I have a question that I couldn't find a consensus on for the newer rules. My character is an arcane trickster rogue with a bat familiar. I like using fog cloud because it's essentially the ninja smoke bomb of DnD. Now where it gets tricky and I want to keep myself honest is attacking targets well I'm in the fog cloud or attacking targets outside the fog cloud from within the fog cloud. Used to be that you would expend an action to utilize your familiars sight and it seemed that all was well to use a bat senses to detect a target in a fog cloud since it negated being blinded by the heavily obscured cloud. The trade off was you could see into the cloud or out from the cloud using the familiar but couldn't really attack because you used your action to see.
Now with the change in 2024 it's only a bonus action to use my (bat) familiar's sight. SO technically could I bonus action and use it's sense to have it either sit on my should or hover above like a drone and hit targets with advantage, since they would be at a disadvantage and I would technically be hitting as if I had the blind fighting trait at advantage? Or could I shoot an arrow from within the cloud at target outside and gain advantage, since I can "see" them and they can't see me.
I don't want to cheese the system, but would like the handle this situation correctly. I kind of see maybe an extra step of a perception check or something to balance it out, if I pass I get advantage if I fail I don't for the round? Obviously there are factors like I'm not seeing from "my" perspective, so hitting something could be a little warped, like trying to spear a fish underwater the perspective is slightly off. But I'm not completely blind using my familiars senses, they just are not "perfect". Just wondering if anyone has dealt with this in 2024 and how they handled it?
I know I'm going to use this tactic a few times, I'm a rogue and I don't fight fair. But I don't want to piss my DM off and do it all the time or just make my familiar into a bat mask and I'm just wading through people in the cloud with perfect perception. So I'm wondering how to balance to make everyone feel that it was handled appropriately?
I'd say you can attack using your familiar's senses, but at disadvantage no matter what the situation... even if you were not in a fog cloud. But you would, at least, be able to target the space and the target in the bat situation wouldn't be able to hide.
I think it should work, since you gain 60-foot Blindsight through your bat familiar, and Blindsight says:
If you have Blindsight, you can see within a specific range without relying on physical sight. Within that range, you can see anything that isn’t behind Total Cover even if you have the Blinded condition or are in Darkness. Moreover, in that range, you can see something that has the Invisible condition.
I think it should work, since you gain 60-foot Blindsight through your bat familiar, and Blindsight says:
Well.... You don't gain Blindsight, you can use the familiars Blindsight while looking through its eyes. But of course that means that you are watching yourself from an outside position and it is not a sure thing that a DM would allow you to attack as normal in such a situation.
I think it should work, since you gain 60-foot Blindsight through your bat familiar, and Blindsight says:
Well.... You don't gain Blindsight, you can use the familiars Blindsight while looking through its eyes. But of course that means that you are watching yourself from an outside position and it is not a sure thing that a DM would allow you to attack as normal in such a situation.
True, "gain" is not the best word, sorry. I meant that in practice, you have Blindsight.
But still, I think it's a clever use of your familiar senses.
As a Bonus Action, your Rogue can see through his Bat familiar’s eyes and hear what it hears until the start of your next turn, gaining the benefits of its Blindsight special senses, meaning you can see within 60 feet of it without relying on physical sight, even if you have theBlinded condition while trying to see something in a Heavily Obscured space made by Fog Cloud. Since you can see a target, i see no reason to have Disadvantage to attack and if your target can't see you, i see no reason to not have Advantage to attack.
Thanks, I think this is some interesting takes on the situation.
I think ultimately I'm going to run it past the DM and get his official ruling. As I told him before, as an Arcane Trickster I'm going to push the limits because I lack spell damage and have to rely solely on being very creative during encounters. It's a challenge for me to think on my feet, but I'm thrown out some doozeies and he's been cool so far. I'm really fresh still and this is my first time playing arcane trickster, so it's been a lot of fun.
Now I have some validation if I throw this out the next session.
Thanks, I think this is some interesting takes on the situation.
I think ultimately I'm going to run it past the DM and get his official ruling. As I told him before, as an Arcane Trickster I'm going to push the limits because I lack spell damage and have to rely solely on being very creative during encounters. It's a challenge for me to think on my feet, but I'm thrown out some doozeies and he's been cool so far. I'm really fresh still and this is my first time playing arcane trickster, so it's been a lot of fun.
Now I have some validation if I throw this out the next session.
This is the most correct answer. Because in the end, if your dm and/or table over rule it, it’s all fodder.
Yeah its up to your DM. As a DM, my ruling would be yes but it has to be perched on your head or something so the perspective it is seeing from is basically yours.
I would call it as a washed attack...aka no disadvantage or advantage. Assuming you practice (KEY--PRACTICE) the technique of seeing yourself move and act from the bats perspective you don't get disadvantage but since you are not using your eyes and viewing from a bat on the shoulder/wall view it would not get advantage. I'd say if the bat was in movement/flying it would be disadvantage. I think of it like a doctor using a scanner to performing internal surgery while looking at a screen.
I would call it as a washed attack...aka no disadvantage or advantage. Assuming you practice (KEY--PRACTICE) the technique of seeing yourself move and act from the bats perspective you don't get disadvantage but since you are not using your eyes and viewing from a bat on the shoulder/wall view it would not get advantage. I'd say if the bat was in movement/flying it would be disadvantage. I think of it like a doctor using a scanner to performing internal surgery while looking at a screen.
I'd say this is my take as well, for what little that's worth. If I was GMing this I would suggest that you could just go on with this situation or take a Feat at level 8+ gives 1 ASI and allows this to just work so you could have advantage as normal provided the Bat is sitting on your shoulder (or in some way is flavored as in your space). If the Bat is away from you, the feat would restrict you to at-best a normal roll, and if some other effect is giving you disadvantage, you have disadvantage.
Essentially modeling the long adventuring using this technique, and giving it a real mechanical cost of giving up a feat.
Just a thought but what about enemies get disadvantage, you would get advantage BUT because they are not YOUR eyes you don’t get to add your proficiency to it?
I think TarodNet is actually spot on. The spell description clearly says, "gaining the benefits of any special senses it has". A bat has Blindsight for 60 feet therefore you have Blindsight for 60 feet "until the start of your next turn".
Obviously the DM can make whatever decision they want but I think this forum is about trying to discern the rules as they are written. Otherwise the answer to any question here is just "whatever your DM says".
I think TarodNet is actually spot on. The spell description clearly says, "gaining the benefits of any special senses it has". A bat has Blindsight for 60 feet therefore you have Blindsight for 60 feet "until the start of your next turn".
Obviously the DM can make whatever decision they want but I think this forum is about trying to discern the rules as they are written. Otherwise the answer to any question here is just "whatever your DM says".
Thank you very much, mate :)
To be fair, Plaguescarred explained better than me in reply #7.
Yeah you get its senses as you look through its eyes/ears. So you would see the room or whatever with blindsight from its perspective. Lets say you are wearing some VR goggles that are sending you a feed from a security camera on a wall 50 feet away at a 45 degree angle from you. How accurately do you think you could shoot like that, heck how well would you walk. The rules don't cover this, all we know is you can see out of the bats eyes. What that means for you, no one knows. it is a judgement call.
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I have a question that I couldn't find a consensus on for the newer rules. My character is an arcane trickster rogue with a bat familiar. I like using fog cloud because it's essentially the ninja smoke bomb of DnD. Now where it gets tricky and I want to keep myself honest is attacking targets well I'm in the fog cloud or attacking targets outside the fog cloud from within the fog cloud. Used to be that you would expend an action to utilize your familiars sight and it seemed that all was well to use a bat senses to detect a target in a fog cloud since it negated being blinded by the heavily obscured cloud. The trade off was you could see into the cloud or out from the cloud using the familiar but couldn't really attack because you used your action to see.
Now with the change in 2024 it's only a bonus action to use my (bat) familiar's sight. SO technically could I bonus action and use it's sense to have it either sit on my should or hover above like a drone and hit targets with advantage, since they would be at a disadvantage and I would technically be hitting as if I had the blind fighting trait at advantage? Or could I shoot an arrow from within the cloud at target outside and gain advantage, since I can "see" them and they can't see me.
I don't want to cheese the system, but would like the handle this situation correctly. I kind of see maybe an extra step of a perception check or something to balance it out, if I pass I get advantage if I fail I don't for the round? Obviously there are factors like I'm not seeing from "my" perspective, so hitting something could be a little warped, like trying to spear a fish underwater the perspective is slightly off. But I'm not completely blind using my familiars senses, they just are not "perfect". Just wondering if anyone has dealt with this in 2024 and how they handled it?
I know I'm going to use this tactic a few times, I'm a rogue and I don't fight fair. But I don't want to piss my DM off and do it all the time or just make my familiar into a bat mask and I'm just wading through people in the cloud with perfect perception. So I'm wondering how to balance to make everyone feel that it was handled appropriately?
I'd say you can attack using your familiar's senses, but at disadvantage no matter what the situation... even if you were not in a fog cloud. But you would, at least, be able to target the space and the target in the bat situation wouldn't be able to hide.
I think it should work, since you gain 60-foot Blindsight through your bat familiar, and Blindsight says:
Well.... You don't gain Blindsight, you can use the familiars Blindsight while looking through its eyes. But of course that means that you are watching yourself from an outside position and it is not a sure thing that a DM would allow you to attack as normal in such a situation.
True, "gain" is not the best word, sorry. I meant that in practice, you have Blindsight.
But still, I think it's a clever use of your familiar senses.
EDIT: I recalled a thread I created a while ago: Warlock: Awakened Mind using your Familiar - Rules & Game Mechanics
EDIT2: for clarity.
As a Bonus Action, your Rogue can see through his Bat familiar’s eyes and hear what it hears until the start of your next turn, gaining the benefits of its Blindsight special senses, meaning you can see within 60 feet of it without relying on physical sight, even if you have the Blinded condition while trying to see something in a Heavily Obscured space made by Fog Cloud. Since you can see a target, i see no reason to have Disadvantage to attack and if your target can't see you, i see no reason to not have Advantage to attack.
Thanks, I think this is some interesting takes on the situation.
I think ultimately I'm going to run it past the DM and get his official ruling. As I told him before, as an Arcane Trickster I'm going to push the limits because I lack spell damage and have to rely solely on being very creative during encounters. It's a challenge for me to think on my feet, but I'm thrown out some doozeies and he's been cool so far. I'm really fresh still and this is my first time playing arcane trickster, so it's been a lot of fun.
Now I have some validation if I throw this out the next session.
This is the most correct answer. Because in the end, if your dm and/or table over rule it, it’s all fodder.
Yeah its up to your DM. As a DM, my ruling would be yes but it has to be perched on your head or something so the perspective it is seeing from is basically yours.
I would call it as a washed attack...aka no disadvantage or advantage. Assuming you practice (KEY--PRACTICE) the technique of seeing yourself move and act from the bats perspective you don't get disadvantage but since you are not using your eyes and viewing from a bat on the shoulder/wall view it would not get advantage. I'd say if the bat was in movement/flying it would be disadvantage. I think of it like a doctor using a scanner to performing internal surgery while looking at a screen.
I'd say this is my take as well, for what little that's worth. If I was GMing this I would suggest that you could just go on with this situation or take a Feat at level 8+ gives 1 ASI and allows this to just work so you could have advantage as normal provided the Bat is sitting on your shoulder (or in some way is flavored as in your space). If the Bat is away from you, the feat would restrict you to at-best a normal roll, and if some other effect is giving you disadvantage, you have disadvantage.
Essentially modeling the long adventuring using this technique, and giving it a real mechanical cost of giving up a feat.
As a DM I would allow you to perceive through the bat’s senses if it was sitting on your head and you were attacking with melee.
You might make the case that the bat familiar could hang on to the underside of a cross bow and act as a sight.
This would be the most creative use of the bat familiar I’ve seen, and I am a fan.
I made a thread about blindfighting + fog over in the Tips forum and I did not even think of the bat familiar option.
Super cool.
Just a thought but what about enemies get disadvantage, you would get advantage BUT because they are not YOUR eyes you don’t get to add your proficiency to it?
That's a good concept.
I think TarodNet is actually spot on. The spell description clearly says, "gaining the benefits of any special senses it has". A bat has Blindsight for 60 feet therefore you have Blindsight for 60 feet "until the start of your next turn".
Obviously the DM can make whatever decision they want but I think this forum is about trying to discern the rules as they are written. Otherwise the answer to any question here is just "whatever your DM says".
Thank you very much, mate :)
To be fair, Plaguescarred explained better than me in reply #7.
Yeah you get its senses as you look through its eyes/ears. So you would see the room or whatever with blindsight from its perspective. Lets say you are wearing some VR goggles that are sending you a feed from a security camera on a wall 50 feet away at a 45 degree angle from you. How accurately do you think you could shoot like that, heck how well would you walk. The rules don't cover this, all we know is you can see out of the bats eyes. What that means for you, no one knows. it is a judgement call.