D&D 5E Are Wizards really all that?

[ECMO3]

A beast might kill a familiar if it sees one. Again, why isn't the familiar sneaking? Moreover, there are some familiars that many beasts won't tangle with. A typical domestic cat is not going to attack an owl, for example. The owl is too big to be appropriate prey, and the risk of injury is high. Don't let their appearance fool you, owls can be surprisingly vicious.

A familiar might be sneaking, but a +3 is not that great and a low check will ensure he is seen, even an average roll will fail many times. You can make him invisible, but that won't give him advantage on everything.

I think a domestic cat is not the kind of animal you are scouting for. If there is a domestic cat in the dungeon it is likely a pet of someone or something and in any case is largely irrelevant, your paerty is not at risk for strolling up on the cat either ..... unless it is a familiar of something else in which case the Owl is at risk of exposing you. I was talking about beasts that would be encounters in areas you are scouting - more like a giant constrictor snake, sabre-toothed tiger or dire wolf.

Intelligent creatures might kill an owl. Also only if the detect it. Why is the familiar not sneaking? If this is the issue, however, why not use a less conspicuous form? A rat or spider would hardly be out of place in a dungeon

I mentioned that above, but this is an hour to summon (more as a ritual) and it it an hour to summon your owl again. The downside with either of these is they are pests and will probably be killed for being pests.

You would need to summon something that is both common in the environment and not considered a pest. Indoors that is tough.

. If the dungeon denizens plan to keep their dungeon 100% pest free, they've got their work cut out for them.

There are very few animals deep in caves beyond the "living cave", moreover that doesn'tmean they won't. I can't keep my house free of spiders and I can't keep my garage free of mice, but I darn sure kill everyone I see.

Also, the familiar only disappears if killed. Does the familiar not try to flee when detected? I would think that the familiar would win initiative at least some of the time. An owl familiar, in particular, has flyby attack and a fast movement rate, so it should have a good chance to escape even if it is detected.

If it is detected and not suprised and can escape and they do not have ranged weapons. It depends on numbers and environment and a lot of other factors.

Again, a lot of the issues you bring up with the familiar would also be a problem for the rogue. Larger beasts will attack him. Enemies who spot him will attack him and/or raise the alarm. Heck, the rogue is at least as out of place in the dungeon as an owl, and significantly more so than a spider or a rat.

A Rogue is generally going to be a lot better at sneaking, will have a higher initiative, can survive one round of combat and with cunning action is going to be able to outrun any familiar and the vast majority of enemies.

 

[Zubatcarteira]

LOL good catch, but the point still remains:

If you have a magic-common world, why would caster PCs bother adventuring when with most spells they could "work" easily for decent to great pay?

Well, adventuring would give a lot more money, way more quickly, and also fighting experience that could level them up and give stronger spells, if we extrapolate the PC mechanics for the NPCs as well.

 

[Fanaelialae]

We have something better. There's an old saying "prevention is better than cure". And the thing about a cure is that it does not prevent re-infection. With luck there will be some reinfections prevented as the immune system has learned - but every single person in the community is going to need Lesser Restoration.

But with Lesser Restoration so easily cast there will be far fewer non-magical healers and they won't be infectious disease specialists.

Indeed. Magical plagues would be a thing - the fantasy equivalent of bioweapons, but effective

We don't have anything that actually prevents re-infection. If you're talking about the vaccine, it reduces the rate of re-infection, and if you do get it then your symptoms are much more likely to be mild, but you can nonetheless still be contagious, and in some cases can still become seriously ill. I know several people who caught COVID after getting the booster. But the only people I know who were seriously ill were unvaccinated.

Moreover, if you recall, it took quite some time to develop the vaccines. Early on, our treatments for COVID we're fairly primitive (compared to two years later). Whereas, barring magically resistant contagion, Lesser Restoration is effective against any disease from day zero. That's a big advantage.

I'm not all that convinced that there would be far fewer non-magical healers in a high magic scenario (unless we're talking ultra high magic, in which case most diseases would be a thing of the past). You'd still have your run-of-the-mill diseases in circulation. I kind of doubt that a cleric is going to waste a Lesser Restoration just because someone has a case of the sniffles, so you'd still need healers to deal with common medical issues. The best you could reasonably argue, IMO, is that non-magical healers would be less experienced at treating serious illnesses, because they usually just refer those to the clerics.

 

[Zubatcarteira]

For diseases, there's Detect Poison and Disease, would let you detect anyone sick within 30 feet of you for 10 minutes, and it's even a 1st level Ritual. Way more efficient than an individual test, although it's not a Wizard spell.

 

[Fanaelialae]

A familiar might be sneaking, but a +3 is not that great and a low check will ensure he is seen, even an average roll will fail many times. You can make him invisible, but that won't give him advantage on everything.

I think a domestic cat is not the kind of animal you are scouting for. If there is a domestic cat in the dungeon it is likely a pet of someone or something and in any case is largely irrelevant, your paerty is not at risk for strolling up on the cat either ..... unless it is a familiar of something else in which case the Owl is at risk of exposing you. I was talking about beasts that would be encounters in areas you are scouting - more like a giant constrictor snake, sabre-toothed tiger or dire wolf.




I mentioned that above, but this is an hour to summon (more as a ritual) and it it an hour to summon your owl again. The downside with either of these is they are pests and will probably be killed for being pests.

You would need to summon something that is both common in the environment and not considered a pest. Indoors that is tough.



There are very few animals deep in caves beyond the "living cave", moreover that doesn'tmean they won't. I can't keep my house free of spiders and I can't keep my garage free of mice, but I darn sure kill everyone I see.



If it is detected and not suprised and can escape and they do not have ranged weapons. It depends on numbers and environment and a lot of other factors.



A Rogue is generally going to be a lot better at sneaking, will have a higher initiative, can survive one round of combat and with cunning action is going to be able to outrun any familiar and the vast majority of enemies.

Okay, so it sounds like what you're saying is that it's risky for a familiar, not that they actually fail every single time.

A spider has a +4 stealth and a weasel has +5. So they're definitely going to make at least some sneak checks. They sneak up to the room the dire wolf or whatever is in, the wizard becomes aware of it as a result, and the familiar withdraws. There's no automatic detection taking place. Furthermore, I can't really see a dire wolf or sabre tooth tiger caring, even if it does notice a tiny spider crawling on the ceiling.

You're right, it's an hour, not 10 minutes. My mistake.

Right, you might kill every spider you see. I don't mind them (they eat other bugs) so I've coexisted with them for years. Now that I'm married, I do have to catch and release some occasionally, if they're somewhere that bothers my wife. Just because you kill every spider you see doesn't mean that everyone does or would. (As an aside, what did those poor little spiders ever do to you? They're just trying to live their tiny spider lives. /rant)

 

[Bill Zebub]

I've always imagined familiar spiders to be somewhat (read: massively) larger than the normal variety.

Also, in a world in which familiars spying on your secret operations is a thing, wouldn't it make sense to breed (perhaps magically) some kind predator that could tell the difference between normal animals and spirit animals?

Funny, that just popped into existence in my world about 4 seconds ago. It literally made a 'popping' sound.

 

[Fanaelialae]

I've always imagined familiar spiders to be somewhat (read: massively) larger than the normal variety.

I suppose that's up to the DM, but they're tiny sized so there's no RAW reason they couldn't be an ordinary little spider like you'd find in your house.

 

[Bill Zebub]

I suppose that's up to the DM, but they're tiny sized so there's no RAW reason they couldn't be an ordinary little spider like you'd find in your house.

Sure. Movement rate would be pretty low.

 

[Fanaelialae]

Sure. Movement rate would be pretty low.

They already have a low movement rate (20' iirc). Also, have you ever seen a spider skitter across the floor? When they want to, a lot of them can move!

 

[Bill Zebub]

They already have a low movement rate (20' iirc). Also, have you ever seen a spider skitter across the floor? When they want to, a lot of them can move!

Sure, lots of times. Certainly nowhere near 2/3 my speed. Maybe 1/10.

And certainly one of them couldn’t kill a warhorse without poison by biting it 10 times.