Feats for Familiars
My son plays in an afterschool Dungeons & Dragons club. The campaign starts in a couple of weeks after school starts, and as long as I remember to sign him up, he plays through the school year. I’ve been trying to get him to play with my group for a few, but he refuses. I’m always disappointed, but I completely understand where he’s coming from. He’s nervous about playing with a bunch of grownups. I use the term grownups loosely, but that’s beside the point. If he’s not going to have fun, he shouldn’t play with us. He plays with kids his own age, and while he has a love/hate relationship with his party, he’s having a good time.
If you want to skip my rambling, here are the links to the GM Binder and PDF formats.
A quick shout out to Club Sidequest, run by Jim Hanna. I’ve watched the last 15 minutes of multiple sessions. The term herding cats doesn’t come anywhere close to what Jim has to do. Imagine herding a group of young dwarves who drank 48 Red Bulls and have bloodlust in their eyes. A couple of kids take the term murderhobo to a whole new level. Somehow Jim gets everyone involved as he has been moving the campaign along. My sincere thanks, Jim. Xander and his friends have told me how much fun they are having, and for that, I am genuinely grateful.
Every year that my son has done this, we spend the weeks before the campaign starts plotting out what he will play. It’s my favorite part, and while he listens to all of my suggestions, he’s his own man and hasn’t gone with any of my ideas. I don’t care because I have a great time talking about all the opportunities and options, and getting a 13-year-old to engage with their parents is hard. He landed on playing a Monk this year. I was pushing for Way of the Hand, but he did his research in a typical fashion and went Way of the Astral Self.
One of the classes I’ve never suggested to him is the Wizard. The class is, well, lacking. It does come online at higher levels, and by the time you get to the 15th level and above, you become one of the most powerful classes in the game. That’s a long time to wait, especially when you are incredibly squishy at the lower levels. In full disclosure, I am playing a wizard in my current PF2 campaign, and as much as the Pathfinder wizard is different, they are the same. I enjoy playing him, but I’m also tired of casting my allotment of spells and running away. My familiar is fun to roleplay, especially because Pathfinder familiars can be pretty much whatever tiny creature you can think of and can take several feats that you can swap out daily. Mine is an otter named Mirana who has the Speech feat and bitches at me constantly.
The 5th edition familiar stinks.
I may be in the minority here, but it’s the way I feel. I’ve done several articles on familiars and am always disappointed when I do one. As a refresher, here’s what the rules say about familiars:
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.
Interesting but incredibly limited. Now you can argue that your familiar can deliver spells, use the Help action to assist, scout ahead, deliver a spell and provide flanking if your DM allows it. Running over to a gravely wounded ally and casting cure wounds could be the difference in a fight, but that wasn’t on the wizard’s spell list last time I checked. I have also seen people get creative with using a familiar, and I’ll admit I’ve stolen some of those ideas myself. Here’s the problem with many of the ideas; If a creature decides to swing a sword at your conjured friend, they will most likely kill it immediately. Unless you’re willing to spend a spell slot, an hour, and 10 gold every time it dies, then you probably won’t be putting your familiar in harm’s way. Warlocks and Druids can also get familiars, eliminating the uniqueness of just a wizard having this power. This used to be a spell only for the wizard, and it seems unfair that other classes can do it too.
Then there’s the fact that they cannot attack. As mentioned above, you’d rarely have your familiar attack unless you want it to die, but it seems unfair not to provide it as an option. Rangers can get a companion that can attack. Any number of spellcaster can conjure a creature that can attack. I even had a shield guardian in one campaign as I possessed its amulet. But the poor familiar? They are left out in the cold. It sure would be nice to have a little friend that can provide some real benefits during those lower levels where every creature is extremely dangerous to your well-being.
So I propose giving our wizard’s little friends feats, much as Pathfinder does. How does your familiar obtain such feats? With a wizard feat, of course!
Familiar Feat (Prerequisite: Wizard)
Increase your Intelligence score by 1, to a maximum of 20.
You may choose 1 of the feats list below. When you cast the find familiar spell, your familiar gains that ability.
You may take this feat multiple times to gain additional familiar feats.
Below are the feats that you can choose from when you take this feat.
Arcane Attunement - Your familiar provides you with one additional attunement slot. The familiar may not be attuned to a magic item while you are using this ability. If the familiar is reduced to 0 hit points, attunement to the item ends immediately
Familiar Concentration - If you are the target of an attack while concentrating on a spell, you can use your reaction to transfer concentration of the spell to your familiar. You must use your reaction before you know the result of the attack. Your familiar must be within 30 feet of you to use this ability and must remain within 30 feet of you for the duration of the spell. You can not cast an additional concentration spell while the familiar is maintaining concentration. If your familiar is hit by an attack, and they take damage, concentration automatically ends.
Familiar Caster - When you cast a spell into your familiar, it can cast spells with a range of Self and gain the benefit of the spell.
Familiar Extension - Your familiar provides you with the following abilities when you cast a range spell. You can cast a range spell as if you were casting it from the familiar's location. Your ranged spell attacks ignore half cover and three-quarters cover if the creature is in the familiar's line of sight.
Maturing Familiar - Your familiar grows in strength as you become more powerful. At 5th level, your familiar can assume the form of a beast with a challenge rating 1/4 or lower. The challenge rating of the beast increases to 1/2 when you reach 5th level, to 1 when you reach 13th level, and to 2 when you reach 17th level. Regardless of what challenge rating your familiar can assume, you must have seen the beast before and know what it is.
Movement - Your familiar gains a movement it does not currently have. The movement speed is equal to its normal walking speed.
Proficient Familiar - Your familiar gains proficiency in one skill of your choice. Both you and your familiar are then proficient in this skill. If you already have proficiency in the skill, you gain no benefit.
Protective Familiar - When your familiar is within 5 feet of you, you may use your reaction to take the damage instead of the familiar. In addition, the familiar can use its reaction to take damage from an attack against you, up to its hit point maximum. This feature doesn’t transfer any other effects that might accompany the damage, and this damage can’t be reduced in any way.
Skilled Valet -Your familiar can use up to two of its limbs as if they were hands to carry or manipulate items weighing 5 pounds or less. Any item retrieved or given to the familiar requires no action to complete.
Speech - Your familiar learns and can speak one language that you speak.
Sturdy - Your familiar's hit point maximum equals the hit point number in its stat block or your Constitution modifier times your level, whichever is higher.
Spell Storage - When you prepare your daily spells, your familiar can store a single spell. The spell must be one that you do not have prepared and has to be at least five levels below the highest level spell that you can cast. Your familiar can cast that spell once per day using your spell attack modifier and spell DC. If the spell has a range of self, both you and you're familiar are affected. The spell remains in the familiar until you finish a long rest at which point it is lost.
Transformative Familiar - Your familiar can change its form at the end of a short rest
Vigilant Familiar - Your familiar is always on the lookout for trouble and cannot be surprised. In addition, you gain a +1 bonus to your initiative rolls while your familiar is within 5 feet of you.
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