In the Find Familiar spell it says you can see through your familiar’s eyes and hear what it hears until the start of your next turn, gaining the benefits of any special senses that the familiar has. During this time, you are deaf and blind with regard to your own senses.
Many players want to have a familiar on their shoulder or top of their head and then use the ability from the spell to gain darkvision or blindsight etc. but many DMs don't like to allow this.
Can people please weigh in from both sides and explain your reasoning behind what you think about those rules.
Or if you have some questions about the whole thing, I, or others who respond here might be able to find obscure rules or rulings that will help better inform everyone.
Blindsight is a powerful ability, and using a 1st level spell to gain access to it permanently is pretty cheesy. I've done it, but it's still cheesy.
The other issue is that we live our entire lives learning to function with a certain perspective. Trying to walk with your eyes 12 inches to the left of where your head actually is would be very disorienting, and you wouldn't be able to operate instinctively the way we already take for granted.
In general, I would allow it, but would probably require dexterity checks for any activities requiring coordination, as well as require any dexterity checks to be rolled with disadvantage.
Note that looking through the familiar's eyes does not mean that you can puppet its head as though it were your own. If something catches the corner of your eye, you would have to tell the Familiar to turn, so that you could get a better look. If that thing was a leaping panther, you already missed your chance to react.
Yea I'd have to agree with Memnosyne on all points. It can definitely be done and be situationally strong but you shouldn't expect normal functionality as if you where using your own eyes.
I could see you doing stuff that's slower/more methodical like investigating an item/wall/passageway being done with less or no penalty.
I agree at first it would be a disorienting experience but what about over time or with practice? Allow me to refute and introduce some points to explain further.
Gaining darkvision or blindsight can be advantageous and their purpose is exactly that in some situations so imposing disadvantage is akin to saying you cannot do that which goes directly against RAW. Since it affects coordination and not the actual sight gained I would limit the disadvantage to only attacks of opportunity or not allow those attacks at all.
You can actually puppet more than the familiar's head. If you are within range (usually 100 feet) you are in constant telepathic communication with your familiar and it obeys your commands. But I believe your point here was to limit or deny an attack of opportunity, which I agree with since this doesn't even happen on your turn, so that brief moment passes before you can react properly.
However, all turns including your own occur over a 6 second period and this would allow you the time to adapt to your vision being slightly to the left, right, or above your head. (12 inches seems a bit much, but even a few inches from where your vision is normally can be disorienting at first.)
What happens the second time you use this feature of familiar? Or the third?... what about 20 or a 100 times? What if the character practices daily, switching back and forth to get rid of the disorienting effect by getting so used to the new vision it becomes old hat for them?
I think most times people look at all the positives that are gained from a familiar and ignore it's negatives. Low AC, almost no hp, and cannot attack etc., just to name a few.
A snake's blindsense comes from it's taste or smell? A bat's relies on hearing? Neither of these are actual sight but can be disorienting nevertheless.
And my final point for now, most familiars are used by wizards which usually have a very high INT, way higher than the average person. This increased brain power could help deal with the disorientation itself or compensate for how quickly you can adapt to this new sense.
Certainly, any DM has more than a right, a prerogative, to balance things to achieve the gaming experience they desire.
Having said that, RAW, I think that this would work pretty perfectly. Walking, if you know that there aren't obstacles in front of you, is something you can do with your eyes shut. Walking with a familiar could, potentially, be no more difficult than walking with a 6-8 inch periscope to the side. If that's too difficult, stick your owl on your head and imagine your neck has stretched or hold the owl in front of you.
RAW, the only recorded effect on you is that "until the start of your next turn, ... you are deaf and blind with regard to your own senses" though DMs can certainly table rule additional effects to suit.
Training and practice are represented by class features and feats. If the player wants to go this route then the DM can homebrew something for the player to take in place of an ASI.
For example, the Blind Fighting Style via the Fighting Initiate feat.
As long as there is an appropriate buy-off, then anything is fair game.
So... when someone casts Find Familiar and wants to use it to gain the extra senses, like it says here:
"Additionally, as an action, you can see through your familiar’s eyes and hear what it hears until the start of your next turn, gaining the benefits of any special senses that the familiar has."
Giving up your action each round to gain this ability isn't enough, the DM must also impose further disadvantages and limitations? Essentially homebrewing rules to nerf this ability and then later you can take a feat or some such that also has to be homebrewed to get around the 1st homebrew rule.
Wouldn't it be much easier to let the spell do what it says it can do?
As I said before, simply using the Familiar to look through its senses is fine. What you are proposing is akin to "replacing" the casters senses semi-permanently while retaining other functionality that would require extensive training at best.
So, no. Merely losing an Action isn't enough. It isn't a nerf, you are simply asking for more than is reasonable. Losing your own senses as part of this ability is meant as a means of balancing the feature. By bypassing that drawback in this way, you are defying both the rule and the spirit of that rule.
The feat for this doesn't need to be limited to just this enhancement though. You could make it a Half-feat, or bundle it with other minor Familiar enhancements. What you are proposing simply shouldn't be free.
Either take a feat for guaranteed success, or make a basic check that has the potential to fail.
So... when someone casts Find Familiar and wants to use it to gain the extra senses, like it says here:
"Additionally, as an action, you can see through your familiar’s eyes and hear what it hears until the start of your next turn, gaining the benefits of any special senses that the familiar has."
Giving up your action each round to gain this ability isn't enough, the DM must also impose further disadvantages and limitations? Essentially homebrewing rules to nerf this ability and then later you can take a feat or some such that also has to be homebrewed to get around the 1st homebrew rule.
Wouldn't it be much easier to let the spell do what it says it can do?
RAW the wizard is walking along while engaging with a spell effect in a way that might be viewed as being synonymous to spellcasting. The only difference is that, following your action and until the beginning of your next turn, 'you' "see through your familiar's eyes and hear what it hears" at whatever distance beyond your own skin that owl is positioned. One of the owl's eyes could literally be just a couple of inches, if that, away from one of your's.
I view FF to be an OP spell but accept it for what it is.
Other DMs, fairly, choose not to go by RAW and table rule nerfs.
Perhaps some limits to what can be done with the spell need to be established in each game, and every game will be different as each DM's games and campaigns are unique.
As a final note for consideration remember that when using your familiar in this way you cannot take any other action, you only get 1 action and if it's being used for this you cannot Dash , Hide , or cast most spells. Plus, if you keep your familiar on your shoulder or head it can't be moving around the environment giving the Help action to anyone or doing just about anything else.
Perhaps you could practice using your familiar this way during downtime to overcome the disorienting nature of the feature, much the same way someone learns new things like languages and such?
Just a thought but thanks once again for the prompt replies. I've changed my mind on at least one thing, simply gaining the sense and using it to circumvent the temporary absence of your own senses are 2 different things. The latter can be op in some situations so should be nerfed a little.
Good luck in your games and I hope to see you around soon, perhaps we'll end up in a game together sometime. Until then keep your blades sharp and your wits even sharper.
So... when someone casts Find Familiar and wants to use it to gain the extra senses, like it says here:
"Additionally, as an action, you can see through your familiar’s eyes and hear what it hears until the start of your next turn, gaining the benefits of any special senses that the familiar has."
Giving up your action each round to gain this ability isn't enough, the DM must also impose further disadvantages and limitations? Essentially homebrewing rules to nerf this ability and then later you can take a feat or some such that also has to be homebrewed to get around the 1st homebrew rule.
Wouldn't it be much easier to let the spell do what it says it can do?
I would emphatically agree that allowing the spell to do what it says it can do is the accurate way to rule it. So long as it isn't allowed to do anything beyond what it says it can.
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“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
As usual, the benefits of find familiar are considered broken when you ignore the duration. This is not "permanent blindsight," it's blindsight that lasts until until your 12AC/1HP familiar dies. If you're actively using it's senses, there's no "it's in my pocket so it's not targeted" shenanigans when you get hit by a fireball. Or when it gets sniped by a goblin archer.
Familiars are incredibly easy to kill. A good DM scales the risks/rewards of familiars - including use of their senses - in a way that is balanced and hopefully satisfying for all at the table.
True. No official facing according to the rules unless optional ones are used.
But realistically (which sounds odd in a fictional game that relies heavily on imagination) sight is facing-based and blindsense isn't... I would think?
At any given moment, yes, sight would be directional for most humanoids, but adventurers are assumed to be aware of their environment, so they are generally sweeping their gaze, which is usually enough.
Blindsight could really be anything, in reality, some would be very directional, others would be omni-directional. Entirely depends on the creature.
The other issue is that we live our entire lives learning to function with a certain perspective. Trying to walk with your eyes 12 inches to the left of where your head actually is would be very disorienting, and you wouldn't be able to operate instinctively the way we already take for granted.
This would only be true initially. After practice it'd become second nature. If you've ever played around with someone else's glasses you know it happens fairly quickly. Because as you adjust to the new frame of reference the glasses give you, when you take them off again it is another, smaller, adjustment period to return to normal. People are exceptionally adaptive. More so than you're giving them credit for.
Would it require an adjustment? Absolutely. But daily practice of this sort of thing would get people moving around as good as native senses would.
It is the reason people can even drive cars and pilot vehicles and the like. You're using mirrors and cameras and etc to give you sightlines that aren't at all natural for you, but you incorporate them into your awareness and can maneuver things even far larger than yourself reliably using the senses of vision that these tools grant you.
Training and practice are represented by class features and feats. If the player wants to go this route then the DM can homebrew something for the player to take in place of an ASI.
For example, the Blind Fighting Style via the Fighting Initiate feat.
As long as there is an appropriate buy-off, then anything is fair game.
You're suggesting that the normal default features of the spell cannot be used until his DM homebrews him a feat to take so that he can regain access to the default abilities? What??
A familiar that you are wearing/carrying, much like everything you are wearing/carrying, is considered protected when you make your saving throw.
Think about it, how many times do you roll for each individual item you are wearing/carrying or is on your person... it's usually just 1 save made by you and everything else is considered safe.
The damage from any fireball, save made or not, is enough to incinerate much if not all of what you have, including clothing... so how many times are targets left totally naked after a fireball?... What's that?... Never? WOW!
Plus, many DM's either flat out don't allow you to target specific items worn or carried, or it would be at some penalty, like disadvantage.
The main issue with trying to continually see through your familiar's senses is that it takes your action every turn. This is not well defined outside of combat, but reasonable extrapolation from the combat rules are that, pending some special ability, you can't actually do anything except move and perform basic object interactions while using your familiar's senses.
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In the Find Familiar spell it says you can see through your familiar’s eyes and hear what it hears until the start of your next turn, gaining the benefits of any special senses that the familiar has. During this time, you are deaf and blind with regard to your own senses.
Many players want to have a familiar on their shoulder or top of their head and then use the ability from the spell to gain darkvision or blindsight etc. but many DMs don't like to allow this.
Can people please weigh in from both sides and explain your reasoning behind what you think about those rules.
Or if you have some questions about the whole thing, I, or others who respond here might be able to find obscure rules or rulings that will help better inform everyone.
Blindsight is a powerful ability, and using a 1st level spell to gain access to it permanently is pretty cheesy. I've done it, but it's still cheesy.
The other issue is that we live our entire lives learning to function with a certain perspective. Trying to walk with your eyes 12 inches to the left of where your head actually is would be very disorienting, and you wouldn't be able to operate instinctively the way we already take for granted.
In general, I would allow it, but would probably require dexterity checks for any activities requiring coordination, as well as require any dexterity checks to be rolled with disadvantage.
Note that looking through the familiar's eyes does not mean that you can puppet its head as though it were your own. If something catches the corner of your eye, you would have to tell the Familiar to turn, so that you could get a better look. If that thing was a leaping panther, you already missed your chance to react.
Yea I'd have to agree with Memnosyne on all points. It can definitely be done and be situationally strong but you shouldn't expect normal functionality as if you where using your own eyes.
I could see you doing stuff that's slower/more methodical like investigating an item/wall/passageway being done with less or no penalty.
I agree at first it would be a disorienting experience but what about over time or with practice? Allow me to refute and introduce some points to explain further.
Gaining darkvision or blindsight can be advantageous and their purpose is exactly that in some situations so imposing disadvantage is akin to saying you cannot do that which goes directly against RAW. Since it affects coordination and not the actual sight gained I would limit the disadvantage to only attacks of opportunity or not allow those attacks at all.
You can actually puppet more than the familiar's head. If you are within range (usually 100 feet) you are in constant telepathic communication with your familiar and it obeys your commands. But I believe your point here was to limit or deny an attack of opportunity, which I agree with since this doesn't even happen on your turn, so that brief moment passes before you can react properly.
However, all turns including your own occur over a 6 second period and this would allow you the time to adapt to your vision being slightly to the left, right, or above your head. (12 inches seems a bit much, but even a few inches from where your vision is normally can be disorienting at first.)
What happens the second time you use this feature of familiar? Or the third?... what about 20 or a 100 times? What if the character practices daily, switching back and forth to get rid of the disorienting effect by getting so used to the new vision it becomes old hat for them?
I think most times people look at all the positives that are gained from a familiar and ignore it's negatives. Low AC, almost no hp, and cannot attack etc., just to name a few.
A snake's blindsense comes from it's taste or smell? A bat's relies on hearing? Neither of these are actual sight but can be disorienting nevertheless.
And my final point for now, most familiars are used by wizards which usually have a very high INT, way higher than the average person. This increased brain power could help deal with the disorientation itself or compensate for how quickly you can adapt to this new sense.
Certainly, any DM has more than a right, a prerogative, to balance things to achieve the gaming experience they desire.
Having said that, RAW, I think that this would work pretty perfectly. Walking, if you know that there aren't obstacles in front of you, is something you can do with your eyes shut. Walking with a familiar could, potentially, be no more difficult than walking with a 6-8 inch periscope to the side. If that's too difficult, stick your owl on your head and imagine your neck has stretched or hold the owl in front of you.
RAW, the only recorded effect on you is that "until the start of your next turn, ... you are deaf and blind with regard to your own senses" though DMs can certainly table rule additional effects to suit.
Training and practice are represented by class features and feats. If the player wants to go this route then the DM can homebrew something for the player to take in place of an ASI.
For example, the Blind Fighting Style via the Fighting Initiate feat.
As long as there is an appropriate buy-off, then anything is fair game.
So... when someone casts Find Familiar and wants to use it to gain the extra senses, like it says here:
"Additionally, as an action, you can see through your familiar’s eyes and hear what it hears until the start of your next turn, gaining the benefits of any special senses that the familiar has."
Giving up your action each round to gain this ability isn't enough, the DM must also impose further disadvantages and limitations? Essentially homebrewing rules to nerf this ability and then later you can take a feat or some such that also has to be homebrewed to get around the 1st homebrew rule.
Wouldn't it be much easier to let the spell do what it says it can do?
As I said before, simply using the Familiar to look through its senses is fine. What you are proposing is akin to "replacing" the casters senses semi-permanently while retaining other functionality that would require extensive training at best.
So, no. Merely losing an Action isn't enough. It isn't a nerf, you are simply asking for more than is reasonable. Losing your own senses as part of this ability is meant as a means of balancing the feature. By bypassing that drawback in this way, you are defying both the rule and the spirit of that rule.
The feat for this doesn't need to be limited to just this enhancement though. You could make it a Half-feat, or bundle it with other minor Familiar enhancements. What you are proposing simply shouldn't be free.
Either take a feat for guaranteed success, or make a basic check that has the potential to fail.
RAW the wizard is walking along while engaging with a spell effect in a way that might be viewed as being synonymous to spellcasting. The only difference is that, following your action and until the beginning of your next turn, 'you' "see through your familiar's eyes and hear what it hears" at whatever distance beyond your own skin that owl is positioned. One of the owl's eyes could literally be just a couple of inches, if that, away from one of your's.
I view FF to be an OP spell but accept it for what it is.
Other DMs, fairly, choose not to go by RAW and table rule nerfs.
Thank you all for your input and responses.
Perhaps some limits to what can be done with the spell need to be established in each game, and every game will be different as each DM's games and campaigns are unique.
As a final note for consideration remember that when using your familiar in this way you cannot take any other action, you only get 1 action and if it's being used for this you cannot Dash , Hide , or cast most spells. Plus, if you keep your familiar on your shoulder or head it can't be moving around the environment giving the Help action to anyone or doing just about anything else.
Perhaps you could practice using your familiar this way during downtime to overcome the disorienting nature of the feature, much the same way someone learns new things like languages and such?
Just a thought but thanks once again for the prompt replies. I've changed my mind on at least one thing, simply gaining the sense and using it to circumvent the temporary absence of your own senses are 2 different things. The latter can be op in some situations so should be nerfed a little.
Good luck in your games and I hope to see you around soon, perhaps we'll end up in a game together sometime. Until then keep your blades sharp and your wits even sharper.
PS. Is the blindsense considered to be 360 degrees as it uses other senses instead of sight?
I would emphatically agree that allowing the spell to do what it says it can do is the accurate way to rule it. So long as it isn't allowed to do anything beyond what it says it can.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
There is no facing in D&D 5e, so all senses are 360.
As usual, the benefits of find familiar are considered broken when you ignore the duration. This is not "permanent blindsight," it's blindsight that lasts until until your 12AC/1HP familiar dies. If you're actively using it's senses, there's no "it's in my pocket so it's not targeted" shenanigans when you get hit by a fireball. Or when it gets sniped by a goblin archer.
Familiars are incredibly easy to kill. A good DM scales the risks/rewards of familiars - including use of their senses - in a way that is balanced and hopefully satisfying for all at the table.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
True. No official facing according to the rules unless optional ones are used.
But realistically (which sounds odd in a fictional game that relies heavily on imagination) sight is facing-based and blindsense isn't... I would think?
At any given moment, yes, sight would be directional for most humanoids, but adventurers are assumed to be aware of their environment, so they are generally sweeping their gaze, which is usually enough.
Blindsight could really be anything, in reality, some would be very directional, others would be omni-directional. Entirely depends on the creature.
This would only be true initially. After practice it'd become second nature. If you've ever played around with someone else's glasses you know it happens fairly quickly. Because as you adjust to the new frame of reference the glasses give you, when you take them off again it is another, smaller, adjustment period to return to normal. People are exceptionally adaptive. More so than you're giving them credit for.
Would it require an adjustment? Absolutely. But daily practice of this sort of thing would get people moving around as good as native senses would.
It is the reason people can even drive cars and pilot vehicles and the like. You're using mirrors and cameras and etc to give you sightlines that aren't at all natural for you, but you incorporate them into your awareness and can maneuver things even far larger than yourself reliably using the senses of vision that these tools grant you.
I got quotes!
You're suggesting that the normal default features of the spell cannot be used until his DM homebrews him a feat to take so that he can regain access to the default abilities? What??
I got quotes!
A familiar that you are wearing/carrying, much like everything you are wearing/carrying, is considered protected when you make your saving throw.
Think about it, how many times do you roll for each individual item you are wearing/carrying or is on your person... it's usually just 1 save made by you and everything else is considered safe.
The damage from any fireball, save made or not, is enough to incinerate much if not all of what you have, including clothing... so how many times are targets left totally naked after a fireball?... What's that?... Never? WOW!
Plus, many DM's either flat out don't allow you to target specific items worn or carried, or it would be at some penalty, like disadvantage.
The main issue with trying to continually see through your familiar's senses is that it takes your action every turn. This is not well defined outside of combat, but reasonable extrapolation from the combat rules are that, pending some special ability, you can't actually do anything except move and perform basic object interactions while using your familiar's senses.