Casting some spells requires particular objects, specified in parentheses in the component entry. A character can use a component pouch or a spellcasting focus (found in chapter 5, “Equipment”) in place of the components specified for a spell. But if a cost is indicated for a component, a character must have that specific component before he or she can cast the spell.
If a spell states that a material component is consumed by the spell, the caster must provide this component for each casting of the spell.
A spellcaster must have a hand free to access a spell's material components — or to hold a spellcasting focus — but it can be the same hand that he or she uses to perform somatic components.
So it is either hold the components/component pouch or the focus.
* - (10 gp worth of charcoal, incense, and herbs that must be consumed by fire in a brass brazier)
The charcoal, incense, and herbs have a listed cost, so there is no question they cannot be replaced by a spell focus.
The material components must be consumed by fire, which does not have a listed cost
The consumption by fire must occur within a brass brazier, which does not have a listed cost
I'm trying to figure out where you draw the line on which parts of the listed material component the spell focus allows you to replace. Do you look at the entire material component holistically and say "There's a cost, so you have to do it as written," or do you break it down by clause? And if so, which parts do you allow the spell focus to replace? Only part 3? Or part 2 as well? Surely we can agree that part 1 cannot be replaced by a spell focus, right?
* - (10 gp worth of charcoal, incense, and herbs that must be consumed by fire in a brass brazier)
The charcoal, incense, and herbs have a listed cost, so there is no question they cannot be replaced by a spell focus.
The material components must be consumed by fire, which does not have a listed cost
The consumption by fire must occur within a brass brazier, which does not have a listed cost
I'm trying to figure out where you draw the line on which parts of the listed material component the spell focus allows you to replace. Do you look at the entire material component holistically and say "There's a cost, so you have to do it as written," or do you break it down by clause? And if so, which parts do you allow the spell focus to replace? Only part 3? Or part 2 as well? Surely we can agree that part 1 cannot be replaced by a spell focus, right?
You are correct in part 1; the components that have a cost cannot be replaced by the spell focus. How I rule it in my games, in your breakdown is part 2/3 is replaced by the spell focus.
* - (10 gp worth of charcoal, incense, and herbs that must be consumed by fire in a brass brazier)
The charcoal, incense, and herbs have a listed cost, so there is no question they cannot be replaced by a spell focus.
The material components must be consumed by fire, which does not have a listed cost
The consumption by fire must occur within a brass brazier, which does not have a listed cost
I'm trying to figure out where you draw the line on which parts of the listed material component the spell focus allows you to replace. Do you look at the entire material component holistically and say "There's a cost, so you have to do it as written," or do you break it down by clause? And if so, which parts do you allow the spell focus to replace? Only part 3? Or part 2 as well? Surely we can agree that part 1 cannot be replaced by a spell focus, right?
Find Familiar takes an hour to cast, so the material component is one that could realistically take that long (or at least, not instant). Also, this is not the only spell that describes an action in the material components (a lot of summoning and circle spells do as well), but here is my take:
Part 1 is definitely going to need to be supplied. as you said, this is clear
Part 2 is an action, so I would consider this information on how the Somatic component is performed (at least in part). Since you can do somatic with the same hand as a focus, I would say a focus could cause the same action (so you wave the focus over the herbs/incense and they begin to smolder and burn magically). I would argue magical burning is default here, as no materials or actions to light the fire are included in the material description.
Part 3 is a material without cost, so I would rule the focus could supply this requirement.
So I would rule the following ways to cast the spell "valid"
You perform the exact actions, with the listed components, over one hour (put incense in bowl, begin somatic and verbal components, incense begins to burn in the bowl as you go)
You pile the incense up, begin verbal while holding focus over the incense, it begins to smolder as you continue verbal, eventually being consumed. You probably leave a scorch mark on whatever you piled the incense on, but whatever, you have your familiar)
I only skimmed through the thread so my apologies if this has already been mentioned, but do keep in mind that 10 GP worth of incense, charcoal, and herbs is a lot. An absolutely ridiculous amount, in fact. It wouldn't be super heavy, but it would take up a considerable amount of space; carting that (or multiple times that, if you're thinking about having to summon your familiar multiple times) around dungeons and stuff with you would be very awkward.
True, but unless you're in a city like Waterdeep or something you're not going to have access to those kinds of expensive materials.
I only mention this because it can be a good out for a DM that finds the Find Familiar spell annoying. If you only have access to the typical DnD village, then 10 gold worth of the incense and herbs that they have available will be a tonne, and that's if the store(s) even have that much available.
It could very well mean having to spend a few days out wandering fields and forests searching for a buttload of herbs.
True, but unless you're in a city like Waterdeep or something you're not going to have access to those kinds of expensive materials.
I only mention this because it can be a good out for a DM that finds the Find Familiar spell annoying. If you only have access to the typical DnD village, then 10 gold worth of the incense and herbs that they have available will be a tonne, and that's if the store(s) even have that much available.
It could very well mean having to spend a few days out wandering fields and forests searching for a buttload of herbs.
Yep. That is why when the party is at a larger settlement to do their grocery shopping during downtime so they don’t run into lack of supplies to be purchased elsewhere. Of course, if the party has a ranger it might be a little easier to find these specific components out in the wild than maybe others.
Even in our world, owls, snakes, and hawks eat bats. In a magical world full of mythical creatures and monsters, there are probably even more night predators than in our world that a bat might fall prey to; larger bats, night-hawks and any manner of predatory night birds, bored sentries looking for target practice, and so on.
Page 183 of the Players Handbook, under Vision and Light says:
1) A *heavily obscured area* -- such as darkness, opaque fog, or dense foliage -- blocks vision entirely. A creature effectively suffers the blinded condition (see appendix A) when trying to see something in that area. 2) *Darkness* creates a heavily obscured area. Characters face darkness outdoors at night (even most moonlit nights)... 3) A creature with *blindsight* can perceive it's surroundings without relying on sight, within a specific radius
(From Appendix D of the Players Handbook, page 304, under Bat):
1) Bats only have an Intelligence of 2, worse than a cat or a dog. So, if you telepathically command them to do something as simple as "fetch", a bat familiar might not be smart enough to understand what you want -- remember, just to "fetch" is a skill dogs need to be *taught*. 2) Bats only have blindsight within 60 feet. If they're more than 60 feet away from something, they can't see it. If they're flying less than 60 feet up, they're well within bowshot range of bored sentries, throwing range of paranoid members of the thieves and/or assassin's guild, and/or hungry owls swooping down from high trees or towers. 3) Given the nature of their blindsight (echolocation) and how we know it works in our world, as a GM, I'd rule that bat familiars see the same way -- they get detailed shape and position information about objects and creatures within range, but no colour details. That means that even if you look through your bats alien senses (and can wrap your mind around the alien perspective without any issue), you still can't read signs or symbols that are painted rather than carved, can't identify city watchmen by the colours they wear or the emblems painted on their shields, can't sense difference between elves and drow, nor gain all those other useful colour related cues that you might normally use to learn about an area during a scouting mission.
1 gp is, roughly, approximately, $100 by today's standards (a bit iffy depending, but close enough).
Therefore you'd be buying around $1,000 worth of burning incense.
I couldn't even accomplish that in my nearest city, let alone my town and certainly not any of the surrounding villages.
So, if you wanted to make it harder to buy it to reduce familiar-spammage, then you'd be entirely justified.
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Sure because you're going to happen to find that in local shops in your everyday town. In the medieval/esque setting of D&D.
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In a medieval/esque setting, I'd expect almost any incense to be that expensive. Modern conveniences are a hell of a thing, people used to kill each other over salt and pepper :p
In a medieval/esque setting, I'd expect almost any incense to be that expensive. Modern conveniences are a hell of a thing, people used to kill each other over salt and pepper :p
And being rare enough to be that expensive, it's not likely to be found in small towns. Really, it's unlikely to be found in any town that doesn't have at least one permanent wizard resident or a major trade route going through it.
Look, D&D isn't a realistic simulation of anything, medieval economics included. "Incense costing 10 gp" is entirely ambiguous as to whether that means that incense has some sort of "true" (PHB?) value, regardless of what one pays for it ("you buy incense worth 10 gp for 100 gp from this crooked smalltown peddler!"), or whether 10 gp of incense is whatever incense you get handed by the small town clerk when you hand him 10 gp, or what value (if any) a fragrant piece of wood that you find in the forest has if it's never been processed or sold...
It all comes down to the DM. Is there incense for sale in the village? Y/N. If Y, "10 gp of incense" probably isn't a mountain of the stuff, because a Priest's Pack (19 gp, [24 lbs? according to dndbeyond with no source]) includes "two blocks" of incense, and costs 19 gp:
Backpack, 2 gp, 5 lbs
Blanket, .5 gp, 3 lbs
10 Candles, .1 gp, 0 lbs
Tinderbox, .5 gp, 1 lb
Alms Box (~Pouch?), .5 gp?, 1 lb?
"two blocks of incense", ___ gp, ___ lbs
censer, (~Lamp?), .5 gp?, 1 lb?
Vestments (~Costume Clothes?), 5 gp?, 4 lbs?
2 rations, 1 gp, 4 lbs
Waterskin, .2 gp, 5 lbs
= 10.3 gp on other stuff, "two blocks" of incense for about 8.7 gold? Assuming that the Priest's Pack is offering some sort of bundled discount, I think that the "two blocks" of incense probably represents 10 gp of incense! DnDBeyond gives the blocks of incense a weight of 0 lbs, probably because it doesn't have any basis for speculating....
So there you go. Persuasive evidence that incense is 5 gp per "block," and weighs 0 lbs per "block."
Whats the point of asking what you can do to nerf an unintelligent creature with less hp than a level 1 wizard, that isn't useful beyond 100ft? If you're annoyed just punish the player by killing it off everytime they use it. Eventually the player will either stop using find familiar, they'll pick a new character, or they'll leave your group. From then on if anyone wants to make a warlock or a wizard mention to them that you dont allow find familiar in your games.
Owls have Int 2. They're not even as smart as a dog. They've got 120' darkvision, so they only see in black and white at night. They've got Keen Sight, which just means that they're no longer at Disadvantage for trying to see in the dark using darkvision.
Enemies hiding behind those trees? You send in the owl: I'll send in the assassin, the ranger, and the stealthy barbarian. The owl can get shot down with a single arrow; the real scouts will live on to report on the enemy position; or to eliminate them silently.
Need a high-altitude view of how the town is laid out? Too bad! Owls can only see 120' feet in the dark, and they're only awake at night, so you'd better get cracking on that re-summoning ritual: if you wanted something with the eyes of a hawk, you should have summoned a hawk familiar! Of course, hawks have their own predators, and get shot down when they get too close to farmers who own chickens, and so on.
Need to know if an orc army is marching five miles to the East? Ask the local military commander: you live in a world with MAGIC, and even in our world, no army of any size could get anywhere near five miles reach of a place without being spotted WEEKS in advance! Messenger birds in THIS world can travel 1 000 km in a single day!
If the owl goes out of telepathy range, the Gnome can speak with an animal with a 2 intelligence and a brain designed for detecting mice and other small rodents. You know those dogs who can't figure out where the ball "disappeared" when you pretended to throw it, but didn't? The owl familiar is stupider than that; and you've probably used up all of it's intelligence just by remembering how to find the way back to you when you're out of telepathic range.
Familiars aren't all-powerful scrying machines; they have benefits and drawbacks. If you only focus on the benefits and ignore the drawbacks, then you might have problems with game balance.
And even if they were scrying machines -- so what?
You still won't have a problem unless you don't properly reflect the existence of the power within the game world. If Owl familiars were really that great, everyone would have them, or something like them. Towns would employ families of Gnomes to raise rookeries of Watch-Owls to scry over the town at night, and to report on (or even attack), other watch-birds encroaching on the area. Your Owl familiar might well run into the enemy Bat familiar and kill each other. The Orc army could have trained night-drakes designed to scry down on the surrounding countryside, and find scounting parties of adventurers and their familiar companions.
Player characters are as powerful within a given game world as you want them to be; and the actual powers that they have are relatively independent of that. Regardless of the super-powers you give him, Superman is going to be much more powerful in a game world set on a planet like Earth than he would be in a game world set on a planet like Krypton. The "power-level" of a game is not just about the powers the PCs have; it's about the powers everyone else has, and their motivations and abilities to apply those powers for or against the PCs that really determine how important the PCs are within the game world.
I think you have mistaken my point: I never mentioned sending assassins against familiars. I suggested that assassins and other stealthy party members are better scouts than a mere familiar.. That implies that the familiar (and by extension, the player who controls him) isn't just stealing the show at the expense of the rest of the party; they can and do have roles to play and contributions to make.
you can decide that there are families of gnomes available on demand to use familiars en masse
The Players Handbook implies that there are families of forest gnomes within the game world. Whether or not some of those forest gnomes are willing to use their Speak With Animals abilities to enlist the help of animal scouts to help defend a given area depends very much on the game world, and the gnomes' motivation to do so. If animal spies (familiar or otherwise) are a significant threat to the gnomes, their homes, or people they care about, then they'll be more strongly motivated to try to prevent those spies from gaining an advantage against them.
But none of these are creative story telling.
Creative story telling happens independently of the game rules; specific game rules at best provide a better or worse framework to encourage such stories. The relative power of the PCs to the world around them doesn't dictate whether or not an interesting story can be told; it just shapes the nature of the threats and obstacles that they will struggle to overcome as a part of their story.
You can set a story with a super-hero on Earth, or on Krypton: the setting will impact the nature of the story you tell, but it certainly won't determine whether or not the story is interesting, creative, or enjoyable. That's up the the author (the DM) to figure out, by taking her audience (the players) into acount.
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As far as it's been told as long as the item does not have a component cost AND your class allows focuses you can use it as a replacement.
So do you place the charcoal, incense, and herbs on top of your spell focus and burn it there in lieu of a brazier?
"Not all those who wander are lost"
From the PHB
So it is either hold the components/component pouch or the focus.
Let's break this down.
* - (10 gp worth of charcoal, incense, and herbs that must be consumed by fire in a brass brazier)
I'm trying to figure out where you draw the line on which parts of the listed material component the spell focus allows you to replace. Do you look at the entire material component holistically and say "There's a cost, so you have to do it as written," or do you break it down by clause? And if so, which parts do you allow the spell focus to replace? Only part 3? Or part 2 as well? Surely we can agree that part 1 cannot be replaced by a spell focus, right?
"Not all those who wander are lost"
You are correct in part 1; the components that have a cost cannot be replaced by the spell focus. How I rule it in my games, in your breakdown is part 2/3 is replaced by the spell focus.
Find Familiar takes an hour to cast, so the material component is one that could realistically take that long (or at least, not instant). Also, this is not the only spell that describes an action in the material components (a lot of summoning and circle spells do as well), but here is my take:
Part 1 is definitely going to need to be supplied. as you said, this is clear
Part 2 is an action, so I would consider this information on how the Somatic component is performed (at least in part). Since you can do somatic with the same hand as a focus, I would say a focus could cause the same action (so you wave the focus over the herbs/incense and they begin to smolder and burn magically). I would argue magical burning is default here, as no materials or actions to light the fire are included in the material description.
Part 3 is a material without cost, so I would rule the focus could supply this requirement.
So I would rule the following ways to cast the spell "valid"
I only skimmed through the thread so my apologies if this has already been mentioned, but do keep in mind that 10 GP worth of incense, charcoal, and herbs is a lot. An absolutely ridiculous amount, in fact. It wouldn't be super heavy, but it would take up a considerable amount of space; carting that (or multiple times that, if you're thinking about having to summon your familiar multiple times) around dungeons and stuff with you would be very awkward.
True, but unless you're in a city like Waterdeep or something you're not going to have access to those kinds of expensive materials.
I only mention this because it can be a good out for a DM that finds the Find Familiar spell annoying. If you only have access to the typical DnD village, then 10 gold worth of the incense and herbs that they have available will be a tonne, and that's if the store(s) even have that much available.
It could very well mean having to spend a few days out wandering fields and forests searching for a buttload of herbs.
Yep. That is why when the party is at a larger settlement to do their grocery shopping during downtime so they don’t run into lack of supplies to be purchased elsewhere. Of course, if the party has a ranger it might be a little easier to find these specific components out in the wild than maybe others.
Even in our world, owls, snakes, and hawks eat bats. In a magical world full of mythical creatures and monsters, there are probably even more night predators than in our world that a bat might fall prey to; larger bats, night-hawks and any manner of predatory night birds, bored sentries looking for target practice, and so on.
Page 183 of the Players Handbook, under Vision and Light says:
1) A *heavily obscured area* -- such as darkness, opaque fog, or dense foliage -- blocks vision entirely. A creature effectively suffers the blinded condition (see appendix A) when trying to see something in that area.
2) *Darkness* creates a heavily obscured area. Characters face darkness outdoors at night (even most moonlit nights)...
3) A creature with *blindsight* can perceive it's surroundings without relying on sight, within a specific radius
(From Appendix D of the Players Handbook, page 304, under Bat):
1) Bats only have an Intelligence of 2, worse than a cat or a dog. So, if you telepathically command them to do something as simple as "fetch", a bat familiar might not be smart enough to understand what you want -- remember, just to "fetch" is a skill dogs need to be *taught*.
2) Bats only have blindsight within 60 feet. If they're more than 60 feet away from something, they can't see it. If they're flying less than 60 feet up, they're well within bowshot range of bored sentries, throwing range of paranoid members of the thieves and/or assassin's guild, and/or hungry owls swooping down from high trees or towers.
3) Given the nature of their blindsight (echolocation) and how we know it works in our world, as a GM, I'd rule that bat familiars see the same way -- they get detailed shape and position information about objects and creatures within range, but no colour details. That means that even if you look through your bats alien senses (and can wrap your mind around the alien perspective without any issue), you still can't read signs or symbols that are painted rather than carved, can't identify city watchmen by the colours they wear or the emblems painted on their shields, can't sense difference between elves and drow, nor gain all those other useful colour related cues that you might normally use to learn about an area during a scouting mission.
1 gp is, roughly, approximately, $100 by today's standards (a bit iffy depending, but close enough).
Therefore you'd be buying around $1,000 worth of burning incense.
I couldn't even accomplish that in my nearest city, let alone my town and certainly not any of the surrounding villages.
So, if you wanted to make it harder to buy it to reduce familiar-spammage, then you'd be entirely justified.
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Kyara Incense
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
Sure because you're going to happen to find that in local shops in your everyday town. In the medieval/esque setting of D&D.
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In a medieval/esque setting, I'd expect almost any incense to be that expensive. Modern conveniences are a hell of a thing, people used to kill each other over salt and pepper :p
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
And being rare enough to be that expensive, it's not likely to be found in small towns. Really, it's unlikely to be found in any town that doesn't have at least one permanent wizard resident or a major trade route going through it.
Look, D&D isn't a realistic simulation of anything, medieval economics included. "Incense costing 10 gp" is entirely ambiguous as to whether that means that incense has some sort of "true" (PHB?) value, regardless of what one pays for it ("you buy incense worth 10 gp for 100 gp from this crooked smalltown peddler!"), or whether 10 gp of incense is whatever incense you get handed by the small town clerk when you hand him 10 gp, or what value (if any) a fragrant piece of wood that you find in the forest has if it's never been processed or sold...
It all comes down to the DM. Is there incense for sale in the village? Y/N. If Y, "10 gp of incense" probably isn't a mountain of the stuff, because a Priest's Pack (19 gp, [24 lbs? according to dndbeyond with no source]) includes "two blocks" of incense, and costs 19 gp:
= 10.3 gp on other stuff, "two blocks" of incense for about 8.7 gold? Assuming that the Priest's Pack is offering some sort of bundled discount, I think that the "two blocks" of incense probably represents 10 gp of incense! DnDBeyond gives the blocks of incense a weight of 0 lbs, probably because it doesn't have any basis for speculating....
So there you go. Persuasive evidence that incense is 5 gp per "block," and weighs 0 lbs per "block."
dndbeyond.com forum tags
I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
Whats the point of asking what you can do to nerf an unintelligent creature with less hp than a level 1 wizard, that isn't useful beyond 100ft? If you're annoyed just punish the player by killing it off everytime they use it. Eventually the player will either stop using find familiar, they'll pick a new character, or they'll leave your group. From then on if anyone wants to make a warlock or a wizard mention to them that you dont allow find familiar in your games.
Owls have Int 2. They're not even as smart as a dog. They've got 120' darkvision, so they only see in black and white at night. They've got Keen Sight, which just means that they're no longer at Disadvantage for trying to see in the dark using darkvision.
Enemies hiding behind those trees? You send in the owl: I'll send in the assassin, the ranger, and the stealthy barbarian. The owl can get shot down with a single arrow; the real scouts will live on to report on the enemy position; or to eliminate them silently.
Need a high-altitude view of how the town is laid out? Too bad! Owls can only see 120' feet in the dark, and they're only awake at night, so you'd better get cracking on that re-summoning ritual: if you wanted something with the eyes of a hawk, you should have summoned a hawk familiar! Of course, hawks have their own predators, and get shot down when they get too close to farmers who own chickens, and so on.
Need to know if an orc army is marching five miles to the East? Ask the local military commander: you live in a world with MAGIC, and even in our world, no army of any size could get anywhere near five miles reach of a place without being spotted WEEKS in advance! Messenger birds in THIS world can travel 1 000 km in a single day!
If the owl goes out of telepathy range, the Gnome can speak with an animal with a 2 intelligence and a brain designed for detecting mice and other small rodents. You know those dogs who can't figure out where the ball "disappeared" when you pretended to throw it, but didn't? The owl familiar is stupider than that; and you've probably used up all of it's intelligence just by remembering how to find the way back to you when you're out of telepathic range.
Familiars aren't all-powerful scrying machines; they have benefits and drawbacks. If you only focus on the benefits and ignore the drawbacks, then you might have problems with game balance.
And even if they were scrying machines -- so what?
You still won't have a problem unless you don't properly reflect the existence of the power within the game world. If Owl familiars were really that great, everyone would have them, or something like them. Towns would employ families of Gnomes to raise rookeries of Watch-Owls to scry over the town at night, and to report on (or even attack), other watch-birds encroaching on the area. Your Owl familiar might well run into the enemy Bat familiar and kill each other. The Orc army could have trained night-drakes designed to scry down on the surrounding countryside, and find scounting parties of adventurers and their familiar companions.
Player characters are as powerful within a given game world as you want them to be; and the actual powers that they have are relatively independent of that. Regardless of the super-powers you give him, Superman is going to be much more powerful in a game world set on a planet like Earth than he would be in a game world set on a planet like Krypton. The "power-level" of a game is not just about the powers the PCs have; it's about the powers everyone else has, and their motivations and abilities to apply those powers for or against the PCs that really determine how important the PCs are within the game world.
Lol it’s no problem to nullify an owl if I want to be an adversarial DM.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
you can decide that there are families of gnomes available on demand to use familiars en masse
The Players Handbook implies that there are families of forest gnomes within the game world. Whether or not some of those forest gnomes are willing to use their Speak With Animals abilities to enlist the help of animal scouts to help defend a given area depends very much on the game world, and the gnomes' motivation to do so. If animal spies (familiar or otherwise) are a significant threat to the gnomes, their homes, or people they care about, then they'll be more strongly motivated to try to prevent those spies from gaining an advantage against them.
But none of these are creative story telling.
Creative story telling happens independently of the game rules; specific game rules at best provide a better or worse framework to encourage such stories. The relative power of the PCs to the world around them doesn't dictate whether or not an interesting story can be told; it just shapes the nature of the threats and obstacles that they will struggle to overcome as a part of their story.
You can set a story with a super-hero on Earth, or on Krypton: the setting will impact the nature of the story you tell, but it certainly won't determine whether or not the story is interesting, creative, or enjoyable. That's up the the author (the DM) to figure out, by taking her audience (the players) into acount.