From Find Familiar text "You gain the service of a familiar, a spirit that takes an animal form". Could this spirit equally be a druid in wild shape, that through magic you have called to your service, trapped in an animal form and forced to follow your command. Leads me to think of many potential story line ideas.
PC abuses familiars killing many - causes a druid council to hunt down the group arresting them for slavery after receiving multiple witness testimonies.
Druid PC suddenly teleports away (possible good for a holiday filler quest line) team try to track down there missing friend - encounter a fellow band of adventurers with a familiar which appears to recognise the group. dispel the familiar and their druid friend returns
wizard PC casts find familiar, Druid PC disappears, leaving team puzzled. Familiar dies and the Druid reappears and starts yelling and Wizard PC after having to complete all there foolish tasks.
Or just go down the NPC story arc for the familiar. roll one that has a phobia of fire, when close to fire still will follow command as required by spell but then moves away instantly for remainder of movement, or when describing what it sees keeps focusing on the risk and fear and dilutes down the level of useful information provided. When PC learns this they could adapt how they use the familiar, building the familiar into more of a member of the party. Equally if the familiar dies there isn't any guarantee the same spirit returns so adds risk to the familiar dying as would have new issues to learn. Having an owl that you tried to use flyby tactics with only to learn it retreated from the enemy as requested but flew straight into the next enemy as the spirit has some level of bravado or perhaps they are draw to shiny objects wouldn't be idea. Or maybe the familiar spirit fears the undead, delivers touch based spell as commanded then instantly moves away from undead and gets hit with an AoO. So once they find and train a familiar that matches their plan they will want to protect them more. Could have side quest to find a way to make the summon more consistent if find the familiar is dying often in normal conditions and not from abuse.
What are peoples view on this interpretation and what other applications could people imagine
A Druid is a Druid, not a spirit. Find familiar calls a spirit. Accordingly, by the rules as written, they cannot be the spirit companion summoned by a find familiar spell. Now, a DM could homerule something different, but I would strongly suggest that is a bad idea.
Looking at each of your suggested courses of action, all of them have gameplay problems. Your first idea punishes a Wizard for using their spell. Your second and third ideas both involve taking a player out of the game - and in a way that does not give that player any agency. Your fourth idea is basically a DM saying “let me arbitrarily modify how your spell works every time you use it.” Each of those has some pretty darn obvious and significant gameplay repercussions - the kind that firmly cross the line into “DM who thinks they are clever, but is drastically making the game worse for multiple players” territory.
Obviously if your group is into one of those things and buys into it, nothing stops you from having this kind of house rule - but I am willing to bet the majority of players would be upset by everything you propose to do.
By RAW, no. Druids are not spirits. But if you’re the DM, sure, you can do it that way. Of course that would be something everyone would know that’s how familiars work. And if I were to do it, I’d make the Druid an NPC. It would be a real jerk move to tell a PC it’s basically enslaved to another PC. Even worse if it’s because of a first level spell.
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From Find Familiar text "You gain the service of a familiar, a spirit that takes an animal form". Could this spirit equally be a druid in wild shape, that through magic you have called to your service, trapped in an animal form and forced to follow your command. Leads me to think of many potential story line ideas.
PC abuses familiars killing many - causes a druid council to hunt down the group arresting them for slavery after receiving multiple witness testimonies.
Druid PC suddenly teleports away (possible good for a holiday filler quest line) team try to track down there missing friend - encounter a fellow band of adventurers with a familiar which appears to recognise the group. dispel the familiar and their druid friend returns
wizard PC casts find familiar, Druid PC disappears, leaving team puzzled. Familiar dies and the Druid reappears and starts yelling and Wizard PC after having to complete all there foolish tasks.
Or just go down the NPC story arc for the familiar. roll one that has a phobia of fire, when close to fire still will follow command as required by spell but then moves away instantly for remainder of movement, or when describing what it sees keeps focusing on the risk and fear and dilutes down the level of useful information provided. When PC learns this they could adapt how they use the familiar, building the familiar into more of a member of the party. Equally if the familiar dies there isn't any guarantee the same spirit returns so adds risk to the familiar dying as would have new issues to learn. Having an owl that you tried to use flyby tactics with only to learn it retreated from the enemy as requested but flew straight into the next enemy as the spirit has some level of bravado or perhaps they are draw to shiny objects wouldn't be idea. Or maybe the familiar spirit fears the undead, delivers touch based spell as commanded then instantly moves away from undead and gets hit with an AoO. So once they find and train a familiar that matches their plan they will want to protect them more. Could have side quest to find a way to make the summon more consistent if find the familiar is dying often in normal conditions and not from abuse.
What are peoples view on this interpretation and what other applications could people imagine
A Druid is a Druid, not a spirit. Find familiar calls a spirit. Accordingly, by the rules as written, they cannot be the spirit companion summoned by a find familiar spell. Now, a DM could homerule something different, but I would strongly suggest that is a bad idea.
Looking at each of your suggested courses of action, all of them have gameplay problems. Your first idea punishes a Wizard for using their spell. Your second and third ideas both involve taking a player out of the game - and in a way that does not give that player any agency. Your fourth idea is basically a DM saying “let me arbitrarily modify how your spell works every time you use it.” Each of those has some pretty darn obvious and significant gameplay repercussions - the kind that firmly cross the line into “DM who thinks they are clever, but is drastically making the game worse for multiple players” territory.
Obviously if your group is into one of those things and buys into it, nothing stops you from having this kind of house rule - but I am willing to bet the majority of players would be upset by everything you propose to do.
By RAW, no. Druids are not spirits. But if you’re the DM, sure, you can do it that way.
Of course that would be something everyone would know that’s how familiars work. And if I were to do it, I’d make the Druid an NPC. It would be a real jerk move to tell a PC it’s basically enslaved to another PC. Even worse if it’s because of a first level spell.