A variant of what someone has already said, but... In my most recent session, I poofed my familiar on the other side of a door to see what was on the other side. Saved me a bunch of stealth checks, that's for sure.
#8 is some hard core. As a DM I would let you do it, but man, I would house rule all familiars are terrified of you.
# 9 does not work. That is a thrown non-weapon, exceeding max range. Auto-miss. If you want to house rule against it auto-missing, expect the DM to house rule about the damage.
#10 I really like. Pretty sure it should work
If you don't care that your familiar will die, you could have it do like a peregrin falcon move.
I’m pretty new to DND but i was wondering if i could give my imp a bag of holding, dismiss him and make him reappear inside a bank or merchant shop (while being invisible) and have him rob that bank or shop? Certainly not a nice or honorable thing to do but, eh, might be fun shenanigans.
I’m pretty new to DND but i was wondering if i could give my imp a bag of holding, dismiss him and make him reappear inside a bank or merchant shop (while being invisible) and have him rob that bank or shop? Certainly not a nice or honorable thing to do but, eh, might be fun shenanigans.
Nope, sorry. The Find Familiar spell specifically states " Whenever the familiar drops to 0 hit points or disappears into the pocket dimension, it leaves behind in its space anything it was wearing or carrying." This is done more or less to shut down shenanigans like that where you use your familiar as a short-term free teleport for an object.
That said... if you just physically bring your imp into the bank the bag of holding would still be invisible in its grasp, so as long as you keep the teller distracted your imp could still rob the place a little bit, just be careful it doesn't get locked inside.
I think this has been said before but having the familiar in the rogues backpack and giving the help action every turn means infinite advantaged silent strikes. At max level that is insane amounts of damage for a small knife and a pet
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[roll]7d6[/roll]
Every post these dice roll increasing my chances of winning the yahtzee thread (I wish (wait not the twist the wish threa-!))
Use your familiar’s perspective to have a more accurate top-down map using Cartographer’s Supplies.
Order your Hawk familiar to hunt rabbits if they’re available in the locality. You now have food. Who needs Survival? (Tongue in cheek. You won’t always have rabbits).
Send a message to a faraway recipient. Your familiar doesn’t actually have to stay within 100 feet of you.
Communicate with someone else near the familiar (100 feet away). You don’t get telepathic or verbal communication. You can just arrange simple signals beforehand. You can freely order your familiar to give any pre-arranged signal, definitely.
Search underwater and in dark or dangerous areas.
Keeping watch. Your familiar doesn’t need to sleep when you do.
Carry a light. The problem with a Light spell is that it can interfere with things like Shadowmonk and Gloomstalker abilities. It’s also hecka obvious in, say, the Underdark. Or anywhere at night, really. Don’t paint a target on your back. Have the familiar carry the Lighted object. You skulk along behind. Invisibly, maybe.
Find a definitely safe spot to Dimension Door.
Curry favor with NPCs who have Ideals centered around keeping pets.
Carry away disarmed items.
Open doors that have simple one-way locks (some doors in civilized environments should have one-way locks).
Have it play dragonchess with you or any unskilled tasks suitable for a Tiny creature.
Put your familiar in the backpack of your party's rogue. Now they always have an ally within 5 feet of an enemy they are melee attacking.
Bonus points if the rogue is also a kobold with pack tactics.
This works. If you combine is with the elven accuracy feat and have your familiar use the help action, giving you triple advantage (3 dice to roll) this helps Rouges a ton because they only get 1 attack per turn, and it might as well hit, and do an absolute ton of damage.
No it does not. Help action requires the creature to be capable of making an attack, which it cannot do in the backpack.
The creature must be in reach and able to see the victim.
And as for the options which require summoning a familliar, remember that the spell costs 10 gp worth of materials and a few minutes (too lazy to check how many)
Put your familiar in the backpack of your party's rogue. Now they always have an ally within 5 feet of an enemy they are melee attacking.
Bonus points if the rogue is also a kobold with pack tactics.
This works. If you combine is with the elven accuracy feat and have your familiar use the help action, giving you triple advantage (3 dice to roll) this helps Rouges a ton because they only get 1 attack per turn, and it might as well hit, and do an absolute ton of damage.
No it does not. Help action requires the creature to be capable of making an attack, which it cannot do in the backpack.
The creature must be in reach and able to see the victim.
In that case have them half stick out of your pocket and so long as you don't have a weapon with reach or a ranged weapon most familiars can indeed use the help action. A weasel somehow has 5 ft of reach and a 10 foot goliath wielding a greatsword has the same.
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[roll]7d6[/roll]
Every post these dice roll increasing my chances of winning the yahtzee thread (I wish (wait not the twist the wish threa-!))
I love familiars and usually play chain warlocks for the versatility. That said, some of these suggestions have one issue and that is the size of the familiar. We think spider, rat, or any tiny creature cannot occupy the same square/hex as the player. It makes keeping a familiar in your pocket unusable during combat. I play a halfling (small) with a rat familiar (tiny) and I always think of him as running around under my clothes and nesting in my backpack unseen most of the time. Then combat breaks out and I have to be keenly aware that he is taking up a location that could be attacked or subjected to an area effect spell off of my person.
Talking to your DM about your plans to use familiars as constant advantage or in seemingly quirky ways needs to happen or else you will end up spending 10g and an hour to resummon them multiple times a day.
I use the pocket dimension resummon a lot to look past doors and inside containers. Just make sure you cast light on your familiar so you can get an accurate view without the constraints of darkvision. I have used it to deliver scrolls/small items on the battle field to other players as well.
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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.
2 words. Chronurgy... Wizard... At 10th level, they gain a feature called Arcane Abeyance where they can, once per short rest, store a spell of up up to 4th level in a small orb for an hour. Once this spell has been stored, requiring the wizard to 'cast' it (spell slot and ability feature consumed), any creature holding it can use its action to cast the spell within. It uses the chronurgist's spellcasting stats, but everything else considers the new creature to be the caster.
Familiars are this subclass' best friend... literally. If you plan on having a fight within the next hour, condense a strong (within previously mentioned limitations) concentration spell, hand it to your familiar, and let the combos begin. If you've ever wanted to execute a spell combo with two concentration spells, but haven't had the opportunity because you're the only caster in the party with access to these spells, you can now pull it off. For spells that buff yourself, but require concentration that can be broken upon attack, just have your familiar be the one to cast it and then get out of range of the enemies. As an example, you could have your familiar cast Polymorph on you, turning you into a tanky hunk of meat, then fly straight up. You can now contribute to the fight even if you're out of spell slots (given you prepared this ahead of time) and not risk death even if the wizard under the beast is actually at 1hp because the only way to get to that 1hp is to first drill through the hundred plus hp of your new form (or dispel magic, of course but the point is you won't lose concentration on it). It also has great use with some of the previously mentioned uses of familiars. Scouting can now become assassination or just be aided by an up to 4th level spell. Hand your familiar a spell like Wall of Fire and send them into the enemy warlords chambers while he sleeps. Let the chaos ensue. Even better, with the catnap spell you can feasibly give your familiar two saved spells for 50 minutes, one concentration and one non concentration, and it becomes its own unit of destruction in battle. This is all assuming your familiar can "hold" the item, so I typically do it with something like a hawk or owl.
Another aspect of this is the fact that you can give your whole party familiars, owls who can grant the barbarian advantage with the help action and flyby, or bats who can explore sketchy places with the rogue, maybe a squadron of hawks for the party to systematically search a given area, whatever the party requests.
One thing to note: the arcane abeyance feature says "The spell uses your spell attack bonus and save DC, andthe spell treats the creature who released it as the caster for all other purposes."
This means the familiar, not the caster, is the one concentrating on the spell. Familiars generally do not have good AC or hit points, so there's a very good chance a spell requiring concentration isn't going to last more than a round or two before the familiar is reduced to 0 hit points by intelligent foes.
2 words. Chronurgy... Wizard... At 10th level, they gain a feature called Arcane Abeyance where they can, once per short rest, store a spell of up up to 4th level in a small orb for an hour. Once this spell has been stored, requiring the wizard to 'cast' it (spell slot and ability feature consumed), any creature holding it can use its action to cast the spell within. It uses the chronurgist's spellcasting stats, but everything else considers the new creature to be the caster.
Familiars are this subclass' best friend... literally. If you plan on having a fight within the next hour, condense a strong (within previously mentioned limitations) concentration spell, hand it to your familiar, and let the combos begin. If you've ever wanted to execute a spell combo with two concentration spells, but haven't had the opportunity because you're the only caster in the party with access to these spells, you can now pull it off. For spells that buff yourself, but require concentration that can be broken upon attack, just have your familiar be the one to cast it and then get out of range of the enemies. As an example, you could have your familiar cast Polymorph on you, turning you into a tanky hunk of meat, then fly straight up. You can now contribute to the fight even if you're out of spell slots (given you prepared this ahead of time) and not risk death even if the wizard under the beast is actually at 1hp because the only way to get to that 1hp is to first drill through the hundred plus hp of your new form (or dispel magic, of course but the point is you won't lose concentration on it). It also has great use with some of the previously mentioned uses of familiars. Scouting can now become assassination or just be aided by an up to 4th level spell. Hand your familiar a spell like Wall of Fire and send them into the enemy warlords chambers while he sleeps. Let the chaos ensue. Even better, with the catnap spell you can feasibly give your familiar two saved spells for 50 minutes, one concentration and one non concentration, and it becomes its own unit of destruction in battle. This is all assuming your familiar can "hold" the item, so I typically do it with something like a hawk or owl.
Another aspect of this is the fact that you can give your whole party familiars, owls who can grant the barbarian advantage with the help action and flyby, or bats who can explore sketchy places with the rogue, maybe a squadron of hawks for the party to systematically search a given area, whatever the party requests.
One thing to note: the arcane abeyance feature says "The spell uses your spell attack bonus and save DC, andthe spell treats the creature who released it as the caster for all other purposes."
This means the familiar, not the caster, is the one concentrating on the spell. Familiars generally do not have good AC or hit points, so there's a very good chance a spell requiring concentration isn't going to last more than a round or two before the familiar is reduced to 0 hit points by intelligent foes.
It also means, you can have 2 concentration spells going at once, since one is through your familiar.
Ok that all makes sense. What about leaving him in the shop while he’s invisible and telling him to hide then returning in the morning?
That's perfectly valid. Lol just don't be surprised if your DM starts installing security guards with See Invisibility in future banks :P
Don't forget that invisibility does not mean "automatically not detected" - the familiar would still need to make a stealth check. Someone might hear the familiar... or smell it. "Moopsie, did you really have to eat beans before this heist?"
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A variant of what someone has already said, but... In my most recent session, I poofed my familiar on the other side of a door to see what was on the other side. Saved me a bunch of stealth checks, that's for sure.
If you don't care that your familiar will die, you could have it do like a peregrin falcon move.
Come check out some of my Homebrew (please give input!)
Make some trinket tables on this thread!
I wanna do that with a faerie dragon.
Come check out some of my Homebrew (please give input!)
Make some trinket tables on this thread!
I’m pretty new to DND but i was wondering if i could give my imp a bag of holding, dismiss him and make him reappear inside a bank or merchant shop (while being invisible) and have him rob that bank or shop? Certainly not a nice or honorable thing to do but, eh, might be fun shenanigans.
Nope, sorry. The Find Familiar spell specifically states " Whenever the familiar drops to 0 hit points or disappears into the pocket dimension, it leaves behind in its space anything it was wearing or carrying." This is done more or less to shut down shenanigans like that where you use your familiar as a short-term free teleport for an object.
That said... if you just physically bring your imp into the bank the bag of holding would still be invisible in its grasp, so as long as you keep the teller distracted your imp could still rob the place a little bit, just be careful it doesn't get locked inside.
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
Ok that all makes sense. What about leaving him in the shop while he’s invisible and telling him to hide then returning in the morning?
That's perfectly valid. Lol just don't be surprised if your DM starts installing security guards with See Invisibility in future banks :P
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
Ha fair enough.
I think this has been said before but having the familiar in the rogues backpack and giving the help action every turn means infinite advantaged silent strikes. At max level that is insane amounts of damage for a small knife and a pet
[roll]7d6[/roll]
Every post these dice roll increasing my chances of winning the yahtzee thread (I wish (wait not the twist the wish threa-!))
Drummer Generated Title
After having been invited to include both here, I now combine the "PM me CHEESE 🧀 and tomato into PM me "PIZZA🍕"
Use your familiar’s perspective to have a more accurate top-down map using Cartographer’s Supplies.
Order your Hawk familiar to hunt rabbits if they’re available in the locality. You now have food. Who needs Survival? (Tongue in cheek. You won’t always have rabbits).
Send a message to a faraway recipient. Your familiar doesn’t actually have to stay within 100 feet of you.
Communicate with someone else near the familiar (100 feet away). You don’t get telepathic or verbal communication. You can just arrange simple signals beforehand. You can freely order your familiar to give any pre-arranged signal, definitely.
Search underwater and in dark or dangerous areas.
Keeping watch. Your familiar doesn’t need to sleep when you do.
Carry a light. The problem with a Light spell is that it can interfere with things like Shadowmonk and Gloomstalker abilities. It’s also hecka obvious in, say, the Underdark. Or anywhere at night, really. Don’t paint a target on your back. Have the familiar carry the Lighted object. You skulk along behind. Invisibly, maybe.
Find a definitely safe spot to Dimension Door.
Curry favor with NPCs who have Ideals centered around keeping pets.
Carry away disarmed items.
Open doors that have simple one-way locks (some doors in civilized environments should have one-way locks).
Have it play dragonchess with you or any unskilled tasks suitable for a Tiny creature.
No it does not. Help action requires the creature to be capable of making an attack, which it cannot do in the backpack.
The creature must be in reach and able to see the victim.
In that case, just be a Kobold. Pack tactics is far too powerful.
DMing:
Dragons of Stormwreck Isle
Playing:
None sadly.
Optimization Guides:
Literally Too Angry to Die - A Guide to Optimizing a Barbarian
And as for the options which require summoning a familliar, remember that the spell costs 10 gp worth of materials and a few minutes (too lazy to check how many)
DMing:
Dragons of Stormwreck Isle
Playing:
None sadly.
Optimization Guides:
Literally Too Angry to Die - A Guide to Optimizing a Barbarian
In that case have them half stick out of your pocket and so long as you don't have a weapon with reach or a ranged weapon most familiars can indeed use the help action. A weasel somehow has 5 ft of reach and a 10 foot goliath wielding a greatsword has the same.
[roll]7d6[/roll]
Every post these dice roll increasing my chances of winning the yahtzee thread (I wish (wait not the twist the wish threa-!))
Drummer Generated Title
After having been invited to include both here, I now combine the "PM me CHEESE 🧀 and tomato into PM me "PIZZA🍕"
or, um, you could just be a kobold.
DMing:
Dragons of Stormwreck Isle
Playing:
None sadly.
Optimization Guides:
Literally Too Angry to Die - A Guide to Optimizing a Barbarian
I love familiars and usually play chain warlocks for the versatility. That said, some of these suggestions have one issue and that is the size of the familiar. We think spider, rat, or any tiny creature cannot occupy the same square/hex as the player. It makes keeping a familiar in your pocket unusable during combat. I play a halfling (small) with a rat familiar (tiny) and I always think of him as running around under my clothes and nesting in my backpack unseen most of the time. Then combat breaks out and I have to be keenly aware that he is taking up a location that could be attacked or subjected to an area effect spell off of my person.
Talking to your DM about your plans to use familiars as constant advantage or in seemingly quirky ways needs to happen or else you will end up spending 10g and an hour to resummon them multiple times a day.
I use the pocket dimension resummon a lot to look past doors and inside containers. Just make sure you cast light on your familiar so you can get an accurate view without the constraints of darkvision. I have used it to deliver scrolls/small items on the battle field to other players as well.
IMHO, Earthdawn is still the best fantasy realm, Shadowrun is the best Sci-Fi realm, and Dark Sun is the best D&D realm.
One thing to note: the arcane abeyance feature says "The spell uses your spell attack bonus and save DC, and the spell treats the creature who released it as the caster for all other purposes."
This means the familiar, not the caster, is the one concentrating on the spell. Familiars generally do not have good AC or hit points, so there's a very good chance a spell requiring concentration isn't going to last more than a round or two before the familiar is reduced to 0 hit points by intelligent foes.
If it's a flying or easy hiding familiar, then this can be good because then they are unlikely to be attacked.
DMing:
Dragons of Stormwreck Isle
Playing:
None sadly.
Optimization Guides:
Literally Too Angry to Die - A Guide to Optimizing a Barbarian
It also means, you can have 2 concentration spells going at once, since one is through your familiar.
Blank
Don't forget that invisibility does not mean "automatically not detected" - the familiar would still need to make a stealth check. Someone might hear the familiar... or smell it. "Moopsie, did you really have to eat beans before this heist?"