My character was an Eldritch Knight that multi-classed into Cleric before eventually getting reworked as a Paladin (with an RP vow moment), I picked Magic Initiate as one of my feats in order to keep my Familiar which has been a RP staple of my character. What I am wondering is, not that I have access to Find Steed, would it be broken for my Steed to also be my Familiar?
My Familiar is mostly in the form of a Hawk, though she has Studded Leather Barding and carries equipment in small specially made bags. I was thinking that a combined set of rules would look something like the following:
The familiar/steed has the statistics of the chosen form, though it is a celestial, fey, or fiend (your choice) instead of its normal type. Additionally, if your steed has an Intelligence of 5 or less, its Intelligence becomes 6, and it gains the ability to understand one language of your choice that you speak.
In combat an instinctive bond allows you to fight as a seamless unit. When rolling initiative you may choose if your familiar/steed acts independently, if so it rolls its own initiative and acts on its own turn. If you choose to have your familiar/steed act on the same turn as you, it can't attack, but can take other actions as normal.
While mounted, you can make any spell you cast that targets only you also target your steed.
When the familiar/steed drops to 0 hit points, it disappears, leaving behind no physical form. Casting Find Steed again summons the same familiar/steed, restored to its hit point maximum.
While your familiar/steed is within 1 mile of you, you can communicate with each other telepathically. Additionally, as an action, you can see through your familiar’s eyes and hear what it hears until the start of your next turn, gaining the benefits of any special senses that the familiar has. During this time, you are deaf and blind with regard to your own senses.
As an action, you can temporarily dismiss your familiar/steed. It disappears into a pocket dimension where it awaits your summons. Alternatively, you can dismiss it forever. As an action while it is temporarily dismissed, you can cause it to reappear in any unoccupied space within 30 feet of you.
Finally, when you cast a spell with a range of touch, and your familiar/steed is acting independently, it can deliver the spell as if it had cast the spell. Your familiar/steed must be within 100 feet of you, and it must use its reaction to deliver the spell when you cast it. If the spell requires an attack roll, you use your attack modifier for the roll.
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D&D, Youth Work and the Priesthood sadly do not typically interact... I do what I can!
This overall seems pretty balanced and definitely not game breaking. The one thing that makes this stronger than either the normal familiar or steed spells is the ability to essentially ride a familiar and have a winged steed before the appropriate level (13 for a Paladin). It is a really cool idea overall and I might allow it at my table and Im pretty sure my current DM would it allow in his. I think you would have to make a compromise on what familiar steed(s) you would summon. Like I might lean towards saying you can only have your Hawk familiar steed as opposed to the option to summoning other steeds or familiars so your DM can keep this spell from getting out of hand.
I really like the thematic of your hawk turning into a giant hawk for you to ride.
Thanks! Yeah, I will avoid the flying mount options until Find Greater Steed anyway. I was thinking that mostly I would either be using Hawk or Axe Beak (which is basically a Chocobo, and fits with the Find Steed column).
I'd have her transform between the two either as an action (and a 1st/2nd level spell slot?), or 1 hour and 10g, I think I'd present that to the DM and see what they think. Obviously all of this is up to the DM, but I wanted to discuss balance and viability before I brought it to them.
In either form there are benefits gained from both spells - increased intelligence, distance, ability to attack and two way telepathy for Familiar and the ability to pop in and out of a pocket dimension and deliver touch spells for the steed. But I'd have all those things anyway with a Steed and a Familiar but there would be a whole new NPC rather than the ongoing relationship evolving.
I would really have a problem with a flying mount that early, but as your avoiding those, that much is ok. Still, I see a lot of problems. How do you summon it when it dies? a level 1 wizard spell that costs 10 gp (and you can’t use for anything else), or a level 2 pally spell with no cost (but you could use for smiting, so there’s an opportunity cost in smiting vs casting)?
You can cast touch spells through a familiar but not a steed. You can share spells with a steed but not a familiar. Familiar has a 100 foot telepathy, steed has 1 mile. You can perceive through the familiar, not the steed. The steed is way smarter. familiar is small or smaller, steed is large (or maybe medium if you’re a small creature). Familiars can go in and out of a demiplane, Pokémon style, with just an action. mounts can be dismissed, but you need to re cast the spell to bring them back. A familiar can’t attack, a steed can. To me, they have too many differences for one creature to work as both.
Plus, having both is crazy cool. Riding a warhorse (or whatever) with a hawk perched on your shoulder, screams adventurer. You could be having conversations with both of them. You can send the hawk to scout, and while you’re looking through it’s eyes, your horse is smart enough to walk for you. When you go into a dungeon, dismiss the horse because it’s no good indoors, but you still have your familiar.
Yeah, I agree Xalthu that it would be cool to have both and there is a lot you can do with them being separate that you wouldn't be able to do with them being the same entity. However, my familiar has been with my character for a year (real time) and is a major part of lots of story beats for my character, whilst also being a part of my backstory. It would feel wrong to then summon a different celestial as a steed and be able to properly communicate with them but still not my familiar (which is part of my character's long term goals).
If it could work I'd like to combine them, else (with DM permission) I'd prefer to drop Find Familiar and move my Familiar over to Find Steed.
You can cast touch spells through a familiar but not a steed. You can share spells with a steed but not a familiar. Familiar has a 100 foot telepathy, steed has 1 mile. You can perceive through the familiar, not the steed. The steed is way smarter. familiar is small or smaller, steed is large (or maybe medium if you’re a small creature). Familiars can go in and out of a demiplane, Pokémon style, with just an action. mounts can be dismissed, but you need to re cast the spell to bring them back. A familiar can’t attack, a steed can. To me, they have too many differences for one creature to work as both.
Touch Spells is something, but as I have no attacking ones of these I don't see that being an issue. You can only share spells whilst mounted, so this one actually solves itself.
Yeah that is a big difference in telepathy range, I'd want the full mile, as part of the compromise... but I'd settle for just the 100ft
The steed being smarter is part of the whole point
I don't get what you are saying the the small and large sizes - find Familiar has a mechanic for transforming the creature - I'd just do that between small and large for if I wanted a mount of a scout.
The Familiar being able to go into a demi-plane and the Steed being able to be dismissed and brought back are very similar abilities.
But at the end of the day why would you want the Familiar to attack when 'Help' is so much better. I'd probably only attack with her when she is large anyway... and even then...
If you were a DM and a player come to you asking for this, how would you approach it?
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D&D, Youth Work and the Priesthood sadly do not typically interact... I do what I can!
For small and large, I mean mechanically. A mount has to be a size category larger so you can ride it, so assuming you’re PC is a medium creature, you steed needs to be large. A familiar is usually tiny, smaller than small.
The familiar demiplane is very different from the steed. If things get dicey, you can pop the familiar in and out of the plane with just an action. If you dismiss the steed, you need to cast the spell again to bring it back.
Help is usually better, and your mount can’t attack while you are on it anyway (assuming you are controlling the mount) but the steed still gets reactions, so it can make OAs if someone tries to go away from you.
I guess, if I were trying to make it work, maybe I’d say you need to cast the spell to shift it from one to the other (if it’s a steed right now, cast find familiar to make it the familiar, and vice versa). That at least imposes a cost that will make you really consider which you want at any given time, and you can’t abuse it by changing it on a whim. Then just give it the full suite of abilities that form would have by RAW. Keeps it simpler tracking what you can and can’t do. If it dies, whichever spell you use to revive it is what it comes back as. The steed is bigger, maybe a better expression of the celestial’s true form, so that’s why it’s smarter.
Personally, Im not sure what the problem is with being able to communicate with with one and not the other (of course, I don’t have to understand, it’s your character 😄) They are different creatures. Maybe seeing this celestial horse talk to you will make the familiar get jealous and up it’s game.
I brought all that was said here to my DM and in the end they just wanted to transfer the Celestial Spirit from Find Familiar over to Find Steed and let me learn a different 1st level spell for Magic Initiate.
My character was an Eldritch Knight that multi-classed into Cleric before eventually getting reworked as a Paladin (with an RP vow moment), I picked Magic Initiate as one of my feats in order to keep my Familiar which has been a RP staple of my character. What I am wondering is, not that I have access to Find Steed, would it be broken for my Steed to also be my Familiar?
My Familiar is mostly in the form of a Hawk, though she has Studded Leather Barding and carries equipment in small specially made bags. I was thinking that a combined set of rules would look something like the following:
This overall seems pretty balanced and definitely not game breaking. The one thing that makes this stronger than either the normal familiar or steed spells is the ability to essentially ride a familiar and have a winged steed before the appropriate level (13 for a Paladin). It is a really cool idea overall and I might allow it at my table and Im pretty sure my current DM would it allow in his. I think you would have to make a compromise on what familiar steed(s) you would summon. Like I might lean towards saying you can only have your Hawk familiar steed as opposed to the option to summoning other steeds or familiars so your DM can keep this spell from getting out of hand.
I really like the thematic of your hawk turning into a giant hawk for you to ride.
Thanks! Yeah, I will avoid the flying mount options until Find Greater Steed anyway. I was thinking that mostly I would either be using Hawk or Axe Beak (which is basically a Chocobo, and fits with the Find Steed column).
I'd have her transform between the two either as an action (and a 1st/2nd level spell slot?), or 1 hour and 10g, I think I'd present that to the DM and see what they think. Obviously all of this is up to the DM, but I wanted to discuss balance and viability before I brought it to them.
In either form there are benefits gained from both spells - increased intelligence, distance, ability to attack and two way telepathy for Familiar and the ability to pop in and out of a pocket dimension and deliver touch spells for the steed. But I'd have all those things anyway with a Steed and a Familiar but there would be a whole new NPC rather than the ongoing relationship evolving.
I would really have a problem with a flying mount that early, but as your avoiding those, that much is ok. Still, I see a lot of problems.
How do you summon it when it dies? a level 1 wizard spell that costs 10 gp (and you can’t use for anything else), or a level 2 pally spell with no cost (but you could use for smiting, so there’s an opportunity cost in smiting vs casting)?
You can cast touch spells through a familiar but not a steed. You can share spells with a steed but not a familiar.
Familiar has a 100 foot telepathy, steed has 1 mile.
You can perceive through the familiar, not the steed.
The steed is way smarter.
familiar is small or smaller, steed is large (or maybe medium if you’re a small creature).
Familiars can go in and out of a demiplane, Pokémon style, with just an action. mounts can be dismissed, but you need to re cast the spell to bring them back.
A familiar can’t attack, a steed can.
To me, they have too many differences for one creature to work as both.
Plus, having both is crazy cool. Riding a warhorse (or whatever) with a hawk perched on your shoulder, screams adventurer. You could be having conversations with both of them. You can send the hawk to scout, and while you’re looking through it’s eyes, your horse is smart enough to walk for you. When you go into a dungeon, dismiss the horse because it’s no good indoors, but you still have your familiar.
Yeah, I agree Xalthu that it would be cool to have both and there is a lot you can do with them being separate that you wouldn't be able to do with them being the same entity. However, my familiar has been with my character for a year (real time) and is a major part of lots of story beats for my character, whilst also being a part of my backstory. It would feel wrong to then summon a different celestial as a steed and be able to properly communicate with them but still not my familiar (which is part of my character's long term goals).
If it could work I'd like to combine them, else (with DM permission) I'd prefer to drop Find Familiar and move my Familiar over to Find Steed.
If you were a DM and a player come to you asking for this, how would you approach it?
For small and large, I mean mechanically. A mount has to be a size category larger so you can ride it, so assuming you’re PC is a medium creature, you steed needs to be large. A familiar is usually tiny, smaller than small.
The familiar demiplane is very different from the steed. If things get dicey, you can pop the familiar in and out of the plane with just an action. If you dismiss the steed, you need to cast the spell again to bring it back.
Help is usually better, and your mount can’t attack while you are on it anyway (assuming you are controlling the mount) but the steed still gets reactions, so it can make OAs if someone tries to go away from you.
I guess, if I were trying to make it work, maybe I’d say you need to cast the spell to shift it from one to the other (if it’s a steed right now, cast find familiar to make it the familiar, and vice versa). That at least imposes a cost that will make you really consider which you want at any given time, and you can’t abuse it by changing it on a whim. Then just give it the full suite of abilities that form would have by RAW. Keeps it simpler tracking what you can and can’t do. If it dies, whichever spell you use to revive it is what it comes back as. The steed is bigger, maybe a better expression of the celestial’s true form, so that’s why it’s smarter.
Personally, Im not sure what the problem is with being able to communicate with with one and not the other (of course, I don’t have to understand, it’s your character 😄) They are different creatures. Maybe seeing this celestial horse talk to you will make the familiar get jealous and up it’s game.
I brought all that was said here to my DM and in the end they just wanted to transfer the Celestial Spirit from Find Familiar over to Find Steed and let me learn a different 1st level spell for Magic Initiate.