Is using a familiar in combat to grant advantage a common tactic?

[5ekyu]

That is a pretty lame "reskin". Just get the damn owl if u want to have flyby cheese.

I would allow the owl to be reskinned if there was some sort of creativity involved. For example, a red parrot for a pirate wizard or even a toucan or something.

Imagine a player wanted the 10 foot reach of a bug bear but wanted to play a pretty elf anime girl. Or someone wanting to get the free Variant Human feat but wanted to play a Drizzt clone.

I suppose a lot comes down to how much one believes the book defines their world or they define their world.

Would a GM allow a "race" to be more fluid?

Can I be a "stone elf" who is a member of elves who have the stats of dwarves, total swap, but more the appearance of elves. Not drow. Or maybe an off-shoot of drow with all the specs of dwarves.

Honestly, off the cuff, I would be fine with that.

But, unlike what seems to be a source of contention, it would be a part of the world. Folks would not be assuming "only dwarves have" trait ABC.

Just like, if I allow reskinning familiars, folks dont assume "only owls have flyby."

Imo, if a gm has an issue with flyby attack, they should fix it, up front, before they let a player choose it... not allow it but then stick it to them by disallowing reskin for funsies.

 

[5ekyu]

Of course, part of my own feeling here is driven by my own assessment of flyby.

I see so much much more gain in play from familiar scouting that the idea of putting it into harms way and drawing attention to itself with flyby that's it's something I almost never do. I assume that it will get one shotted if I send it in, so I almost never do. If I have time, when fights are obvious, I pop it to its pocket dimension or at most send it to watch a flank of ours.

Then again, more often I go for bat... cuz if I am not gonna beg for it to get killed off with flyby, the blind sight is nice.

 

[Autumn Bask]

Nope. That is what it is. Give me another reason why hawk statblock is not good enough if you want a hawk.
You could just admit it and then it is ok.

I never said it wasn't. I actually play with a Hawk familiar that uses the Hawk stat-block. I meant if a player wanted to reskin the Owl stat-block into something more flavorful, which doesn't already exist as an available option, but could reasonably be described by the Owl stat-block. Maybe the Owl fits their concept of what they want their Familiar to do, but not what it looks like. Maybe their character has a phobia of owls or a strong connection to a different nocturnal bird.

Honestly, the reason I wouldn't allow an Owl to be reskinned as a Hawk is because of their 120 ft Darkvision, which nobody has brought up, but my Hawk's lack of Darkvision has come up far more frequently than its lack of Flyby. But as others have said, that's because there are a thousand easy ways to kill a familiar that's "abusing" Flyby.

Possible Owl reskins:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nighthawk
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightjar

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I never said it wasn't. I actually play with a Hawk familiar that uses the Hawk stat-block. I meant if a player wanted to reskin the Owl stat-block into something more flavorful, which doesn't already exist as an available option, but could reasonably be described by the Owl stat-block. Maybe the Owl fits their concept of what they want their Familiar to do, but not what it looks like. Maybe their character has a phobia of owls or a strong connection to a different nocturnal bird.

Honestly, the reason I wouldn't allow an Owl to be reskinned as a Hawk is because of their 120 ft Darkvision, which nobody has brought up, but my Hawk's lack of Darkvision has come up far more frequently than its lack of Flyby. But as others have said, that's because there are a thousand easy ways to kill a familiar that's "abusing" Flyby.

Possible Owl reskins:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nighthawk
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightjar

See. I think we would get along very well. Reskinning an owl as a nighthawk would be totally ok. Especially if you only use the familiar for advantage once in a while and hold no grudge if it dies.


But there are people here or in this other thread that familiars should grant auto advantage. They never die and 10gp are to be neglected.
And if you kill the owl giving advantage constantly (to enable the sneak attack) the DM is accused of metagaming if the enemy wasts an action getting rid of the pesky owl because the rogue is so dangerous.
Usually the same players forget that if the familiar dies, it takes 1h, a brazier, fire and rare herbs that are consumed by the fire (and thus by the spell).
So if that is not your experience, i hope it stays that way and you can ignore my concerns.

 

[Mistwell]

If you look at this thread: flyby attack. Which is already dubious.
It is: hey I use find familiar to gain advantage every round of combat. But I don't want to have an owl... i want a hawk instead.
DM but a hawk does not have flyby.
Then I want an owl that looks like a hawk.

Edit: some parts of my post got lost. I post them later.

Right however re-skinning means that's hawks in that world. So the foes recognize a thing which appears as a hawk will have that ability, just as an owl in the normal setting would.

So what MECHANICAL ADDITIONAL benefit is gained FROM THE RE-SKINNING (not from the owl abilities - that already exists). Re-skinning is just to make something feel cool to the player - not gain an actual benefit in the world other than the players (not the characters) personal satisfaction that it matches an image that is more pleasing to that player personally.

I am not understanding your argument. Yes, owls are great. But we're not talking about the owl familiar itself. We're talking about the concept of re-skinning. I fail to see how re-skinning can be powergaming or gaming the system or anything like that. Unless you think the re-skinning is somehow secret from everyone in that setting except the person with the familiar? Which would I think be a houserule.

Generally speaking, re-skinning doesn't change knowledge of people in that setting - if they'd know an owl can do that, then re-skinning a hawk to function like an owl means they'd know a hawk functions like that. I cannot think of a single mechanical benefit from re-skinning. That's not what re-skinning even means. It's purely fluff. It means nothing more than changing hair color of something.

 

[Autumn Bask]

See. I think we would get along very well. Reskinning an owl as a nighthawk would be totally ok. Especially if you only use the familiar for advantage once in a while and hold no grudge if it dies.
...
But there are people here or in this other thread that familiars should grant auto advantage. They never die and 10gp are to be neglected.
And if you kill the owl giving advantage constantly (to enable the sneak attack) the DM is accused of metagaming if the enemy wasts an action getting rid of the pesky owl because the rogue is so dangerous.

I think so, too.

I've noticed that there's a bit of a cultural divide on these forums between players who have experienced playgroups that are mostly cooperative with the DM vs. playgroups that are adversarial with the DM (i.e. can someone trust their players or not, & vice versa).

It might help (though maybe not, depending on how adversarial your playgroup is) to ask them to imagine, or send them against an enemy who's using a familiar for advantage and see how they decide to handle it. Because in my groups, we usually have some sort of triage of targets that involves taking out the easiest-looking targets, that are making the most impact, first.

It's important for players to understand that enemies in D&D aren't video game AI, they're (often) intelligent creatures capable of deducing the highest threat to ease-of-kill ratio on the battlefield.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Honestly, the reason I wouldn't allow an Owl to be reskinned as a Hawk is because of their 120 ft Darkvision, which nobody has brought up

I actually think it's too much even for a RL owl. Their night vision is good, but not that good.

Here is my slightly modified stat block for a barn owl:

Barn Owl (AKA screech owl)
Tiny beast, unaligned

Armor Class 12 (dex)
Hit Points 1 (1d4 − 1)
Speed 5 ft., fly 50 ft.

STR 3
DEX 14
CON 8
INT 2
WIS 12
CHA 7

Skills Perception +3, Stealth +4
Senses darkvision 60 ft., passive Perception 13
Languages —
Challenge 0 (10 XP)

Asymmetric hearing. The owl can attack targets that it cannot see without disadvantage.
Silent Feathers. Any perception checks to detect the owl by sound are at disadvantage.
Flyby. The owl doesn’t provoke opportunity attacks when it flies out of an enemy’s reach.

Talons. Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target.
Hit: 1 slashing damage.

Statblock for a sparrowhawk - if you have ever seen one catch a sparrow you would know they can do a flyby attack.

Sparrowhawk
Tiny beast, unaligned

Armor Class 13 (dex)
Hit Points 1 (1d4 − 1)
Speed 10 ft., fly 60 ft.

STR 3
DEX 16
CON 8
INT 2
WIS 12
CHA 6

Skills Perception +3, Acrobatics +4
Saves Dexterity +5
Senses passive Perception 13
Languages —
Challenge 0 (10 XP)

Flyby. The hawk doesn’t provoke opportunity attacks when it flies out of an enemy’s reach.

Talons. Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target.
Hit: 1 slashing damage.


While I'm at it:

Golden Eagle​

Small beast, unaligned

Armor Class 12 (dex)
Hit Points 5 (1d6+1 )
Speed 5 ft., fly 60 ft.

STR 7
DEX 14
CON 12
INT 2
WIS 12
CHA 7

Skills Perception +3
Senses passive Perception 13
Languages —
Challenge 1/8 (25 XP)


Talons. Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target.
Hit: 1d4+2 slashing damage.​

​

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Right however re-skinning means that's hawks in that world. So the foes recognize a thing which appears as a hawk will have that ability, just as an owl in the normal setting would.

So what MECHANICAL ADDITIONAL benefit is gained FROM THE RE-SKINNING (not from the owl abilities - that already exists). Re-skinning is just to make something feel cool to the player - not gain an actual benefit in the world other than the players (not the characters) personal satisfaction that it matches an image that is more pleasing to that player personally.

I am not understanding your argument. Yes, owls are great. But we're not talking about the owl familiar itself. We're talking about the concept of re-skinning. I fail to see how re-skinning can be powergaming or gaming the system or anything like that. Unless you think the re-skinning is somehow secret from everyone in that setting except the person with the familiar? Which would I think be a houserule.

Generally speaking, re-skinning doesn't change knowledge of people in that setting - if they'd know an owl can do that, then re-skinning a hawk to function like an owl means they'd know a hawk functions like that. I cannot think of a single mechanical benefit from re-skinning. That's not what re-skinning even means. It's purely fluff. It means nothing more than changing hair color of something.

It boils down to reliability. It is how difficult it gets for my game to transmit the knformation to players.
If my PCs know hawks and their tactics, all I have to say is hawk and they can handle the problem appropriately.
Note that it could be goblins or orcs or dragons.
If there are creatures that can do completely different things but otherwise look identical there is a problem.
Once in a while it can be fun. You can tell players with high passive wisdom that they act unusual.
But if there is no consens how a creature operates, you need to always start by zero whenever you encounter a creature.
In 4e despite being a system I liked in the beginning I noticed that my players never knew from the description if an enemy is dangerous or hard to hit and so on. Reskinning can lead to misleading information and in my book that is a bad thing.
In the case of the familiar: I have no problems if you houserule the spell to read: a familiar has the stats of an owl but can look as you like, but it always glows magically so anyone knows that it is a familiar or something like that. So everyone who encountered that spell before knows what to expect.

 

[Satyrn]

It boils down to reliability. It is how difficult it gets for my game to transmit the knformation to players.
If my PCs know hawks and their tactics, all I have to say is hawk and they can handle the problem appropriately.
Note that it could be goblins or orcs or dragons.
If there are creatures that can do completely different things but otherwise look identical there is a problem.
Once in a while it can be fun. You can tell players with high passive wisdom that they act unusual.
But if there is no consens how a creature operates, you need to always start by zero whenever you encounter a creature.
In 4e despite being a system I liked in the beginning I noticed that my players never knew from the description if an enemy is dangerous or hard to hit and so on. Reskinning can lead to misleading information and in my book that is a bad thing.
In the case of the familiar: I have no problems if you houserule the spell to read: a familiar has the stats of an owl but can look as you like, but it always glows magically so anyone knows that it is a familiar or something like that. So everyone who encountered that spell before knows what to expect.

This is a much pleasanter reason for telling a player he can't reskin the owl as a hawk.

I know I'd much prefer to be told that than being accused of being a munchkin.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

This is a much pleasanter reason for telling a player he can't reskin the owl as a hawk.

I know I'd much prefer to be told that than being accused of being a munchkin.

That is what I would tell you first.
Honestly I didn't encounter overly powergaming in 5e yet. My players are not too much on the powergamer front...
Although all our familiars are bats so far... could have something to do with the blind sight they have...