D&D 5E Imp as a familiar seems OP (observations and opinions)

[CTurbo]

So in one of my campaigns, I play an evil 6th level Halfling Paladin with the Magic Initiate feat and the Find Familiar ritual = Imp (long story behind all that)

But anyway, I have spent a great deal of time playing with this character and it's pretty safe to say that having an Imp as a familiar is a pretty powerful thing. I'm wondering how many other people have been able to play with an Imp familiar and were they as successful with it as I have been? I mean "successful" as a combination of effectiveness and fun.

Here are a few fun things I have been able to pull off besides constant superior scouting and nearly constant advantage on attacks and checks it grants-

1. Casually looting a burning building.

2. Covering the Imp in flamable oils, and then shooting a firebolt at him basically causing a small bomb that took out 5 or 6 enemies at once

3. Trapping people inside a building, setting it on fire, and then my character "saving" them all thus becoming the hero.

4. Smoking out some bandits from the inside so the party could pick them off as they exited.

5. Getting a rich evil Lord thrown in jail by planting evidence on him, breaking into his estate(just the Imp and Halfling), killing all 11 guards inside, mostly picking them off one at a time, and never fighting more than 2 at once, and seriously robbing the place. Breaking him out of jail, getting paid by him to find who set him up and robbed him, framing two random criminals for the whole thing while obviously robbing them too in the process hahaha

6. There have been a few other "encounters" that ended up being practically solo missions for the Imp.




So yeah, I know the familiar doesn't scale at all so it potency will diminish as we level but geez it just seems so powerful so far.

I'd love to hear others' thoughts on the "improved" familiars.

 

[mflayermonk]

Yes, its incredibly good. You can also pop it into existence on the other side of a door.

Off-topic anyone remember getting the 1e imp as a familiar? It had a 25% chance to instakill things.

 

[Dausuul]

The warlock in my campaign has an imp familiar; the flying invisible/polymorphed scouting is a constant headache. Any time I design an ambush encounter, I have to stop and remind myself that the imp can and will scout it unless the defenders have some type of countermeasure.

I count myself fortunate that the party includes a couple of fanatically religious characters who take a real dim view of fiends, so the warlock has to pretend his familiar is a bird, which limits his ability to openly engage in shenanigans with it.

 

[Lucas Blackstone]

The imp familiar has a couple other severely overpowered uses. The imp can carry up to 60lbs, and anything the imp carries turns invisible. The invisibility lasts until the imp attacks or loses concentration on the invisibility. Several small races weigh under 60lbs. Using a halfling as my example, said halfling warlock summons his imp. Imp picks up the halfling and turns invisible. The halfling decides to eldritch blast something and stays invisible because the imp did not make an attack or lose concentration, and can fly without duration. Hooray!

Another option is to hang a sheet over a quarterstaff, or if you are feeling fancy, get a hula hoop make of metal. Drape a blanket or sheet over the hoop so it is like a portable shower curtain. Then the imp turns it invisible and flies over someone. This person has total cover according to the rules ( not to be confused with concealment which they would not have ). Many magical spells are now thwarted because of your portable and invisible total cover. Hooray imps!

Do not confuse this post with me saying that DMs should let this work in their games, but as far as I can tell it is legal by the rules.

 

[Ath-kethin]

Of course, RAW the find familiar spell won't ever get you an imp (unless you are a Pact of the Chain Warlock; more on that later). An imp familiar is a result of a negotiated contract between the summoner and the imp, and the imp can't do normal familiar stuff like deliver touch spells. Essentially, having an imp familiar gives you an NPC servant or cohort, not a fey spirit bound to your service. So of course it will be more.powerful than the stuff you can get by casting the spell.

As a warlock, the situation is a little different. The familiar uses the imp statistics, but still isn't a true imp; for example, if reduced to 0 hit points it vanishes and you have to cast the spell again to get one back. In this case, I'd argue that it still isn't a true imp, though I suppose when you have a fiend spirit that looks like and imp, has an imp's abilities, and acts like an imp, the distinction is pretty much academic.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

So in one of my campaigns, I play an evil 6th level Halfling Paladin with the Magic Initiate feat and the Find Familiar ritual = Imp (long story behind all that)

Out of interest, is it a real Imp, or just a familiar spirit in the form of an Imp?

2. Covering the Imp in flamable oils, and then shooting a firebolt at him basically causing a small bomb that took out 5 or 6 enemies at once

How did you get the Imp to explode? Even alchemist's fire only tends to burn the creature it is on.

Its power will drop a bit comparatively as you run into more powerful opponents, but it is still useful in a lot of situations. Things to watch out for are groups, or people/creatures with decent perception who have a good chance of beating the Imp's stealth check, or those with special senses.
Magical attacks aren't that common amongst nonhumanoids, but even some animals may be a risk: it just has effectively more hit points against nonmagical attacks.

So yes, it is pretty OP. There is a reason that being able to have one is a full class feature, rather than just a feat normally.

 

[CTurbo]

Out of interest, is it a real Imp, or just a familiar spirit in the form of an Imp?

We have never really discussed this. We always assumed it was a real Imp even though it was summoned via the Find Familiar spell/ritual.

Although it does fully obey me, it has an easier time with the more evil tasks, and requires at least a little bit of bribery to behave itself sometimes when I really need it to.

How did you get the Imp to explode? Even alchemist's fire only tends to burn the creature it is on.

It didn't really explode. It was more like a flash bang. I covered it in regular lantern oil and had it go into the middle of a small group of people and the fire affected like a 10-15ft radius with the mobile burning Imp jumping around between them too.




I had never considered that the Imp could carry a Halfling! That's awesome! I'm definitely going to give that a try next time hahaha

 

[ExploderWizard]

Another option is to hang a sheet over a quarterstaff, or if you are feeling fancy, get a hula hoop make of metal. Drape a blanket or sheet over the hoop so it is like a portable shower curtain. Then the imp turns it invisible and flies over someone. This person has total cover according to the rules ( not to be confused with concealment which they would not have ). Many magical spells are now thwarted because of your portable and invisible total cover. Hooray imps!

If the object being used for cover is invisible then the target can be targeted normally because they are plainly visible. The actual material will still provide whatever protection it it can, so an invisible sheet of steel may block an attack but an invisible sheet wouldn't do much against anything except possibly a small thrown rock.

 

[Dausuul]

It didn't really explode. It was more like a flash bang. I covered it in regular lantern oil and had it go into the middle of a small group of people and the fire affected like a 10-15ft radius with the mobile burning Imp jumping around between them too.

Well, that's a problem with your DM's decision to treat lamp oil as equivalent to napalm. It's not an issue with the imp per se.

Don't get me wrong, by-the-book imp familiars are crazy-good, but this particular effect goes far beyond what the book supports or implies.

 

[Mallus]

An Imp familiar for a paladin would be overpowered. For a Pact of the Chain Warlock (the only RAW way to get an Imp, correct?) it's fine, though that does depend on the nature of the campaign and it's base assumptions. In an intrigue-heavy, lower-magic game, I could see an Imp straying into overpowered.

But for a game like the one where I play a Pact of the Chain warlock/actress stuck in a megadungeon, my Imp is very useful, but the hardly overpowered compared to the other PCs abilities.