Can a Familiar help a Wiz scribe from scrolls?

[Glarnog]

Would you allow a familiar to help a Wizard with copying spells from scrolls? As in grant advantage to the Arcana check?

[Daishain]

That depends on one's interpretation of familiars.

5E gives jack all information on the role and abilities of familiars, and doesn't seem to suggest that they're much more than outsiders posing as animals that like to hang around wizards. Strictly by that interpretation, no, they don't seem to have the intelligence or skill to be anything other than a nuisance in an arcana check.

I however, much prefer the 3.x version where they're an extension of the caster's mind. Master and familiar share skills, abilities, and knowledge. The familiar also gains intelligence well beyond that of their normal form. If running it like that, then absolutely yes. There is even especially amusing roleplay potential with a familiar remembering something the master did not.

I do find it amusing that the Paladin's steed is now much more like a familiar than the actual familiars are.

[Daehron]

Would you allow a familiar to help a Wizard with copying spells from scrolls? As in grant advantage to the Arcana check?

Rules for "providing help" on an ability check are that the individual who is providing assistance needs to be capable of doing the skill themselves, and that it is possible for a second person to assist. The specific example is that someone cannot 'assist' you in threading a needle. Since an owl, or bat, or poisonous snake is not capable of scribing a spell, they cannot assist you.

One *could* argue that an imp, sprite, or pseudodragon could assist you, given their magical nature. But since they are warlock chain pact familiars, what would be the point? (Unless the chain warlock dipped wizard, or took the ritual caster feat)

[Glarnog]

Thanks. I was thinking, yes, based on the Help action from the combat actions that it was doable. However going back and rereading the Working Togther in chapt 7 of PH,I guess RAW no, since it requires a "character" who could attempt the check on their own. A Familiar is not a character even if it could make an Arcana check on its own. :) An owl doting the "i"s and crossing the "t"s as his Wizard attempts to scribe a new scroll in to his spell book just isn't going to happen RAW, unless maybe the scribing is happening during combat. :)

[Daishain]

Do bear in mind, RAW is much more malleable in this edition than any previous version. DMs are encouraged and in some cases even required to come up with their own rules.

If you like the idea of one's familiar helping out, even if only in a largely superficial role, talk to your DM, there's a decent chance he'll agree.

[Glarnog]

Oh I will most certainly fluff it that way. :) Mechanics or not I'm going to have fun. :)

[Dalebert]

I don't think I'd allow it because it's just cheesy though I'd probably allow another character who was also capable of scribing, either by virtue of being a wizard or by having the ritual caster feat, for instance. Part of the scribing process and the given reason for why it costs 50gp per spell level the first time but not on additional backup copies, is because you're having to decipher and and experiment and translate the spell from someone else's version into your personal version. Once you've done that, copying it again is MUCH easier and cheaper (10gp / level). That seems like something that another scriber could assist with. You could discuss weird symbols--"Oh, that's an ancient Sumerian symbol for summoning the earth element. I saw it in a Wall of Stone spell once."

So if a DM wanted to allow it, the fluff of it can be explained. They don't go into the intelligence of the familiar much at all so it remains ambiguous, but everyone I've played under treats them as human or near-human intelligence. They're definitely not animals. They're spirits in animal form. There's not any reason to assume they'd be as dumb as animals. In particular, they understand instruction from their masters either by verbal or mental communication which implies some degree of higher-than-animal intelligence. It's just a question of how much and that's up to the DM.