Okay, lets assume that you are correct, where would you draw the line? Lets have an example;
Wizard spends a few years making multiple rings of spell storing, maybe uses a wish or whatever. He casts find familiar, and gives familiar 1 a ring. Familiar 1 spends an hour attuning to it and casts the stored find familiar spell to summon familiar 2. Wizard gives familiar 2 a ring, who then attunes to it and uses the ring to cast find familiar, getting familiar 3. The wizard gives familiar 3 a ring and hey presto, familiar 4....... a few months later..... Familiar 1,000,000 has finished attuning to a ring and summons familiar 1,000,001.
Do you not see how silly this situation is? That if you let a familiar do it once then there is literally no reason to say no when the player asks to do it again, and again, and again...
You either say no at the beginning, or you end up with an unhappy player, or a very happy player with a flock of magical ravens that are massively abuseable - even purely for scouting, 10 such familiars would extend the range that the wizard can see through their eyes from 100 feet to a 1000 feet. It's late and I am tired, but by my maths 53 familiars could allow the wizard to scout out a full mile.
Imagine a wizard effectively having 10 owl familliars, all using flyby to attack an enemy, or use aid other as an action to give everybody in the party advantage on attack rolls every round? That's just a couple of uses where this would cause the game to break very quickly. A familiar having it's own familiar has never been a thing, and I have been playing since the original gold and red books. There is a reason for that...
Okay, lets assume that you are correct, where would you draw the line? Lets have an example;
Wizard spends a few years making multiple rings of spell storing, maybe uses a wish or whatever. He casts find familiar, and gives familiar 1 a ring. Familiar 1 spends an hour attuning to it and casts the stored find familiar spell to summon familiar 2. Wizard gives familiar 2 a ring, who then attunes to it and uses the ring to cast find familiar, getting familiar 3. The wizard gives familiar 3 a ring and hey presto, familiar 4....... a few months later..... Familiar 1,000,000 has finished attuning to a ring and summons familiar 1,000,001.
Do you not see how silly this situation is? That if you let a familiar do it once then there is literally no reason to say no when the player asks to do it again, and again, and again...
You either say no at the beginning, or you end up with an unhappy player, or a very happy player with a flock of magical ravens that are massively abuseable - even purely for scouting, 10 such familiars would extend the range that the wizard can see through their eyes from 100 feet to a 1000 feet. It's late and I am tired, but by my maths 53 familiars could allow the wizard to scout out a full mile.
Imagine a wizard effectively having 10 owl familliars, all using flyby to attack an enemy, or use aid other as an action to give everybody in the party advantage on attack rolls every round? That's just a couple of uses where this would cause the game to break very quickly. A familiar having it's own familiar has never been a thing, and I have been playing since the original gold and red books. There is a reason for that...
That could be pretty ridiculous, but that's also a bit of a slippery slope. You could go the same direction and say what's to stop the wizard from giving out rings and giving everyone in the party or nearby town familiars? Besides, it cost 10gp worth of materials to cast/store the spell and those materials could be limited to be very difficult to find, also no one is infinitely rich, so there's lots of ways around it.
You didn't answer my question though. You are the one saying it is possible, so where would you draw the line? How many would you allow before you say no?
You didn't answer my question though. You are the one saying it is possible, so where would you draw the line? How many would you allow before you say no?
If it bothered me as the DM that much I would create a limited supply of the ingredients. Or I'd just ask the player, "Hey, how far are you wanting to take this?" and work with them outside of the game. Besides I'm pretty sure it would break down at some point, the other familiars would belong to the wizard, they'd be familiars of familiars and thus would not respond to the wizards commands, they'd have to command their familiar to command their familiar and so on. Which wouldn't be practical. So regardless there are limitations
You didn't answer my question though. You are the one saying it is possible, so where would you draw the line? How many would you allow before you say no?
If it bothered me as the DM that much I would create a limited supply of the ingredients. Or I'd just ask the player, "Hey, how far are you wanting to take this?" and work with them outside of the game. Besides I'm pretty sure it would break down at some point, the other familiars would belong to the wizard, they'd be familiars of familiars and thus would not respond to the wizards commands, they'd have to command their familiar to command their familiar and so on. Which wouldn't be practical. So regardless there are limitations
And kill just one of the 1 HP familiars in the long chain of command, and you end up with a new "top dog" running their own chain instead of being at the whim of anybody else ;-)
I'm curious how a familiar, with no extra intellect or understanding beyond that of a trained animal would be able to impart any commands at all to their familiars. Let alone convey any commands given by the wizard.
Even if allowed - it's not going to actually do anything beneficial at all.
I'm curious how a familiar, with no extra intellect or understanding beyond that of a trained animal would be able to impart any commands at all to their familiars. Let alone convey any commands given by the wizard.
Even if allowed - it's not going to actually do anything beneficial at all.
That was kind of my point on how it can be self-limiting. If nothing else it'd be like a game of telephone and potentially more work than it's worth for the player to have that happen too many times. I'd imagine the familiar's familiar would just be more like their friend than anything else.
You are literally the one who necro'd this thread to say that we were underestimating the intelligence of animals and that there were no reason for it not to be possible. Now you are trying to convince the people that have been saying no to this from the beginning why you wouldn't allow it. Have you simply changed your mind but don't know how to tell us?
You are literally the one who necro'd this thread to say that we were underestimating the intelligence of animals and that there were no reason for it not to be possible. Now you are trying to convince the people that have been saying no to this from the beginning why you wouldn't allow it. Have you simply changed your mind but don't know how to tell us?
I'm simply going over options for how to allow the animals to attune to the items but still limit the possibilities if it really bothered the person. Like I said before, if one of my players wanted to do this and give their familiar a familiar I'd allow it. But if the idea bothered me I'd limit the ingredients or if the player went too ridiculous to where there were too many familiars (which I doubt anyone would) I'd remind them that they would just command their familiar to command it's own familiar and so on, the player also couldn't see through the senses of all the familiars, just theirs. There is also a point where a series of commands could be limited as it could 1) be ridiculously time-consuming for the player, or 2) possibly get lost in translation with too many individuals commanding their familiars to command their familiars (think the telephone game).
Side note: I apologize if I've gotten on anyone's nerves about this. At the beginning, I did also say it was up to the discretion of the DM if that can happen. I've enjoyed this as a bit of a friendly debate and thought exercise, but I also am not good at reading tones in real life let alone on a message board.
The ring would still need to have been attuned to and worn on a finger which the raven could not do. Attunement is a specific process that requires at a minimum 1 hour of meditation while manipulating the object. Again the raven would not be capable of doing that.
I feel this nitpicking something that doesn't exist. Magic Items function as normal when their attunement and activation requirements are met. A player could attune to ring of spell storing by wearing it on a necklace. And you could have your familiar do the same. The only time you need to wear, hold, or say anything to activate a magic item's effects is if the magic item requires you to so. Such as the Hat of Wizardry, All-Purpose Tools, or a Wand of the War Mage. That state you need to be wielding, wearing, or using the item. Additionally magic items will adjust to the size of the user. A Giants magical armor would resize itself if attuned to by creature smaller than the giant. I know this is like a year late, but damn did your comment feel just nitpicky and uninspired. In a game that encourages thinking outside the bounds of RAW.
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Okay, lets assume that you are correct, where would you draw the line? Lets have an example;
Wizard spends a few years making multiple rings of spell storing, maybe uses a wish or whatever. He casts find familiar, and gives familiar 1 a ring. Familiar 1 spends an hour attuning to it and casts the stored find familiar spell to summon familiar 2. Wizard gives familiar 2 a ring, who then attunes to it and uses the ring to cast find familiar, getting familiar 3. The wizard gives familiar 3 a ring and hey presto, familiar 4....... a few months later..... Familiar 1,000,000 has finished attuning to a ring and summons familiar 1,000,001.
Do you not see how silly this situation is? That if you let a familiar do it once then there is literally no reason to say no when the player asks to do it again, and again, and again...
You either say no at the beginning, or you end up with an unhappy player, or a very happy player with a flock of magical ravens that are massively abuseable - even purely for scouting, 10 such familiars would extend the range that the wizard can see through their eyes from 100 feet to a 1000 feet. It's late and I am tired, but by my maths 53 familiars could allow the wizard to scout out a full mile.
Imagine a wizard effectively having 10 owl familliars, all using flyby to attack an enemy, or use aid other as an action to give everybody in the party advantage on attack rolls every round? That's just a couple of uses where this would cause the game to break very quickly. A familiar having it's own familiar has never been a thing, and I have been playing since the original gold and red books. There is a reason for that...
That could be pretty ridiculous, but that's also a bit of a slippery slope. You could go the same direction and say what's to stop the wizard from giving out rings and giving everyone in the party or nearby town familiars? Besides, it cost 10gp worth of materials to cast/store the spell and those materials could be limited to be very difficult to find, also no one is infinitely rich, so there's lots of ways around it.
You didn't answer my question though. You are the one saying it is possible, so where would you draw the line? How many would you allow before you say no?
If it bothered me as the DM that much I would create a limited supply of the ingredients. Or I'd just ask the player, "Hey, how far are you wanting to take this?" and work with them outside of the game. Besides I'm pretty sure it would break down at some point, the other familiars would belong to the wizard, they'd be familiars of familiars and thus would not respond to the wizards commands, they'd have to command their familiar to command their familiar and so on. Which wouldn't be practical. So regardless there are limitations
And kill just one of the 1 HP familiars in the long chain of command, and you end up with a new "top dog" running their own chain instead of being at the whim of anybody else ;-)
I'm curious how a familiar, with no extra intellect or understanding beyond that of a trained animal would be able to impart any commands at all to their familiars. Let alone convey any commands given by the wizard.
Even if allowed - it's not going to actually do anything beneficial at all.
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That was kind of my point on how it can be self-limiting. If nothing else it'd be like a game of telephone and potentially more work than it's worth for the player to have that happen too many times. I'd imagine the familiar's familiar would just be more like their friend than anything else.
You are literally the one who necro'd this thread to say that we were underestimating the intelligence of animals and that there were no reason for it not to be possible. Now you are trying to convince the people that have been saying no to this from the beginning why you wouldn't allow it. Have you simply changed your mind but don't know how to tell us?
I'm simply going over options for how to allow the animals to attune to the items but still limit the possibilities if it really bothered the person. Like I said before, if one of my players wanted to do this and give their familiar a familiar I'd allow it. But if the idea bothered me I'd limit the ingredients or if the player went too ridiculous to where there were too many familiars (which I doubt anyone would) I'd remind them that they would just command their familiar to command it's own familiar and so on, the player also couldn't see through the senses of all the familiars, just theirs. There is also a point where a series of commands could be limited as it could 1) be ridiculously time-consuming for the player, or 2) possibly get lost in translation with too many individuals commanding their familiars to command their familiars (think the telephone game).
Side note: I apologize if I've gotten on anyone's nerves about this. At the beginning, I did also say it was up to the discretion of the DM if that can happen. I've enjoyed this as a bit of a friendly debate and thought exercise, but I also am not good at reading tones in real life let alone on a message board.
I feel this nitpicking something that doesn't exist. Magic Items function as normal when their attunement and activation requirements are met. A player could attune to ring of spell storing by wearing it on a necklace. And you could have your familiar do the same. The only time you need to wear, hold, or say anything to activate a magic item's effects is if the magic item requires you to so. Such as the Hat of Wizardry, All-Purpose Tools, or a Wand of the War Mage. That state you need to be wielding, wearing, or using the item. Additionally magic items will adjust to the size of the user. A Giants magical armor would resize itself if attuned to by creature smaller than the giant. I know this is like a year late, but damn did your comment feel just nitpicky and uninspired. In a game that encourages thinking outside the bounds of RAW.