You did not ask the most important question: How do I kill off Familiars until my players stop using them?
They are the bane of any game, as they totally destroy any kind of surprise in an outdoor environment, and in many dungeons as well.
Well, we'll see how true that is, as two of my players have just gotten Familiars.
I'm OK with it, actually. I tried to fiddle around before this with ways of preventing the variety of spoiler-inducing spells from inducing spoilers and I've finally just decided I'm not going to bother. If they want to use familiars to destroy every surprise around every corner from now until level 20, that's their call. I will not do anything to stop that itself, although I am sure some smarter NPCs will have devised ways they will attempt to stop them.
However, these players after using Sending and Speak with Dead and Zone of Truth and familiars and all the rest of it to avoid any possible mystery, surprise or suspense in the game, had better not complain that my adventures were too "predictable" or some nonsense.
For most of the folks I have played with, one of their goals is to make things as safe as possible. They know that fights can go badly either due to luck or bad planning so they search for every little advantage. If that means using familiars to scout and try to avoid ambushes then more power to them. The players usually feel successful by thwarting a possible ambush - far better than they feel when caught in such an ambush. So, honestly from a player perspective, none of these methods of acquiring information in game are bad. They are all good. :)
What's more, if the DM feels that these information sources are bad and "wrecking their game" then I think the DM needs to think a bit about what the events in their game are, how the players fit in and why the players having more information would be a problem. The game is not intended to be adversarial between the DM and the players - it may be adversarial between specific NPCs and PCs but the DM needs to really remain neutral in the conflict.
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Anyway, most familiars have just 1 hp - the warlock chain pact ones excepted. This means that there are a lot of natural risks that will cause familiars to die all the time. I had one player scouting an underground dungeon with their familiar when it flew into a room - the player had a glimpse of a lizard before they lost contact with the familiar. There are all sorts of natural predators that eat familiars. Bird familiars outdoors - especially ones being directly operated by players - are particularly vulnerable. The player usually has a goal of getting a good view of something which often means flying out of the trees where other predatory birds like hawks can see them. A hawk or falcon can drop at speeds up to 120-150 mph - that is ~200' in a combat round. So the question isn't IF a familiar being used for scouting will die - it is WHEN.
The DM should point out to the owner of the familiar that these natural hazards exist and that natural creatures behave in such a way as to mitigate them but owls flying during the day, bats in a cave when most bats would be sleeping, a rat or snake running purposefully along corridors instead of just hanging out are all likely at risk of being spotted for acting unnaturally or being spotted by another predator because they just aren't being cautious enough.
Familiars can be a challenge but they give you a lot of opportunity too. Just remember if it's not a homedepot then a bird flying around inside is going to be extremely noticeable , especially if it's a big ass nocturnal owl, in the middle of the day.
-I find myself using the fact there is a birds eye view available to the group as a way of giving the party knowledge I want them to have. -Allowing the enemy to know there is someone scouting them. Owl in the day time, (and its almost always going to be an owl) owl inside, owl over a city, acting in a very deliberate, very non-owl like way. Any of this can be enough to tip off the enemy, especially if they take a shot at it and the wizard recalls it. -Players having information allows them to strategize, which is a good thing.
My problem with it is: -That it can take the scout role away from a rogue or other player that invested into stealth. -That 1 player can monopolize time using it to scout.
Don't punish players for using their abilities, find ways of working around it or using it. -Just set the expectation of the players to not assume that having a familiar is going to be an uncontested way to scout anything at any time. -You can do things like describing how the enemies notice the big ass bird inside the dungeon, how one guard elbows the other and points out the random bird flying around and tell your players that the guards in that area are now doing active perception checks rather then using their passive (you don't actually have to do anything different). -It's usually going to be a big ass bird, and something like that flying through anyplace where it doesn't belong is going to be massively conspicuous. -Get creative, maybe allow psychic damage or spells like charm to effect the wizard if they are looking though it senses -When all else fails, just use doors even invisible creatures cant get past it without opening it.
I hope this is the correct place to post this. But does anyone know if it is canon or part of the rules that the only familiers allowed in the Descent to Avernus campaign must be imps? Or that once you get to Avernus that whatever familier you had if forced to become an imp? I have never heard of this and was wondering if I skipped a bit of the lore or if this is my DM house rule.
Descent into Avernus does list a number of (optional) alterations to magic that are mostly cosmetic, and changing familiars into an impish form is one of them; whether this is meant to be literal or purely cosmetic is a tiny bit unclear, but I'd say your DM is adhering to the options presented in the adventure.
As an FYI, a number of adventures such as Descent into Avernus and Curse of Strahd do have alterations to magic, so while it's uncommon it's not entirely unusual.
For most of the folks I have played with, one of their goals is to make things as safe as possible. They know that fights can go badly either due to luck or bad planning so they search for every little advantage. If that means using familiars to scout and try to avoid ambushes then more power to them. The players usually feel successful by thwarting a possible ambush - far better than they feel when caught in such an ambush. So, honestly from a player perspective, none of these methods of acquiring information in game are bad. They are all good. :)
What's more, if the DM feels that these information sources are bad and "wrecking their game" then I think the DM needs to think a bit about what the events in their game are, how the players fit in and why the players having more information would be a problem. The game is not intended to be adversarial between the DM and the players - it may be adversarial between specific NPCs and PCs but the DM needs to really remain neutral in the conflict.
---
Anyway, most familiars have just 1 hp - the warlock chain pact ones excepted. This means that there are a lot of natural risks that will cause familiars to die all the time. I had one player scouting an underground dungeon with their familiar when it flew into a room - the player had a glimpse of a lizard before they lost contact with the familiar. There are all sorts of natural predators that eat familiars. Bird familiars outdoors - especially ones being directly operated by players - are particularly vulnerable. The player usually has a goal of getting a good view of something which often means flying out of the trees where other predatory birds like hawks can see them. A hawk or falcon can drop at speeds up to 120-150 mph - that is ~200' in a combat round. So the question isn't IF a familiar being used for scouting will die - it is WHEN.
The DM should point out to the owner of the familiar that these natural hazards exist and that natural creatures behave in such a way as to mitigate them but owls flying during the day, bats in a cave when most bats would be sleeping, a rat or snake running purposefully along corridors instead of just hanging out are all likely at risk of being spotted for acting unnaturally or being spotted by another predator because they just aren't being cautious enough.
Familiars can be a challenge but they give you a lot of opportunity too.
Just remember if it's not a homedepot then a bird flying around inside is going to be extremely noticeable , especially if it's a big ass nocturnal owl, in the middle of the day.
-I find myself using the fact there is a birds eye view available to the group as a way of giving the party knowledge I want them to have.
-Allowing the enemy to know there is someone scouting them. Owl in the day time, (and its almost always going to be an owl) owl inside, owl over a city, acting in a very deliberate, very non-owl like way. Any of this can be enough to tip off the enemy, especially if they take a shot at it and the wizard recalls it.
-Players having information allows them to strategize, which is a good thing.
My problem with it is:
-That it can take the scout role away from a rogue or other player that invested into stealth.
-That 1 player can monopolize time using it to scout.
Don't punish players for using their abilities, find ways of working around it or using it.
-Just set the expectation of the players to not assume that having a familiar is going to be an uncontested way to scout anything at any time.
-You can do things like describing how the enemies notice the big ass bird inside the dungeon, how one guard elbows the other and points out the random bird flying around and tell your players that the guards in that area are now doing active perception checks rather then using their passive (you don't actually have to do anything different).
-It's usually going to be a big ass bird, and something like that flying through anyplace where it doesn't belong is going to be massively conspicuous.
-Get creative, maybe allow psychic damage or spells like charm to effect the wizard if they are looking though it senses
-When all else fails, just use doors even invisible creatures cant get past it without opening it.
I hope this is the correct place to post this. But does anyone know if it is canon or part of the rules that the only familiers allowed in the Descent to Avernus campaign must be imps? Or that once you get to Avernus that whatever familier you had if forced to become an imp? I have never heard of this and was wondering if I skipped a bit of the lore or if this is my DM house rule.
Descent into Avernus does list a number of (optional) alterations to magic that are mostly cosmetic, and changing familiars into an impish form is one of them; whether this is meant to be literal or purely cosmetic is a tiny bit unclear, but I'd say your DM is adhering to the options presented in the adventure.
As an FYI, a number of adventures such as Descent into Avernus and Curse of Strahd do have alterations to magic, so while it's uncommon it's not entirely unusual.
Okay, thank you. He seems to be truly changing them. We are only given the stats of imps. But alas as DM that is his prerogative.