Warlock's chain pact familiar: attacks on its own or not?

[Blas_de_Lezo]

Hello!

The Find Familiar spell states that the familiar attacks and acts in its own initiative turn, but in the Chain Pact feature it says that the warlock's familiar attacks on its master's turn.

[TheOOB]

You are wrong on both counts. The find familiar spell states "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." It has it's own action, but cannot make attacks.

The pact of the chain states "when you take the Attack action, you can forgo one of your own attacks to allow your familiar to make one attack of its own." Ergo, while your pact familiar does act on it's own, it cannot attack. The only way it can attack is for you to take the attack action, and let it make an attack on your turn instead of you for one attack. This doesn't use the familiar's action, so it could still take a non-attack action on it's turn.

[Daishain]

TheOOB is correct.

The folks over at WoTC are so freaking afraid of someone breaking their action economy that they've decided to eliminate most companion options, and muzzle the few that remain.

[pwykersotz]

TheOOB is correct.

The folks over at WoTC are so freaking afraid of someone breaking their action economy that they've decided to eliminate most companion options, and muzzle the few that remain.

To be fair, action economy abuse. Yeesh. :smallyuk:

[Easy_Lee]

TheOOB is correct.

The folks over at WoTC are so freaking afraid of someone breaking their action economy that they've decided to eliminate most companion options, and muzzle the few that remain.

And yet they completely messed up when it comes to mounts and, even worse, summons.

[Daishain]

To be fair, action economy abuse. Yeesh. :smallyuk:
Oh no! without that limit the warlock's companion would be able to make a single low damage attack on its own initiative!

It is possible that I'm a bit biased coming from 3.5e where it was entirely possible to cast a half dozen spells/psychic manifestations in a single round with the right combo, but the above does not from my perspective seem to constitute "abuse".