Find Familiar, Find Steed... Find Companion?

[thoroughlyS]

Move to this thread. (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?529160-Find-Familiar-Find-Steed-Find-Companion)

[Millstone85]

I think the original 100 foot range was unnecessarily limited, especially because you can bypass it by seeing through your familiars eyes from any distance.You can't.

Using your familiar's senses is part of the same paragraph that starts with the 100-foot limitation. And the new sentence starts with "additionally", to reinforce the connection with the first sentence.

This is also why the Voice of the Chain Master invocation extends both the communication and the perception to plane-wide.

[Mortheim]

I really don't like 1 mile. In my last campaign i have human bard with freaking cat-familiar which he uses to scout. And, well, i'm ok with that. But with 1 mile they can scout TOO MUCH. Even 100 feet showed me that the feature is REALLY good. And what warlock will be able to do with INVISIBLE 1 mile familiar? Scouting is good, i agree, but this should be stopped at some point :D

If i understand correctly, you changed Revised Ranger. And added "dead" level to 5th level Beast Master. So, it has 4 "dead" levels instead of 3 and has less conclave features than others...

[thoroughlyS]

I really don't like 1 mile. In my last campaign i have human bard with freaking cat-familiar which he uses to scout. And, well, i'm ok with that. But with 1 mile they can scout TOO MUCH. Even 100 feet showed me that the feature is REALLY good. And what warlock will be able to do with INVISIBLE 1 mile familiar? Scouting is good, i agree, but this should be stopped at some point :D
Honestly, you can already scout further than 100 feet with a familiar. You tell them what they need to do, send them out, after an hour you dismiss them, and re-summon them within 30 feet of you. What you can do at 100 feet, you can do at 1 mile. The only difference is a lack of real-time feedback. On top of that, as the poster above mentioned, Warlocks can just get rid of the range entirely. Not to mention the variant familiar features in the Monster Manual, which already have 1 mile telepathy.

That being said, I may reconsider. Find familiar is already a potent spell without my alterations, so increasing the range to 1 mile might be overdoing it.

If i understand correctly, you changed Revised Ranger. And added "dead" level to 5th level Beast Master. So, it has 4 "dead" levels instead of 3 and has less conclave features than others...
I'm planning to lay out a rework of the Ranger in the Homebrew forum at some point. My intention is to retain the Extra Attack feature at 5th level, for ALL conclaves. What's more, find companion allows you to forgo an attack to let your companion make one, so you effectively still have Coordinated Strike.

[thoroughlyS]

After running these by a friend of mine, and talking it out, he's convinced me of a couple of things.

The first is that find familiar is now strictly better than it was, which is a problem, because I already felt it was strong enough. Allowing for bonding to animals was fine, broadening the list of forms was fine. He raised issue with casting the spell again to heal the familiar, but that was more from a thematic standpoint than a mechanical one (he didn't like shifting the "feel" of the spell away from allowing a spirit to recuperate on its home plane to being able to heal it). He also feels that getting better familiars shouldn't be tied to casting a better spell, but either casting a different spell or taking a feat. I dislike both of those alternatives. The real issue was the 1 mile telepathy.

Secondly, I was undervaluing the 1 mile telepathy for all spells, and the ability to "pocket" the steed and companion. He also raised an issue with allowing the companions and steeds to attack, but I feel that their attacks roughly line up with being able to deliver touch spells for the familiar. Taking away their ability to be "pocketed" should also bring them more in line with find familiar.

I'll also move this thread to the Homebrew forum, so that I can get more responses.