D&D 5E Familiars, what for?

[iserith]

When the cat's behavior is entirely determined by the DM...and you happen to be that DM...yes, you can be held responsible for that.

You are literally giving the DM equivalent of the crappy player excuse, "It's what my character would do!" And it does absolutely nothing to make me think you weren't being completely straightforward when you said that familiars are KOS to you.

Or you didn't get the joke.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I think the complete opposite is true. Most people will go out of their way to kill rats and spiders and to a lessor extent snakes. There are entire sections in Lowe's and Home Depot devoted to the pursuit of ridding your property of them in a manner that could be called genocide.

Other familiars are going more likely be out of place most of the time. There is nothing normal about an owl in my backyard (or anywhere) during the day or a hawk or strange cat in my kitchen EVER.

And I think a reasonable reaction to seeing a strange cat in one's kitchen would it to shoo it off, and a reasonable reaction to seeing an owl during the daytime would be to shrug. But perhaps I assume a setting where casters are not that common, and people do not live in constant paranoia about being spied by magical familiars. And if people are that paranoid, then I would expect a massive number of innocent animals getting murdered as suspected familiars. BTW, I saw a small owl during daytime couple of months ago. My reaction was to try to take a picture. Not for a moment I though that seeing it during the daytime was particularly strange, but then again, perhaps it actually was a wizard's familiar and I was just being foolish!

 

[GMforPowergamers]

And I think reasonable reaction to seeing a strange cat in one's kitchen would it to shoo it off, and a reasonable reaction to seeing an owl during a daytime would be to shrug. But perhaps I assume a setting where casters are not that common, and people do not live in constant paranoia about being spied by magical familiars. And if people are that paranoid, then I would expect a massive number of innocent animals getting murdered as suspected familiars. BTW, I saw a small owl during daytime couple of months ago. My reaction was to try to take a picture. Not for a moment I though that seeing it during the daytime was particularly strange, but then again, perhaps it actually was a wizard's familiar and I was just being foolish!

most people don't have drones, and those that do are mostly toys without any surveillance equipment on them. If you see a drone you would be perfectly natural to say 'someone is playing with a toy' even if it DOES have a camera. If you shoot at it though you BETTER have a good reason.

 

[Joshy]

I have no problem killing familiars but it's usually because it tactically makes sense for the npc's to do so or they are caught in an AoE. There have been other times obviously but that is a rarity.
A bald aarakocra that had an envious driven hate for all that is feathered.
A mouse trap in a shop with some really bad rolls.
Players using the familiar as a taste/poison/curse tester.
Traps in general.

 

[ECMO3]

And I think a reasonable reaction to seeing a strange cat in one's kitchen would it to shoo it off, and a reasonable reaction to seeing an owl during the daytime would be to shrug. But perhaps I assume a setting where casters are not that common, and people do not live in constant paranoia about being spied by magical familiars. And if people are that paranoid, then I would expect a massive number of innocent animals getting murdered as suspected familiars. BTW, I saw a small owl during daytime couple of months ago. My reaction was to try to take a picture. Not for a moment I though that seeing it during the daytime was particularly strange, but then again, perhaps it actually was a wizard's familiar and I was just being foolish!

An bat outside during the daytime might be shrugged off. An owl flying around during the daytime would be way screwed up. I would probably assume it was diseased.

I would probably shoo a strange cat out of my kitchen, although my dog would undoubtedly try to kill it first.

In considering these answers though, I am not an evil Necromancer bent on world domination. I don't have enemies trying to infiltrate my home or scout my yard to eliminate the undead Army I plan to use to take over the world. If I did then I would not shrug off either the bat or the cat.

This is also my home I am talking about. I think a strange cat found inside a U.S. nuclear missile silo or inside the president's chambers in the white house is going to cause a lot of alarm, even in our world where cats are not spy drones.

 

[Joshy]

Seeing an owl during the day could just mean something disturbed it's resting place.

 

[iserith]

even if you can't do it mid adventure (I mean sooner or later there HAS to be short rest time in adventures or you are screwing all short rest classes) most times you can start each adventure with a free 'waste attack' for 10gp and a bit of prep time...

I have had players say they prep cloths and hair styles for hours before going into dungeons, so summoning a familiar would be nothing.

Yep, it's likely you could go into an adventure with a familiar. But once the clock is ticking, time is a resource (as are the material components), so you'll need to manage that wisely. Rests aren't free of risk or trade-offs either. As well, your adventuring party of 5 with 5 familiars to soak attacks is spending 50 gp per encounter which at 6 to 8 encounters per adventuring day would really start to add up. If variant encumbrance is being employed, that's going to be some weight in components, too. It's not a very practical approach in this context.

 

[Lyxen]

Yep, it's likely you could go into an adventure with a familiar. But once the clock is ticking, time is a resource (as are the material components), so you'll need to manage that wisely. Rests aren't free of risk or trade-offs either. As well, your adventuring party of 5 with 5 familiars to soak attacks is spending 50 gp per encounter which at 6 to 8 encounters per adventuring day would really start to add up. If variant encumbrance is being employed, that's going to be some weight in components, too. It's not a very practical approach in this context.

And here you go, just a DM piling difficulties on players having a familiar just because he thinks it's right, with no consideration for the fun part of it from the players' side. It's just about finding reasons for players NOT to have familiars, without even having the straightforwardess of simply banning the spell so that players don't invest there.

Honestly, where's the harm as long as there is no real abuse ? You might say that you don't hate familiars, but you certainly make a great impression of it, as well as falling squarely within the type of behaviour described here.

Just for information, are you also counting the weight of OTHER spell components, one by one, in variant encumbrance ? Because with all these fights, I'm pretty sure that every caster needs a mule only, let me guess, there is a kill on sight order on mules too ?

 

[James Gasik]

I know players who have completely stopped spending money on mounts or beasts of burden- between situations where they can't bring them along, situations where they are forced to abandon them, ambushes by bandits and hungry monsters, or then falling prey to random encounters while they were left outside whatever cave/crumbling ruin/hobgoblin fortress they are dealing with at the moment, they no longer see the point.

Even when I agree that I won't have enemies randomly kill or steal their mounts while they aren't physically standing within 20' of them, they still would rather walk!

 

[Lyxen]

I know players who have completely stopped spending money on mounts or beasts of burden- between situations where they can't bring them along, situations where they are forced to abandon them, ambushes by bandits and hungry monsters, or then falling prey to random encounters while they were left outside whatever cave/crumbling ruin/hobgoblin fortress they are dealing with at the moment, they no longer see the point.

Even when I agree that I won't have enemies randomly kill or steal their mounts while they aren't physically standing within 20' of them, they still would rather walk!

Yes, after a while, players are traumatised that way, which is a bit silly honestly, since the game is more varied with mounts/familiars/companions whatever around.

It might be a bit extreme, but here is the list of companions around in our Odyssey of the Dragonlords campaign:

And even then, it's incomplete, we recently had two cyclops, a pegasus and another centaur join us, not even mentioning the fact that some of them are gods (Kyrah is a goddess and a frequent companion of my character). And honestly, when you have gods as companions, I really have trouble understanding how DMs can be bothered by a simple owl familiar...