D&D 5E Are Wizards really all that?

[Gammadoodler]

The whole 'bred to kill familars' thing sounds like a great scam.

"I bought this cat, and it never brings back any bodies..I guess it's working?"

 

[Vaalingrade]

Apropos of nothing, but anyone miss familiars being real creatures?

Not the rigamarole of DM's killing them like they kill horses, but them being an actual being you bonded with and meant something to you.

 

[DND_Reborn]

anyone miss familiars being real creatures?

Very much so...

 

[ECMO3]

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.

It is going to want to eat him. I can't see it not wanting to eat him if it knows it is there. Unfortunately it is not going to be able to eat him since he is going to disappear after he kills him.

Sure the familiar will pass some stealth checks, but he needs to pass ALL of them to have a high chance of survival and that is very unlikely. Against a Dire Wolf the chance of passing a stealth check with a +5 is only 40%, with a +3 it is only 25%.

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)

There are entire businesses based around removing bugs from your home. You might be ok living with bugs, but most are not.

Also while many spiders are harmless a brown recluse bite is nothing to be flippant about and they are relatively common. Black Widows too can put a serious hurt on someone, and we do have them where I live, although to be fair they won't normally be inside a house.

 

[ECMO3]

Apropos of nothing, but anyone miss familiars being real creatures?

Not the rigamarole of DM's killing them like they kill horses, but them being an actual being you bonded with and meant something to you.

Most of the time I see them more like slaves. It is a Fey or Fiend you are bending to your will.

 

[Garthanos]

Apropos of nothing, but anyone miss familiars being real creatures?

Not the rigamarole of DM's killing them like they kill horses, but them being an actual being you bonded with and meant something to you.

sounds like a druidic flavor of familiar

 

[Vaalingrade]

Most of the time I see them more like slaves. It is a Fey or Fiend you are bending to your will.

Yeah, I'm not up for that. I want 1000% less slaves in my D&D, thank you. And 0% PC slavers.

 

[Krachek]

Most of the time I see them more like slaves. It is a Fey or Fiend you are bending to your will.

It’s a point of view, you can also be kind and polite when interacting with your familiar.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Apropos of nothing, but anyone miss familiars being real creatures?

Yes.

 

[pemerton]

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?

Personally, I think D&D is more fun when it broadly emulates the tropes of inspirational material like REH, JRRT etc. Where familiars are magical things that catch their victims by surprise, rather than part of a rational special-ops operation with its own ecology of measure and counter-measures.

I think it's possible to have balanced wizards in the form of D&D I prefer. But maybe not in 5e?