Ancalagon
Dusty Dragon
Or target practice.
arrows cost money
Did the player specify the bird was flying higher than 400 ft.?
No?
Then bstd DM is a bstd.
That works once
Or target practice.
Did the player specify the bird was flying higher than 400 ft.?
No?
Then bstd DM is a bstd.
Or target practice.
Welcome to Eberron.arrows cost money
Eaten by a bigger hawk.That works once
It's a hawk. It has Intelligence 2. It can tell you if there are any bipeds in that valley, probably give you a rough description of their size and shape, and estimate their numbers in terms of "one", "few" or "many". It can tell you if it saw any major structures, but it doesn't know the difference between a farmhouse and a fort.The 100 foot range of the "basic" familiar has been mentioned a fair bit, but I'm not sure it's as limiting as some people say.
Supposed it's daytime, and you have a hawk familiar (or another good flier with good eyesight). You send it up with instructions. "Go fly over that valley, look around, tell me what you see". It flies off, you very quickly lose telepathic contact... but it comes back and you get a report.
It won't have the same level of initiative a smarter familiar (or another PC...) will have, but you will still gain valuable information.
It doesn't have to be an imp, though - there are a lot of options (including a normal animal familiar, even with the Pact Boon.) Imps are just the 'optimized" choice, but frankly optimizers tend to favor the other Boons anyways that's a rather moot point.Given that it's categorically an imp, I'd suggest it might not always be happy to throw itself into danger on behalf of its master. It might decide not to be available at times. It could also get sidetracked when exploring. This is both a way of the DM controlling just how effective it is, and an excellent role-playing opportunity.