D&D 5E Familiars!

Immortal Sun said:

Familiars and animal companions have been notoriously squishy. Which is one reason I don't like the idea that they can "help" in combat, but I've never found it terribly fun to get an animal companion, love it, train it...only to have it take a couple bad crits and die...just so that I can then not have a familiar for a like a year AND take some XP penalties. That was FUN. NOT.

Roleplaying out the death of a familiar is great and all, no issue there. And even if it's a spirit taking the form of an animal, it might not want to serve you again if you got it killed. So add a little RP fluff and you end up with the same result, a dead friend who may not be interested in coming back.

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Personally, I really like the way 5E familiars work. Sure, I wouldn't mind an "Improved Familiar" feat or a mildly expanded list (though I thought there was an "ask your DM" list already?). But overall they're a a pet with some special uses that you have to make some effort to take care of. You might not have the materials and time to bring them back!

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I’ve been tinkering with a Fey Beast Tamer that takes a familiar and let’s it turn into something that can fight beside you. It started as a Bard College, but I decided that it should be a feat, and I’m trying to make it also benefit BM Rangers. Like, if you have a companion that is a beast with a CR or X or lower, you can apply these benefits to it, and it becomes your Familiar, in addition to its normal statistics and any associated benefits.

So, a wizard with a familiar can have a wolf familiar, and a BM Ranger can turn their much stronger wolf into a familiar that can still attack. It also can be any Fey within the appropriate CR range.

It steps on the Chain Warlock a bit, sure, but multiclassing fighter steps on the Bladelock, they’re pretty minor class features. And hopefully the feat will be useful for Chainlocks.

doctorbadwolf said:

I’ve been tinkering with a Fey Beast Tamer that takes a familiar and let’s it turn into something that can fight beside you. It started as a Bard College, but I decided that it should be a feat, and I’m trying to make it also benefit BM Rangers. Like, if you have a companion that is a beast with a CR or X or lower, you can apply these benefits to it, and it becomes your Familiar, in addition to its normal statistics and any associated benefits.

So, a wizard with a familiar can have a wolf familiar, and a BM Ranger can turn their much stronger wolf into a familiar that can still attack. It also can be any Fey within the appropriate CR range.

It steps on the Chain Warlock a bit, sure, but multiclassing fighter steps on the Bladelock, they’re pretty minor class features. And hopefully the feat will be useful for Chainlocks.

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It would generally be nice if there was a way to balance out "You get a second character." and "You get a second character that sucks." in D&D. I've yet to see it happen.

Perhaps a beast that is an extension of the player, some kind of joined spirit, sharing a health total and each giving the other certain benefits, up to a certain distance. Sure, you still have increased positioning potential and an extra attack (or a few, depending on the animal), I don't know. It's difficult. Even video games haven't completely solved the issue. WoW pets constantly go back and forth between being night-unstoppable death machines and a squishy useless meatbags to the point they added a talent to opt out of even having a pet.

I really like this – if hits to the familiar took away from the character’s HP as a shared total (with the caveat that AOE attacks don’t affect them more than once), I think that would both provide more balance while reducing the amount of re-summoning.

Immortal Sun said:

Perhaps a beast that is an extension of the player, some kind of joined spirit, sharing a health total and each giving the other certain benefits, up to a certain distance.

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5ekyu said:

What I think you may be missing is you **can** go find certain creatures and bond to them as familiars. It's just the easy peasy first level sprll that locks in the "fauxmiliar" thing. Check the MM.

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The biggest problem with that is that require DM fiat and isn't under a player's control. :/ An Improved Familiar feat or a Greater Find Familiar spell would solve it much better.

TarionzCousin said:

I think your experience with house cats has been different than my experience. #littlekillers

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True, and that's not even considering other familiar types like hawks, octopodes, poisonous snakes, quippers, spiders, etc.

doctorbadwolf said:

That seems really extreme for the loss of a pet that barely does anything.

Do you let it help with things other than scouting and using Help in combat?

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Barely does anything?

Sure it can scout and help and you can still cast touch spells through it, it can also grant you special senses, has a better AC and saves, higher proficiency bonus, more hit points, and higher intelligence (most likely) than familiars normally get. Oh, and did I mention you get temporary hit points after a long rest equal to your level?? My current character is very grateful for those extra 5 hit points, even if only temporary. Also since any spells you cast on yourself can benefit your familiar, if you have healing spells you can heal yourself and your familiar with a single spell.

Those are a lot of perks over the normal find familiar, so gaining a single level of exhaustion (removed with a simple long rest) if it dies seems like a reasonable trade-off... at least, it has worked great for our group.

dnd4vr said:

Barely does anything?

Sure it can scout and help and you can still cast touch spells through it, it can also grant you special senses, has a better AC and saves, higher proficiency bonus, more hit points, and higher intelligence (most likely) than familiars normally get. Oh, and did I mention you get temporary hit points after a long rest equal to your level?? My current character is very grateful for those extra 5 hit points, even if only temporary. Also since any spells you cast on yourself can benefit your familiar, if you have healing spells you can heal yourself and your familiar with a single spell.

Those are a lot of perks over the normal find familiar, so gaining a single level of exhaustion (removed with a simple long rest) if it dies seems like a reasonable trade-off... at least, it has worked great for our group.

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What are you talking about? Lol if you expect people to know the context of something like your original statement, soemthing like “we also boost the efficacy of the familiar” might help.

He did list all of that in the new spell description.

Azzy said:

The biggest problem with that is that require DM fiat and isn't under a player's control. :/ An Improved Familiar feat or a Greater Find Familiar spell would solve it much better.

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Well, hang on tho.

"I don't like that the familiar is a spirit rather than a normal creature of its ilk. The spirit thing is neat, but for me it's not as cool as bonding with an actual creature."

See, there is a bit of a thing here. If one wants the find familiar to be a more significant element, like a loving real creature, an actual bond, etc thrm the notion of pick up easy by feature **to me** runs afoul of that.

To me you should have both options available- a quick and easy spirit friend that you can lose and get back **or** a real creature that you gotta do some work to get, not just feature on demand.

In 5e both are available.

But let me give you an alternative perspective - no house rule needed (technically.)

Say that you fo as a find familiar bond to an actual creature- a sharing of spirits. You carry a spark of it with you.

Each time you cast familiar you are calling on the same creature - and when you "call the spirit" into one of its many shapes - you are calling out that spirit essence and shaping it as z manifestation.

So, you have the binding with real creature, the on-demand spirit forms etc, just that that real creature does not rush out to join you in risking it's life when its spirit forms do just fine.

So, somewhere, out there, is a varmint that is your shared beastie. It just cut a deal that gave you a spirit on demand and got for itself... well, that could be an interesting question.

doctorbadwolf said:

What are you talking about? Lol if you expect people to know the context of something like your original statement, soemthing like “we also boost the efficacy of the familiar” might help.

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What am I talking about? Seriously?

I am talking about exactly what I wrote in my first post of the revised spell description. If you had bothered to actually pay attention when you skimmed my post, you would know the "context or something" you seem to be looking for.

cbwjm said:

He did list all of that in the new spell description.

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Precisely, everything was in the new spell description in my post on page one.