How can we use a familiar to it up most Potential

[Throne12]

So a familiar can deliver touch spells and if your a chain lock use the attach action. So let create a build were we use a familiar for combat and other uses we can come up with.

[Throne12]

I'm thinking v-human for Inspiring leader feat. Then 3 levels of warlock for pact of the chain for a really cool familiar. Then go the rest of the way Divine soul sorcerer for the ability to pick cleric spells if they still have that option in the new book. Any way the spells I want are Inflict wounds, Aid, bless, and cure wounds. Sorcerer gives me haste, greater Invisability. And few others I would like.

So leader feat give some much needed temp hp. Aid gives up. Then bless helps with landing attacks. Then haste gives extra AC and action. But most of the time casting inflict wounds through the familiar. Using greater invis and the meta magic that let you cast spells with out the s and v components.

[JNAProductions]

What's the familiar really doing here? You can do that pretty well WITHOUT the familiar. Sure, you can't hide after that (unless you dip Rogue, for Cunning Action, or Quicken your spell, but that'll eat SP like crazy) but most all attacks are at disadvantage against you, you're immune to opportunity attacks...

[Chugger]

We've discussed this over the past few months, but it's okay if you missed that - can discuss it again.

The warlock familiars are more useful as scouts and for color or certain interactions with NPCs - they're invis - you can speak through them and so on. I think they're strongest as invisible scouts.

And familiars are very powerful as scouts. Warlock ones are usually best because they're (mostly) invis. Flying animal familiars also make really good scouts. Some can see in the dark, too.

They have other abilities - they can do weak attacks - pixies have heart touch and so on, but those are cumbersome to use.

Okay the other main "strong" use for familiars besides scouting is help in combat. For this you really want the owl. Why? It has a "flyby" feature making it very mobile. You can park it away from you (so hopefully it isn't hit by an area attack). You then have it swoop down and help you on an attack, giving you advantage - and it also counts as having an ally w/in 5' of the target (for say sneak attack) - and then it flies away to it's "safe" spot. Flyby means nothing can attack of opportunity it as it leaves.

Otherwise you will need to park your familiar within 5' of the target. Let's say it has 3 attacks - a bite and two claw attacks. It will use one of its claw attacks to try to take out your familiar if your familiar is in range, and as the fam only has 1 hp, it's going down if it is hit by anything. That's why the owl is so strong. Possibly a warlock fam can stay invis while helping you, and if it can't be seen you can argue there is no attack of opportunity if you move it in and out to help you - so possibly that could be made to work (I generally work with an owl that I get from the magic initiate feat).

The other thing a familiar can do is target a deadly trap for you. You have to spend an hour resummoning it and go without it if you don't have that kind of time, but usually losing the fam is better than taking massive damage. This would be a trap that you can't defuse or turn off - that is triggered by a creature. Rare, but they do exist. Sometimes sending the fam ahead triggers a trap, anyway, one you could have seen and turned off maybe.

The other thing about a warlock fam, in particular, is that with the invis thing, they make dungeoning "easy" in many cases. Sometimes too easy. The lock and his fam take over and make things really boring for the party - this is a common complaint I've seen here.