Commanding a familiar to sleep

[Kevingway]

Is that possible? There strangely isn't a rule about characters "sleeping" other than the fact that they need sleep in some uncertain amount. I'm most interested in the interaction between sleeping and familiars always obeying your commands. If I can command my familiar to sleep, will it stay asleep for as long as I tell it to, even if I would try to extract poison from it? Only "using an action to shake a creature awake" seems to actually wake something up, within reason.

[Rhaegar]

Is that possible? There strangely isn't a rule about characters "sleeping" other than the fact that they need sleep in some uncertain amount. I'm most interested in the interaction between sleeping and familiars always obeying your commands. If I can command my familiar to sleep, will it stay asleep for as long as I tell it to, even if I would try to extract poison from it? Only "using an action to shake a creature awake" seems to actually wake something up, within reason.

While the wording is a bit vague, I would rule that the familiar always obey your commands given it is within the ability of the creature your familiar is in the form of. You can try telling a cat familiar to fly all you want, but it won't obey your command to fly, in the way an Owl familiar will, because cats can't fly. In the same way, if the form your familiar is in doesn't have the ability to fall asleep at will, it will try its best to sleep, but if it's not tired may not be able to do so. And unless the creature has some sort of supernatural internal clock, it won't be able to wake up at a predetermined time.

Just because it only gives "shaking a creature awake" as a method to wake a creature, doesn't mean that's the only way. Using common sense, anything that would wake someone up in real life would wake someone up in d&d, to include any and all damage, and any loud sounds.

If all you want to do is extract poison from your familiar, you could just tell it to hold still while you extract some poison from it.

[Zaq]

That's kind of a gray area. I mean, a familiar obeys your orders, but it can't do things it can't do. You can command it to pull a strawberry popsicle out of your bag, but if you don't have a strawberry popsicle in the bag, the familiar trying to be obedient isn't going to change the fact that it can't do that. You can command a non-flying familiar to jump over a building, and it'll try, but it won't succeed. Likewise, if my body weren't ready to sleep, even if someone told me to sleep and I had a reason to try to obey them, that doesn't mean I would sleep. I could lie down and close my eyes, but I can't sleep just because someone tells me to if my body isn't prepared to sleep.

It's weird with a familiar, of course, because a familiar is either made of magic or suffused with magic (Find Familiar says it's a "spirit" that "takes the form of" a critter you choose, and then it's either a celestial, a fey, or a fiend instead of a normal beast), and either way it doesn't necessarily follow the same rules of biology that a real-world critter does. So there's an argument to be made that the command of the master might be more important than whether or not the familiar is tired.

The real question is why you would need to command your familiar to sleep in the first place. If you want to extract poison from it, you can just order it to allow you to extract poison from it, and it'll obey. If you want it to be out of the way and not overhear a conversation, you can just temporarily store it in your Pokéball "pocket dimension" until you want it to come back. If you just feel like it's tired and deserves an honest rest, I think that you'd just need to allow it to sleep rather than command it to sleep (it's not a Tamagotchi). (If you're commanding it to conk out as some kind of weird punishment or display of dominance, then you're on your own for that sort of thing.)

Generally, though, since a familiar does what you tell it to do, I imagine that you can find a way to accomplish whatever sleep-like goal you need even if you can't actually cause it to lose consciousness on command. I mean, I guess if you had some dream-related spell that needed a sleeping target, that might be one thing, but for general purposes, you can probably find some way of doing what you need regardless of whether or not you can actually force your pet to sleep.

[Slipperychicken]

If you want to extract poison from it, you can just order it to allow you to extract poison from it

That's what I came here to post.

I think those poison-extracting rules were written with non-cooperative creatures in mind. Your own familiar should be fine with letting you extract its poison while conscious.

[Vogonjeltz]

Is that possible? There strangely isn't a rule about characters "sleeping" other than the fact that they need sleep in some uncertain amount. I'm most interested in the interaction between sleeping and familiars always obeying your commands. If I can command my familiar to sleep, will it stay asleep for as long as I tell it to, even if I would try to extract poison from it? Only "using an action to shake a creature awake" seems to actually wake something up, within reason.

You've described the line between what can be done and what can be ordered. Anything can be ordered. Not everything that can be ordered can also be accomplished.

i.e. Yes, the familiar must obey your commands, so they must try. Ordering the familiar to sleep is no more likely to succeed if the familiar isn't tired enough to sleep than is ordering it to polymorph itself into an Ancient Dragon or to attack someone (it can't attack).

Also, out of curiousity how were you planning to extract the poison? Is your character a professional veterinarian or animal handler? poisoner kit proficiency is needed to craft poison and crucial for harvesting. Also, familiars familiars disappear at 0 hp, and the creature must be incapacitated or dead to harvest.

[Kevingway]

Also, out of curiousity how were you planning to extract the poison? Is your character a professional veterinarian or animal handler? poisoner kit proficiency is needed to craft poison and crucial for harvesting.

Poison extraction rules in the DMG. You don't need proficiency with the kit if you make a same-DC knowledge nature check.


Also, familiars familiars disappear at 0 hp, and the creature must be incapacitated or dead to harvest.

That's the problem I'm running into. I want to make the creature incapacitated without bringing it to 0. Has to be a familiar in my case, though. Not going to bother going the beast master route just for poison.

[Vogonjeltz]

Poison extraction rules in the DMG. You don't need proficiency with the kit if you make a same-DC knowledge nature check.



That's the problem I'm running into. I want to make the creature incapacitated without bringing it to 0. Has to be a familiar in my case, though. Not going to bother going the beast master route just for poison.

Yeah I know? I said it's required to craft, and only crucial for harvesting.

Either way you would be unlikely to successfully harvest poison very often without proficiency in it, the check being hard. And even if you did, without the poisoner kit prof one can't craft any poisons at all.

It's probably easier to just buy the poison.

[Kevingway]

Yeah I know? I said it's required to craft, and only crucial for harvesting.

Either way you would be unlikely to successfully harvest poison very often without proficiency in it, the check being hard. And even if you did, without the poisoner kit prof one can't craft any poisons at all.

It's probably easier to just buy the poison.

I think you're mixing rules. Reread them. They're in the same section, so I understand. Harvesting doesn't require crafting. The only thing that requires crafting is basic poison. Harvesting doesn't need proficiency with the poisoner's kit unless you're missing proficiency in Nature, which doesn't matter anyway to this discussion, and I'm not sure why you brought it up.

[Vogonjeltz]

I think you're mixing rules. Reread them. They're in the same section, so I understand. Harvesting doesn't require crafting. The only thing that requires crafting is basic poison. Harvesting doesn't need proficiency with the poisoner's kit unless you're missing proficiency in Nature, which doesn't matter anyway to this discussion, and I'm not sure why you brought it up.

Per your request, I've rechecked. You're partly right, some are harvestable, while others are craftable. However at core my statement was two-part, for crafted poisons, the kit is required. For harvested ones proficiency is desirable, although not required as nature proficiency could be substituted. And there are only a few harvestable poisons, denoted in the DMG, the rest are crafted with rare ingredients requiring the kit to make at all.

However, I did note that the harvestable poisons carry additional requirements (DMG 258), Serpent Venom for example must be from a giant poisonous snake that is incapacitated or dead.

As the familiar is a tiny creature, this would not be harvestable even if the incapacitation requirements could be met somehow.

[JackPhoenix]

Per your request, I've rechecked. You're partly right, some are harvestable, while others are craftable. However at core my statement was two-part, for crafted poisons, the kit is required. For harvested ones proficiency is desirable, although not required as nature proficiency could be substituted. And there are only a few harvestable poisons, denoted in the DMG, the rest are crafted with rare ingredients requiring the kit to make at all.

However, I did note that the harvestable poisons carry additional requirements (DMG 258), Serpent Venom for example must be from a giant poisonous snake that is incapacitated or dead.

As the familiar is a tiny creature, this would not be harvestable even if the incapacitation requirements could be met somehow.

It would be, you'd just get weaker venom, in line with the snake's stats (Con 10 for half, 2d4 poison damage)

[Douche]

Poison extraction rules in the DMG. You don't need proficiency with the kit if you make a same-DC knowledge nature check.



That's the problem I'm running into. I want to make the creature incapacitated without bringing it to 0. Has to be a familiar in my case, though. Not going to bother going the beast master route just for poison.

Couldn't you just have the familiar bite/sting something and release it's poison on command?

Like, just get a wineskin and command it to repeatedly use it's poison attack on the wineskin. Now you have a bladder filled with poison, albeit with a small hole or fang marks on it. Put a piece of adhesive over the holes (or use mending! A leaking wineskin is actually one of the examples, lol), now you have an easy way to dispense poison!