D&D General What items can what types of familiar or animal companion use?

[Tessarael]

Which familiars or animal companions would you allow to throw a Magic Stone? For a monkey, ape, or other creatures with prehensile capability it seems fairly reasonable. Possible also perhaps for an octopus with their tentacles, or an elephant with a prehensile trunk. What about say for a tiger or spider?

Which familiars or intelligent animal companions would you allow to use a potion, scroll, or wand? Is grasping capability sufficient, assuming that the potion bottle is designed so that it can be opened readily? Can a Raven familiar utter the command word, while holding a wand in its claws?

This question relates to the A5E thread that I started on a similar topic:
Level Up (A5E) - What Druid wild shape forms would you allow to throw Seed Bombs? Or use an object?

 

[Distracted DM]

Ugh, this is such a PITA thing when stuff like Rings of Spell Storing or the Reserve Ioun Stone come up. It's also potentially problematic if you use RAW attunement wands that recharge, rather than changing wands to non-attunement, limited charges like in Ye Olde Dayes. It's usually "my familiar casts Haste/Bless from the ring and then goes into my backpack, or I dismiss them away to safety." My solution with that, going forward, is to just skip spell-storing items because they're so boring in 5e due to optimization (never has anyone at my 5e tables stored a fireball or even a Dispel Magic, it's always haste, bless, Shield, etc).

More on-topic, assuming RAW recharging items as it is now, I allow familiars etc. to use such items if it seems feasible that they can grasp and talk. Buuut I really don't love the result of this, because the results are, again, boringly optimization-heavy... at my tables, at least. I'd probably be more of a tight-arse with such things in the future. However, I tend to give out wands with limited charges that aren't attunement- because PCs inevitably cap out on attunement slots and the wands never get used again after that.

 

[James Gasik]

Generally, the way I see it is, if any companion can use magic, they all should be able to. If you rule "well, this one can and this one can't", then everyone will feel like they should take the one that can, even if they'd rather have something else- all choices should be equal, otherwise you're allowing "traps".

OTOH, you could buff companions that can't use magic in some way to compensate, but I'm not sure how you'd do so. Bigger numbers? Innate magical abilities?

Now if what's really bothering you is that your players are treating Familiars as extra attunement slots with no real downside, you could just deny it, or say that the player has to share attunements with the Familiar, as they are inextricably linked to it. You want to have an Owl with a Ring of Spell Storing? Then you have one less attunement for yourself.

(What follows is a rant based entirely on my personal feelings. YMMV.)

Though honestly, I don't care for attunement on principle. It just feels so arbitrary, and there's so many cool and interesting magic items out there that get left on the side of the road because "oh can't use that, I have this other, more interesting/powerful/omni-useful item". I've watched players shrug when flavorful and niche items come up because "I'm already at my limit". In my own game, the players found a Staff of Healing, and I thought it was going to be this big moment where the Cleric is like "awesome!".

Instead, he looked at his character sheet and was like "I can't give up anything to use it." Because his weapon required attunement (Mace of Disruption), his shield required attunement (Spellguard), and his Gauntlets of Ogre Power (required to actually use the Mace effectively, because he'd started with notably more Dex than Str).

In a recent adventure, we found a magic item that was effectively necessary for us to proceed, and my character was the only one who could attune to it, so I suddenly had to juggle my items in order to attune to the "plot coupon", which didn't do a lot for me.

It wasn't the worst thing ever, but it was annoying. And since one of the big reasons to adventure in D&D in the first place has been to find cool swag, of which magic items are the premium, watching people shrug when finding a very rare magic item because it's at best a sidegrade for something the party is already using? Blah.

 

[Distracted DM]

Generally, the way I see it is, if any companion can use magic, they all should be able to. If you rule "well, this one can and this one can't", then everyone will feel like they should take the one that can, even if they'd rather have something else- all choices should be equal, otherwise you're allowing "traps".

OTOH, you could buff companions that can't use magic in some way to compensate, but I'm not sure how you'd do so. Bigger numbers? Innate magical abilities?

Now if what's really bothering you is that your players are treating Familiars as extra attunement slots with no real downside, you could just deny it, or say that the player has to share attunements with the Familiar, as they are inextricably linked to it. You want to have an Owl with a Ring of Spell Storing? Then you have one less attunement for yourself.

(What follows is a rant based entirely on my personal feelings. YMMV.)

Though honestly, I don't care for attunement on principle. It just feels so arbitrary, and there's so many cool and interesting magic items out there that get left on the side of the road because "oh can't use that, I have this other, more interesting/powerful/omni-useful item". I've watched players shrug when flavorful and niche items come up because "I'm already at my limit". In my own game, the players found a Staff of Healing, and I thought it was going to be this big moment where the Cleric is like "awesome!".

Instead, he looked at his character sheet and was like "I can't give up anything to use it." Because his weapon required attunement (Mace of Disruption), his shield required attunement (Spellguard), and his Gauntlets of Ogre Power (required to actually use the Mace effectively, because he'd started with notably more Dex than Str).

In a recent adventure, we found a magic item that was effectively necessary for us to proceed, and my character was the only one who could attune to it, so I suddenly had to juggle my items in order to attune to the "plot coupon", which didn't do a lot for me.

It wasn't the worst thing ever, but it was annoying. And since one of the big reasons to adventure in D&D in the first place has been to find cool swag, of which magic items are the premium, watching people shrug when finding a very rare magic item because it's at best a sidegrade for something the party is already using? Blah.

Agreed.

Unfortunately I can't nix attunement, because I think 5e (and A5E) characters already are powerful enough without magic items. Magic items that did super cool things were really a focus in earlier editions when your characters had fewer and less impressive features. Throwing out attunement would just result in even more powerful PCs... I already gripe about 5e characters' ability to punch well above their weight class

 

[Tessarael]

Agreed. I have found that the magic item attunement limit works well to limit power in campaigns where magic items are more readily available. I have not seen Ring of Spell Storing abused in the campaigns that I have been in, fortunately. There will be cases where decent items get "ignored" and sold, because no attunement slot is available to use them.

I did find it useful to get some gear for the Imp familiar of my Warlock with Pact of the Chain in one campaign. It didn't seem an over-powered choice, given gear for the Imp meant my Warlock had a little less advanced gear, and the Imp's gear did help the Imp remain an effective familiar at higher levels. Also suffered one situation where all the Imp's gear was lost (along the lines of it being sucked into a Sphere of Annihilation), which was painful in the context of needing to get gear again for the Imp. It was also helpful to have the Imp revive a fallen companion by giving them a Potion of Healing or similar.

I would suggest that prehensile capability is required to throw an item like Alchemist's Fire. While grasping capability is sufficient to use a potion. There may also be a minimum Intelligence of say 3 for tool use in this manner, which both Cat and Mastiff have, for example.

Using a scroll or wand with a command word requires the ability to read in the case of a scroll, and vocalize the words. Perhaps a minimum Intelligence of 6 and knowledge of the right language to be able to read sufficiently well. Whereas a bird with mimicry may be able to vocalize a command word and hold a wand, if trained to do so.

 

[R_J_K75]

I never played A5E so I can't comment on the game or how it differs from 5E or 5E24. Looking at the find familiar spell in the 2024 PHB the spell is somewhat ambiguous. It says that the familiar is either a celestial, fey or fiend and not a beast but doesn't clarify if it gets their abilities or ability scores too. Page 6 of the MM gives very little information on what this designation offers other than its place of origin. I'd assume they don't and therefore to avoid arguments, or giving a player an unexpected advantage, I'd rule that they lack the intelligence to attune to a magical item or activate one to cast a spell from it.

 

[Distracted DM]

I never played A5E so I can't comment on the game or how it differs from 5E or 5E24. Looking at the find familiar spell in the 2024 PHB the spell is somewhat ambiguous. It says that the familiar is either a celestial, fey or fiend and not a beast but doesn't clarify if it gets their abilities or ability scores too. Page 6 of the MM gives very little information on what this designation offers other than its place of origin. I'd assume they don't and therefore to avoid arguments, or giving a player an unexpected advantage, I'd rule that they lack the intelligence to attune to a magical item or activate one to cast a spell from it.

AFAIK attunement only requires that it be a creature. That applies to anything that would be a familiar.

 

[Distracted DM]

Which familiars or animal companions would you allow to throw a Magic Stone? For a monkey, ape, or other creatures with prehensile capability it seems fairly reasonable. Possible also perhaps for an octopus with their tentacles, or an elephant with a prehensile trunk. What about say for a tiger or spider?

Which familiars or intelligent animal companions would you allow to use a potion, scroll, or wand? Is grasping capability sufficient, assuming that the potion bottle is designed so that it can be opened readily? Can a Raven familiar utter the command word, while holding a wand in its claws?

This question relates to the A5E thread that I started on a similar topic:
Level Up (A5E) - What Druid wild shape forms would you allow to throw Seed Bombs? Or use an object?

Of note is, ofc, the attunement requirements. Since we did mention a wand, I believe most (all?) wands require the user to be a spellcaster (having the spellcasting feature)... familiars aren't going to fit that bill.

 

[R_J_K75]

AFAIK attunement only requires that it be a creature. That applies to anything that would be a familiar.

You are correct the rules only require it to be creature that forms a bond. Perhaps I was thinking of identifying a magical item without the identify spell. IIRC its say that the creature has to take time to study it, try things to get it make it function. Familiars have changed quite a bit from 2E to 5E. 2E stated that it had 2-3 more points of intelligence but was still subject to deviating from its master's instructions based on instinct and was not a magical creature. In 3E they were magical creatures. I would assume that if they could use magical items, they'd be limited to what their anatomy could accommodate. 2E from what I recall said that some magical items resized to fit their user though, so that may be a way around that. It's a tough call and maybe should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Cats, can use boots.