Gathered Swarm + Familiar, Does it work?

[mabriss lethe]

A few questions I'm working through:

Assuming a Swarmkeeper Ranger acquired a familiar (multi class, magic initiate, ritual caster, whatever) and assuming said SK could acquire a damage dealing touch spell, would Gathered Swarm be usable if the spell is channeled through a familiar?

Next question: Assuming it works, would it be worth the effort to explore this gimmick? Is being able to use a familiar to decide what direction is "Away" for the push option, along with secondary benefits any ranger could get of delivering other non-damaging touch spells at a distance, worth the resources to bring it online?

Edit to add: Nevermind. While it's an interesting thought. It was flawed from the start. I'd somehow gotten erroneously stuck on the idea that the swarm could only move a target away from the caster, and that isn't the case.

[stoutstien]

I'd say the ...your familiar can deliver the spell as if it cast it... Would mean it cannot trigger gathering swarm. Id probably rule otherwise.

[Keltest]

If i'm reading the text of the two abilities right, the familiar could deliver Gathered Swarm assuming you used an attack roll spell. I'm not sure what the point would be though, since you can get the same effect by using a bow, and probably with a better range and attack bonus as well.

[Evaar]

I'd allow it.

The language of Find Familiar adds some ambiguity by saying "as if it had cast it." That could mean for all purposes the attack is considered to originate from the familiar, but uses your attack bonus. Like if the familiar was adjacent to an enemy with Sentinel and it used its reaction to deliver one of your touch spells to another enemy, the Sentinel should go off (rather than the familiar avoiding the Sentinel hit because it didn't actually deliver the attack; you did and you're out of range of the Sentinel). So by the strictest reading of RAW, prooobably it doesn't work.

But it's certainly not going to overpower anything, and it does use your attack roll and costs your action to do, plus it's thematic for your swarm to work together with a familiar, so there's a reasonable case to make that it's YOUR attack and your swarm would react accordingly.

[mabriss lethe]

If i'm reading the text of the two abilities right, the familiar could deliver Gathered Swarm assuming you used an attack roll spell. I'm not sure what the point would be though, since you can get the same effect by using a bow, and probably with a better range and attack bonus as well.
Sadly it needs more than a spell with an attack roll. It has to be an attack roll delivered by a spell with "touch" as the range. Something like Primal Savagery can't be used because even though it delivers a melee spell attack, the range is Self, and familiars can't channel Self spells. You'd need access to something like Shocking Grasp. (Which, you can get both it and Find Familiar off of Magic Initiate: Wizard, so that isn't a big deal)

I'd originally considered a familiar as a way to deliver spells like Snare and various support buffs at a distance, but just wondered if class/subclass features could chain off a spell cast through a familiar as if it were you. And yeah, the best answer I could get from the rules and various google searches was more "Does not compute" than a direct "yes/no"

The idea is that it would allow the caster to effectively herd the target in different directions since gathered swarm's push is a straight line effect that can only go away from the caster. By using the placement of a familiar to set the directionality you could pinball him in different directions than just away from you.

[Keltest]

I'm AFB right now, but I thought swarmkeepers could choose the direction they moved things?

[Evaar]

I'm AFB right now, but I thought swarmkeepers could choose the direction they moved things?

That's correct. Target succeeds on a strength save or gets moved 15 feet horizontally in a direction of your choice.

[mabriss lethe]

That's correct. Target succeeds on a strength save or gets moved 15 feet horizontally in a direction of your choice.

Well nevermind. I'd read through it god only knows how many times and could have sworn it specified "away" (Looking a bit foolish is just the price I get to pay for not checking it again.)

That definitely simplifies things. So No definitely not worth doing even if it works.