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)
No, it takes one hour to cast (One hour and ten minutes if you do it as a ritual). Duration is forever till you are dead, or it gets dis-incorporated or dismissed.
You are limited to one, though there is a 2nd circle (Warlock/Wizard only) spell called Flock of Familiars that temporarily lets you have up to 3 for a short period of time. It can be upcasted with a higher spell slot for even more familiars if you wanted as well!
Thats the ritual symbol
This should be available for Sorcerer
I was looking at the Find Familiar variant, and was wondering why are we being limited to the appearance of our familiar, when it is NOT actually that creature, but a creature of your selection, inhibited by a fey, celestial or fiend? If we are going to instill a variant, then shouldn't it be for all creatures that fit a familiar's attributes? Like size, CR and such, much like the Ranger's beast companion table … which by the way is wimpy as hades!
Shared senses only mentions the ears and eye’s does smell go away to? You can’t see or hear anything but you can feel. I only ask for two reasons, is this a valid ability for getting around blindness and deafness spell and if u had something like hunters mark to tell you the direction someone is in and a familiars sight from above looking down view would this get rid of any disadvantage on attacks while you share senses with your familiar?
Also available for some Warlocks.
What could be a good familiar for a wizard that was in the Astral Plane / Astral Sea / Limbo the whole life?
Something equally weak as the familiars there.
Do familiars count as "creatures?" Specifically interested in whether I can cast Dragon's Breath (can be cast on a "willing creature") or similar spells on familiars, and also spirit steeds as summoned by Find Steed.
There is actually a familiar tab in the extras on the character sheet,
For the first part, about the Dragon's Breath... Yes, yes you can, and the familiar can use that breath weapon because it's an action, and not an attack action.
https://www.sageadvice.eu/2018/02/07/can-you-cast-dragon-breath-on-your-familiar/
As far as the second part of the question with Find Steed, that would be a no. Find Steed is not a touch spell, and can not be delivered by a familiar. I guess you could cast it and have a familiar ride it, but why? Now if you are trying some shenanigans like abusing the target transference of a spell while mounted to give your steed a familiar, this does not work either because you are not the target of Find Familiar, though there are spells which do target you that you can choose to target your steed instead of you if you are mounted at the time of casting.
Wait... Druids don't have this??!
Maybe stupid question, but is a familiar semitransparent as a spirit or it looks like a normal animal?
Looks normal. Not at all stupid.
Also Abyssal Chicken can be used
If the Familiar gets past 100 ft range, Can the wizard Dismiss it? What happens?
You can dismiss it any time with an action, no distance limit. The distance limit of 100ft only applies to casting a spell through it, telepathically communicating with it, and perceiving through its senses. It can always travel beyond that 100ft range and come back into range to tell you what it saw though.
As a small thing to note, I do believe that either in a Sage Advice or elsewhere I'm not sure of my sources on this, but the size of the Brazier doesn't have to be a great hulking piece of wrought iron designed to hold 20lbs of charcoal. You could potentially bug your friendly (or not so friendly) party cleric or paladin and use the Censer from the Priest Pack for this spell. The only real requirement if I remember correctly, is that it had to be something you can burn something in, and a censer is designed to have things burned in it, like incense that you need for the spell, which just so happens to also be in the priest starter kit.
Does it apply to seeing through it? I thought it was only communicating and casting through it that did that.
You mean, "the help Action". and yes.
"A familiar can't attack, but it can take other actions as normal." other actions are -
Cast a Spell - Dash - Disengage - Dodge - Help - Hide - Ready - Search - Use an Object - IMPROVISING AN ACTION
Find familiar is so restricted because Wizard spells are standardized in Forgotten Realms. Wizards have figured out the specific rituals to summon a familiar spirit into those forms, and the spell ritual is precisely replicated and shared through spellbook copying. It's a very complex hour long ritual that needs to be studied and performed with scholarly perfection, or the heavy spellwork needs to be done by a patron or deity, which is how other classes get the familiar spell.
The Paladin spell "Find Steed" notes that the GM may choose another mount not listed under the spell, because a paladin bonding with the spirit of a steed with the help of his deity is a very unique and personal experience, and not something that could be replicated or copied. The deity is doing all the heavy lifting.
This is also why there are unique named familiars in the monster manual (like Ligotti), that are paired with an important and powerful wizard who created his own custom familiar spell.
The creatures listed on the spell are the widely available spellscrolls that any wizard can find and add to their spellbook, but there is no reason that a wizard couldn't develop his own verision of the spell, or stumble across a unique Find Familiar spellscroll that summons a different form (like a Tressym), and plenty of evidence that this happens relatively frequently. Personally as a DM, I have no problem working with my players to help them customize their kit. There are balancing guides readily available for creating your own everything.