D&D 5E Familiars, what for?

[Lyxen]

An extra set of eyes? I guess, but I'm used to players who decide Perception is the most important skill and devote resources to it, so the value of a bird on one's shoulder to see traps and hidden enemies seems kind of lackluster.

It's one of the best uses indeed, a second pair of eyes, and one that raises little contestation. It's all the more powerful with familiars who have particularly acute senses, and once more the owl is a bit too good compared to the others.

And it is indeed lackluster but in some campaigns (especially some where the DM seems to be able to take away your PP just because you have not specifically declared that you are watching for danger), it can be a lifesaver.

Apart from this, this is why I insist that it's very much a question for session 0 if it's not something that has been well established before. For example, I'm starting a new campaign, a player wants a cat familiar and there is no question asked since he is the player with the Imps in the Avernus campaign and I know we can trust each other to play it in an interesting and fair manner.

 

[James Gasik]

I don't know, the DM has many monsters and many fights, and they are the ones who decide:

A) do you get an hour to rest.

and

B) do you get 10 gold pieces.

I think a big disadvantage to ground Familiars to consider is traps. If you're in a classic dungeon, I figure there are more traps even a lightweight rat or snake could trigger than a raven or owl.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I like the idea of familiars, but I'm not sold on the rules. I dislike how them dying not having any real consequences and help action being so absurdly good* encourages using them as kamikaze bots instead of treating them as living and feeling things. I want the familiar to feel like a team member, like an important friend. Their shape being easily swapped also goes against them having any solid identity.

* Help action seriously makes no sense. What is some tiny cat going to do against an ogre that will consistently and without a fail grant its allies an advantage, whilst a barbarian repeatedly whacking the ogre with a great axe doesn't do that? How is a cat meowing going to be more distracting than taking a big axe in the gut?

 

[iserith]

BTW if I had a DM tell me he was always going to target a familiar I would have to fight the urge not to laugh... You just told me for an hour ritual and 10gp I can negate the first attack of your monster.

Imagine I made a magic item "ablative armor" and it cost 10gp and took an hour to equip... it then negated the first attack a monster makes. Everyone would be overjoyed to have it.

I would (again) find a way to get every player a familiar. a party of 5 just negated 5 attacks for 50gp

Yep, having a familiar negate an attack is indeed good. If you don't need the familiar for some other purpose and can afford the time and the gold.

The question then becomes why do these adventurers have so much free time? Because it'll never be free in my game. That hour will come with risks and trade-offs. The gold isn't usually a problem, but you do need to make sure you have the actual components, not just gold pieces, and in a remote adventuring environment, you may not have easy access to buy them if your stock runs low.

 

[iserith]

I dunno about that. The statement:

does kind of lend itself to a dogmatic interpretation. "Kill on sight" isn't a very nuanced expression compared to reacting to something put at risk followed up by combat examples.
Now, maybe it's a question of phrasing. There are plenty of examples of people communicating things poorly on the internet. But I certainly sympathize with someone looking at a "kill on sight" statement with a jaundiced eye.

Alternatively, a poster might simply inquire for more details as to what that means at the table rather than assume the worst, most uncharitable interpretation is the case, then not even bother to backtrack from that position when details to the contrary are presented. My sympathy would be more with a poster who doesn't do what we're seeing on display now.

 

[Faolyn]

Familiars have always been easy to replace but losing them came with a cost, the loss of that cost in 5e is the big problem that makes them a standin for a ten foot pole. Here's how it used to work

• In an 2e losing a familiar was one of the most terrifying things a wizard could have happen. specifically "If the familiar dies, the wizard must successfully roll an immediate system shock check or die. Even if he survives this check, the wizard loses 1 point from his Constitution when the familiar dies.".
• In 3.x the caster lost access to a familiar specific skill bonus & needed to spend 24 hours along with 100gp (a serious loss) to resummon it after "If the familiar dies or is dismissed by the sorcerer, the sorcerer must attempt a DC 15 Fortitude saving throw. Failure means he loses 200 experience points per sorcerer level; success reduces the loss to one-half that amount. " on bringing it back tomorrow instead of using that slot for something else.
• Now in 5e the caster says "hmm.. I need to spend an hour ritually casting find familiar & subtract ten funbucks worth of pointless gold"

Even saying the wizard was just stunned for a round would be better than this.

 

[Lyxen]

You broke down a couple of the sentences from the many questions I asked, but didn't answer all of them. What about all the adjudication of the rules that could come into play in a situation like this? Were any checks made at all that might have been appropriate? Or did the DM just say the familiar was killed? Because if it's the latter, then it's no wonder it was seen as unfair.

The thing is that the familiar is a NPC. So the DM can do whatever he wants there, especially since for example the stealth check (if any, the DM can take into account passive stealth if he wants), vs. a passive perception, etc. Even if the DM is playing things fairly, there does not need to be anything visible from the player's side.

And as you point out, if fairness was the point, the DM also had at its disposal all means to explain why it was fair, maybe after the game. Instead of that, there was a massive perception of unfairness, and an overall sentiment from the players that it was the case of "I have a a kobold ambush prepared, there is no way a stupid familiar is going to spoil this".

That is a good tactic - don't position your familiar to be killed when a monster is readying for them! While you don't get the Help action (or whatever) that round, you do get to waste the monster's attack. The player is making a meaningful choice here.

And I'm all for meaningful choices too, but once more the problem is not there, it's rather in perceiving a desire from the DM to exploit every single mistake in particular in the familiar area. Why so much hate ?

By just having flyby, it doesn't mean the familiar's not at risk. Is the familiar flying to a place where they can' be attacked? Behind total cover, for example, or out of reach? If not, then fair game.

Can we assume that the player is not stupid here and has his familiar hide when it can behind cover or out of reach ? But if suddenly the adversaries starts pulling ranger weapons or a spell just to get the familiar, it's another story.

Look, again, my point is that maybe the "kill on sight" was a bit strong a statement from you, that's all. I'm absolutely prepared to trust you on playing fairly and not inventing things like the above. But as a player, I'm wary of DMs in that specific area with statements that are that strong.

Telegraphing doesn't eliminate discovery or surprise. It just mitigates the perception of a situation as being a "gotcha."

Again, not black and white here anyway.

A monster or NPC might attack a familiar for any number of reasons that make sense in context. To suggest otherwise is to admit to a failure of imagination in a game based on make-believe, which I'm sure nobody here would do.

The problem, once more, is that the "does make sense" is extremely subjective to the good faith of the DM, since he is the one who invents the motive and the means of the adversaries. Which is why, again, having a DM making such strong statements as "kill on sight" is a bit of a warning here.

Now, if it was more along the lines of "If a player puts his familiar at risk and the familiar is obviously a threat (greater than other threats around), then there is indeed a serious risk to the familiar. But can you see how different it is from a "kill on sight" ?

I don't target familiars because players are "abusing" them. (There's that word again.) I target them because they are a valid target and because presenting a player with risk and trade-offs is at the heart of giving them meaningful choices to consider. As well, taking out resources is a good way to raise the stakes and tension.

But what happens if it does not really make sense ? For example, yes, the familiar might give one advantage or disadvantage to one attack, but is that really the major threat to the adversary ? Would he waste a valuable attack on the familiar for this, or even ready an action when he's got many better things to do ? That's the problem with the "kill on sight", for me, it's not only way too strong a statement, it also smacks of DM's hate for familiars, which is something that I think a lot of us have encountered before.

 

[Lyxen]

I like the idea of familiars, but I'm not sold on the rules. I dislike how them dying not having any real consequences and help action being so absurdly good*

I don't disagree in general, but while good, it's not always crazy good, it really depends on the circumstances.

encourages using them as kamikaze bots instead of treating them as living and feeling things.

The thing is that, they are not. They are just spirits embodied in a magical form, not really living things. As for their "feelings", well it's also that of a spirit with a low intelligence, and one that cannot die...

I want the familiar to feel like a team member, like an important friend. Their shape being easily swapped also goes against them having any solid identity.

* Help action seriously makes no sense. What is some tiny cat going to do against an ogre that will consistently and without a fail grant its allies an advantage, whilst a barbarian repeatedly whacking the ogre with a great axe doesn't do that? How is a cat meowing going to be more distracting than taking a big axe in the gut?

Which, for me, is dealt in another fashion, like all these sort of elements that are annoying mostly if they are repetitive, other examples include things like the shield master effect. They will basically work once per adversary/combat at most.

So yes, the cat might distract the ogre once, and the shield might push a fighter around once, but after that, as a DM, I will use my circumstantial modifiers to negate further attempts, since they will be watching for it. Depending on the adversary (his battle savviness, intelligence, etc.) and the length of the fight, they might be surprised by it being used again (Even Eric falls for Corwin's sword trick twice, so... ), but players in our campaigns know that using the same trick twice in a row does not work on adversaries any more than it works on them. This is a heroic and epic game, and heroes are not fools.

It's also one way to deal with rogues hiding all the time in the same place and insisting that they get a sneak attack every time, etc. And it's one of the beauties of 5e, and something often ignored by DMs, but it's easy for the DM and the players to have nice fights that look like those of the genre by cleverly using circumstantial modifiers, and granting adv/dis based on logic like that.

 

[Bluebell]

I have a question about the complaint that familiars take up too much spotlight when they're relied upon for investigation: how is this any different from a rogue regularly stealthing ahead to investigate without the rest of the party? Obviously there are circumstances in which a familiar that blends into the setting has better chances of going undetected than a humanoid, but by the same token, a PC generally has better stats than a familiar anyway. Additionally, a PC can do things like have an interaction with NPCs (such as get caught and try to lie their way out of the situation).

In my current campaign, we have a shadow monk and ranger who do most of the stealthing ahead, so my pact of the chain familiar is more of a messenger who can transmit messages between the two party groups. If anything, the fact that my warlock is often standing away from the front line with her familiar acting as her eyes and ears means that she sometimes gets sidelined as action plays out too quickly for her to do much about it.

 

[Baron Opal II]

Well, familiar spirits, IMC, all have the same attributes. The physical form is just clothing for it. I have no problems with them scouting or "helping". I would certainly expect the familiar to help with Arcana checks and the like. It is a magical spirit given flesh, after all. It does lack hands, so what it can help with is limited. For scouting, they can be as good as a first to third level character in observation, but once the party reaches fifth level a PC is usually much better at noticing pertinent details.

Most of the time the familiar also teaches the magician a spell. Which, sadly, the magician tends to forget when the familiar dies. So it is in their best interest to keep the familiar alive. To better answer the OP, magicians have familiars to help with their magical work, watch their back, companionship, and pretty much any reason a person would keep a pet. Even better, since you can have conversations with it (although your friends can't hear Fluffy's responses).

Back in AD&D I had two magic-users die from their familiars getting killed. One shot my crow out of the air, and my character fell off his horse stone dead. Later I had a magician wait until he could cast a custom spell so that my horse would be his familiar. (Trying to make a Steppe nomad magician kind of thing.) Ogres ate my horse, and my character fell over stone dead. I decided that my campaigns would not make the find familiar spell a death pact with Fluffy, and re-wrote it.