You gain the service of a familiar, a spirit that takes an animal form you choose: bat, cat, crab, frog (toad), hawk, lizard, octopus, owl, poisonous snake, fish (quipper), rat, raven, sea horse, spider, or weasel. Appearing in an unoccupied space within range, the familiar has the statistics of the chosen form, though it is a celestial, fey, or fiend (your choice) instead of a beast.
Your familiar acts independently of you, but it always obeys your commands. In combat, it rolls its own initiative and acts on its own turn. A familiar can't attack, but it can take other actions as normal.
When the familiar drops to 0 hit points, it disappears, leaving behind no physical form. It reappears after you cast this spell again. As an action, you can temporarily dismiss the familiar to a pocket dimension. 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. Whenever the familiar drops to 0 hit points or disappears into the pocket dimension, it leaves behind in its space anything it was wearing or carrying.
While your familiar is within 100 feet of you, you can communicate with it 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.
You can't have more than one familiar at a time. If you cast this spell while you already have a familiar, you instead cause it to adopt a new form. Choose one of the forms from the above list. Your familiar transforms into the chosen creature.
Finally, when you cast a spell with a range of touch, your familiar can deliver the spell as if it had cast the spell. Your familiar 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.
* - (10 gp worth of charcoal, incense, and herbs that must be consumed by fire in a brass brazier)
shame druids and rangers don't get this spell
Druids can get Find Familiar as a class option if you have Tasha's (cost 1 use of wild shape; casting time an action; duration 30 mins per level).
Can wizards use it?
Yes.
Step one: acquire a ring of spell storing.
Step two: cast find familiar and summon a familiar
Step three: store the find familiar spell in the ring
Step four: have your familiar use the ring to summon its own familiar.
Seriously, though with a ring of spell storing and the find familiar spell you could set up a nice little business... so many non-wizards want familiars!
So, I can summon a lion, tiger, bob cat. Since they are all "CATS?"
No, because cat refers to a specific stat block from the monster manual. If it had intended for you to be able to summon a lion, it would have been listed.
There are a ton of other options if you go into Extras and press Familiar. Is that all homebrew or something?
Edit: Yeah, it is.
Does anyone know if taking the action to see through the familiars eyes counts as using a spell slot?
It doesn't cost a spell spot but it does take an action and does leave you blind and deaf so it does leave your character pretty much helpless while seeing through the familiar.
What’s aid? Do you mean help?
if you have a homunculus servant, can you use this spell and have a familiar and a homunculus?
That post was made two years ago, and somebody had already corrected it.
Neither spell says you can't, so yep, nothing stopping you.
If you've got your bat familiar on your shoulder and you're seeing and listening through its senses, how close to normal actions are you? Can you move/attack/cast/etc as normal, but with blindsight as an added ability?
Ask your DM. Usually it has to be a small or tiny animal.
There are some creatures that have the footnote "This creature can be used in place of ____ at the DM's discretion" like the Tressym.
Step 1: Get an owl familiar.
Step 2: Cast and maintain invisibility on the little guy.
Step 3: Park him next to the dungeon boss.
Step 3: Have him use the Help action for the duration of the fight for whichever melee PC takes his turn after him (pray it's the paladin and not the rogue, who gets sneak attack just from the familiar being there, making this all pointless.)
Step 4: Cast Fire Bolt the rest of the fight, because you're concentrating on invisibility.
The little snowy white owl, my wizard's familiar, is perched up in a tree over an enemy's encampment. It opens it's little beak and spews dragon fire upon our enemies. Please say it is so.
Do you have to chose from the list of animals presented?
If your familiar goes beyond the range of 100 feet and comes back within 100 feet, can it communicate where it has been and what it has seen?