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)
Can you make your familiar attack with a spell of touch such as shocking grasp. It says 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.
but it also says 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.
So can my arcane trickster use her rapier. And then have the owl fly in cast shocking grasp and use flyby to fly out as it's action or is it that it just can't attack with its own natural weapons
The familiar is referred to as a spirit, implying that it isn't a flesh and blood animal, but just an animal shaped spirit. This would mean that it doesn't need food/water/sleep, right? It just simply exists like a warforged. I'm currently playing a warforged wizard with an owl familiar. My dm says the owl needs sleep and such like a real one, but I disagree. Opinions/facts?
No. Per RAW, you cannot take the Attack Action and Cast a Spell with a casting time of an Action in the same turn. You could do this if Shocking Grasp was a Bonus Action to cast, but unfortunately, it isn't.
I mean if your campaign has a lot of survival aspects I'd understand why your DM would consider it a full animal since it's "a spirit that takes an animal form". Some things I'd ask your DM is what happens when you dismiss it to the pocket dimension? Most pocket dimensions creatures will eventually starve or suffocate inside of but Familiars seem to be an exception. Also if it disappears when it dies what happens to everything its since eaten? Why doesn't it leave a corpse if it's fully part of the world. Also since it's Celestial or Fiend as opposed to beast do either of those types of creatures even eat? I could see Fey eating but why would it shit on one type?
Realistically though you should work with your DM as to why he wants it to be more animal than the spell itself suggests and try to compromise. If he doesn't want it to be a 24/7 sentry for example maybe it will suffer exhaustion if it doesn't 'rest' even if that means it just doesn't help in any way at set intervals, perhaps just throwing it into the pocket dimension.
For example even your Sentient magic robot Warforged needs to sit still for 6 hours to benefit from a long rest even though it can't become exhausted by lack of sleep.
Probably a silly question, but when casting a touch spell through a familiar, does it take effect on the caster’s turn, or the familiar’s?
For example, could an owl fly inot reach of an enemy, deliver a shocking grasp, and then take advantage of its Flyby to move away? Or, would it have to get into position and stay there until the wizard’s turn rolled around to make the attack?
The spell happens when you cast it. When you cast it, your familiar uses a reaction to deliver the spell. It happens during your turn, not the familiar's.
However, you could Ready a spell like shocking grasp to cast it when your owl gets close to an enemy, so it would then happen on your owl's turn.
I'd like to homebrew an artificer's version of this. I'm thinking a small mechanical familiar that, when the spell is cast, would adhere to the rules of the regular familiar. Perhaps I should replace the "Brazier" with a "Tinkers' bench" and "10 gp worth of charcoal, incense, and herbs" to "10 gp worth of small mechical parts (gears, sprockets and cogs)"?
owl is the best in stats
Is the duration and cast time switched or something
I'm gonna assume not.
1) You set fire to the 10g of burny things and then sit with your spell-book meditating/mumbling/thinking about what you've done to your last familiar for 1 hour (cast time)
2) The familiar appears "instantly" from whatever realm (celestial/fey/fiend) after 1 hour (duration of the summoning "effect")
3) The familiar "lasts" aka sticks around or has a duration of permanent (until you get it killed yet again by a hungry orc barbarian)
As it's a Spirit, how closely does it obey physics and biology?
I am thinking about a bird familiar hovering while holding a Light. Biology says it will get tired, Physics says it needs to keep moving to generate lift...
Technically, if your DM allows it, you could go for a different familiar. The environment could also have to do with it. For example, if you were always at sea, you could have a shark or dolphin familiar, maybe a pelican or seagull familiar, even.
It seems odd that the familiar's alignment doesn't change along with its type. Celestials and fiends should never be "unaligned", I feel.
I was looking for a way to be true to the spell's requirements without it turning into gold mysteriously disappears from your inventory thing. Also, I wanted it to be necessary to have the foresight to see a familiars death as a possibility and plan accordingly. Braziers are easy enough they are a pretty common light source in a medieval setting and should be included in temples and any place ritual spellcasting is done. Just bug the DM by searching for one in every room and eventualy they will relent.
Really it's the ingredients that are the weird part. Either being extremely cheap/free or nonexistent in the items list. I've seen others research the materials and asine a price per weight to them, but that gets sticky pretty quickly. I mean buring 15 pounds of charcoal in an hour is basically going to turn the dungeon into an oven, and the party will die of smoke inhalation long before the ritual is over.
So I did this: Flax's Fantastic Familiar Summoning kit! Price 10 GP Weight 5 libs.
Probably over thingking it, I know, but it works. I'm posting it here for any other overthinkers out there.
Can druids use this spell? And if so what do they need?
Listing familiars in dndbeyond
For what it's worth, others in these comments mention a CREATURES tab in the dndbeyond interface, but I cannot find it anywhere. Is it maybe gone from the system?
If it does exist, I'm interested in a way to link a homebrew creature as my familiar somehow in the character sheet, since I'm using a reskinned version of the Imp that makes more sense for a Great Old One warlock.
Using the help action
Someone asked if it's possible and it totally is. Jeremy Crawford stated that since familiars can do all actions other than attack normally, help is something they can do.
Normally it's not OP because you have to put your familiar in harm's way, and they are very squishy and hard to replace. You'd want to use it only when necessary and when you could live without your familiar for awhile.
That said, if you are a Pact of the Chain warlock with an invisible imp, quasit, or sprite, it gets a bit intense! At least theoretically there's nothing stopping you from using your invisible, flying familiar to distract someone during their turn, then flying away with no AoO because they are invisible. DM's discretion applies there as to whether the person is actually distracted, but in theory it should work.
I think you mean the Help action, unless you're talking about the Aid spell. They can't cast Aid because it has a range, but as for the Help action, I'd say yes. The spell description says "A familiar can't attack, but it can take other actions as normal." Since Help isn't an attack, your familiar should be able to do it as an action as part of their turn.
"Creatures" is now "Extras" in the character sheet. This is so you can add things besides creatures that might need stats, like vehicles.
Thank you! Ok so for anyone else who's lost:
Open the Extras tab of the box that defaults to the Actions tab.
Now you can just go to Extras and click your familiar to get the sidebar overlay with all it's stats.
Awesome! It even has my homebrew familiar right there :)
I figured the casting time must be instantaneous and the duration must be one hour. You guys have it the other way around! lol Still an excellent looking spell, though. Is it possible to reach a point in the game where you can have two familiars? Or perhaps even three? Is that insane?