D&D (2024) Pets: Find Familiar and Find Steed.

[Kobold Stew]

The Faithful Steed feature needs to be buffed so that a Paladin's steed is as powerful or more so then a Cleric or other future divine casters steed.

If the Paladin's Faithful Steed feature gave it +PB to AC (and possibly if the Bonus action abilities only were available to paladins), I'd think this solved.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Also I can see the Chainlock getting a unique pet instead of Improved Familiar.

Say a medium creature that can be a Fey, Celestial, Dragon, Elemental, Aberration, Monsterous, or Fiend, to provide max flexibility for new and old types of Patrons.

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

Eh, no real impact on a rogue. With the assurance the familiar goes directly after your turn there is no issue with moving and doing your bonus action and then readying an action to attack once your familiar is adjacent to the foe. Then the familiar immediately is adjacent to the foe and giving the help action and your attack goes off. Seems even more guaranteed now.

Doesn't work. 1D&D sneak attack is on your turn only, so readying to attack on the familiar's turn won't let you use sneak attack.

 

[Pauln6]

Doesn't work. 1D&D sneak attack is on your turn only, so readying to attack on the familiar's turn won't let you use sneak attack.

Familiar could ready its action to help but smart monsters would just move presumably.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

I have to say this is a bizarre design choice and reeks further of the "I don't actually play D&D, daaaaaaarling, that's for proles, I just write rules for it!". Like, I see the mitigation, but there's a certain kind of player - particularly children and actually-nice people, who just don't want to risk their familiars, and this design inexplicably punishes them by not letting them "stow" their familiar for combat.

In proper 5e even those who don't care about their familiar in that way made a judgement call about whether the fight was worth risking 10 gold of incense, and being familiar-less until the next short rest. A situation which also means the more familiar-protective players weren't being entirely irrational, mechanically in their RP or personal choices. Personally I can't say I have been hyperprotective of my familiars, but I didn't allow my fey spirit animal pet to feel the pain of death lightly, and an enemy killing it was the surest way to bring whatever wrath my character was capable of.

In a system where every familiar gets 1 free death a day it's strictly mechanically handicapping yourself to not risk their life at least until they get their free death. Combine this with them receiving attack capacities and they feel a lot more like any other disposable summons.

And on the subject of the free death and them automatically coming back after an hour: This version has established they have hit dice which can, presumably, be used to heal duing a short rest (in 5e they all have a hit die as well, but the difference between damaged and dead is so negligible it is usually irrelevant). It should explicitly say whether the wounded familiar is using that extradimensional hour to take a short rest, or whether they can not do so, or else it should pick any other length of time for them to be absent.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I feel like it's people like you being targeted, because this design prevents you stowing/hiding familiars in combat.

Um... no?

First off, if you don't want your familiar in combat, but have it dodge and run away. Any DM who targets the little kitty running from the fight is just being cruel at that point.

What this is ACTUALLY targeting is the ability to unsummon a familiar, then summon it within 30 ft, regardless of line of sight. A thing our wizard just did to scout a room, by summoning a familiar on the other side of the door. They never intended for familiars to have infinite teleports, or to be able to grab mcguffins and vanish forever. So they took away that ability. Which is fairly reasonable, if annoying.

And then, if you were worried about your familiar dying from a sudden ambush fireball, they get the dimensional escape to pop away with 1 hp.

 

[MarkB]

In proper 5e even those who don't care about their familiar in that way made a judgement call about whether the fight was worth risking 10 gold of incense, and being familiar-less until the next short rest. A situation which also means the more familiar-protective players weren't being entirely irrational, mechanically in their RP or personal choices. Personally I can't say I have been hyperprotective of my familiars, but I didn't allow my fey spirit animal pet to feel the pain of death lightly, and an enemy killing it was the surest way to bring whatever wrath my character was capable of.

In a system where every familiar gets 1 free death a day it's strictly mechanically handicapping yourself to not risk their life at least until they get their free death. Combine this with them receiving attack capacities and they feel a lot more like any other disposable summons.

And on the subject of the free death and them automatically coming back after an hour: This version has established they have hit dice which can, presumably, be used to heal duing a short rest (in 5e they all have a hit die as well, but the difference between damaged and dead is so negligible it is usually irrelevant). It should explicitly say whether the wounded familiar is using that extradimensional hour to take a short rest, or whether they can not do so, or else it should pick any other length of time for them to be absent.

I think the point is that you can no longer safely tuck them away in hammerspace even when choosing not to actively use them in combat. If your familiar has had their one near-death experience of the day and then come back an hour later, then the next fireball or breath weapon that comes your way is instant death for them, unless you had some opportunity to leave them safely back in a corridor before combat broke out.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I think the point is that you can no longer safely tuck them away in hammerspace even when choosing not to actively use them in combat. If your familiar has had their one near-death experience of the day and then come back an hour later, then the next fireball or breath weapon that comes your way is instant death for them, unless you had some opportunity to leave them safely back in a corridor before combat broke out.

Just tuck 'em in your backpack. It's not like your rations get cooked.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

Just tuck 'em in your backpack. It's not like your rations get cooked.

Oh god, I had a player who carried a lost myconid child they were helping in a babybjorn through like half the campaign. We'd constantly forget it was there and then we'd always remember when I hit the group with an AoE that would kill it. I eventually had to rule that it could go into a hardened hybernating state.

 

[Mistwell]

Doesn't work. 1D&D sneak attack is on your turn only, so readying to attack on the familiar's turn won't let you use sneak attack.

True the rogue package said once on each of "your turns". I gave feedback on that which was negative and I know others did as well. I hope that gets changed in the next rogue package.