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Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Do you make your familiars into NPCs/sidekicks?
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<blockquote data-quote="Sword of Spirit" data-source="post: 8043998" data-attributes="member: 6677017"><p>Absolutely! My character's pseudo-dragon familiar adds fun role-playing elements. I've actually had my character made non-optimal tactical choices in combat occasionally, because he knew the familiar would get offended by the more effective choice and didn't want to deal with.</p><p></p><p>We have one house rule, and some interpretations that can be argued to have support from source texts.</p><p></p><p>House Rule: Familiars can take the Attack action with their own action. (It's not like it makes them overpowered!)</p><p></p><p>Interpretations:</p><p>-To get one of the Variant Familiars as described in the Monster Manual and elsewhere, you must cast the <em>find familiar</em> spell in the presence of the willing creature.</p><p>-It retains its own type, cannot be changed to a different form by recasting the spell (since it's actually whatever it is, not a mutable spirit), but otherwise gains all the features listed in the <em>find familiar </em>spell. This means it discorporates at 0 hp rather than dying and can be brought back by casting the spell.</p><p>-We haven't had any Pact of the Chain warlocks, but to maintain their status as having the best familiars, we would probably grant the special variant familiar abilities of the expanded choice of creatures their spirit familiar takes the form of, and if they cast the spell on an independent creature rather than summoning a spirit, I'd allow Pact of the Chain warlocks to cast the spell on it to allow it to change forms. If the familiar decides to break the pact, they regain their normal form.</p><p></p><p>I think that basically completely solves all the problems with the spell with literally no downsides (unless you consider that being required to use the <em>find familiar</em> spell to get a familiar is a downside).</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Sword of Spirit, post: 8043998, member: 6677017"] Absolutely! My character's pseudo-dragon familiar adds fun role-playing elements. I've actually had my character made non-optimal tactical choices in combat occasionally, because he knew the familiar would get offended by the more effective choice and didn't want to deal with. We have one house rule, and some interpretations that can be argued to have support from source texts. House Rule: Familiars can take the Attack action with their own action. (It's not like it makes them overpowered!) Interpretations: -To get one of the Variant Familiars as described in the Monster Manual and elsewhere, you must cast the [I]find familiar[/I] spell in the presence of the willing creature. -It retains its own type, cannot be changed to a different form by recasting the spell (since it's actually whatever it is, not a mutable spirit), but otherwise gains all the features listed in the [I]find familiar [/I]spell. This means it discorporates at 0 hp rather than dying and can be brought back by casting the spell. -We haven't had any Pact of the Chain warlocks, but to maintain their status as having the best familiars, we would probably grant the special variant familiar abilities of the expanded choice of creatures their spirit familiar takes the form of, and if they cast the spell on an independent creature rather than summoning a spirit, I'd allow Pact of the Chain warlocks to cast the spell on it to allow it to change forms. If the familiar decides to break the pact, they regain their normal form. I think that basically completely solves all the problems with the spell with literally no downsides (unless you consider that being required to use the [I]find familiar[/I] spell to get a familiar is a downside). [/QUOTE]
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Do you make your familiars into NPCs/sidekicks?
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