Turning a Chainlock into the party's go-to recon guy

[HoodedHero007]

As stated in the title, this is a way to make your Chainlock amazing at reconnaissance.
Before you ask, yes, reconnaissance is important, after all, how else are you going to know what is behind the dungeon door without entering, thereby allowing you time to spot hidden enemies and plan your strats.
This is immediately achievable for 3rd-level Chainlocks by taking the misty visions and voice of the chain master invocations, allowing you to see what your familiar sees as long as you're on the same plane and create as many silent images you can concentrate on whenever you want. This allows you to create a 3D image of everything your familiar sees, then if you use minor illusion, you can add sound. Ideally, you can use a familiar with invis, making your recon sweeps less noticable

[Millstone85]

Using your familiar's senses, casting/altering silent image and casting minor illusion each require your action, every turn.

The result might be a bit shaky.

[Foxhound438]

this is a definite plausible replacement to the ranger/rogue of the party- you've got ranged DPS (personally I'd skip misty visions and stick to agonizing blast, then just describe anything important to the party), scouting, and best of all since warlocks are fairly SAD you can have +1 or 2 in a second mental stat, making you a great "skill monkey* " as well.

I personally like sprite for the scout, for the heart sense (if that's what it's called?) more than anything else. Getting sense motive effectively for free is nice, and can help you discern who's the good guys in some cases. Quasit is also neat for the scare ability as a decent bit of crowd control.

Possibly something to this effect is in my player future, as I like the general feel of warlocks being a casting heavy class with short rest resources, as well as being pretty decent as a single target DPS character.

[JakOfAllTirades]

I'm liking this idea, since our GM decided the Arcane Eye spell was OP and asked us politely to stop using it banned it from our game forever.

[HoodedHero007]

Using your familiar's senses, casting/altering silent image and casting minor illusion each require your action, every turn.

The result might be a bit shaky.
Voice doesn't require an action, and the minor illusion​ is not instantaneous (1 min. duration)

[Millstone85]

Just to be clear, PotC familiars make great and fun scouts. It is the sound-and-light show I am skeptical of.


Voice doesn't require an action
Voice of the Chain Master enhances the find familiar spell, which otherwise works as written for the warlock. (https://twitter.com/jeremyecrawford/status/696804013501591553)

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.Between PotC and VotCM, you have four new possible forms for your familiar, the ability to use your action to make your familiar attack with its reaction, a telepathic link with a range of "plane" instead of 100 feet and the ability to speak through your familiar while using its senses.

But it still takes an action to switch to your familiar's senses for a single round, as per the rules of the spell you rely on.


the minor illusion​ is not instantaneous (1 min. duration)The difficulty is with this sentence:
The sound continues unabated throughout the duration, or you can make discrete sounds at different times before the spell ends.Do you decide this while the illusion is going on or do you program the sequence of sounds when you cast the spell? The latter isn't so practical for what you want to do.

[Biggstick]

Using your familiar's senses, casting/altering silent image and casting minor illusion each require your action, every turn.

The result might be a bit shaky.

Really what this is allowing is for the Familiar to act like an Arcane Eye at extremely early levels. Using a Pixie is even cooler, as you can detect motivations and what not of the things you're scouting. The Misty Visions would allow for the Warlock to simply "snap back" to it's own senses, cast the Silent Image of what the Familiar has seen to show the party exactly what's ahead, and snap back whenever the Familiar runs into something new. Having the ability to show an ally or group exactly what's ahead on a map is extremely helpful when running through a dungeon and shouldn't be underestimated.

[Millstone85]

The Misty Visions would allow for the Warlock to simply "snap back" to it's own senses, cast the Silent Image of what the Familiar has seen to show the party exactly what's ahead, and snap back whenever the Familiar runs into something new. Having the ability to show an ally or group exactly what's ahead on a map is extremely helpful when running through a dungeon and shouldn't be underestimated.I already had a similar plan with the minor illusion of a painting. As long as you are fine with snapshots, it should be awesome.