D&D 5E Is Find Familiar essentially "gain Advantage on all skill checks and attacks"?

[Voadam]

I would argue that a raven flapping around someone's head is a distraction even if it can't attack for damage.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I would argue that a raven flapping around someone's head is a distraction even if it can't attack for damage.

It's not that it can't attack for damage. It can't attack at all. It is physically incapable of striking you. Period.

It's a bit of weird situation to try and imagine. But then you also have to imagine, does the enemy know about familiars? Do they know that the raven will be completely incapable of hurting them? What does it mean that it can't attack?

It's hard to imagine.

 

[Coredump]

Few things to keep in mind. The Combat Help Action allows you to us the Working Together rules from p. 175

Under Working together it states: "A character can only provide help if the task is one that he or she could attempt alone" and "a Character can help only when two or more individuals working together could actually be productive"

So a Raven could not 'help' you with anything that it can't do one its own. I would rule that a Raven doesn't 'track', but your DM may rule differently.

As for combat, p.192 states
"Alternatively, you can aid a friendly creature in attacking a creature within 5 feet of you. You feint, distract the target, or in some other way team up to make your ally’s attack more effective."

If the invisible Imp is just sitting there it is not actually 'helping'

Further, Sneak Attack does not happen if you have a nearby ally, it happens if the target has a nearby enemy. If a creature is just sitting there being invisible and doing nothing... I think most DMs would have a hard time considering that an 'enemy'. Especially since the SA description says that you get the extra damage because you are exploiting "a foe's distraction"

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Wow, I never thought it was that powerful!!

It's not powerful. It's effective and cheap. There's a big difference.

Any wizard can turn himself invisible and then help the rogue. But a familiar doesn't cost any action economy, and since it's expendable you don't have to spend concentration keeping it invisible either.

The invisible imp is NOT cheap (high opportunity cost: no book of dark secrets) and so it's good that it's effective.

 

[Clancey]

Well, I hope this isn't too long after the last post, but I am playing my 1st Rogue 5e character and am at 2nd level. I initially though I would choose the Assassin archtype, but other than the "assassinate" skill at 3rd level, I can't see much use of the disguise skills, since it is a large group of players and not much room for individual roll-playing. Now I am leaning towards arcane trickster because the ability to use the improved Mage hand cantrip is pretty powerful. The one thing I didn't take into account was that my Halfling rogue has no dark vision. Too offset this, I would learn Find Familiar and use a bat to "see" using its blind vision as I scout for traps, secret doors and other dungeon denizens. That would be the only non illusion/enchantment spell I could choose until 8th level, but seems like it would be worth it. There are some interesting ideas in this thread for familiars too, so I'm getting a little bit excited. However, on the negative side, I assigned my Int ability score a 12. Now I wanted to use a feat, either sharpshooter or alert at level 4, but I might have to use the ability increase instead. My cantrips would be Mage Hand and at least 1 attack-based cantrip with a range of touch and possibly the light cantrip. I would like to know if anyone thinks the bat familiar vision is likely to help me like I envision. I know it takes an action to see through the bat's vision, but if it is sitting on my shoulder, I should be able to move normally outside of combat. What do you all think about that.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Well, I hope this isn't too long after the last post, but I am playing my 1st Rogue 5e character and am at 2nd level. I initially though I would choose the Assassin archtype, but other than the "assassinate" skill at 3rd level, I can't see much use of the disguise skills, since it is a large group of players and not much room for individual roll-playing. Now I am leaning towards arcane trickster because the ability to use the improved Mage hand cantrip is pretty powerful. The one thing I didn't take into account was that my Halfling rogue has no dark vision. Too offset this, I would learn Find Familiar and use a bat to "see" using its blind vision as I scout for traps, secret doors and other dungeon denizens. That would be the only non illusion/enchantment spell I could choose until 8th level, but seems like it would be worth it. There are some interesting ideas in this thread for familiars too, so I'm getting a little bit excited. However, on the negative side, I assigned my Int ability score a 12. Now I wanted to use a feat, either sharpshooter or alert at level 4, but I might have to use the ability increase instead. My cantrips would be Mage Hand and at least 1 attack-based cantrip with a range of touch and possibly the light cantrip. I would like to know if anyone thinks the bat familiar vision is likely to help me like I envision. I know it takes an action to see through the bat's vision, but if it is sitting on my shoulder, I should be able to move normally outside of combat. What do you all think about that.

It depends on whether your DM treats blindsight as "regular sight, but in the dark" like I do, or like X-ray vision as some DMs do. A low Int isn't necessarily a liability for an Arcane trickster; you can still use defensive spells like Blur and Mirror Image with no penalty, and if you start wanting to use offensive spells later on you can use your Arcane Trickster features to impose disadvantage on the rolls, which is about as good as a high ability score.

Lack of Darkvision in and of itself isn't a serious problem. There is a 2nd level spell which gives you Darkvision for 8 hours, no Concentration required, and it's learnable by druids, rangers, sorcerers, and wizards, so your large party shouldn't have any problem at all getting someone to cast it on the party scout before he goes looking for traps.

 

[Clancey]

Thanks. I play tonight. I will be able to sound the dm out before the game.

 

[transtemporal]

I would like to know if anyone thinks the bat familiar vision is likely to help me like I envision. I know it takes an action to see through the bat's vision, but if it is sitting on my shoulder, I should be able to move normally outside of combat. What do you all think about that.

Ha, snap! I just made a halfling rogue rog4/bard1 with the same intention except using the owl 120' darkvision. I'm going to get the owl to scout ahead at 1/2 speed using its senses instead of mine, and get someone to lead me around blind-man styles.

 

[Clancey]

Great - I will probably use the Owl now primarily - I didn't notice it had Darkvision. If I run into magic darkness, I'll cast the spell again to summon a bat. Thanks!

 

[Kobold Stew]

I have been thinking about this. Using a familiar's senses means that you lack your own, and so I don't think using an owl for scouting is particularly effective, as it prevents you having any sense of what's immediately in front of you.

Even having an owl perched on your shoulder would be disorienting, but perhaps possible. I was thinking, though, that a bat on the shoulder *would* give the possessor 60' blindsight.

Also, in addition to Magic Initiate, a non-caster could get access to Find Familiar with the Ritual Caster Feat, which offers a different kind of flexibility, esp. for rogues, for whom the attack cantrips cannot be used in conjunction with sneak attack.