Improved Find Familiar

[Mjolnirbear]

How would you make an improved Find familiar feat without stepping on the toes of chain locks or beast masters?

[mephnick]

Man it already steps on PotC pretty hard. It's easily one of the best spells in the game, I'd have trouble buffing it without making PotC completely irrelevant.

[nickl_2000]

How would you make an improved Find familiar feat without stepping on the toes of chain locks or beast masters?

Maybe give access to higher CR critters. Maybe up to CR 2 and allow them to fight. You would need to limit the level you would need to be before you could get it though.

[coolAlias]

How would you make an improved Find familiar feat without stepping on the toes of chain locks or beast masters?
You could remove the penalty for when your familiar gets killed... wait a second. :P

On a more serious note, I wouldn't improve the spell any more than it already is. It is extremely useful in a wide variety of situations and is practically permanent. If a familiar dies, there is no penalty in 5e other than you need to take a little time and some spare coin to summon a new one.

If you really want to make an Improved Find Familiar feat, make it something that chain locks and beast masters can also benefit from, perhaps a small HP and/or AC bonus to familiars and animal companions, and/or let the player use their reaction to give the familiar advantage on a saving throw when within 5 feet. Stuff that enhances the creature's survivability rather than its already-phenomenal utility.

[MeeposFire]

The only way to do it is if the feat also improved the chain pact familiars along with the standard ones and that the improved regular familiars were still worse than Chain lock special familiars and the improved chainlock familiars were improved more than the regular familiars were.

Easiest way to do it (still not easy but easier I guess) is to have no change in basic animal (though you could fluff it to be a different animal so the rabbit becomes a giant rabbit or something but you start with normal owl stats) and then just add some basic additional numbers to it. The chain lock familiars do the same except they get even better additions. This way chain lock familiars are still better due to their additional powers and the improved chain lock familiars would be even stronger still.

[JackPhoenix]

You can always use the option for independent familiar (like the variants from MM) without a feat. Player has to be more careful (no re-summoning when it dies), it can run if it's mistreated/its goals are fulfilled/it just decides to, and the player actually has to roleplay for it. In one AL adventure, there's an option to exchange very rare magic item for quasit (with variant familiar rules from MM, i.e. it grant spell resistance to its master) familiar. It may also take attunement slot, IIRC.

[Foxhound438]

maybe give the character a minor buff like they do in pathfinder with the familiar nearby? things like maybe a small flat bonus to a certain skill, or +5 move speed, or something similar depending on what your familiar is.

I don't think that would really step on PotC's toes, especially since that's purpose is usually to have an invisible scout or invisible touch spell delivery mechanism. You might include slightly stronger benefits for the PotC options, since it is what their boon is all about.

BM is not an issue at all in this case, since the beast compainion is meant to be a damage source in most cases. Buffing the caster is nothing like that.

[MrStabby]

Planar binding might cover this.

[Zanthy1]

Completely broken idea: allow for large familiars that you can ride! Or like, a pixie or something that can cast greater invisibility at will (like in 3.5) so that you can literally always be flanking or something