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)
There needs to be a list of all possible creatures that can be familiars.
Newbie DM question: We're going to play Princes of the Apocalypse, and the party genasi wizard would like to have an elemental familiar. Would this be at all OP? (ie, are there any spells designed to work on familiars which are celestials/fey/fiends but wouldn't work on an elemental?)
Thanks in advance!
Would giving Find Familiar (as a ritual) to a High Elf instead of their Wizard Cantrip be a fair exchange?
I know it's not RAW but would it unbalance the subclass?
The DMG p285 says
I plan to limit it to a single form, if that changes anything.
It would be cool to have different animal lists for casting find familiar from higher spell slots, possibly animals with a higher CR.
Find familiar is a first level spell, so giving it as the high elf wizard cantrip would be different.
however, I don’t think it is op. The high elf is loosing their cantrip (which the could cast as often as they want) for a spell that cost 10 gp to cast. Also it is not really something they would cast often (hour cast time and material cost, makes it an infrequent casted spell).
The spell specifically states that a spell slinger can use a familiar to deliver a touch spell. What about spells such as Thunderwave that are centered on the caster? Can the spell be centered on the familiar?
I am DMing Ghosts of Salt Marsh. I have gotten to Virgil's Mission. I have a player who is a sorcerer. I know she is going to want to get this animal. What do you think about Find Familiar as a scroll. She could have it made, and get Virgil (an old fay sea gull). If Virgil dies, then she'd have to have another scroll made. Anyone see problems with this??
How does true polymorph interact with find familiar?
It's D&D flavor it however you want. I think the important part is that the general attributes stay about the same, the hit-points stay the same, and that you don't give it anything game breaking in terms of special "elemental familiar" specific actions. IF the player just wants flavor, there's NO problem with just letting him summon a flaming elemental Owl... just use the Owl stats, and call it an elemental. But if the player wants it to be more powerful, like have the fire elemental ability to end it's turn in an enemy space to engulf it in flame... I would personally say no. If you feel comfortable balancing around it that's your business.
@eroctheviking85 The only problem I see with giving a sorcerer a find familiar scroll is that, by RAW, to CAST the spell on the scroll it has to be on your class list. OR you would need some other dispensation as in the Thief Rogue feature that lets them use any magic item, or the Artificer feature that removes any class/race/level restrictions on using a magic item. It might be more practical to just tell them to take the magic initiate feat (wizard) and select Find Familiar as the level 1 spell. OR just grant them that feat as a reward with the caveat that the level 1 spell IS find familiar. You could flavor it such that "The spirit of the beast, in death, bonds to you and you gain .... Feat that lets you summon it as a spell." Just know if you throw out feats as rewards your other players are gonna want something cool too. Alternatively, if they're close to an ASI level, you could let her know that the spirit of animal has bonded to her and if she does some research she might be able to summon it as a familiar. Then out of game point her at the Magic Initiate feat and explain it. So that she has story reason for a given character choice. That way she gets something cool and the other players don't feel jaded if you don't give them free stuff.
So, what exactly can be a familiar? I know that Tressym and Pseudodragon can be familiars, but what exactly are the rules for what can and cannot be a familiar?
Please add a "Familiar" tag to the monster list and tag all stock and optional familiars.
You should find it in the 'Extras' section. Click there, then 'manage', then select 'familiar', then you can add your familiar
The problem with this option is I can choose any creature in any book I own, including a Tarrasque
doing that seems cool
Why don't sorcerers have this spell?
Let’s not forget Crawling Claw!
-Listed in MM under the Mage NPC, Variant Familiar Rules
(Emphasis added by me)
Their is definitely no named familiars in the monster manual. If you mean stuff like Psuedodragons and Gazers, that’s not the find familiar spell, the creature essentially bonds with the creature that it becomes the familiar to.
It’s right their in the description.
I cannot think of it being overpowered in any way.