Vaalingrade
Legend
Why does 'fight smart' always mean 'wastes turns to specifically hose a player (not character, player) rather than deal with active threats', AKA, not fighting smart at all?
D&D 5E Sneak Attack with spells?
I'm not so sure that dealing with the familiar is not fighting smart. As a player, if an opponent had some tiny, vulnerable ally that was continually distracting me to grant advantage (and large amounts of damage), I would certainly hope that someone in my party would take it out fast, if I didn't do it myself.
While it is an option in your tool belt, I would rather have an hour of scouting with a living familiar after combat, than spend that time stationary summoning another.
Vaalingrade
Legend
It's massive metagaming.
Imagine you're hired to ice some dude and his parakeet won't stop squawking, which is distracting you while he's trying to self-defense you to death with a knife. Do you distract yourself more to kill the bird while giving the guy more time to see if his Cutco can go still cut a tomato after bisecting an assailant's spinal cord?
Long story short, does anyone know what parrots eat? I tried cookies, but I think Minecraft lied to me.
Maxperson
Morkus from Orkus
It's not. Advantage is a mechanic. Some small creature putting you off guard so it's harder to defend yourself against the rogue is something very, VERY apparent in the game.
No. You spend a few seconds defending yourself against the guy cutting you to ribbons BECAUSE of the parakeet, to end the cause of your getting cut to ribbons. It's a smart move.
If my old house is any indication. Wood planking on the walls.
Have you tried crackers? Polly want a cracker is like the oldest parrot line I know.
The assumption in the equation is that without the familiar the rogue won't get advantage. That seems dubious. If the rogue isn't getting advantage almost every round anyway then something is very wrong. (or defacto advantage by dual wielding in melee).
What you stop the rogue from doing by killing their familiar is using their bonus action to do something else. Is that really worth wasting an attack on? (In some circumstances yes. But probably not most of the time).
What you stop the rogue from doing by killing their familiar is using their bonus action to do something else. Is that really worth wasting an attack on? (In some circumstances yes. But probably not most of the time).
Maxperson
Morkus from Orkus
Ahh, but playing on that knowledge WOULD be metagaming. It's the familiar that the bad guy is seeing as the issue. He doesn't know if the rogue has some other way to make him vulnerable.
When it stops a sneak attack not to mention advantage and any other actions. Darn right it is smart and attacking a familiar is never a waste if it hits. If you hit it almost always takes down the familiar ..... and if it doesn't hit it probably would not have hit a player anyway.
A few points to consider:
1. Down low hp enemies first: Typically the most effective tactic in any battle is to concentrate on wounded and low hp enemies first. Take them enemy off the battlefield eliminating actions from that character for the entire rest of the fight. With 1 or 2hps a familiar is normally the lowest hp creature in the party. Hitting him once takes away its action that turn and every turn thereafter for the entire battle. Choose to attack someone else and unless you down him/her you lose no actions.
2. No Whack a Mole: A familiar can't be healed from 0. If you take the familiar to 0 it is done, no healing word to get it back in the fight. Again in terms of action economy, it loses its action for the entire fight. Depending on the initiative order, bringing a familiar to 0 can be a bigger benefit in terms of action economy than bringing a party member to 0.
3. Severely cuts into party member attacks: Advantage is a huge boost even without the SA it comes with.
Now I am not saying they will always target a familiar. If the familiar is hanging back and doing nothing in the battle I might not specifically go after it (unless it is really easy and the opportunity presents itself), but if the familiar is up in melee and giving someone advantage every turn, or if it has Dragon's breath cast on it and it is strafing the bad guys for 3d6 every turn .... darn right I am going to go out of my way to kill it.
Finally a familiar is VERY vulnerable. If you have him out all the time he is going to die often. He will die from almost any AOE. If your enemy decides to use freaking sword burst your familiar is going to die. Should I choose not to use it just because the cat is up there next to the tank and helping by scratching at the enemies legs and I don't want to "hose a player".
They will also die from traps just skulking through the dungeon on the Rogue's shoulder, it is not just enemy attacks. If he is not out all the time then he often is not going to be out on the first turn of combat meaning it costs an action to summon him. If he is out all the time he is going to die a lot.
Last edited:
With Booming Blade she won't typically get advantage regularly and certainly not almost every turn and you can't use Two Weapon Fighting with booming blade because TWF requires you use an attack action and booming blade uses the cast a spell action.
Yes TWF is normally the rough equivalent of advantage, but if you do that you lose the extra cantrip damage.
Doing it with a ranged cantrip would allow you to get the advantage AND the cantrip damage .... almost every turn like you said.
Last edited:
God I hate the whole concept of RAW. I've never seen anyone apply this, nor would I apply it myself. It doesn't make any sense and it's based off rules text that predates these kinds of cantrips anyway.
Similar Threads
