Rules help: Familiars

[nswanson27]

Sorry I did not understand what you meant with the second hit point pool.
I however know what you mean with severely tied hands. But I am usually rather successful with trying to be as fair as possible and my players don't actively try to exploit rule holes and I am glad for that.

I meant you have an enemy that takes a round or two of focused attacks to drop, rather than the ranger use one of its attacks to get rid of an annoyance. But for what it's worth, I wouldn't feel like that enemy familiar is exploiting anything - it's just a force factor that the enemy caster has it their disposal.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Oh. Sorry I did not mean that this rule application specifically is an exploit. This part was meant universally.
I think the help rule is written unfortunately and JC ruled differently. And I just wanted to offer a compromise between no help at all and owl flyby help. And I thought going from the literal reading you could but not must rule that to sustain the help you need to stay in range.

 

[Saggo]

I'm not seeing how you've determined that 'within 5 feet of you' is clearly attached to 'aid' and not 'creature'.

Two things: this isn't a compound sentence ('a friendly creature in attacking a creature' is a fragment) and it is more accurately a prepositional phrase (so not a subordinate clause which is dependent on the main clause).

Prepositional phrases clarify the relationship of the subject with the clause within the phrase. The target creature is neither the subject of the sentence nor the nested subject of the main clause (that would be 'friendly creature'). Absent any structural or syntactical evidence that the focus of the sentence changed to the nested subject, we can determine that the prepositional phrase supports the sentence's subject, and not the clause's subject.

Or simply put, as previously mentioned, both clauses (main and prepositional) support the sentence subject. The simplified rule is prepositions modify subjects.

No change in sentence structure or syntax is necessary to mean the latter. Further, the latter piece you've identified as a clause doesn't parse cleanly if taken separately.

'You can aid within 5 feet of you' is a valid sentence able to be parsed: subject -> predicate -> preposition -> clause -> nested preposition -> nested clause.

 

[nswanson27]

Oh. Sorry I did not mean that this rule application specifically is an exploit. This part was meant universally.
I think the help rule is written unfortunately and JC ruled differently. And I just wanted to offer a compromise between no help at all and owl flyby help. And I thought going from the literal reading you could but not must rule that to sustain the help you need to stay in range.

Ahh ok. Well maybe then I would just add a comparison between an owl familiar helping every round (and flying away safely), and the bless spell.

advantage gives approx. +5 to hit, bless gives +2.5 to hit on average
bless targets 3, familiar can only help one
bless also benefits saving throws, familiar can help a skill check (but not at the same time as helping an attack)
bless gives its bonus on all attacks, familiar on just the first attack
familiar lasts indefinitely, bless you must cast each fight
familiar can be killed with one ranged attack with easy AC, bless requires a concentration save (caster only) and could be re-cast again in same fight
if familiar does die there may not be time (hour) to cast again, bless casting requires one action
if there is time to cast familiar it is done outside of combat, bless is probably cast as first action of fight unless party has a moment to prepare beforehand


...I guess this seems like a wash to me.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Two things: this isn't a compound sentence ('a friendly creature in attacking a creature' is a fragment) and it is more accurately a prepositional phrase (so not a subordinate clause which is dependent on the main clause).

Prepositional phrases clarify the relationship of the subject with the clause within the phrase. The target creature is neither the subject of the sentence nor the nested subject of the main clause (that would be 'friendly creature'). Absent any structural or syntactical evidence that the focus of the sentence changed to the nested subject, we can determine that the propositional phrase supports the sentence's subject, and not the clause's subject.

Or simply put, as previously mentioned, both clauses (main and prepositional) support the sentence subject. The simplified rule is propositions modify subjects.

I, um, what? You just rewrote a large chunk of English grammar.

Firstly, yes, no argument that 'a friendly creature in attacking a creature' is a fragment. I mean, I agree, but I wonder why you chose to point that obvious fact out. I didn't claim it wasn't, nor did anything I said require that it wasn't a fragment. My argument, in general, was agnostic to the fragment status of that quote.

Secondly, yes, it's not more accurately a prepositional phrase, it's just straight out a prepositional phrase. We are in agreement. Sadly, all agreement stops right here.

I have no idea who taught you about prepositional phrases, but you need to go beat them with a heavy book, preferably one on grammar. Prepositional phrases modify nouns or verbs, which may or may not be in the subject of a sentence. For example, "The switch on the wall was off." The prepositional phrase, "on the wall" modified the subject of this sentence. Example 2: Will you turn off the switch on the wall? The prepositional phrase here modifies the object of the sentence. Example 3: He turned the switch off with alacrity. Here the prepositional phrase is "with alacrity" (it means with brisk and cheerful readiness) and it modifies the verb of the sentence, turned.

So, now that we've dispensed with the notion that prepositional phrases only modify subjects (I don't even), we can look at the nouns and verbs in the sentence and identify the possible targets of the prepositional phrase:

"Alternatively, you can aid a friendly creature in attacking a creature within 5 feet of you."

Bold words are nouns, pronouns, and verbs, italics in the prepositional phrase in question (actually, it's two phrases, "within 5 feet," and, "of you").

This is a bit of a complex sentence. "You" is clearly the subject. "Aid" is clearly the verb. I'm going to submit that 'a friendly creature' is clearly the subject. This makes the nice statement "... you can aid a friendly creature." That's a sentence all right! Now it gets tricky, because the last half of the sentence is really three (yup, three) prepositional phrases, and they might even be nested.

The last half of the sentence is "...in attacking a creature within 5 feet of you." The first prepositional phrase is 'in attacking a creature." This is modifying the verb "aid" by describing how you aid. The next two are "withing 5 feet" and "of you". These are nested, as the "of you" is modifying "5 feet". The question, though is whether or not this phrase is modifying the 'a creature' in the prepositional phrase in front of it, or if it's modifying "a friendly creature." Ah, the glories of English and it's imprecision. Regardless, we know that it either has to be you within 5 feet of a friendly or of the target creature.

'You can aid within 5 feet of you' is a valid sentence able to be parsed: subject -> predicate -> proposition -> clause -> nested proposition -> nested clause.

Okay, I had to read that a few times to gather what you're saying, and I think it's that you parse that sentence as:
"You (subject) can aid (predicate) within (preposition) 5 feet (clause?) of (preposition) you (nested clause?)"

Is that right? Because, yeah, go beat the person that taught you that. If I just drop 'clause' from your statement, it reads better, as in "You (subject) can aid (predicate) within 5 feet (preposition) of you (nested preposition)." That works, but in that case the nested prepositions are modifying 'aid' as an adverb, and you still don't know who you can aid. There's no object to aid. You just can randomly aid within 5 feet of you?

Look. I appreciate that you're trying to make this obvious, but go review your English notes a bit first before you come back and have a discussion in which you say that prepositions can only modify subjects. That's trivially easy to prove false with Google, the word 'prepositions', and 20 seconds.

 

[Saggo]

If you're just going to be antagonistic, I guess this is done.

 

[Ovinomancer]

If you're just going to be antagonistic, I guess this is done.

Sorry. I kneejerk sometimes. Let me try again. Your grammar argument contains some incorrect bits about prepositions that makes me very unsure how to respond to it.

 

[ryan92084]

Like? Serious question, as I can't recall anything of the top of my head that would be impacted.
snip...

Most spells that have a duration for one. They generally have a range requirement at onset. Unless otherwise noted they don't automatically dissipate when the caster walks away.

Side note: pet peeve of mine but Crawford tweets are not sage advice.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Most spells that have a duration for one. They generally have a range requirement at onset. Unless otherwise noted they don't automatically dissipate when the caster walks away.

Sure, but the rules for casting spells say explicitly that the range is only for casting, not for maintaining effects, so that's not gonna change. From the SRD:

Once a spell is cast, its effects aren’t limited by its range, unless the spell’s description says otherwise.

Side note: pet peeve of mine but Crawford tweets are not sage advice.

Noted. Mea Culpa.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Ahh ok. Well maybe then I would just add a comparison between an owl familiar helping every round (and flying away safely), and the bless spell.

advantage gives approx. +5 to hit, bless gives +2.5 to hit on average
bless targets 3, familiar can only help one
bless also benefits saving throws, familiar can help a skill check (but not at the same time as helping an attack)
bless gives its bonus on all attacks, familiar on just the first attack
familiar lasts indefinitely, bless you must cast each fight
familiar can be killed with one ranged attack with easy AC, bless requires a concentration save (caster only) and could be re-cast again in same fight
if familiar does die there may not be time (hour) to cast again, bless casting requires one action
if there is time to cast familiar it is done outside of combat, bless is probably cast as first action of fight unless party has a moment to prepare beforehand


...I guess this seems like a wash to me.

you are comparing apples with oranges, but I am ok with your evaluation. It just doesn´t work for me. I will have my players ready their actions if they want to use help and flyby in combat.