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

[R_J_K75]

It doesn’t modify stats, but creature type does affect some spells and abilities. In which case, the effect is discribed in the spell or ability description.

All I could find was that it said what plane it was from, I totally missed this above. Thanks for pointing this out.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

All I could find was that it said what plane it was from, I totally missed this above. Thanks for pointing this out.

I don’t think the mechanical effects are what is important here though. The “beast” type implies the creature behaves as a real world animal would. A familiar is a spirit masquerading as an animal. There is no reason to suppose it would behave like a real world animal.

 

[Tessarael]

Agreed. Specifically in the 5E spell description:

1. "Your familiar acts independently of you, but it always obeys your commands." (Unlike what a typical trained animal might do under some circumstances, e.g,, when you are not bribing it with treats.)

2. "A familiar can't attack, but it can take other actions as normal."

Given that you can communicate telepathically with your familiar while it is within 100', effectively it can act in a fairly intelligent manner within that range, as you tell it what to do, and how to do it if necessary, to the extent that it is able to follow your instructions.

However, the 5E Find Familiar spell specifies that it has the same statistics as the CR 0 beast form that you choose, which implies that it is not of higher Intelligence than such an animal.

The most intelligent CR 0 animal options that I see on the 5etools website are Baboon (INT 4), Flying Monkey (INT 5), and Raven (INT 5). Of these, Flying Monkey is the best option for a somewhat intelligent familiar that can also fly, albeit 30' speed vs. 50' speed for a Raven. On the other hand, a Raven can mimic simple sounds, which may permit it to activate something by command word, unlike a Baboon or Flying Monkey.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

A lot depends on how you interpret the intelligence stat though. Earlier editions connected it to sentience, and so familiars had an int boost to make them sentient. But 5e makes no such connection. You could treat a familiar as a sentient being who is just bad at INT skills and saves.

 

[R_J_K75]

I don’t think the mechanical effects are what is important here though. The “beast” type implies the creature behaves as a real world animal would. A familiar is a spirit masquerading as an animal. There is no reason to suppose it would behave like a real world animal.

I agree provided we are going by 5Ex rules, but 1) its very clunky design on the 5E team, and 2) the OP is general, although think its A5E. Personally, I believe this could use more attention in the rules