What does having "the same connection to a thing or place" as one's familiar do?

[Segev]

The only application I can think of is for scrying, where you can have the familiar be far distant from you with somebody's hair clippings or a portrait or something to give them a penalty to saves. Is there anything other than the scrying spell (and its greater version) which uses "connection?" I can see some mild use for it if it's just for that spell, but it seems minor. The familiar being present with the subject would just let you scry on the familiar.

Does having "the same connection" do anything other than let you have the familiar stare at the subject to qualify as "a likeness?" Or to snag a lock of hair or a shred of garment and not have to return before you can use scrying via that connection? What other clever ways can this be exploited, if any?

In particular, though, are there non-scrying uses?

[Zanos]

Teleport location familiarity?

[Beheld]

Maybe you could planeshift your familiar to the plane of fire and then get maximized fireballs?

[Geddy2112]

It relates to the nature of the emotions you and your familiar can emphatically share. It feels at home anywhere you would feel at home. It is afraid of the things you are afraid of. It likes the things you like, hates the things you hate, wants the things you want, etc. If your favorite color is blue, your familiar's favorite color is also blue. If the sight of orcs makes you white hot with rage, it does the same to your familiar.

This means that while a rabbit might be afraid of a fox, your rabbit familiar will give off the same emotions seeing a fox as you would. Now if it was attacked then of course it would respond to an attack like you would.

It helps with scouting. Although your familiar can't tell you things until it comes back and gives you a report on what it encountered(if it can speak), you can get instantaneous readings on the general status of what it is experiencing. You are in a dungeon, and you send your familiar three rooms ahead. The first room has nothing, the second has treasure, the third has a monster. Assuming you are indifferent to empty rooms, you are pleased by the sight of treasure, and find monsters to be threatening and scary, you get feedback of indifference, some kind of positive emotion, and then fear.

It can also be used to differentiate of encountering something that could be a threat, something that is but is not an active threat, and something actively attacking it. It could be wary to the first, afraid of the second, and then outright panicked running for its life from the third.

[Segev]

Thanks for the responses!


Teleport location familiarity?
Perhaps. It isn't technically reliant on a "connection," but one could make an argument. Your familiar having "seen once" a location, or even "studied carefully" the location might be useful. Not sure whether "is there right now" counts as "seen casually," "viewed once," or "studied carefully," or even "very familiar" (the last on the grounds that you're literally looking right at it right now).


Maybe you could planeshift your familiar to the plane of fire and then get maximized fireballs?I'm...pretty sure that doesn't work. Would a dryad wizard be able to leave her familiar next to her oak and wander as far as she liked from it? I'm not sure a familiar counts as a reverse Acorn of Far Travel. But it's an interesting point to argue.


It relates to the nature of the emotions you and your familiar can emphatically share. It feels at home anywhere you would feel at home. It is afraid of the things you are afraid of. It likes the things you like, hates the things you hate, wants the things you want, etc. If your favorite color is blue, your familiar's favorite color is also blue. If the sight of orcs makes you white hot with rage, it does the same to your familiar.

This means that while a rabbit might be afraid of a fox, your rabbit familiar will give off the same emotions seeing a fox as you would. Now if it was attacked then of course it would respond to an attack like you would.

It helps with scouting. Although your familiar can't tell you things until it comes back and gives you a report on what it encountered(if it can speak), you can get instantaneous readings on the general status of what it is experiencing. You are in a dungeon, and you send your familiar three rooms ahead. The first room has nothing, the second has treasure, the third has a monster. Assuming you are indifferent to empty rooms, you are pleased by the sight of treasure, and find monsters to be threatening and scary, you get feedback of indifference, some kind of positive emotion, and then fear.

It can also be used to differentiate of encountering something that could be a threat, something that is but is not an active threat, and something actively attacking it. It could be wary to the first, afraid of the second, and then outright panicked running for its life from the third.This sounds more like it describes the Empathic Link as a whole than "has the same connection." Which is a sub-clause of the Empathic Link rules, but I don't think it encompasses all of them.

This is a useful analysis of what the Empathic Link can convey, however.

[Segev]

Another thought on why the elemental plane of fire trick wouldn't work: does this "same connection" mean that you can treat things that are in range of your familiar as in range of you for particular spells?

Sadly, I don't think so. But is there anything where this might qualify?