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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AaronOfBarbaria" data-source="post: 6844596" data-attributes="member: 6701872">I think it is only "cheesy" because you view your 5th point the way you do.  I will say that I think that is fine reasoning to go with as it does make sense that not being allowed to use the attack actually in the stat-block be treated as the same thing as not having any attacks in the stat-block. It just happens to also make sense to reason that because that attack is in the stat-block that the familiar is "capable" but "disallowed."The reason I go with the later ruling, rather than the former, is because having a familiar is a very minor benefit and is only taken when having a familiar is an important part of the character's concept, so there being one more way in which a familiar might actually benefit the character/player - and thus not seem like the equivalent of saying "I'm just going to skip 10+ gp that I'd otherwise have, and one of my possible in-the-spellbook-for-free 1st level spells" - seems like a bad thing to not do. Another point that I think is only thought because of your view on your 5th point.There is no trap here. In order for there to be a trap, the other options wouldn't have to just be "not the best" - they would have to be "not at all worth it." That isn't the case because those other options are still worth it, especially if you are in some kind of area where an owl might be suspicious and indicate information you don't want others to know (such as that you are in the area, scouting them via out-of-place animal shape). Also making the option not at all a trap: it isn't a permanent choice. You don't get stuck never being able to utilize an owl familiar if you decided to start your coastal adventures with a familiar that can swim, for example.There is no "escalation" here. The DM is not "trying to kill the owl" so much as they are "trying to have the monsters do stuff that 'makes sense' in the current circumstances". A monster taking an angry swat at whatever keeps giving it's foes a leg-up in defeating it is one such action, whether the thing the swat is directed at is a familiar, a player-character, another monster or NPC, or an inanimate object/force the monster is too stupid to realize a swat isn't going to affect.Of course, this is all just my opinion, and entirely based on my experience both as player of a character whose personality heavily involved/relied up interaction with their cat familiar, and as a DM for players that enjoy characters with animal-shaped helpers, and our disagreements are in no way meant to belittle your opinions, you as a person, or the games you run/play in (covering my elf, as I don't want it crushed <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />).Edit: to hopefully resurrect the formatting I just murdered.</blockquote>

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