Hey, I'm wondering if I missed something. I am playing an Arcane Trickster Rogue and took Find Familiar. What are the differences between it being a celestial, fey, or fiend creature? Also can I switch a fey out for a fiend at any point?
Other than alignment (fiends are evil, Fey neutral, and Celestials good), practically no difference that would matter to the basic find familiar spell. It’s more flavor than anything.
I think the only time it would matter is if someone has a power that affects one or the other. For example if you choose fey or fiend, and your oath of ancients paladin uses their channel divinity to turn the faithless, the familiar would need to make a save or run away.
As far as switching the type, its unclear. The spell specifically says you can change the form upon recasting (swap a cat for a bat, for example). And the familiar is a spirit in the shape of an animal. I’d say the spirit stays the same and you can’t change it. While It doesn’t say you can change a fiend for a celestial, I’d rule it implies you can’t. But it doesn’t specifically forbid it. Your DM, of course, will rule how they like, and that’s what is going to matter.
Practically speaking, there's no difference except when you encounter a spell or effect that only affects certain creature types. Nothing in the description of the Find Familiar spell says the familiar behaves differently depending on the creature type you pick, and it always obeys your commands so it's not like a good-aligned player has to worry about their fiendish familiar rebelling against them. But their conversations might be amusing :)
There are a number of spell effects that affect some or all of those different monster types differently. Also a number of Class Features for Ranger and Paladin subclasses that detect those things. Whether or not those would make a difference would be heavily dependant on your DM and the plot device(s) they intend to use.
CELESTIAL: Angelic stuff. Usually allied with fey.
FEY: Faeries such as pixies and sprites. Usually allied with celestials.
FIEND: Demons and devils and other evil stuff.
The bold is not really true. Celestials typically stay in the "Lawful Good" realm of morality (some are evil, but those are mostly constrained to non Forgotten Realms Settings) and occupy the upper planes. Fey are most often either neutral, chaotic, or both, run the gamut from good to evil, and inhabit the Feywild, an "alternate" version of the material plane. They don't often mix.
I think...and I stress 'I think' it was a design decision due to true 'spirits' come from either the fiendish (evil but lawful), fey (mostly compliant neutral/good), or celestial (good) planes. Then they are bound to a form (stat block) of an appropriate creature type as willed by the summoner. You could summon the spirit of a celestial entity and it will take on the characteristics of a fiendish form. It does not make it evil, but it has those abilities, hence a celestial imp, or fiendish pixie. These are not the variant familiars which a character makes a bargain with as a familiar. These SUMMONED spirits are magically taking on a guise of the form the summoner desires.
Mechanically it also makes them targets of generic effects which affect those creature types like the Protection from Good and Evil spell or GM created magic circles of protection, to keep those little, invisible jerks from being too sneaky. I do not think changing their type to aberrant for GOOLocks, or elemental for wizards specializing in a particular style like storm or cold would create any real ripples.
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IMHO, Earthdawn is still the best fantasy realm, Shadowrun is the best Sci-Fi realm, and Dark Sun is the best D&D realm.
The MM has language about how creature type has no mechanical significance in its own right, unless another spell/ability/feature references it. Ironically “Beast” is one of the only two creature types that might cause unintended interactions, with the other being humanoid. Other than those, I think you could give them any creature type or none, and never find a meaningful interaction.
Hey, I'm wondering if I missed something. I am playing an Arcane Trickster Rogue and took Find Familiar. What are the differences between it being a celestial, fey, or fiend creature? Also can I switch a fey out for a fiend at any point?
Other than alignment (fiends are evil, Fey neutral, and Celestials good), practically no difference that would matter to the basic find familiar spell. It’s more flavor than anything.
I think the only time it would matter is if someone has a power that affects one or the other. For example if you choose fey or fiend, and your oath of ancients paladin uses their channel divinity to turn the faithless, the familiar would need to make a save or run away.
As far as switching the type, its unclear. The spell specifically says you can change the form upon recasting (swap a cat for a bat, for example). And the familiar is a spirit in the shape of an animal. I’d say the spirit stays the same and you can’t change it. While It doesn’t say you can change a fiend for a celestial, I’d rule it implies you can’t. But it doesn’t specifically forbid it. Your DM, of course, will rule how they like, and that’s what is going to matter.
Practically speaking, there's no difference except when you encounter a spell or effect that only affects certain creature types. Nothing in the description of the Find Familiar spell says the familiar behaves differently depending on the creature type you pick, and it always obeys your commands so it's not like a good-aligned player has to worry about their fiendish familiar rebelling against them. But their conversations might be amusing :)
There are a number of spell effects that affect some or all of those different monster types differently. Also a number of Class Features for Ranger and Paladin subclasses that detect those things. Whether or not those would make a difference would be heavily dependant on your DM and the plot device(s) they intend to use.
The bold is not really true. Celestials typically stay in the "Lawful Good" realm of morality (some are evil, but those are mostly constrained to non Forgotten Realms Settings) and occupy the upper planes. Fey are most often either neutral, chaotic, or both, run the gamut from good to evil, and inhabit the Feywild, an "alternate" version of the material plane. They don't often mix.
I think...and I stress 'I think' it was a design decision due to true 'spirits' come from either the fiendish (evil but lawful), fey (mostly compliant neutral/good), or celestial (good) planes. Then they are bound to a form (stat block) of an appropriate creature type as willed by the summoner. You could summon the spirit of a celestial entity and it will take on the characteristics of a fiendish form. It does not make it evil, but it has those abilities, hence a celestial imp, or fiendish pixie. These are not the variant familiars which a character makes a bargain with as a familiar. These SUMMONED spirits are magically taking on a guise of the form the summoner desires.
Mechanically it also makes them targets of generic effects which affect those creature types like the Protection from Good and Evil spell or GM created magic circles of protection, to keep those little, invisible jerks from being too sneaky. I do not think changing their type to aberrant for GOOLocks, or elemental for wizards specializing in a particular style like storm or cold would create any real ripples.
IMHO, Earthdawn is still the best fantasy realm, Shadowrun is the best Sci-Fi realm, and Dark Sun is the best D&D realm.
The MM has language about how creature type has no mechanical significance in its own right, unless another spell/ability/feature references it. Ironically “Beast” is one of the only two creature types that might cause unintended interactions, with the other being humanoid. Other than those, I think you could give them any creature type or none, and never find a meaningful interaction.
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.