Familiar Readied Actions

[drunkmoogle]

Situation: My familiar, for whatever reason, is seperated from me. An ally 20 feet away needs a healing/buff spell imediately. So I call him back to perch on my shoulder. He readies the action, I cast a touch spell.

Can my familiar ready an action to deliver my touch spell for me at the end of a move?

 

[Lord Pendragon]

Situation: My familiar, for whatever reason, is seperated from me. An ally 20 feet away needs a healing/buff spell imediately. So I call him back to perch on my shoulder. He readies the action, I cast a touch spell.

Can my familiar ready an action to deliver my touch spell for me at the end of a move?

No, because a familiar is a Tiny creature, and thus must move into a target's square to deliver a touch spell. But if he's already moved to get back to the wizard, he can't take the 5'-step necessary to move from the wizard's space into his target's space at the end of the wizard's move. So to accomplish this, you'd need at least 2 rounds.

 

[drunkmoogle]

Let me rephrase that: I intend to move my familiar and deliver a touch spell. With touch spells, I could use a standard action to cast the spell, then use my move action to move to the target I intend to touch and deliver the spell.

I want to know if my familiar could ready the action to do the same.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

I'm not quite sure what you're trying to accomplish, perhaps if you spelled out exactly what you want to accomplish, broken down into rounds and move/standard actions.

 

[shilsen]

Let me rephrase that: I intend to move my familiar and deliver a touch spell. With touch spells, I could use a standard action to cast the spell, then use my move action to move to the target I intend to touch and deliver the spell.

I want to know if my familiar could ready the action to do the same.

No, it wouldn't work exactly as you want it to. But your familiar (assuming it has not already moved in the round) could simply delay until you cast your touch spell, and then move and attack.

 

[drunkmoogle]

I have a touch spell I wish to deliver to my ally, whom I cannot reach. My familiar is off in the distance, and we split initiatives for whatever reason. On the familiar's initiative, I have him move to perch on my shoulder. I want him to ready an action to deliver a touch spell to an ally when I charge him with a touch spell. I wish for this to include its 20 feet of movement (so the familiar can reach my ally).

I want to know if that is a legal use of the Ready an Action; delivering a touch spell when you did not cast one (the familiar's position).

 

[Hypersmurf]

I want to know if that is a legal use of the Ready an Action; delivering a touch spell when you did not cast one (the familiar's position).

No, the 'free delivery' is part of the 'Cast a Spell' action. Since the familiar isn't taking the Cast a Spell action, he'd need to deliver it with a standard action, just as though he'd been holding the charge.

So you're trying to Ready a move action and a standard action, which isn't possible.

-Hyp.

 

[Elephant]

Why wouldn't it be? A Fighter could ready an action to Charge "when Bull's Strength is cast on me" (by the party Cleric), couldn't he?

 

[Hypersmurf]

Why wouldn't it be? A Fighter could ready an action to Charge "when Bull's Strength is cast on me" (by the party Cleric), couldn't he?

Not in 3.5. The Charge action is a full round action, and only a standard or move action can be Readied.

Also, recall that the familiar has already taken a Move action this round when the spell is cast.

-Hyp.