getting assist from ones familiar

[Chugger]

The most powerful level one spell might be Find Familiar. Why? Because you can summon an owl. The owl can in theory assist you in combat. It can't fight, but it can do all sorts of other things - and one of them is to assist or help you in a fight, presumably by distracting your target so that you can get advantage on hitting it.

It's outrageously powerful because you can almost always get one with-advantage attack each round. The owl uses it's flyby function and can't be attacked on an AoO - so it's hard for a target to shut down this effect. You don't lose the owl if you lose concentration: you're not concentrating on it. The owl has a huge movement - can hide somewhere - flyby and help you - and go back to its 99% safe spot. A fireball or something would get it - there are ways to kill it - but if an enemy is focusing that much effort on the owl, you're winning. The enemy is not hurting you and you're probably hurting it - and you can always resummon the owl. It's pretty outrageous, really, though it's implied you can buy a mastiff or get some other animal and train it to do much the same thing - only this creature would not have the flyby effect and would be much more vulnerable - to AoO and other things.

So naturally, not all DMs react well to this whole thing. And who can blame them? It's a potential abuse. If you have constant advantage, you "never miss" - which isn't true - but at times it sure seems like it. Of course there are many other ways to get advantage. A barb using the shield feat and raging is going to knock prone his target much of the time - the barb has advantage on str checks if raging. And then he has advantage whacking on a prone victim. So maybe the familiar thing isn't really all that outrageous, but it is a thing that can get a DM's hackles up.

I've been getting inconsistent DM rulings on this. The rules really are _not_ clear, as far as I've been able to tell, as to what the mechanism is on getting the familiar to help me - or an ally of mine - in combat. Does it eat a bonus action? A free action? The fam has its own initiative and acts independently. I had a DM start to make me roll the owl's initiative, and then someone stopped him - please, more rolling? The DM winced and decided not to go that way. I've had other DMs rule that the fam is instructed by me to do certain things and these DMs weren't all nit-picky on the protocol or mechanics of how it was done - the familiar assisted and that was it. They never asked me to clarify if I spoke to the fam as a free move or what - it just happened - I'm guessing because DnD is a shark and they wanted to keep it moving through the water so it didn't die (so to speak).

I suppose the fam could roll its own initiative. If it beats me then it times its move (ready action?) to work in concert with my attack, helping me and giving me advantage? If I beat it I have to ready my attack until it can help me? Why can't we coordinate our initiatives then? I'm not sure if it is allowed but some DMs have allowed me to coordinate inits with other players (perhaps this was a feature of 3.5?). Coordinating init is essentially the same as an entity waiting to time an attack with someone else - without all the stinking dice rolling and thought and process - it's far simpler.

Part of what I've encountered I think is DM going "wth he's getting advantage every round?" - and just trying to kick up a roadblock out of an intuitive sense of "I must constrain this" - which is only natural - DMs don't want to lose control or have combats be meaningless because they're too easy. But it's stated in the PHB that a fam can do all the listed actions except attack (not talking about Imps and so on). Anyway, have any of you seen any official rulings on this, please? Or is it discussed elsewhere in the books (where I'm not seeing)?

This seems not to address this issue http://media.wizards.com/2015/downloads/dnd/SA_Compendium_1.01.pdf

The phb is pretty clear on how help works. The helper goes first - then the recipient of help gets advantage if they act before the helper's next turn. The issue here is not whether or not the owl can help a character in combat - it clearly can. The issue is how much "red tape" or "roadblock" can a DM "legally" throw in the character's way in terms of the amount of time taken to order the familiar to help. That is not at all clear to me. Or is there an actual place in the book that describes the process?

[shuangwucanada]

I as a player think it is a little over powered, but my DMs seem OK with it. Perhaps because they are really good DMs. They know how it works and what its weakness is, so usually the one who benefits the most from this free advantage will be disabled or weakened by combat control spells or other effects, or some AoE will finish the familiar, or a combination of melee monsters and much scattered range monsters so that advantage melee is not that effective.

I usually prefer interpret this spells as: does this spell feel like intended for combat or off-combat?

IMO find familiar is intended for utilities, so I will not use it to provide free advantage, as a self-disciplined player. The utility that can impact combat that I'm OK with is to provide the caster extra sense. For example if you summon a bat, you can switch to bat's sense and "see" through darkness. I usually play it as, after some off-time self training, I gain the ability to utilize my familiar's sense to replace my own without any penalty.

Another is find steed. IMO find steed is intended for a mount, so I'm OK with using it in combat as a mount, not a companion, and when I played my paladin, I only used it as a mount in combat, as a self-disciplined player.

However where the boarder line is really depends on each player and group. If you think find familiar is INTENDED to provide free advantage in combat and your group agree with it, if you think find steed is INTENDED to give you an extra body in combat and your group agree with it, then go for it. The key is that you don't ruin anyone else's fun.

[Millstone85]

This seems not to address this issue http://media.wizards.com/2015/downloads/dnd/SA_Compendium_1.01.pdfThis is version 1.01 of the Sage Advice Compendium. Version 1.14 is the latest one.
http://media.wizards.com/2016/downloads/DND/SA-Compendium.pdf

And here is what it has to say on the subject:
Can the familiar you conjure with the find familiar spell use the Help action to grant you advantage on your attack roll? A familiar can’t attack, but it can take non-attack actions, including Help. As the text of the Help action indicates (PH, 192), the action doesn’t require you to be able to attack; you simply need to be able to provide some sort of distraction.This matches with my own reading of the PHB. The restriction that you can only help with a task you are yourself capable of is a rule about ability checks, not attack rolls.

I know this is the least of your doubts here, and SAC is still silent on the rest.

[Millstone85]

I suppose the fam could roll its own initiative. If it beats me then it times its move (ready action?) to work in concert with my attack, helping me and giving me advantage? If I beat it I have to ready my attack until it can help me? Why can't we coordinate our initiatives then? I'm not sure if it is allowed but some DMs have allowed me to coordinate inits with other players (perhaps this was a feature of 3.5?). Coordinating init is essentially the same as an entity waiting to time an attack with someone else - without all the stinking dice rolling and thought and process - it's far simpler.I don't know why you are considering all this, since you know that...
The phb is pretty clear on how help works. The helper goes first - then the recipient of help gets advantage if they act before the helper's next turn.

[Pex]

When I don't play the wizard the DM allows Help on attacks. Naturally when I do play the wizard that's the DM who won't allow it.

The familiar is still useful. I use it as a poor man's clairvoyance. With a rat I get 30 ft darkvision as well.

[Chugger]

I don't know why you are considering all this, since you know that...

Am considering it because it is "game-killing" amounts of extra red-tape-like crap and process to go through. Now sure, maybe some of us are process-monsters and can handle it - you guys have like 28 stamina-for-endess-roling-and-rule-monitoring. But for us normal mortals, we can only take so much of this - even in a much-simplified (and overall very good) 5e version of dnd.

What has been happening with the people I game with is some DMs realizing that it is made to work - the fam is allowed to make one assist and it can be in combat - and they're gonna kill the fam if they can (but it's very hard with the flyby). So they compress all the process and crap into just letting the fam assist on the caster's turn. You get the same basic result but way less process and crap to go through.

Look at how you cast a touch spell through your fam - is that described in minute detail where it says in the book you can do it - is it explained there? NO. Its not explained there. You have to know where else in the phb there are the other rules and...again, most DMs seem to just "let that happen" so that the game doesn't die (DnD is a shark and must keep moving through the water or it expires). Mentioning this because it's another example where the procedure or specific mechanic is spread out through the phb (I'm starting to get that my confusion stems from not knowing the phb inside-out) and you can "do it strictly by the rules" but why - why kill the game doing that? So most DM's do the shorthand.

Where problems arise is where halfway through a module the DM, who is tired and maybe has forgotten why earlier he was allowing the shorthand (skip the process) approach suddenly goes "wait stop - the rules say ...." and then he quotes only one section of the phb. But you gotta quote maybe 2 maybe 5 sections of the phb to see the whole picture and understand the entire mechanic. And I'm tired and my only appeal is "but look it is allowed - it's very clearly allowed - now you're going to make me start rolling separate init. for the fam and readying and all that poop - just ... for what? Why when you can pretend that the init I roll is "our" init or the lower of - you want me to roll 2 inits and take the lower one? Fine because we're working off the lower init - and at that point the DM usually sees what a pain in the bork even that would be - he wants to get through the modules - and then he says nevermind. But if I don't understand the mechanic precisely, what's going to happen is that a DM is going to rule hardcore against me - also I'm asking for help here to try to understand why I'm getting such inconsistent rulings. And now I think I'm starting to see why. It's not really the DM's "fault" - or it is understandable we'd run into problems - I'm pushing the rule-set to the edge sometimes (not really, but I think the average player where I play is not all that aggressive about tactics and "pushing it" - I can't help it - I try not to be too abusive but can't help at least going partway down that trail). Anyway, I need my ducks lined up as best as I can to be able to deal with this - and also to know if I'm pushing for a very wrong interpretation (I shouldn't do that - so I need to know). Thanks much.

[Chugger]

When I don't play the wizard the DM allows Help on attacks. Naturally when I do play the wizard that's the DM who won't allow it.

The familiar is still useful. I use it as a poor man's clairvoyance. With a rat I get 30 ft darkvision as well.

We had a mass of herd animals "surprise us" even though earlier I had told the DM that I had my bird up and was using it as we traveled to look for danger. How we missed a massive herd of large animals I'm not sure. I didn't fight him because it was part of the module and he wanted to read the colorful section where the animals were described and so on - he was happy - so I kept my mouth shut.

But yeah, you and me Pex are pretty much on the same page here. We take a spell and lose the opportunity to have other spells. We use that spell as the book says. And we get trashed for it all the time by DMs being "meta" or ... many possible explanations.

I'm just hoping that DMs can see that if player x has invested in y, and y is very inconvenient to event z working as the DM had planned, that the DM has other options than to either ignore y or rule totally against the phb on y (to preserve z) - that giving into that kind of thinking is accepting a false dichotomy - a false true or false or "denying the middle" (this is a common logical fallacy). There is a fertile middle-ground of other solutions if the DM takes a breather and thinks it through - where player x's choice and use of y is respected _and_ event z still goes off marvelously.

[Chugger]

I usually prefer interpret this spells as: does this spell feel like intended for combat or off-combat?

IMO find familiar is intended for utilities, so I will not use it to provide free advantage, as a self-disciplined player. The utility that can impact combat that I'm OK with is to provide the caster extra sense. For example if you summon a bat, you can switch to bat's sense and "see" through darkness. I usually play it as, after some off-time self training, I gain the ability to utilize my familiar's sense to replace my own without any penalty.

Another is find steed. IMO find steed is intended for a mount, so I'm OK with using it in combat as a mount, not a companion, and when I played my paladin, I only used it as a mount in combat, as a self-disciplined player.

However where the boarder line is really depends on each player and group. If you think find familiar is INTENDED to provide free advantage in combat and your group agree with it, if you think find steed is INTENDED to give you an extra body in combat and your group agree with it, then go for it. The key is that you don't ruin anyone else's fun.

Find Fam is clearly a broad-use or generally useful spell, or they would have limited it. The PHB would say that - or errata would say that - or JC would have Tweated that a fam can't be used to help in combat. It's clearly RAW and RAI (that the fam can help in combat - and if you don't like it you don't have to).

It does becoming annoying for some players who - look, I've watched sword-n-board tank types get very annoyed because they roll a 6 and miss. Then the rogue rolls a 3 but has adv from stealth and rolls a 14 and hits - and does 1d8 plus 2d6 plus 3 - maybe 16 pts damage. Then the other meleer (perhaps with a feat that gives them the FF spell, magic init) rolls a 2 and misses but has assist from fam and rolls a 12, hitting - does 2d6 plus 5 if say a raging barb - maybe 12 pts this round.

And the next round the tanky sword n board guy rolls a 9 and _just_ misses, while again the rogue and other meleer each hit and each do double-digit damage.

And on the next round the tanky sword n board guy finally rolls a 16 and hits, and rolls 2 for dam for a total of 5 or maybe 7 dam (if duel fighting style) - and yet again the rogue and other meleer hit and polish off the large monster. The tanky guy feels awful because he did only 10% of the damage to kill the creature - but it felt like less - he felt useless the whole fight. And he's really wishing he hadn't rolled a tanky guy with such low dpr. But he'll be needed in another fight for his high ac and tankyness maybe - except not, 5e doesn't much support that, especially at lower levels.

So you're saying that people who play well and understand the rules and/or pick classes (like rogue) with a naturally high dpr destroy other players' fun ... because they play well and the other players ... what - suck? If the excessive dice rolling ruins the fun, there is a middle solution that shouldn't be denied by close-minded thinking (which is to compress the whole process or come up with a shorthand to make it go fast and not encumber the table with a nasty amount of excessive rolling and process). There is a point, however, where players who picked a gimped class just have to either reroll or accept that they're not as sexy as others at the table. Or do we go commie or Maoist here and hammer down everyone so players who aren't as on the ball aren't annoyed and made jealous? Just sayin....

[Millstone85]

Am considering it because it is "game-killing" amounts of extra red-tape-like crap and process to go through.But where does it come from?

Here is how things should go by my reading of the PHB:
* owl's turn
- owl flies within 5 feet of the enemy
- owl takes Help action
- owl flies away from the enemy (Flyby, no OA)
* PC's turn
- PC attacks the enemy with advantage

There is no need to Ready anything, or coordinate initiatives or what.

Unless the DM does something like having the PC take a bonus action so the owl takes the Help action. But then the DM should fix the mess they created.

[Chugger]

But where does it come from?

Here is how things should go by my reading of the PHB:
* owl's turn
- owl flies within 5 feet of the enemy
- owl takes Help action
- owl flies away from the enemy (Flyby, no OA)
* PC's turn
- PC attacks the enemy with advantage

There is no need to Ready anything, or coordinate initiatives or what.

Unless the DM does something like having the PC take a bonus action so the owl takes the Help action. But then the DM should fix the mess they created.

You weren't there. The DM hit a "panic moment" and ... yes, for a reasonable interpretation, this is why other DMs were just "letting it happen" and not even bothering with what you said. Just to keep the game flowing. Or you can step up the process and risk slowing the game - each roll does, don't kid yourself, please - and do it as you outlined.

What you're missing is that if the caster rolls init 18 but the fam rolls init 3, the caster then must ready to benefit from the fam's help in that round. And then each subsequent round. Or the caster can sacrifice an advantage in round one and just have the fam assist - and then he attacks w/ adv - without any readying. See where all that was coming from now? And yeah, it's pushing it - but .... sometimes you might want to. Tough fight and you want to hit - and it has AC 17 or w/e.

The truncating happens all the time. All the time - and it's proper. "I use my fam to scout around". Well technically I'm supposed to tell the DM which direction and how many rounds and blah blah blah but that starts to get cumbersome. Especially when there is no threat and the DM really wants to party to get to the next Critical Point. So the DM says "you don't see anything" - no perception check rolls - no informing me that I'm "out of it" due to seeing through my fam bird's eyes - none of that. Just speedy "the road looks cool, do you head on?" And that is proper DMing.

Please don't kid yourselves. The rules are the rules - and then there's the "reality" that happens at the table (yes, I just called dnd "reality" - bwahahaha - ahem, cough cough, ahem....).

[Chugger]

I am trying to give as much context as I can for my requests for help in understanding 5e. I know it may not be what you're used to playing. I do a lot of module playing and my DM comes from a pool of DMs - what I'm playing is kind of different from a normal home game where Fred the DM has been the DM for 8 months and blah blah blah. From this and other threads where I've asked for help, I sense that people are having trouble with this (or it bores them or they want to push it to see where answers go in more than my context - which is cool - but I am trying to give my context).

[BW022]

I don't see the issue with this... however, I've never seen folks trying this in any real game and more specifically... it isn't a terribly good tactic.

1. The familiar's owner needs to be in melee. For most folks with familiars... it isn't that great. Most wizards, warlocks, and such have better options so you are down to a few martial types who have the find familiar via ritual caster, innate caster, or multi-classing. Other than Eldrtch Knights... probably anyone else is paying significantly to try this.

2. Any ranged attack is going to kill the owl.

3. Any area attack is going to kill the owl.

4. Creatures can easily ready actions to attack the owl.

5. Creatures can move and attack the owl. Even in its best case... it is moving 30', helping, and then only moving 30' away.

6. It wastes table time. All sorts of complex movements, positioning, etc, trying to keep an owl alive in a fight with winter wolves and a frost giant?

7. It's annoying to replace. Typically, parties aren't going to stop and rest an hour just for you to possibly get your owl back. It is also 10gp (annoying at low levels) and requires a fire and smell.

8. Familiars, especially owls, are often more useful outside combat, and having them killed means you can't use them for these purposes until you can resummons them.

Owls especially are great for scouting, guard duty, extra spot checks, eve's dropping, distractions (go make noise over there), etc. Most of my DMs are smart enough to kill an owl within a few rounds of trying a 'help' tactic. At low-levels or shear desperation... sure. By 3rd+ far better keeping them alive and keep the group from being ambushed while sleeping or wandering into an ambush.

[Chugger]

I don't see the issue with this... however, I've never seen folks trying this in any real game and more specifically... it isn't a terribly good tactic.

1. The familiar's owner needs to be in melee. For most folks with familiars... it isn't that great. Most wizards, warlocks, and such have better options so you are down to a few martial types who have the find familiar via ritual caster, innate caster, or multi-classing. Other than Eldrtch Knights... probably anyone else is paying significantly to try this.

2. Any ranged attack is going to kill the owl.

3. Any area attack is going to kill the owl.

4. Creatures can easily ready actions to attack the owl.

5. Creatures can move and attack the owl. Even in its best case... it is moving 30', helping, and then only moving 30' away.

6. It wastes table time. All sorts of complex movements, positioning, etc, trying to keep an owl alive in a fight with winter wolves and a frost giant?

7. It's annoying to replace. Typically, parties aren't going to stop and rest an hour just for you to possibly get your owl back. It is also 10gp (annoying at low levels) and requires a fire and smell.

8. Familiars, especially owls, are often more useful outside combat, and having them killed means you can't use them for these purposes until you can resummons them.

Owls especially are great for scouting, guard duty, extra spot checks, eve's dropping, distractions (go make noise over there), etc. Most of my DMs are smart enough to kill an owl within a few rounds of trying a 'help' tactic. At low-levels or shear desperation... sure. By 3rd+ far better keeping them alive and keep the group from being ambushed while sleeping or wandering into an ambush.

If you don't see the issue I've done my best to explain the context of my situation. Organized module gaming from a pool of DMs - so you get wildly different rulings but get locked into your spell choices. Do you need me to explain that in more detail?

1. You are very wrong. I know you're trying to help me - and that I appreciate - but the phb does not limit the Help action in combat to melee combat. It just says "your ally's attack." This means you can Help someone on a Scorching Ray attack, a bow attack, or a sword attack.

There are many ways meleers can get a familiar. If HuVar to get feat or a one-dip into wiz - that's a price - dunno about "huge" price. Whatcha got agains arcane tricksters? (wink) Seriously, rethink your approach here. Not trying to insult you; trying to help.

2. Wrong. The owl hides behind total cover within strike range. The owl has to be hit - it has an AC. I'd like to see you shoot a flying owl with a bow! Alas dnd is not a reality emulator. The owl is not easily hit unless someone specifically readies for it - and if they do, they are losing. They're wasting a whole turn on my familiar while I'm killing them. I can resummon the owl. They don't get resummoned after I kill them.

3. Wrong. Any area attack including the owl in its off-turn position. Sure, a DM can get the owl if he wants, and that will happen. So far I'm low lvl and not running into a lot of creatures that area attack. When that happens I can also keep the owl farther away. Sure, it can kill the owl, but it's not automatic.

4. And they're losing. They could miss the owl, too. Mah Gawd that'd be embarrassing. To go into the monster afterlife and have to spend eternity explaining how you were killed because you were messing around trying to kill a little owl when other people were chopping on you w/ swords. Ahem.

5. And I take my AoO and they die. Or if not they're hit so bad they just lost. And I resummon the owl.

6. Are you sure you know what the word "wastes" means? An advantage in attack is worth a _lot_ where I come from. Hey, maybe you feel you always fail rolling a second d20 - who knows? But waste? Really? Are you sure you're thinking these through? This is also solved by a cool DM that doesn't make you fuss that badly with the owl's position, so it isn't even an annoyance. Sure in some fights the owl will be in trouble. Against 20 kobolds - the owl's going down. But I may not even need the owl in such a fight. Against one Hill Giant - I'm using the owl. And if the HG is stupid enough to ready for it or hurl a rock at it instead of hurting the party, that HG is dead one round faster.

7. 10g like I'm so hurt. Typically? Sure you know what typical means? And yes there will be times when I don't summon the owl back. But dnd is loaded w/ short rests, and if I don't need to roll hit dice I'm summoning back the owl. What's the big whoop?

8. They are not as useful for scouting in module play, as I've repeated many times - is the thing I'm mostly concerned with. Sometimes yes - very often no. The module goes on and your scouting gets ignored because the DM wants to read the pretty words or w/e. I don't think you understand my context.

In an evenly matched fight w/out a buncha extra koboldish things, my owl's in trouble. But if something has a readied action specifically for my owl on round one, it means the DM is meta-gaming and is in trouble (yes, actually - again see context). See, I think you're running what I was saying through a situation-matrix you invented just so you could be "right" - but what you're saying only barely touches on the context I presented. And yes my fam has been killed - and yes, I've missed him a fight after once. Once. But in general I get time to bring him back. The ten gold is diddly, and the number of times I've had advantaged attacks and hit rather than missing is big. I'm sure if a cranky old I'm-gonna-teach-that-hotshot-a-lesson DM were running the show he'd bend over backwards to kill my owl, at which point the rest of the table would be all cockeyed and going hmm, is this DM-Alzheimer's - sure hope not. Just sayin'.

[Malifice]

The issue is how much "red tape" or "roadblock" can a DM "legally" throw in the character's way in terms of the amount of time taken to order the familiar to help. That is not at all clear to me. Or is there an actual place in the book that describes the process?

I use a combination of the following 5:

1) The monster readies an action to clobber the Owl. It takes the PC 1 hour to get it back. Assuming the PCs are on the clock or find it difficult to short rest (as they almost always should be if you're doing your job properly as DM) then it's a non issue. To be more specific the monster readies an action to clobber the Owl if it flies into his space, or the PC if it doesnt and the PC starts to act. Not that the DM announces what the creatures readied action is (or what its trigger is) of course.

Remember: the PC needs to be lugging around an arbitrarily (determined by the DM) brass brazier to burn 10gps worth of insence in over the course of an hour to get the thing back. Its not automatic unless the DM lets it be.

2) The Owl is an NPC. A friendly, loyal and obedient NPC but a NPC nonetheless. DMs can feel free to have the Owl 'interpret' the masters orders as they wish.

3) Because 'magic'. The bond metween master and familiar is strong. The DM calls for a Constitution save when the Owl dies (or lose a level of exhaustion) due to the bond between the two, and/or he rules that a caster that sends familiars on suicide missions repeatedly loses the ability to bond with a familiar animal due to being a callous monster (seriously, who sends a pet to its death like that?), the 'spirits' refuse to answer his call next time he attempts to summon one unless he enters a blood-pact to treat it better, or any other 'magical' story reason.

The DM rules that the brass brazier component for the spell weighs 200lbs and needs to be fixed to the floor, meaning the spell can only be cast in a safe and secure space (the Wizards tower).

You know: 'Because: magic.' Plenty of story reasons for a DM to intervene.

4) The Help action isnt automatically succesful unless the DM rules it to be. He can simply rule that flying around something head doesnt do enough to sufficiently distract the creature enough to impose advantage, and rule that the Help action is not useable in this way against this creature.

5) He lets this work. Seriously, its advantage to one attack roll. Big deal.

I personally use option 5 (let it work) most of the time, with monsters clobbering (or shooting) the thing out of the sky if it gets too close. I also impose a level of exhaustion (as a written house rule) on the caster if the familiar dies. I also play the thing as a loyal NPC (usually a suck up toady, but that depends on context).

For example my Chain Warlocks (LE) Imp have agendas all of their own (but are otherwise loyal; even though they seek to twist the masters orders, and to encourage him into corruption).

[Pex]

You weren't there. The DM hit a "panic moment" and ... yes, for a reasonable interpretation, this is why other DMs were just "letting it happen" and not even bothering with what you said. Just to keep the game flowing. Or you can step up the process and risk slowing the game - each roll does, don't kid yourself, please - and do it as you outlined.

What you're missing is that if the caster rolls init 18 but the fam rolls init 3, the caster then must ready to benefit from the fam's help in that round. And then each subsequent round. Or the caster can sacrifice an advantage in round one and just have the fam assist - and then he attacks w/ adv - without any readying. See where all that was coming from now? And yeah, it's pushing it - but .... sometimes you might want to. Tough fight and you want to hit - and it has AC 17 or w/e.

The truncating happens all the time. All the time - and it's proper. "I use my fam to scout around". Well technically I'm supposed to tell the DM which direction and how many rounds and blah blah blah but that starts to get cumbersome. Especially when there is no threat and the DM really wants to party to get to the next Critical Point. So the DM says "you don't see anything" - no perception check rolls - no informing me that I'm "out of it" due to seeing through my fam bird's eyes - none of that. Just speedy "the road looks cool, do you head on?" And that is proper DMing.

Please don't kid yourselves. The rules are the rules - and then there's the "reality" that happens at the table (yes, I just called dnd "reality" - bwahahaha - ahem, cough cough, ahem....).

In another game where I play a paladin, the DM of that game let's the warlock's familiar be useful. When the familiar scouts we get a report. Enemies up ahead. Friendlies up ahead. Neutrals up ahead. The familiar gets to be our emissary. The familiar can find hiding spots we may need or whatever. The warlock hasn't used his familiar to Help in combat. He ignores it then, having it stay out of the way of danger. He's content on it being a super scout. The rogue doesn't mind. He prefers to be near my paladin but stealthily hiding to get within 10 ft if need be. The party learned quickly to hug the paladin despite the Fireball formation. Saved many a character. :smalltongue:

[Chugger]

In another game where I play a paladin, the DM of that game let's the warlock's familiar be useful. When the familiar scouts we get a report. Enemies up ahead. Friendlies up ahead. Neutrals up ahead. The familiar gets to be our emissary. The familiar can find hiding spots we may need or whatever. The warlock hasn't used his familiar to Help in combat. He ignores it then, having it stay out of the way of danger. He's content on it being a super scout. The rogue doesn't mind. He prefers to be near my paladin but stealthily hiding to get within 10 ft if need be. The party learned quickly to hug the paladin despite the Fireball formation. Saved many a character. :smalltongue:

Sounds cool. Scouting doesn't work very well for most module games. It sometimes can but depends on the module and the DM (some modules have consistent bad weather or magic fog perhaps to shut this down - you follow the breadcrumb path and in the prescribed way or else, is what I'm sensing). The quotes or descriptions the DM reads to describe the critical points are "set" for the most part - it's hard to work in something the designers didn't think about - that someone might have an invis imp or a telepathic link w/ an owl scouting ahead. That's why I'm going for the advantage part at the moment.

I'll probably wish I were playing that kind of paladin when we come up against heavy-hitting casters.

[imanidiot]

This falls comfortably under the rule of "Any strategy you can use, you opponents can also use." If you use this you expect to have lots of owl familiars being used by monsters to give them advantage on attacks against you also.

[Finieous]

To be more specific the monster readies an action to clobber the Owl if it flies into his space, or the PC if it doesnt and the PC starts to act. Not that the DM announces what the creatures readied action is (or what its trigger is) of course.


But you do inform the players they can take complex-clause and contingent Ready actions, right? That will be super-helpful to the arcane martials when they get haste, especially. "I Ready a counter-attack for when my opponent attacks me, or if he attacks someone else, or failing that, when his buddy starts to act (regardless of what he might be doing)."

I think such a liberal interpretation of the Ready action renders the notion of a "trigger" incoherent, and perhaps more importantly, bogs the game down in a never-ending sequence of multiple possible contingent actions that the removal of Delayed Actions was meant to resolve. If it works for your group, of course, that's cool. To me, that way lies madness, and an owl ain't worth it.

As I interpret the rules and use them at my table, an enemy can certainly Ready to attack the owl, but in almost all cases it will be apparent what he's doing. Like, keeping an eye on the owl and readying his weapon to hit it. You know. I rule the same way when the characters are Readying attacks to smack dragons and other flyers. The creatures are not under any compulsion to fly at the guy standing there watching them with his sword ready to strike. The smart ones will typically fly over and attack some other guy who isn't waiting to hit them, and then readying guy loses his action.

The key thing is to play it the same both ways. I'm sure you do that.

[Chugger]

There are a lot of nice people in here who are very helpful. But there are some who, er, seem to have escaped from this sketch ---> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQFKtI6gn9Y

To those of you who have in fact escaped that above sketch and somehow ended up here, would you kindly go back to where you belong. Thank you.

And yes, if we try harder, there will be no ultimate reward for it - in dnd. The monsters will get much harder or more of em, or the rules will be capriciously reinterpreted - or all the other players at the table will get jealous that one person plays very well and quit en masse - says the person who's been reading too much Sartre ... help! HELP!

[Malifice]

But you do inform the players they can take complex-clause and contingent Ready actions, right?

Of course.

In this case the monster is readying an action to attack the owl if it enters his threatened area, or the PC if the owl doesnt and the PC moves or attacks. There is nothing expressly against contingent triggers for the Ready action, and I see no reason to disallow them.

And I narrate it as 'The monster warily watches you both, sword in hand, ready to strike'


That will be super-helpful to the arcane martials when they get haste, especially. "I Ready a counter-attack for when my opponent attacks me, or if he attacks someone else, or failing that, when his buddy starts to act (regardless of what he might be doing)."

You can ready for whatever you want. As long as the trigger is noticable. 'Starting to act' isnt a noticable trigger, as everyone is acting non-stop and 'acting' is a conceit of the turn based initiative system (much like 'readying' is).

Readying to attack when a critter(s) enters your threatened area (the owl OR the PC, whichever comes first), or if a creature moves from where it is or attacks you, are all pretty clearly perfectly fine triggers.

Remember (as I say above) the initiative/ turn based/ cyclic/ stop start nature of the combat sequence is a conceit and an abstraction. It's perfectly reasonable to have the monster ready to attack the annoying owl (or otherwise swing at it with its sword) the next time the owl flies into its face, and if it doesnt, to clobber the owls master, without worrying too much about the precise semantics of how the monster words the readied action.

I ready the attack action with the following trigger: 'If the owl enters my reach , or if it finishes moving and doesnt enter my reach [in which case I attack the PC]'.


As I interpret the rules and use them at my table, an enemy can certainly Ready to attack the owl, but in almost all cases it will be apparent what he's doing.

Of course it is. [I]'He circles around both you and your familiar warily, watching you both with menace in his eyes, and his blade at the ready.'

I could be readying anything. An Attack, a Dodge, a Special Ability. Anything.


The key thing is to play it the same both ways. I'm sure you do that.

Of course I do. Readied actions get narrated. With an insight check I might even give away what the precise trigger [and action] is to a PC. I'm firm, but fair.

My view is if you cant be both, dont DM.

[Finieous]

You can ready for whatever you want. As long as the trigger is noticable. 'Starting to act' isnt a noticable trigger, as everyone is acting non-stop and 'acting' is a conceit of the turn based initiative system (much like 'readying' is).

Oh, okay, this is the part that tripped me up in your original post.


To be more specific the monster readies an action to clobber the Owl if it flies into his space, or the PC if it doesnt and the PC starts to act.

Anyway, like I said, I think allowing as many conditional or contingent "triggers" as the player or DM likes renders the whole notion of a "trigger" pointless. In this case, just say "You can use your reaction to delay your action until later in the round [with the following restrictions]..." There's no need to even bring up triggers if you can declare multiple contingent triggers to cover any conceivable situation. But again, if it works for you and your players, who am I to object?

[Malifice]

Oh, okay, this is the part that tripped me up in your original post.



Anyway, like I said, I think allowing as many conditional or contingent "triggers" as the player or DM likes renders the whole notion of a "trigger" pointless. In this case, just say "You can use your reaction to delay your action until later in the round [with the following restrictions]..." There's no need to even bring up triggers if you can declare multiple contingent triggers to cover any conceivable situation. But again, if it works for you and your players, who am I to object?

The monster is waiting [readied attack] for later in the round to see what the players are doing. It uses it when it decides it wants to.

Im not too worried about semanitcs. I'd also allow contingent readied actions [attack or dodge] as well.

For example if a PC wants to ready 'The Dodge action if the dragon breathes, OR the Attack action if it moves into my reach, whichever comes first' athough that technically isnt RAW.

[Galactkaktus]

"it rolls its own
initiative and acts on its own turn"

Straight from the spell description and how useful the help action is varies from party to party and especially when on a turn it acts. In some fights it gets to act at a really good spot like the rogue is the next character that gets a turn and other times it really doesn't make much of a difference. It will almost always be useful but i really wouldn't call it overpowered.

[Chugger]

The monster is waiting [readied attack] for later in the round to see what the players are doing. It uses it when it decides it wants to.

Im not too worried about semanitcs. I'd also allow contingent readied actions [attack or dodge] as well.

For example if a PC wants to ready 'The Dodge action if the dragon breathes, OR the Attack action if it moves into my reach, whichever comes first' athough that technically isnt RAW.

Like you said, not RAW. I'm not saying the owl can't be taken out of the fight. But if I'm only fighting a few creatures and they waste a turn to do so - I'm winning. If on the other hand I"m fighting 20 kobolds... they can take out my owl, and they'll still all die because they're kobolds. I might hide the owl from that fight. There are measures, counter-measures, counter-counter measures and so on....

[Chugger]

"it rolls its own
initiative and acts on its own turn"

Straight from the spell description and how useful the help action is varies from party to party and especially when on a turn it acts. In some fights it gets to act at a really good spot like the rogue is the next character that gets a turn and other times it really doesn't make much of a difference. It will almost always be useful but i really wouldn't call it overpowered.

But keeping track of all that hurts DM's brains sometimes. Or at least it's what I've seen. Again, my context, I never know who is going to DM me. I get many interpretations so I need to know what the "most official" version is, if there is one.

Lots of DMs prefer to go shorthand or compress the rules for things like familiars. Just to keep things moving and not bogged down. If you say fams don't bog down combat and you actually mean it - it really doesn't affect you - I would humbly submit you are not a "normal" player. Fatigue is real, and it's something I very much have to keep in mind.

[Galactkaktus]

Well when it comes to find familiar i think the spell is pretty clear if you just read the spell description. It says in the PHB that it rolls it's own initiative. It also says "A familiar can't
attack, but it can take other actions as normal." help action is not an attack so i don't see how there could be any other interpretations if you actually read the spell. The reason why people in general wouldn't allow it is because they think it's overpowered and not becuase of any uncertainties in the rules. And in the end the GM is the one that decides how everything works which is how it should be.

[Unoriginal]

2. Wrong. The owl hides behind total cover within strike range

How? An owl can use the Help action, sure, but how would it do that while in total cover within strike range?



The owl has to be hit - it has an AC. I'd like to see you shoot a flying owl with a bow! [...] The owl is not easily hit unless someone specifically readies for it

Actually an Owl has AC 11 and 1 HP, meaning that hitting it with a regular ranged attack is pretty easy for anyone who knows how to use such weapons.

And if you're a combatant and have a bird helping your foe in a significant way, you generally think of removing the advantage your foe has.

And the Help action precise the Helping creature has to be within 5ft of the being they're hindering, so it stills put the owl in a very precarious position.

So, my verdict is: yes, an owl familiar is useful, but certainly not incredible.

[Galactkaktus]

Actually an Owl has AC 11 and 1 HP, meaning that hitting it with a regular ranged attack is pretty easy for anyone who knows how to use such weapons.
.

You can make it abit harder to hit the owl by casting mage armor on it but 14 AC is still pretty easy to hit.