Rules help: touch spell familiar reactions

[Silpharon]

This happened at a session this week, and trying to figure out what's correct...

- Ike has a familiar named Boo, is concentrating on another spell, and has Cure Wounds known
- Joe is looking like he could need a heal soon

Boo on his turn could get within touch range of Joe. Ike then on his turn casts Cure Wounds and let's Boo deliver it with his reaction. This way Ike doesn't ready a spell and lose his concentration.

Question: For Boo to get within touch range, does he need to mount Joe (using half movement) OR just stop 5 feet from him? Keep in mind that Boo cannot end his turn within the same space as Joe without mounting him. If it's the former, there are a lot of lost movement opportunities in future rounds. If it is the latter, then we must agree that Boo can move 5 feet as part of his touch spell reaction.

[diplomancer]

Not exactly. Look at any familiar's Action block. You will see their attacks have a range of 5', and they are always with their natural weapons. Which means that they can touch anything that is within 5' of them easily, despite their tiny size. The familiar is not moving, as it remains in the same square, it just has a surprisingly long reach.

Don't overthink it, and if it does bother you, remember that everything is happening pretty much at once, and initiative is just a way to bring order to chaos.

[Silpharon]

Not exactly. Look at any familiar's Action block. You will see their attacks have a range of 5', and they are always with their natural weapons. Which means that they can touch anything that is within 5' of them easily, despite their tiny size. The familiar is not moving, as it remains in the same square, it just has a surprisingly long reach.

Don't overthink it, and if it does bother you, remember that everything is happening pretty much at once, and initiative is just a way to bring order to chaos.

Good point, so you would rule that I could leave Boo within 5 feet above or to the side of Joe. That's certainly more convenient than wasting half movement on mounting. The problem with mounting is you can't dismount (half movement), move around (for help for instance), and remount (half movement) in the same turn.

[PhantomSoul]

Not exactly. Look at any familiar's Action block. You will see their attacks have a range of 5', and they are always with their natural weapons. Which means that they can touch anything that is within 5' of them easily, despite their tiny size. The familiar is not moving, as it remains in the same square, it just has a surprisingly long reach.

It might also help to remember that the Size is (kind of) not really the size of the Creature, but the Space it "controls" in combat;

Each creature takes up a different amount o f space. The Size Categories table shows how much space a creature of a particular size controls in combat. Objects sometimes use the same size categories.
...
A creature's space is the area in feet that it effectively controls in combat, not an expression of its physical dimensions.

(PHB191)

So you can fit more Tiny Creatures into a 5x5, but if you're not applying the level of granularity to the Tiny Creature to say where in that Space they are (and therefore which 2.5x2.5 they control), they're effectively just being treated like a 5x5 Creature and you can imagine them lowercase-moving around that Space. The Creature isn't Moving (using its mechanical Movement/Speed) to relocate within its Space even if that requires physical movement in narrative and conceptually. They just always adjust their position as they go while in that Space as part of trying to dodge blows, attack, etc. So the Creature is sometimes at the very side of that Space narratively (e.g. to Attack a Creature outside of the Space but within Reach and within reach), but that's more fine-grained that the mechanics worry about and it gets collapsed as part of simplifying everything going on in a Round into Initiative and Turns and Speed.