D&D 5E Familiars, what for?

[billd91]

You're free to read all of my posts in the thread if you haven't already to see how this plays out at my table and decide for yourself is that's a totally unbearable situation for a player to be in. If what I've said is not clear enough, I'm happy to answer your specific questions.

I will add that challenging the player with the notion that their familiar is a valid target and will be threatened doesn't mean I actually can destroy it. The player has some say here as might the dice. A player in my game had his familiar out in tonight's session. I attacked it. I missed. The monster was killed before its turn came back around. Does that sound like a terrible game experience to you?

“Had his familiar out”. Doing what? Just out and visible or engaging in combat?

 

[iserith]

“Had his familiar out”. Doing what? Just out and visible or engaging in combat?

Carrying a rock with a light spell on it.

 

[Joshy]

Carrying a rock with a light spell on it.

"kill on sight" makes it seem like you go out of your way to kill the familiars.

An owl hanging out at the tavern a bit drunk and trying to out sing the bard with its delightful squawks, a random cat kills it.
A raven telling scary stories around the campfire, a random ghost possesses the it and forces the raven to dive bomb the campfire.
The party is surrounded by goblins, the goblins see the familiar and go into a frenzy ignoring the party to mob the familiar.

But your post after just make me think you just see the familiar as a valid target.

 

[iserith]

"kill on sight" makes it seem like you go out of your way to kill the familiars.

An owl hanging out at the tavern a bit drunk and trying to out sing the bard with its delightful squawks, a random cat kills it.
A raven telling scary stories around the campfire, a random ghost possesses the it and forces the raven to dive bomb the campfire.
The party is surrounded by goblins, the goblins see the familiar and go into a frenzy ignoring the party to mob the familiar.

But your post after just make me think you just see the familiar as a valid target.

I can't be held responsible for cats killing things. It's what they do.

 

[Flamestrike]

That's a good one, I like it. How does that rule interact with Flock of Familiars?.

Be three times as careful.

 

[Joshy]

Be three times as careful.

Okay cool, I wasn't sure if you counted them the same way, because they are temporary and have no gp cost.

 

[Azzy]

I haven't had any problems with familiars (or, rather, players spamming the Help action with familiars) in the games I've run. They've usually been used to scout and I haver no issue with that.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I can't be held responsible for cats killing things. It's what they do.

When the cat's behavior is entirely determined by the DM...and you happen to be that DM...yes, you can be held responsible for that.

You are literally giving the DM equivalent of the crappy player excuse, "It's what my character would do!" And it does absolutely nothing to make me think you weren't being completely straightforward when you said that familiars are KOS to you.

 

[Lyxen]

So are you saying that your DM just killed your familiar because they dislike familiars? That seems like a bit much, if so.

That's exactly what I'm telling you. I'v met DMs like that, in person and on forums. They think that players are abusing the spell, that they are spotlight hogging, that it gives them (as a DM) extra-work to take care of the familiars not ruining a scenario especially at low level, that it's a bit too much of an easy mode for players, etc.

In the case of my owl-killing DM, it was obviously because there was a kobold ambush cleverly planned and that he did not want us detecting it that easily. The thing is that it did not even work, because the owl disappearance like that actually scared us way more than necessary and we went around and I think avoided it completely anyway. So it did not achieve anything apart from overall frustration.

You know what they say when you assume.

Huh, no, I don't actually, what do they say ?

If what someone says "smacks" of something, but you're not certain, then one way to find out is ask rather than assume the worst and base your arguments on the most uncharitable interpretation.

And that's why we are discussing. I'm perfectly willing to hear that you are absolutely in good faith here, the only thing I'm telling you (and I'm not the only one) is that your "kill on sight" statement puts you - at first glance - squarely in the camp of Familiar-hating-DMs, which is why my (our) suggestion is that you tone it down a bit if it's not what you mean, nothing more.

I can't speak for anyone else's games but my own. In my games, the players are challenged and part of that is threatening their resources when given the opportunity.

And I understand that kind of game, been in them a lot and run them too. It's just that - even though my partner commented yesterday evening that I was possibly a bit harsh with my players - over the years, some of us have developed a more, let's say, "benevolent" style, where it's less about the challenge and more about simply weaving a tale together without a constant threat. And one reason for that is that some people don't react well when threatened. In particular, a long-time (almost 40 years now) friend of mine - brilliant engineer and manager if a bit shy personally, and in particular excellent chess player - gets into never-ending explanation loops for the simplest of actions so that no-one can think that he made an incorrect decision. Another - same kind of background and personality, unfortunately deceased a few years back - really went into cowardly mode, which caused problems because not only were some people angered by the cowardice, they also taunted him to no end (one even created a character class called the pleutros - french sort of word for coward - with level names like arch-pleutros de la fuite éperdue - something like arch-coward of the never-ending flight), which added to his incomfort as a player. Not nice overall.

So I understand you wanting to present a challenge, and taking every opportunity to destroy player resources when you have the opportunity, but first it's not every kind of game out there, and even then, when doing this, there are many ways to do it, a spectrum from the extremely fair (which I'm perfectly willing to admit is your case) to DMs who actively hunt down every single mistake to punish players, especially in areas that elicit their dislike, for example familiars...

 

[Lyxen]

You are literally giving the DM equivalent of the crappy player excuse, "It's what my character would do!"

Thanks for this, just wanted to reinforce that point, not specifically in the domain of @iserith and the familiars, but in general. Yes, it can be seen as logical in your game world that NPCs and monsters are clever, harsh and unforgiving (in particular in terms of anti-adventurers/characters/players tactics) in order to challenge players, but the comparison above is exactly right. Just because you can do that kind of reasoning does not mean that you should, and the parallels is absolutely spot on.