could you please do episodes on illusion magic and Polymorph? I am too stupid to use those spells. Especially Polymorph.
They covered polymorph here th-cam.com/video/RjGCJTi5Ub4/w-d-xo.html
My Raven’s mimicry actually came in handy when trying to escape a guard
There IS a rabbit familiar in TOA! A unicorn rabbit !!
You mean an Almiraj. Freakin' noobs!
Jackalope?! No wait, that’s an antlered rabbit...
I know this video is 3 years old and the comments probably are not monitored anymore.
However, I would like to thank you for adding timestamps in the description. I know most of your newer videos have chapters, which are even better, but in both cases, I would sincerely like to thank you guys for respecting my time. ♥
Speaking of the Ring of Spell Storing... you can cast Find Familiar into the ring. Now all of your friends can have their own familiar.
2nd edition my sorcerer ended up with a slime familar it had some unexpected powers one power was a meld option which basically ment it could hide on my body with out harming me 2 it had a lash attack that did a d6 of acid damage 3rd it could hold a potion in its body for 24hrs without consuming it. Man i love homebrew.
Sheepicus Bahimus :Wow. Imagine if it had eight long tentacle legs dude? You woulda looked like some kind of a spider.Man, it's a good thing that symbiotic agent of yours couldn't hold and spew toxins or venom, or it could've caused some maximum carnage in a flash.
Bard/Arcane Trickster Find Familiar: frog.
"Hello, my baby! Hello, my hunny! Hello, my ragtime gaaaaaallll! Send me a kiss by wire, baby my heart's on fiiiiiire!"
Oy! Where'd my purse go?!
Find Familiar is the reason I'm giving my Bard Magic Initiate at level 4.
I'm using one of Reaper's winged Imp familiar models, with the stats of an owl or hawk.
My Wife's familiar does some serious damage when combined with the dragon breath spell, gives her a dive bombing owl that just flys in, breathes and flys out of range.
But dragon breath isn't a touch spell...
Actually, it is:
Dragon's Breath
Xanathar's Guide to Everything, p154
2nd-level transmutation
Casting Time: 1 bonus action
Range: Touch
Components: V, S, M (a hot pepper)
Duration: Concentration, up to 1 minute
You touch one willing creature and imbue it with the power to spew magical energy from its mouth, provided it has one. Choose acid, cold, fire, lightning, or poison. Until the spell ends, the creature can use an action to exhale energy of the chosen type in a 15-foot cone. Each creature in that area must make a Dexterity saving throw, taking 3d6 damage of the chosen type on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one.
I have a Mizzium Ooze as a familiar and used Dragon Breath with him! He pretends to be armor when he is not being active. So the enemy was VERY surprised when my neck armor moved and breathed fire on them!
The Almi’raj is kind of a bunny familiar.
Surprised, i don't think they mentioned the combo of rogue with Magic Initiate feat, taking find familiar, and using the familiar to get advantage on every attack for sneak attack.
I never thought of having them attune to magic items and never realized they COULD use magic items. I think you could allow them to attune to magic items but I think they should be limited to 1 Item they can attune to. And I think They should be able to use magic items that cast spells but only non-damaging spells that are concentration.
This is perfect because if your Owl Familiar is holding a Wand of Webs and an enmy kills them then that magic item drops to the ground ready to be picked up.
They shouldn't be allowed damaging wands like Magic Missile because then down the line they could use a wand of Fireballs. If anything a familiar holding a Ring of Spell storing (or something of a similar nature) would be perfect because they could store a stack of invisibility. To Limit this I would make it so that they can only activate 1 spell at a time. Like you'd have 5 feather falls stored in the ring and the owl could activate just that spell any other you'd have to re-teach the familiar to cast a different spell all of which would be over at the end of a long rest.
I would only allow the Wand of Magic Missiles (if any attack item) You could make it an 'Animal Handling' check to see if the animal can handle the magic item properly to use it.
I always treated Familiars as Actual animals that have their own personalities and Identity that WILL always obey their master but is still its own being that acts like an animal despite not really being a beast.
My favorite use of a familiar is to cast Dragon's Breath on my owl. Then I can use it to fly to the back of the bad guys and breath fire on them. Dragon's Breath is not an attack so the rules against familiars attacking don't apply.
Owls also have the fly through ability so you can use them for a help action by flying into the face of you opponent to distract them.
@Dungeon Dudes
Be aware, unless the familiar can speak or mimic speech, it can NOT use any magic item that requires a command word.
note, simply if your have the spellcasting focus feature, having your spellcasting focus near the burning, that the herbs can be burned anywhere (as the brazier does not have a listed value and is not consumed)
Great episode and insight! Great ideas. I’m surprised you didn’t mention the Rogue as being one of the best classes for Find Familiar though. Familiar uses the help action, and the Rogue attacks with advantage and gets Sneak Attack every turn.
Keep up the good work, guys! Love your channel! 👍👍
The initiate feat also gives any character access to cantrips, which means any character can cast utility spells like dancing lights or mage hand, or bundles of awesomeness like Prestidigitation.
(I always try to get this cantrip no matter what character I play since depending on edition, it can do more individual things than any other spell barring wish. And turning your paladin's armor electric pink is hilarious.)
Remember that Bluejays are basically just non-goth ravens, in case a Raven or crow familiar would clash with your aesthetics
Back in my first table in 5th edition, i played as Petrus, the crow, an arcane trickster with a raven as a familiar. I liked using the minor ilusion or silent image spell and use my familiar to imitate the sounds
You forgot to mention the Gazer familiar option from Volo's Guide, which is by far the coolest familiar option, especially for great old one warlocks. :)
I'm currently playing a "Pact of the Tome" Warlock that took Find Familiar as one of his ritual spells in his book. It's a cool two-headed raven with one head being blind. Thank you for the advice on how to use it!
Worth mentioning: recently an Unearthed Arcana "Class Feature Variants" came out and *Druids* can have a Wild Companion by expending a use of a Wild Shape.
I personally loved it.
I love them both thinking of the rabbit familiar coming out of a hat and how excited they seem.
I'm so proud of Monte. He finally said Invocations instead of "Invockations" high five bro!
17:25 On the subject of Rabbit familiars. It's VERY easy to reskin one of the existing familiars as another small mammal or whatever. I've had a Stoat familiar that used the Weasel stat block. A Finch familiar that used a slightly edited Raven stat block. It's very easy to work with your DM to shift to a different but similar animal. For a Rabbit I'd probably use a Weasel stat block, remove the stealth bonus and add in something relating to longer jumps or another 5/10 ft of movespeed instead.
Ah. One of my DMs is about to run a modified ToH into a homebrew. My backup is Order Cleric/Archfeyloc. Taking Pact of Tome and Book of Secrets for Find Familiar. Gonna be such a good support character. I'm probably going to meta-game it up and go into College of Whispers for more infiltration and fright abilities to go with my other race/class charm and fright features and Actor feat. Ahhhh... Gonna be so fun. Sad I didnt take a Sprite familiar in a way. Order Cleric allowing a deadly archer familiar to reaction attack is gnarly.
Edit: Owl is the best for combat. Flyby negates opportunity, so they can move 60ft freely, other than readied actions meant for the Owl. Keep your owl 30ft away from enemies. Charge in 30ft, fly away 30ft. Thief Rogues using objects twice a turn, as well as their familiar taking one... Go 3 Mastermind Rogue to help from 30ft away as a bonus action, help another ally from 30ft as an action, familiar to help another ally. Stay safe.
First, and currently only thing I have used my warlock's spider familiar for was put it on the back of a Druid in wolf form. DM ruled that since the spider was an ally within 5ft of the wolf, it triggered pack tactics.
In reference to the "their isn't a rabbit familiar!" comment, as a DM I personally allow the familiar to have the form of any CR 0 beast, per DM approval.
Great combo, Find Familiar and Dragon's Breath. Since you can use the familiar to cast spells with a range of touch, Dragon's Breath has a casting time of one bonus action and breath weapons don't use the attack action you can give your familiar a breath weapon no matter how far apart you are, attack with a cantrip then it can surprise the enemy by breathing fire, ice, lightning, poison or acid on them.
My wizard has a poisonous snake familiar, because it helps deter potential assailants during the night. Very few people are willing to try and mug someone with a snake that's sitting on top of them, and others unwilling to take on a snake that's sitting on top of an unconscious body.
My ranger meanwhile, is planning on multiclassing into wizard, and while he's not a Beastmaster, he does have a pet hawk. So I'm chatting with my DM about whether or not I can reflavor Find Familiar as closer to a transmutation spell to more closely fit his school and to allow turning animals into familiars (with all the restrictions of course, the hawk hasn't been trained for battle like a Beastmaster companion), instead of summoning some otherplanar being that then you can use all these transmutation-like effects on, such as changing its shape, blink between a pocket dimension and back out somewhere else as actions, or being able to converse within a set distance (Message is a transmutation while Sending is an evocation and Telepathic Bond is a divination, the lines between spell schools are really vague).
Also, Flock of Familiars is a newish spell from Lost Laboratory of Kwalish lets you have two more familiars (or three familiars if you don't currently have a regular familiar) for one hour at concentration, on both Wizard and Warlock spell lists, so go nuts with that everybody.
I'm playing a Yuan-Ti pureblood wizard/bard that obviously has a poisonous snake familiar too. I like to have it coil around the other players legs to cast currently wounds. One of the characters is afraid of snakes so she get freaked out when I do it. My character is like "Do you need help? Are you hurt" and she's like "Nope! Nope! I'm fine!" Haha.
Venomous. Pathfinder got it right. For some reason D&D can't.
Great content. I love your flow because it's two friends, two players, two dms talking about something they love and enjoy!
Keep up the good work :D
"Like Merlin and Archimedes" Well _now_ I feel old....
That is about what I said
I love the initiative homebrew rule, and am considering expanding that to my Ranger's animal companion, to make life simpler.