I have the find Familiar spell. The creature I took was a hawk so I could have him map out the terrain and scout for our group. While in combat I wanted him to try and locate a specific creature that had caused the unnecessary conflict so we could handle that one creature and try to stop further unnecessary conflicts. DM - "Roll for your hawk to Investigate." The investigate skill bounces off Int. The hawk has advantage on perceptions checks, but nothing special on Investigation. Rolled the dice, Rolled a 4. Added the modifier for Investigation, Roll corrected to a 0... Uh, hello? Why does a Hawk have such bad eye sight that Investigating the area looking for something has such a bad modifier? I get that the Int of the creature needs to be low becuase its a basic creature, can't talk, ect. But is there a way to correct the fact that My hawk, with vision that can see detail a mile away, makes it look like bats have perfect sight?
Nah, asking a hawk to pick one specific humanoid out of a group sounds like Investigation-worthy for that hawk, even if a humanoid in that scenario would maybe be capable of just doing it with Perception. Asking a hawk to find a human in a forest? Perception, spot the human among the trees. Asking a hawk to find a specific human in a crowd? Investigation, pick out the minor details of clothing and features that will help the hawk tell that person apart from all the other people it sees.
i'm not sure how a creature with an intelligence of 2 can find anyone specific unless they're already familiar with them (unless its 'go find the one living creature in the woods type of thing or 'find the giant in the army of goblins'). imo, you can't describe a random person to them and they go find it.
I wouldn't say it's impossible, but it probably has a decent DC, which will be compounded by the Familiar's low intelligence (and thus poor Investigation skill).
Of course, a caster that wants to get around that limitation could always transfer their senses into the Familiar, and roll their own Perception/Investigation check, so it isn't an insurmountable obstacle if your Hawk is poor at telling human strangers apart from one another.
The INT stats of familiars took a hit in 5e. In 3.5e they started at a 6 vs 2 now for hawk. That means the hawk is a lot more limited in what it can do now. Even a wolf only has a 3 INT. If you had stopped
The Investigation role also makes sense, but it could go the other way. It is picking out specific information from a complex situation through mental acuity. The description you gave does not give me enough information of the situation, but the DM sounds to have made a decent decision.
I mean baring all D&D mechanics aside, as the issue you seem to have is that the hawk has good eyesight and should therefore be have good intelligence, think is the main issue. As someone who works with birds in their daily life, I can absolutely inform you that just because the bird can see things a mile away does not mean it can interpret those sights in a intelligent manner.
Yes your hawk can see (perception) very well and should be able to spot things easily. However, your hawk is not going to be able to interpret those sights to understand who the bad guy is that started a fight. That requires the intelligence to understand motive. Hawks see movement and mainly use it to find prey, that why they have good eyesight; to see small prey moving from high up. Not to interpret if that moving object is a good target or out of the ordinary.
This comes down to the DM as to whether or not what you asked should have been perception or investigation. And we would need more detail like, Motman said, in order to determine which roll would have been better.
A lot of great feedback. Ill elaborate on what was going on.
We were making our way down a path to get back to the hut we were staying at. An Imp on the road told his friends (A wild assortment of creatures, rng combat encounter) that we were a problem and then popped off, disappearing. During combat, I had my hawk fly around looking for the imp in the woods. It was our group vs an enemy group and the hawk was looking for a specific target in the woods about 30ft or so away from us, just searching.
I understand having me look through iys eyes to investigate, because it does make sense to have a higher Int to be able to understand what your looking for. Since he was looking for a specific target in the woods it sounds like its borderline between Perception and Investigation. He is looking for something specific (Investigation) but in a big area ( Perception).
Thanks for all the feedback. Our group is still kind of new so figuring out how to operate pets is a bit interesting and I just wanted to let mine be more of a companion then a pet, so I need to know how to work with him.
Still sounds like the DM made the correct call if the hawk was looking on its own. Unless I misinterpret the wording on the spell, if you as in your PC was looking through the eyes of the hawk, than you should have used your own INT score, not the hawks. If the hawk was told to go look on it's own than yes, its INT score should have been used. And this might come down to how the DM described the hawks failure. Just because the modified score was low, does not mean the hawk didn't see the target. It quite possibly could have seen it, but not been able to interpret that was who you asked it look for. Therefore the investigation check failed, not due to poor eyesight, but due to an animal not understanding the nuisances of other beings.
I big thing to remember is that animals are not PCs they are just that; animals. So a hawk while able to listen to your commands is still a hawk. You tell it to watch over you while you sleep and it will. But a poor roll doesn't mean the hawk is blind and missed the bandit sneaking up on you. It just means the hawks didn't understand what the bandit was doing. Flavor of failure is the key here, not what attributes a certain being has. So remember a poor roll does not mean someone with eyes is blind, it should and can be interpreted differently.
1) If you know what the bad guy looks like and you want the hawk to see if they can see them then it should be a perception check. You talk to your owl tell it what to look for and it tells you if it can see it.
2) If you have a group of bad guys and you want the hawk to try to figure out who is in charge by looking at how they interact - that is definitely investigation and is likely beyond the reasoning capability of a hawk. (though in this case, I would probably make the roll secretly as DM and have the hawk mis-identify or say they can't tell assuming they failed and by how much).
So whether it is perception vs investigation depends on what you know, what the hawk knows and what you asked it to do.
However, as an action you can use the senses of your familiar. You can see, hear etc everything they hear if they are within 100' of you. So you could fly your hawk up 100' while looking through its eyes (use the advantage on perception checks due to enhanced senses) and use YOUR investigation skill if you are using its senses to try and figure out which opponent is the leader. This only works within 100' but is a good option depending on the circumstances.
Wait, aren't Imps usually invisible? Trying to find a tiny invisible creature in a forest should definitely be very difficult, even assuming you have traveled in that forest before. In a strange forest, should be very difficult. I would say Perception should have been used, but the hawk would have had disadvantage on the roll anyway because having keen sight doesn't help much in finding an invisible tiny creature.
To be honest, I feel Insight would be a better match to determine a leader out of a group as the skill has more to do with character study. To find the Imp, Perception.
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I have the find Familiar spell. The creature I took was a hawk so I could have him map out the terrain and scout for our group. While in combat I wanted him to try and locate a specific creature that had caused the unnecessary conflict so we could handle that one creature and try to stop further unnecessary conflicts. DM - "Roll for your hawk to Investigate." The investigate skill bounces off Int. The hawk has advantage on perceptions checks, but nothing special on Investigation. Rolled the dice, Rolled a 4. Added the modifier for Investigation, Roll corrected to a 0...
Uh, hello? Why does a Hawk have such bad eye sight that Investigating the area looking for something has such a bad modifier? I get that the Int of the creature needs to be low becuase its a basic creature, can't talk, ect. But is there a way to correct the fact that My hawk, with vision that can see detail a mile away, makes it look like bats have perfect sight?
Investigation is typically used to get more details on something you can already see. Perception is used to find something you can't.
I feel like your DM asked for the wrong roll. You should have had to make a Perception check for your Hawk and had advantage because of Keen Sight.
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Nah, asking a hawk to pick one specific humanoid out of a group sounds like Investigation-worthy for that hawk, even if a humanoid in that scenario would maybe be capable of just doing it with Perception. Asking a hawk to find a human in a forest? Perception, spot the human among the trees. Asking a hawk to find a specific human in a crowd? Investigation, pick out the minor details of clothing and features that will help the hawk tell that person apart from all the other people it sees.
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
i'm not sure how a creature with an intelligence of 2 can find anyone specific unless they're already familiar with them (unless its 'go find the one living creature in the woods type of thing or 'find the giant in the army of goblins'). imo, you can't describe a random person to them and they go find it.
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I wouldn't say it's impossible, but it probably has a decent DC, which will be compounded by the Familiar's low intelligence (and thus poor Investigation skill).
Of course, a caster that wants to get around that limitation could always transfer their senses into the Familiar, and roll their own Perception/Investigation check, so it isn't an insurmountable obstacle if your Hawk is poor at telling human strangers apart from one another.
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
The INT stats of familiars took a hit in 5e. In 3.5e they started at a 6 vs 2 now for hawk. That means the hawk is a lot more limited in what it can do now. Even a wolf only has a 3 INT. If you had stopped
The Investigation role also makes sense, but it could go the other way. It is picking out specific information from a complex situation through mental acuity. The description you gave does not give me enough information of the situation, but the DM sounds to have made a decent decision.
I mean baring all D&D mechanics aside, as the issue you seem to have is that the hawk has good eyesight and should therefore be have good intelligence, think is the main issue. As someone who works with birds in their daily life, I can absolutely inform you that just because the bird can see things a mile away does not mean it can interpret those sights in a intelligent manner.
Yes your hawk can see (perception) very well and should be able to spot things easily. However, your hawk is not going to be able to interpret those sights to understand who the bad guy is that started a fight. That requires the intelligence to understand motive. Hawks see movement and mainly use it to find prey, that why they have good eyesight; to see small prey moving from high up. Not to interpret if that moving object is a good target or out of the ordinary.
This comes down to the DM as to whether or not what you asked should have been perception or investigation. And we would need more detail like, Motman said, in order to determine which roll would have been better.
A lot of great feedback. Ill elaborate on what was going on.
We were making our way down a path to get back to the hut we were staying at. An Imp on the road told his friends (A wild assortment of creatures, rng combat encounter) that we were a problem and then popped off, disappearing. During combat, I had my hawk fly around looking for the imp in the woods. It was our group vs an enemy group and the hawk was looking for a specific target in the woods about 30ft or so away from us, just searching.
I understand having me look through iys eyes to investigate, because it does make sense to have a higher Int to be able to understand what your looking for. Since he was looking for a specific target in the woods it sounds like its borderline between Perception and Investigation. He is looking for something specific (Investigation) but in a big area ( Perception).
Thanks for all the feedback. Our group is still kind of new so figuring out how to operate pets is a bit interesting and I just wanted to let mine be more of a companion then a pet, so I need to know how to work with him.
Still sounds like the DM made the correct call if the hawk was looking on its own. Unless I misinterpret the wording on the spell, if you as in your PC was looking through the eyes of the hawk, than you should have used your own INT score, not the hawks. If the hawk was told to go look on it's own than yes, its INT score should have been used. And this might come down to how the DM described the hawks failure. Just because the modified score was low, does not mean the hawk didn't see the target. It quite possibly could have seen it, but not been able to interpret that was who you asked it look for. Therefore the investigation check failed, not due to poor eyesight, but due to an animal not understanding the nuisances of other beings.
I big thing to remember is that animals are not PCs they are just that; animals. So a hawk while able to listen to your commands is still a hawk. You tell it to watch over you while you sleep and it will. But a poor roll doesn't mean the hawk is blind and missed the bandit sneaking up on you. It just means the hawks didn't understand what the bandit was doing. Flavor of failure is the key here, not what attributes a certain being has. So remember a poor roll does not mean someone with eyes is blind, it should and can be interpreted differently.
It depends what the task was ...
1) If you know what the bad guy looks like and you want the hawk to see if they can see them then it should be a perception check. You talk to your owl tell it what to look for and it tells you if it can see it.
2) If you have a group of bad guys and you want the hawk to try to figure out who is in charge by looking at how they interact - that is definitely investigation and is likely beyond the reasoning capability of a hawk. (though in this case, I would probably make the roll secretly as DM and have the hawk mis-identify or say they can't tell assuming they failed and by how much).
So whether it is perception vs investigation depends on what you know, what the hawk knows and what you asked it to do.
However, as an action you can use the senses of your familiar. You can see, hear etc everything they hear if they are within 100' of you. So you could fly your hawk up 100' while looking through its eyes (use the advantage on perception checks due to enhanced senses) and use YOUR investigation skill if you are using its senses to try and figure out which opponent is the leader. This only works within 100' but is a good option depending on the circumstances.
Finally, owl is better :) ... it has flyby :)
Wait, aren't Imps usually invisible? Trying to find a tiny invisible creature in a forest should definitely be very difficult, even assuming you have traveled in that forest before. In a strange forest, should be very difficult. I would say Perception should have been used, but the hawk would have had disadvantage on the roll anyway because having keen sight doesn't help much in finding an invisible tiny creature.
Try casting Find Familiar and then choose "Octopuss" as the desired animal.
Mental note: don't ever try casting it while you are either inside a Volcano, or in the Seven Hells's Plane, unless you are hungry...... xD
My Ready-to-rock&roll chars:
Dertinus Tristany // Amilcar Barca // Vicenç Sacrarius // Oriol Deulofeu // Grovtuk
The casting requires a brazer to use. So I would be pulling an octopuss out of a bowl of fire... Wouldn't that be the same thing?
"Hang on guys, I'm a make octopuss for dinner. "
To be honest, I feel Insight would be a better match to determine a leader out of a group as the skill has more to do with character study. To find the Imp, Perception.