When an attack would reduce you to 0 hit points, and your familiar can perceive the attacker, your familiar can use its reaction to attempt to interpose itself.
If your familiar is close enough to reach your space using its available movement, roll a d10.
- On a 10: Your familiar dashes to your position and absorbs the attack's damage in your place. You take no damage from a single-target attack. Your familiar's hit points are immediately reduced to 0, causing it to disappear. It must be summoned again as normal using the Find Familiar spell.
- On a 1–9: Your familiar fails to interpose itself, and the attack resolves normally. Your familiar retains its position and hit points.
Restrictions: This feature cannot be used against damage or effects your familiar cannot perceive, ongoing environmental damage, ongoing status effects, or damage caused by you.
Area-of-Effect Attacks: If the familiar successfully intervenes against an area-of-effect attack, you take half the damage you would otherwise receive, rounded down, and the familiar's hit points are reduced to 0. However, if the reduced damage would still reduce you to 0 hit points, the intervention fails entirely. The reaction is expended, but the familiar retains its hit points and position.
I wouldn't make an actual rule for this, and would never use it more than once. If you think it fits the story for someone's familiar to do this at a critical point in the campaign, go for it. But players shouldn't expect this to happen, and familiars aren't meant to be a free 'protect me from death card'. Too many people abuse the rules around familiars as is, why give them anotherr way to do it.
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Playing D&D since 1982
Have played every version of the game since Basic (original Red Box Set), except that abomination sometimes called 4e.
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A Familiar's Feeling
When an attack would reduce you to 0 hit points, and your familiar can perceive the attacker, your familiar can use its reaction to attempt to interpose itself.
If your familiar is close enough to reach your space using its available movement, roll a d10.
- On a 10: Your familiar dashes to your position and absorbs the attack's damage in your place. You take no damage from a single-target attack. Your familiar's hit points are immediately reduced to 0, causing it to disappear. It must be summoned again as normal using the Find Familiar spell.
- On a 1–9: Your familiar fails to interpose itself, and the attack resolves normally. Your familiar retains its position and hit points.
Restrictions: This feature cannot be used against damage or effects your familiar cannot perceive, ongoing environmental damage, ongoing status effects, or damage caused by you.
Area-of-Effect Attacks: If the familiar successfully intervenes against an area-of-effect attack, you take half the damage you would otherwise receive, rounded down, and the familiar's hit points are reduced to 0. However, if the reduced damage would still reduce you to 0 hit points, the intervention fails entirely. The reaction is expended, but the familiar retains its hit points and position.
I wouldn't make an actual rule for this, and would never use it more than once. If you think it fits the story for someone's familiar to do this at a critical point in the campaign, go for it. But players shouldn't expect this to happen, and familiars aren't meant to be a free 'protect me from death card'. Too many people abuse the rules around familiars as is, why give them anotherr way to do it.
Playing D&D since 1982
Have played every version of the game since Basic (original Red Box Set), except that abomination sometimes called 4e.