Squillex

Is that Matt Mercer doing the pronunciation?! 

Yes indeed. On launch, all pronunciations were done by Matt Mercer and Marisha Ray. If that's changed since launch then I'm unaware.

I believe octopus can squeeze through a space the size of its beak or larger. Which is generally really small. Kinda wish that was posted here as a characteristic lol.

Intelligence is the lowest?? Octopuses are crazy smart. 

If they were based on real world octopuses, they would be OP!

This is basically the best vanilla familiar for underwater environments. But hey, if your dm allows it, then you have free ink to write with, very helpful for diplomats an wizards. :)

Liam from critical roll also made a really creative move to use underwater. By casting waterbreathing on himself, and then placing the octupus over his face, and then using the senses of the octopus, he could, essentially, gain the octupus' 30ft of darkvision and walk around normally without issue. Essentially turning his lil' Ock into nightvision glasses. Pretty inventive. :D

It's intelligence should be at least an 8. I think, con and int should be swapped. Octopuses are quite squishey

Quote from Qoray >>

It's intelligence should be at least an 8. I think, con and int should be swapped. Octopuses are quite squishey

 You can always twist monsters to fit your needs. I have.

thx

Agreed. They're pretty strong And smart so I don't know why the strength & intelligence are so low. Also, Where is the bite attack? They have beaks that the use for piercing anything. On top of all of that, why can it only hit you once with a tentacle? It's got 8 of the damn things! Also, they should have the same power as the mimic to be indiscernible from its environment if it's staying still, real octopi can essentially morph into the background.

I'm thinking that a fish bowl & Mage Hand could make this a surprisingly versatile familiar!

It seems that in some applications of the stats in D&D 5e intelligence is more how much you've read (or learnt otherwise) rather than any qualifier of problem solving skills. The octopus' wisdom would reflect its tool using and problem solving skills.History and religion skills as well as how languages work support this, but the wisdom tilted stats of dinosaurs and many claims about what the stats are in official sources complicate this. Whether charisma is personability or a sort of force of will (for overcoming certain types possesion for one) is another interesting one.

Well, after reading the official stat descriptions again, this still isn't clear to me. There is a claim that the intelligence stat in part represents logic and deductive reasoning, but the official description of the Intelligence based investigation skill seems to overlap a lot with how Wisdom works. It is entirely possible that with the claim of Wisdom as how "attuned to the world around you" you are it is supposed to simply be knowledge of other things, although to be fair there is the explicit inclusion of intuition (and possibly [although I shudder to say it] Emotional Quotient, in the empathetic response potentially involved in animal handling and insight into another's motivations), as with medicine, where (as I understand it) practical experience in correct diagnosis and treatment is not neccesarily in line with the recollection of education in part represented by Intelligence. With the short lifespan of octopi in mind and their (presumable) lack of an education of the type considered by humans, any potential for education doesn't necessarily translate well to a high Intelligence score in-game. Possibly simply a failure in the system, I've seen it speculated that the dinosaurs tend to have high Wisdom scores to prevent targeting of their Wisdom scores in gameplay (although to be fair, Wisdom might stand in for animal cunning and perception).

Maybe the low Int is purely a standardisation so that there don't have to be special rules ensuring that the octopus can't speak despite its Intelligence score being high enough.

So one of the smartest animals in the world only has an intelligence of 3? Immersion ruined.

The intelligence is that low for mechanical purposes. Anything higher and speak with animals wouldn't work. A low score doesnt always mean stupid either. 

I get the mechanical reasons that does explain it. But there has to be some way for the game to give it the intelligence it deserves.  Scientists know for a fact that they have an intelligence similar to an 8-10-year-old child. That would give it the same intelligence as the early edition orcs. 

They can't talk in real life because their intelligence evolved around a solitary lifestyle. Something scientists thought would be impossible because our intelligence evolved alongside social interactions. Yet this strange creature can solve complex problems and even hold grudges against people they recognize for years. They do all that without living in societies or having parents teach them. 

They could evolve to be just as intelligent as humans, though, with their minds being built differently from the ground up. We probably wouldn't recognize what they become... ok that was a bit more bloodborne than D&D, but it is still valid. They even go through this unique form of RNA evolution that lets them evolve much faster than we can so they could gain-level intelligence much faster than we did. 

Quote from Baldy19 >>

So one of the smartest animals in the world only has an intelligence of 3? Immersion ruined.

 You wanna talk about ruined immersion? Cats in 5e don’t have night vision!!!

Can’t they regenerate their arms?