D&D 5E Familiars

[Andor]

5e Familiars are pretty cool, but not all of their uses are immediately obvious.

For example an Owl familiar has 120' dark vision. Take one as a human and never need a torch again.
In our first game yesterday one player wanted a character based on the PHB image of the Elf Wizard with the Owl familiar. However she also wanted to heal. In the end we decided to run that as a 1/2 elf Bard, and I let her swap an 1/2 elf bonus skill for the Find Familiar spell. The combination essentially prevented a TPK. In the first round of the first combat lucky goblin shot took down the paladin and the monk. The bard used her familiar to cast cure light wounds on the Paladin, who used Lay on hand to save the Monk.

It was impressive.

I also allowed other characters to take minor feature swaps. The sorcerer traded a first level spell for speak with animals. Which helped them deal with the wolves.

What other potent or unusual familiar tricks do you guys see?

 

[Agamon]

One of my players tweaked the Find Familiar rules a bit, too. Though we really just treat the change as fluff.

The party wizard is a tinker gnome. He built a mechanical owl and used the spell to infuse the spirit of the familiar into the mechanical body. If that reminds one of Clash of the Titans, yes, that was the inspiration.

Nothing cool has happened yet (he cast the spell for the first time last session), but I like familiars. They can be fun to roleplay.

 

[Andor]

The only oddity in the 5e familiar rules is that they get their own initiative. While it's good that they don't burn the wizards actions (as much of a slap to the Beastmaster ranger as that may be) it can become an added complication. It essentially means the wizard needs to preposition the familiar to use it's ability to deliver touch spells. And in any given combat the wizard and familiar may be in wildly different places in the order.

While it hasn't been an issue in our one session, by the third fight I was already forgetting to make them roll separate initiatives. Not sure how I'm going to feel about it in the long term.

 

[Gargoyle]

While it hasn't been an issue in our one session, by the third fight I was already forgetting to make them roll separate initiatives. Not sure how I'm going to feel about it in the long term.

This has always been my issue with them. They get forgotten, even by the player. I don't feel it's a rules issue, more of a player/DM thing, but it's still annoying.

 

[gyor]

I'll point that if all your doing is basic movement, then the Ranger Companion doesn't require the ranger actiin either.

Normal familiars can't attack, the Chainlock familiar can, but it requires one of your attacks just like the companion and a chainlock has only one unless they multiclass. Actually a Chainlock Beastranger could be in the funny position of giving one attack to his familiar and the other to his Animal Companion.

 

[Agamon]

The only oddity in the 5e familiar rules is that they get their own initiative. While it's good that they don't burn the wizards actions (as much of a slap to the Beastmaster ranger as that may be) it can become an added complication. It essentially means the wizard needs to preposition the familiar to use it's ability to deliver touch spells. And in any given combat the wizard and familiar may be in wildly different places in the order.

While it hasn't been an issue in our one session, by the third fight I was already forgetting to make them roll separate initiatives. Not sure how I'm going to feel about it in the long term.

Yeah, having familiars share initiative with the wizard and the paladin's Divine Sense not working past full cover (I'm using the Detect spells' material blocking rules instead) are two house rules I'm using.