Follow That Familiar, Slay All You Meet

[TheYell]

Looking ahead to getting the Minions of Chaos incantation.

I'm thinking of having my bat familiar scout ahead, report back, describe telepathically what it saw, conjuring an Air Elemental, and then directing the Air Elemental to follow the familiar back down the route and slay all it encounters, then return.

Air Elemental disposes of goons while I sit back and concentrate on my Conjuring, buffing my nails and whistling, waiting for combat to resolve without being in sight of it.

Am I missing something or isn't this possible? Is it too broken to tolerate? (Apart from the obvious sending my DM to Volo's to get creative)

[Potato_Priest]

I don’t know why you wouldn’t be able to do this, but it also doesn’t seem as broken as you seem to think it is. To be able to do this, you need to be able to conjure an air elemental, which is only going to be possible at levels for which the elemental won’t be able to take CR-appropriate enemies on and win without support anyway.

Also, what book is the minions of chaos thing in, and what does it do?

[MaxWilson]

I don’t know why you wouldn’t be able to do this, but it also doesn’t seem as broken as you seem to think it is. To be able to do this, you need to be able to conjure an air elemental, which is only going to be possible at levels for which the elemental won’t be able to take CR-appropriate enemies on and win without support anyway.

Also, what book is the minions of chaos thing in, and what does it do?

IIRC it's in the PHB, and it lets you spend a spell slot on Conjure Elemental, once per long rest.

[TheYell]

Yes

Minions of Chaos

Prerequisite: 9th level

You can cast conjure elemental once using a warlock spell slot. You can’t do so again until you finish a long rest.

[MaxWilson]

Yes, this is possible. Before doing it, consider whether (1) is a lone elemental likely to be able to take out the kinds of things I'm sending it after? (2) Do I as a player really want to sit around and watch my DM roll dice against an offscreen air elemental? (Or is the DM going to just guesstimate the outcome and skip ahead? Or let you roleplay the elemental in combat?) (3) What will the other players be doing during this time? Are any of them likely to charge ahead along with the elemental? Am I okay with that?

There's nothing wrong with the strategy of using elementals as combat proxies, aside of course from the possibility of them destroying or killing something you don't want them to kill and their vulnerability to Dispel Magic, and a druid or cleric or bard or wizard with a whole stable of Planar Bound elementals is a force to be reckoned with. But it may have the side effect of trivializing combat to the point where roleplaying social and exploration encounters becomes the focus of the game. Make sure your DM is prepared for that.

P.S. I reckon you're a Combat As War player. I approve, but read this thread, in particular posts #1, #5, and #9: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?317715-Very-Long-Combat-as-Sport-vs-Combat-as-War-a-Key-Difference-in-D-amp-D-Play-Styles. CAW and CAS coexist only uneasily at the same table, and 5E is not particularly good at supporting CAW without lots of DM work.

[History_buff]

Elementals are pretty tough cookies. Fire elementals especially against non fire immune enemies.

Over a hundred hp. DR against b/p/s. Not entirely terrible AC. Secondary effects like Earth elemental earth glide.

[Potato_Priest]

Elementals are pretty tough cookies. Fire elementals especially against non fire immune enemies.

Over a hundred hp. DR against b/p/s. Not entirely terrible AC. Secondary effects like Earth elemental earth glide.

They are pretty effective, but we’re talking about a CR 5 monster up against what is likely to be a CR 9+ encounter. The stuff that the elemental is up against is probably going to be at least as intimidating and powerful as the elemental is, if not more so. You could always get really lucky and find a fire giant with nonmagical weapons, but that’s still almost an even fight and it’s pretty much the best-case scenario.

[Morquard]

How tough is a bat familiar? Because once you pulled that trick a few times, something might try to eat it.

[TheYell]

Thanks for the input!

I'll be talking to my DM.

I had not really considered the rest of the table. Probably they do not want to sit by while the DM rolls and rolls offscreen combat. More like "definitely".

Yes I am a Combat as War grognard. I'd probably suggest something to approximate the fighting.

Maybe my familiar/elemental team slays 33% of weak mooks they encounter, routs the other 66% -- they don't stay to fight an invisible thing that throws corpses at them -- and wakens something with a matching or superior CR for a combat. That would let me clear rooms with my spell slot, doesn't make the DM award me excessive piles of free treasure, gives the whole party an imminent minor boss encounter, and spares the DM a lot of dice work.

But I can see that's something to develop with him as I get the capability.

Or he could do a forked passage and give the enemy horns to blow, so I only take out half the enemy and rouse the other half... I better talk with him

[MaxWilson]

They are pretty effective, but we’re talking about a CR 5 monster up against what is likely to be a CR 9+ encounter. The stuff that the elemental is up against is probably going to be at least as intimidating and powerful as the elemental is, if not more so. You could always get really lucky and find a fire giant with nonmagical weapons, but that’s still almost an even fight and it’s pretty much the best-case scenario.

That's Lanchester's Square Law in action. Combat strength scales with the square of the number of fully-engaged combatants.

So one earth elemental will die pathetically, but if a party of four PCs summons four elementals, they will be 16x as strong as one elemental. Even if they don't finish off the whole adventure by themselves, they will severely degrade the enemy's capabilities and make them easy meat for the PCs (or a second round of elementals).

BTW, Lanchester's Square Law is also why it is so nuts that WotC guidelines and published 5E adventures are built around the assumption that monsters will always allow themselves to be defeated in detail. Six separate "encounters" with mind flayers and their minions? Feh. It's the *players'* job to break the mind flayers up into six groups (via illusions, mobility, ambush, whatever) so that they can be easily defeated in detail. It isn't the DM's job to do the hard part for them, unless you're playing a CRPG instead of a TTRPG.