I'm playing a warlock in a Curse of Strahd campaign. And when we were entering a certain region, I decided to send my familiar, an imp, to do an aerial check. The DM described that he did a quick flyby, but came back very angry, and when I tried to calm him down, he bit me. He didn't obey me anymore that day. The other day, the DM described that he was still angry, and when I sent him to give a message to an ally, I had to do a charisma check, I rolled 20 and he went, but he continued to be angry with me and not obeying other orders (especially those related to investigation and observation). The DM didn't explain to me why he was so affected. I don't want to discuss rules with the DM, but I know the spell's description says "he always obeys his commands", and if I can't use my familiar as planned, I feel like my character gets weaker. Does anyone have an idea how I can approach this with my DM? I'm thinking of changing my pact boom (if that's possible) or even killing my character and creating another one, as I didn't want to leave the campaign.
I'd wait things out. Don't rule out the chance that your DM has something nefarious planned, and the imp has a reason for being angry that will come up at some point. It'd be lame if your familiar became permanently disobedient without you being warned, but I don't think that's a fair conclusion to jump to.
If you don't want to wait, maybe just summon a different familiar, and see how that works out. It's not like it's metagaming or anything to get rid of your familiar when they stop doing the things familiars are supposed to do.
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Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny. Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
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Do you send your familiar out to do dangerous things constantly? Do you do things to say reward your familiar when they do a good job.
This sounds like a role play opportunity not a character ending thing. Maybe something is controlling your imp? maybe its unhappy with how you treat it and has broken part of the spell.
Have you tired to talk to it?
This sounds like something I would do if a player ALWAYS sent there familiar to do dangerous things, or if the familiar gets attacked or killed. Imps are intelligent and can think for themselves so it might have done something while away if it feels its being mistreated.
Some DMs treat the world as a very living thing. And familiar are still living creatures they just have some special bonus for working with you.
This is definitely an odd situation... on the one hand, there might be a roleplay reason for this. Maybe the familiar is possessed. Maybe it was secretly replaced by a duplicate or something. But on the other hand... if you're a warlock with an imp familiar, that's your pact boon. That's a BIG part of your build. Odds are decent that you've got invocations that rely on having a familiar. If the DM is going to functionally turn off one of your primary class features, they need a damn good reason for it. At the vey least, they should allow you to make a check of some kind to figure out what's going on. An Imp is perfectly capable of just talking and explaining why it's acting the way it is. I can't imagine doing this to a player, then not giving any hint or explanation as to why it's happening.
To be fair, it's Curse of Strahd. Bad things happening and players not always knowing why is the theme.
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Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny. Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
How I'm posting based on text formatting: Mod Hat Off - Mod Hat Also Off (I'm not a mod)
To be fair, it's Curse of Strahd. Bad things happening and players not always knowing why is the theme.
That is a good point. I've been prepping a Curse of Strahd game for my friends, and one thing the game actually encourages is to have spells and such flavored differently just from the general corruption of being in Barovia. Plus Strahd himself could just kind of... pop in, charm the familiar, or even kill it, shapeshift into a familiar and start following you around instead. There's a lot of things in CoS that could explain this, but I'm still of the opinion that the DM should at least allow an Insight check or something to try and figure out what's happening.
Maybe the familiar is possessed. Maybe it was secretly replaced by a duplicate or something.
A caster, especially a Pact of the Chain warlock, should be aware if something like that happens though. If it's no longer actually your familiar, you wouldn't be able to use any of the usual features with it
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
2 - One of the things a familiar can do is warn its person. These could be warnings.
3 - The adventure you are in, it changes certain fundamental rules because of the nature of the space/setting.
4 - DMs don't typically do stuff like this for fun -- especially if they are up to date on things like the find familiar spell. But also, not all DMs hold to the idea that they are wholly servants, and given that "DMs are final" is RAW, there is a chance yours doesn't see that as a thing.
5 - It could be you are expected to ask about iit.
6 -- If you are within 100 feet of them, you should be able to see and hear what they see and hear.
7 -- I would recommend approaching your DM, letting them know that while you are enjoying the group, you feel as if this is taking your fun away and you don't understand what is happening with your familiar.
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Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities .-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-. An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more. Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
1) Familiars in previous editions of the game had free will and served the character because they wanted to or due to some sort of agreement or pact. Some DMs either forget or are unaware that "familiars" in 5e don't do this at all except for the variant familiars from the monster manual. 5e familiars created by the Find Familiar spell by either wizards or warlocks (including chain pact ones) simply summon a spirit that takes the form of the desired creature. In addition, as mentioned, the spirit always obeys the commands given to it.
Basically, an imp familiar ISN'T an imp. RAW, it is a spirit (celestial, fey or fiend) that takes the form of the desired creature. You can have a celestial spirit take the form of an imp if you like since the caster CHOOSES the type of spirit.
2) In this case, the DM is intentionally creating house rules around how the familiar works either for a narrative reason or because they either don't understand how familiars are intended to work in 5e or have intentionally changed the rules. A DM that role played an obedient but grumpy familiar is fine - the spell says nothing about attitude. A DM that has the familiar attack the character (note that familiars aren't allowed the attack action) is house ruling. Requiring charisma checks from the caster to get the familiar to do what they are supposed to do is house ruling.
The problem with house rules is that they need to be explained to the player BEFORE they come into play. If the DM plans to run familiars differently in their game then they need to let the player know since the player might not even choose to be a chain pact warlock if the DM plans to turn the character-familiar relationship into an adversarial one.
3) There are lots of reasons why the DM might be doing this as part of a narrative (having run CoS, I don't recall any specific effects that would have this sort of impact on a familiar though). Familiars are still creatures ... could they have been charmed? dominated? influenced or replaced? Can the character still dismiss their familiar at will? Can they see through its eyes? Can they tell if this is actually their familiar or did someone swap an actual imp for the spirit familiar? (they should be able to tell if there has been a swap since they can dismiss the familiar and summon them at will among other things).
This is the positive view - the DM has an interesting idea in mind in terms of the familiar and its behaviour.
The negative view is that the DM doesn't want the player using the familiar for scouting and so has added elements to it so that the familiar can refuse to scout when it is convenient for the DM. Personally, I don't like that type of confrontational approach to DMing but some DMs like to change the rules for their own convenience rather than some sort of mechanical improvement.
In this particular case, I'd probably chat to the DM privately and ask them what is going on. Is the unusual behavior of the familiar part of some sort of narrative or are they house ruling familiars for their game? Most DMs I've played with would be pretty understanding of such a question where the DM is running things in a way that isn't consistent with the rules since rules are something that should be made clear to both the DM and the players at the beginning. Certainly, if familiars are going to behave differently in this CoS campaign then that needs to be stated up front so that the player and the character can make reasonable decisions.
7 -- I would recommend approaching your DM, letting them know that while you are enjoying the group, you feel as if this is taking your fun away and you don't understand what is happening with your familiar.
Yes, I totally agree with this and this is the main point that the DM needs to be aware of in general.
If you are a DM you might have a great plan when you begin to make strange things happen in the game which directly impacts a character -- your intention is that you are building up some sort of mystery that the players will eventually solve 5 or 6 sessions later and when that happens that moment will be epic! But you need to monitor how your players are reacting. If a player gets to the point where they are disillusioned and their immersion is broken because they are just mentally fixated on their perception that the DM isn't being fair, the fun might be lost for that player and we can't afford to let that continue over multiple sessions. You might just straight up lose that player before the epic moment or they might just have a negative experience in your game. Continuing to be tight-lipped in order to maintain the mystery is no longer the priority at that point -- there needs to be some communication.
I'm thinking of changing my pact boom (if that's possible) or even killing my character and creating another one, as I didn't want to leave the campaign.
When a player is seriously considering intentionally killing off their character that is really tragic imo and is generally a failure by the DM regardless of their intentions. To me, this pretty much ruins the game. One of the most basic RP expectations is that at the very least characters should almost always be trying to stay alive. If a player thinks that their fun would actually be improved by killing their character then something has gone wrong and needs to be corrected.
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I'm playing a warlock in a Curse of Strahd campaign.
And when we were entering a certain region, I decided to send my familiar, an imp, to do an aerial check.
The DM described that he did a quick flyby, but came back very angry, and when I tried to calm him down, he bit me.
He didn't obey me anymore that day.
The other day, the DM described that he was still angry, and when I sent him to give a message to an ally, I had to do a charisma check, I rolled 20 and he went, but he continued to be angry with me and not obeying other orders (especially those related to investigation and observation).
The DM didn't explain to me why he was so affected.
I don't want to discuss rules with the DM, but I know the spell's description says "he always obeys his commands", and if I can't use my familiar as planned, I feel like my character gets weaker.
Does anyone have an idea how I can approach this with my DM?
I'm thinking of changing my pact boom (if that's possible) or even killing my character and creating another one, as I didn't want to leave the campaign.
I'd wait things out. Don't rule out the chance that your DM has something nefarious planned, and the imp has a reason for being angry that will come up at some point. It'd be lame if your familiar became permanently disobedient without you being warned, but I don't think that's a fair conclusion to jump to.
If you don't want to wait, maybe just summon a different familiar, and see how that works out. It's not like it's metagaming or anything to get rid of your familiar when they stop doing the things familiars are supposed to do.
Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny.
Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
How I'm posting based on text formatting: Mod Hat Off - Mod Hat Also Off (I'm not a mod)
Do you send your familiar out to do dangerous things constantly? Do you do things to say reward your familiar when they do a good job.
This sounds like a role play opportunity not a character ending thing. Maybe something is controlling your imp? maybe its unhappy with how you treat it and has broken part of the spell.
Have you tired to talk to it?
This sounds like something I would do if a player ALWAYS sent there familiar to do dangerous things, or if the familiar gets attacked or killed. Imps are intelligent and can think for themselves so it might have done something while away if it feels its being mistreated.
Some DMs treat the world as a very living thing. And familiar are still living creatures they just have some special bonus for working with you.
While the general rule is that a familiar always obeys your commands, a DM can always specifically rule otherwise for story reasons deemed necessary.
Now having said that, it's not something i've ever done when DMing them and would need a very unusual reason to turn one against its master this way.
This is definitely an odd situation... on the one hand, there might be a roleplay reason for this. Maybe the familiar is possessed. Maybe it was secretly replaced by a duplicate or something. But on the other hand... if you're a warlock with an imp familiar, that's your pact boon. That's a BIG part of your build. Odds are decent that you've got invocations that rely on having a familiar. If the DM is going to functionally turn off one of your primary class features, they need a damn good reason for it. At the vey least, they should allow you to make a check of some kind to figure out what's going on. An Imp is perfectly capable of just talking and explaining why it's acting the way it is. I can't imagine doing this to a player, then not giving any hint or explanation as to why it's happening.
Watch Crits for Breakfast, an adults-only RP-Heavy Roll20 Livestream at twitch.tv/afterdisbooty
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To be fair, it's Curse of Strahd. Bad things happening and players not always knowing why is the theme.
Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny.
Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
How I'm posting based on text formatting: Mod Hat Off - Mod Hat Also Off (I'm not a mod)
That is a good point. I've been prepping a Curse of Strahd game for my friends, and one thing the game actually encourages is to have spells and such flavored differently just from the general corruption of being in Barovia. Plus Strahd himself could just kind of... pop in, charm the familiar, or even kill it, shapeshift into a familiar and start following you around instead. There's a lot of things in CoS that could explain this, but I'm still of the opinion that the DM should at least allow an Insight check or something to try and figure out what's happening.
Watch Crits for Breakfast, an adults-only RP-Heavy Roll20 Livestream at twitch.tv/afterdisbooty
And now you too can play with the amazing art and assets we use in Roll20 for our campaign at Hazel's Emporium
A caster, especially a Pact of the Chain warlock, should be aware if something like that happens though. If it's no longer actually your familiar, you wouldn't be able to use any of the usual features with it
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
So, some thoughts on this.
1 - Obey is not the same as "won't bite".
2 - One of the things a familiar can do is warn its person. These could be warnings.
3 - The adventure you are in, it changes certain fundamental rules because of the nature of the space/setting.
4 - DMs don't typically do stuff like this for fun -- especially if they are up to date on things like the find familiar spell. But also, not all DMs hold to the idea that they are wholly servants, and given that "DMs are final" is RAW, there is a chance yours doesn't see that as a thing.
5 - It could be you are expected to ask about iit.
6 -- If you are within 100 feet of them, you should be able to see and hear what they see and hear.
7 -- I would recommend approaching your DM, letting them know that while you are enjoying the group, you feel as if this is taking your fun away and you don't understand what is happening with your familiar.
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities
.-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-.
An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more.
Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
A couple of additional comments ...
1) Familiars in previous editions of the game had free will and served the character because they wanted to or due to some sort of agreement or pact. Some DMs either forget or are unaware that "familiars" in 5e don't do this at all except for the variant familiars from the monster manual. 5e familiars created by the Find Familiar spell by either wizards or warlocks (including chain pact ones) simply summon a spirit that takes the form of the desired creature. In addition, as mentioned, the spirit always obeys the commands given to it.
Basically, an imp familiar ISN'T an imp. RAW, it is a spirit (celestial, fey or fiend) that takes the form of the desired creature. You can have a celestial spirit take the form of an imp if you like since the caster CHOOSES the type of spirit.
2) In this case, the DM is intentionally creating house rules around how the familiar works either for a narrative reason or because they either don't understand how familiars are intended to work in 5e or have intentionally changed the rules. A DM that role played an obedient but grumpy familiar is fine - the spell says nothing about attitude. A DM that has the familiar attack the character (note that familiars aren't allowed the attack action) is house ruling. Requiring charisma checks from the caster to get the familiar to do what they are supposed to do is house ruling.
The problem with house rules is that they need to be explained to the player BEFORE they come into play. If the DM plans to run familiars differently in their game then they need to let the player know since the player might not even choose to be a chain pact warlock if the DM plans to turn the character-familiar relationship into an adversarial one.
3) There are lots of reasons why the DM might be doing this as part of a narrative (having run CoS, I don't recall any specific effects that would have this sort of impact on a familiar though). Familiars are still creatures ... could they have been charmed? dominated? influenced or replaced? Can the character still dismiss their familiar at will? Can they see through its eyes? Can they tell if this is actually their familiar or did someone swap an actual imp for the spirit familiar? (they should be able to tell if there has been a swap since they can dismiss the familiar and summon them at will among other things).
This is the positive view - the DM has an interesting idea in mind in terms of the familiar and its behaviour.
The negative view is that the DM doesn't want the player using the familiar for scouting and so has added elements to it so that the familiar can refuse to scout when it is convenient for the DM. Personally, I don't like that type of confrontational approach to DMing but some DMs like to change the rules for their own convenience rather than some sort of mechanical improvement.
In this particular case, I'd probably chat to the DM privately and ask them what is going on. Is the unusual behavior of the familiar part of some sort of narrative or are they house ruling familiars for their game? Most DMs I've played with would be pretty understanding of such a question where the DM is running things in a way that isn't consistent with the rules since rules are something that should be made clear to both the DM and the players at the beginning. Certainly, if familiars are going to behave differently in this CoS campaign then that needs to be stated up front so that the player and the character can make reasonable decisions.
Also, as a note, imps speak common, have you tried talking to it?
Birgit | Shifter | Sorcerer | Dragonlords
Shayone | Hobgoblin | Sorcerer | Netherdeep
I'd say that Curse of Strahd has betrayal as a theme...
Yes, I totally agree with this and this is the main point that the DM needs to be aware of in general.
If you are a DM you might have a great plan when you begin to make strange things happen in the game which directly impacts a character -- your intention is that you are building up some sort of mystery that the players will eventually solve 5 or 6 sessions later and when that happens that moment will be epic! But you need to monitor how your players are reacting. If a player gets to the point where they are disillusioned and their immersion is broken because they are just mentally fixated on their perception that the DM isn't being fair, the fun might be lost for that player and we can't afford to let that continue over multiple sessions. You might just straight up lose that player before the epic moment or they might just have a negative experience in your game. Continuing to be tight-lipped in order to maintain the mystery is no longer the priority at that point -- there needs to be some communication.
For example, in the original post we have this:
When a player is seriously considering intentionally killing off their character that is really tragic imo and is generally a failure by the DM regardless of their intentions. To me, this pretty much ruins the game. One of the most basic RP expectations is that at the very least characters should almost always be trying to stay alive. If a player thinks that their fun would actually be improved by killing their character then something has gone wrong and needs to be corrected.