D&D 5E Rogue Advice

[Draegn]

Trust no one.
Stab them in the back first, for, they most assuredly are planning on stabbing you.
A portable hole is your friend.
Poison is always an option.
Honor does not put coin in your purse.
A well placed bribe is a worthy investment.
Being humiliated is better than being dead, do those things that a nun would never do.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

That's certainly the better tactic than giving the rogue free advantage every turn no? Potentially 1 attack (if it's not caught in an AOE) and no more advantage for you this fight.

Not if the monster has a worthwhile action, and the rogue is a potential target of said action.

Advantage just isn’t that big of a deal. The rogue will kill ya without it, if left alone, and there is probably a squishy caster somewhere that needs squishing.

People fret too much over advantage.

Edit: also, as @Esker pointed out, I can just target a different enemy that round, and make that enemy complete waste their entire round for literally nothing.

 

[Ashrym]

Not if the monster has a worthwhile action, and the rogue is a potential target of said action.

Advantage just isn’t that big of a deal. The rogue will kill ya without it, if left alone, and there is probably a squishy caster somewhere that needs squishing.

People fret too much over advantage.

Edit: also, as @Esker pointed out, I can just target a different enemy that round, and make that enemy complete waste their entire round for literally nothing.

Intelligent opponents deal with whatever is causing the biggest issue. If it's the sneak attacks then it's the easier target of the rogue or the owl. A readied action is a possibility but not the only way of dealing with a 1hp sneak attack enabler. Just using a readied action to switch to a ranged weapon for the attack when the owl comes out deals with the owl regardless of target, however; one free weapon swap isn't lost and can be part of the readied action.

I would argue that targeting a different enemy to make a readied action waste the action would be dependent on knowing that's what the opponent was planning in the first place. That falls under a combat use of insight as the most common method of knowing unless the opponent isn't hiding the fact he's planning on an owl-kabob, which might be true but not the smart play; however, doing so just saved that particular opponent the sneak attack with a soft-control incentive to redirect the owl and the real plan all along. It's a layer of deception and insight determining strategy in combat that people sometimes forget exists. Remember, insight includes "predicting someone's next move". ;-)

Flyby is a nice ability for an owl familiar, no doubt about it. In the end, however, it's still a 1hp flicker to most reasonable threats that do choose to deal with it.

Animal handling gets a poor rating in most guides, but mounts have more hit points than familiars, and the rogue riding a mount tends to always have an adjacent ally without needing to bother with find familiar. Trained pets for combat uses them to trigger sneak attacks that often only requires the gold and not the ritual.

The rogue could reasonably be an expert animal handler who raises and trains owls for battle. Familiars aren't any more intelligent than their animal counterparts so a familiar capable of understanding the the commands to take cover is just a capable of being trained to take cover. Trained pets also bypasses the "familiars cannot attack" rule.

Familiars have many advantages over trained pets. Their combat potential isn't really that great, ime.

 

[Esker]

I would argue that targeting a different enemy to make a readied action waste the action would be dependent on knowing that's what the opponent was planning in the first place.

An enemy that readies an action is an enemy not doing something else on its turn. That's pretty conspicuous. You don't necessarily need to know what they're readying: if the familiar has been causing them a headache and then suddenly they take a turn without attacking, that's a pretty good indication that you might want to keep your familiar away that round, regardless of whether you have the insight to know specifically what they're planning.

 

[Esker]

Also think about what you'd do if the situation were reversed: by taking away the rogue's source of advantage with booming blade, assuming they just fall back to TWF, you're decreasing their damage output by maybe, what, 5 points per round? If the attack that takes out the familiar could instead be used to knock a PC unconscious, even if they get up in the following round, you're likely saving yourself more damage than you'd save by taking out the familiar.

I just don't see many situations where targeting the familiar is going to be worth an attack. When it does happen, I have the suspicion that it often has more to do with a DM wanting to punish a player for a perceived abuse than it does a monster using wily tactics.

 

[Ashrym]

An enemy that readies an action is an enemy not doing something else on its turn. That's pretty conspicuous. You don't necessarily need to know what they're readying: if the familiar has been causing them a headache and then suddenly they take a turn without attacking, that's a pretty good indication that you might want to keep your familiar away that round, regardless of whether you have the insight to know specifically what they're planning.

Yes and no.

It's obvious the enemy is up to something. Assuming it's to attack the familiar is jumping to a conclusion that ignores any other activity that might also be taking place on the battlefield, and might bite the rogue in the ass if he or she jumps to that conclusion in the event the enemy is actually planning something else, which is also a possibility. Or it might be what's actually happening.

I wouldn't expect the attempt to be made either if it's not worth the attack. Dropping the rogue will prevent a lot more sneak attacks than the familiar if it can be done quickly, for example, or either could be a less important target (I think that was mentioned on either side of the discussion).

IME, familiars aren't very survivable when constantly exposed to combat. My point is that if the familiar is an issue and someone decides to kill it, it likely dies and that impacts the reliability of the approach. 1hp familiars die more often than twf rogues get disarmed or other party members already cover what the owl would have been adding.

 

[Esker]

It's obvious the enemy is up to something. Assuming it's to attack the familiar is jumping to a conclusion that ignores any other activity that might also be taking place on the battlefield, and might bite the rogue in the ass if he or she jumps to that conclusion in the event the enemy is actually planning something else, which is also a possibility. Or it might be what's actually happening.

For sure; it might be readying something else. But to me it'd be worth having my familiar hang back any time the enemy doesn't act on their turn. Readying actions instead of acting on your turn is costly to begin with, so it's not like the enemy is likely to do that just to mess with the owl.

IME, familiars aren't very survivable when constantly exposed to combat. My point is that if the familiar is an issue and someone decides to kill it, it likely dies and that impacts the reliability of the approach. 1hp familiars die more often than twf rogues get disarmed or other party members already cover what the owl would have been adding.

Certainly agree with this: any enemy determined to kill the familiar can likely do so. I just don't see that happening in my games. When familiars die it tends to be a result of simply being around a combat and before their first turn, or a result of something that happens while scouting; not because they are taking the Help action specifically. But as I said, YMMV, since I do certainly hear about DMs targeting familiars, even though I've yet to see it myself.

 

[Gladius Legis]

Internet advice needs a grain of salt. Some people will talk about how great find familiar is on one hand while elsewhere we see complaints about how fragile beastmaster companions are on the other.

Familiars are much easier and less time consuming to replace than beastmaster companions.

Familiars also don't have an entire subclass' worth of features attached to their well-being.

 

[Ashrym]

Familiars are much easier and less time consuming to replace than beastmaster companions.

They are. Being faster to replace doesn't make them more durable, however.

Picking up a familiar seems rather expensive to me for an ability that someone else in the party is already capable of and often giving be being adjacent to the target. The ability to use it's senses is more important than it's ability to grant a sneak attack if needed.

 

[Gladius Legis]

They are. Being faster to replace doesn't make them more durable, however.

Right. It does make said lack of durability less of an issue for the familiar than for the beast companion, though.

Picking up a familiar seems rather expensive to me for an ability that someone else in the party is already capable of and often giving be being adjacent to the target. The ability to use it's senses is more important than it's ability to grant a sneak attack if needed.

On the other hand, having 2 familiar users is hardly a bad thing. The Wizard's, for example, can focus on utility and staying out of harm's way in combat, while the AT can feel more free to use theirs for the advantage in combat.