Modular Familiars

[RavynsLand]

Who doesn't love familiars? The little animal friends truly bring out the Disney Princess in all of us, and I never miss an opportunity to grab Find Familiar. That said, I feel like the tiny beasts are somewhat ill thought-out in 5e, lacking abilities they'd be likely to have, and in many cases, wildly unbalanced. An owl can fly, has darkvision, perception, stealth, has flyby -- basically anything you could want from a familiar. Or you could have... y'know, a... um... a crab?

So, in interest of giving familiars a rebalance and a glow-up, I've been tinkering with a variant rule: Modular Familiars. Inspired by Tasha's beastmaster pets and summons, I wanted to give a build-a-bear element to crafting fun familiars that can be whatever sort of animal you imagine. This is what I have to show for it. I'd love to hear any feedback or suggestions for further tinkering.

Without further ado, here goes:
________________________________

Familiar (Variant)
Tiny celestial, fiend, or fey, unaligned
Armor Class: 12
Hit Points: 4
Speed: 30 ft.

Str: 3 (-4) / Dex: 15 (+2) / Con: 10 (+0) / Int: 3 (-4) / Wis: 12 (+1) / Cha: 7 (-2)

Senses: passive Perception 11

Familiar Abilities. Variant Familiars retain all abilities gained by the Find Familiar spell, such as delivering touch spells and sharing senses with their masters.

Hard Target. Variant Familiars cannot incur Opportunity Attacks for any reason.

Variant Movement (choose one): Select one form of movement from the list below. This is chosen at the time of summoning and cannot be changed unless Find Familiar is cast again.

Variant Senses (choose one): Select one form of enhanced senses from the list below. This is chosen at the time of summoning and cannot be changed unless Find Familiar is cast again.

Variant Ability (choose one): Select one ability from the list below. This is chosen at the time of summoning and cannot be changed unless Find Familiar is cast again.

Actions:
Attack: Melee Weapon Attack: +0 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 1 (1d1) slashing, piercing, or bludgeoning damage, chosen at time of summoning.

Variant Movements:

Airborne: Your familiar gains a flying speed of 50 ft. Selecting this changes your familiar’s base speed to 10 ft.

Stealthy: Your familiar adds its master’s Proficiency to any Dexterity (Stealth) checks it makes.

Aquatic: Your familiar can breathe underwater and gains a swimming speed of 30 ft. Selecting this changes your familiar’s base speed to 5 ft.

Amphibious: Your familiar can hold its breath underwater for up to one hour, and gains a swimming speed of 20ft. Selecting this changes your familiar’s base speed to 20ft.

Spider Climb: Your familiar can travel along surfaces such as walls and ceilings using its base movement speed, and cannot be affected by natural webs or similar effects such as the Web spell.

Burrower: Your familiar gains a burrow speed of 10 ft. Selecting this changes your familiar's base speed to 20 ft.

Glider: When your familiar falls and isn’t incapacitated, it can subtract up to 100 feet from the fall when calculating falling damage, and it can move up to 2 feet horizontally for every 1 foot it descends.

Variant Senses:

Darkvision: Your familiar gains Darkvision to a range of 60 ft.

Perceptive: Your familiar adds its master’s Proficiency to any Wisdom (Perception) checks it makes.

Tremorsense: Your familiar has Blindsense to a range of 10 ft. while it is in contact with the ground.

Scent: Your familiar has Advantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on smell. In addition, it can remember and recognize specific scents.

Variant Abilities:

Speech: Your familiar gains the ability to speak and understand one language that its master already speaks.

Envenom: Using fangs, quills, or a stinger, your familiar can attempt to poison an enemy within 5 ft. as an Action. The target must succeed at a Constitution saving throw equal to its master’s Spell Save DC or become poisoned for one minute. A creature can repeat the saving throw at the end of each of its turns, ending the effect on a success. Once this ability is used, the familiar’s master must finish a Long Rest before it can be used again.

Prehensility: Using a hand, tail, tentacle, or other such grasper, your familiar can hold, carry, or manipulate objects. It is still limited by its size and strength, and lacks the dexterity or know-how to manipulate complicated mechanisms.

Armor: Due to tough scales, quills, shell, or other such armor, your familiar is far more durable than most, and adds its master’s Proficiency to its Armor Class.

Socialized: Your familiar is adorable or otherwise charming. It can use the Friends cantrip, using its master’s Spell Save DC. Once this ability is used, the familiar’s master must finish a Short Rest before it can be used again.

Talented: You can select either the Stealthy or Perceptive features (as seen above) if you have not already chosen it for your Movement or Sense, respectively.

[Yakk]

I do like build-a-bear.

I don't like nearly at-will build-a-bear.

I'd give players (proficiency bonus) familiar forms they can choose between. And swapping known familiars might take something like a week of downtime.

[Saelethil]

Who doesn't love familiars? The little animal friends truly bring out the Disney Princess in all of us, and I never miss an opportunity to grab Find Familiar. That said, I feel like the tiny beasts are somewhat ill thought-out in 5e, lacking abilities they'd be likely to have, and in many cases, wildly unbalanced. An owl can fly, has darkvision, perception, stealth, has flyby -- basically anything you could want from a familiar. Or you could have... y'know, a... um... a crab?

So, in interest of giving familiars a rebalance and a glow-up, I've been tinkering with a variant rule: Modular Familiars. Inspired by Tasha's beastmaster pets and summons, I wanted to give a build-a-bear element to crafting fun familiars that can be whatever sort of animal you imagine. This is what I have to show for it. I'd love to hear any feedback or suggestions for further tinkering.

Without further ado, here goes:
________________________________

Familiar (Variant)
Tiny celestial, fiend, or fey, unaligned
Armor Class: 12
Hit Points: 4
Speed: 30 ft.

Str: 3 (-4) / Dex: 15 (+2) / Con: 10 (+0) / Int: 3 (-4) / Wis: 12 (+1) / Cha: 7 (-2)

Senses: passive Perception 11

Familiar Abilities. Variant Familiars retain all abilities gained by the Find Familiar spell, such as delivering touch spells and sharing senses with their masters.

Hard Target. Variant Familiars cannot incur Opportunity Attacks for any reason.

Variant Movement (choose one): Select one form of movement from the list below. This is chosen at the time of summoning and cannot be changed unless Find Familiar is cast again.

Variant Senses (choose one): Select one form of enhanced senses from the list below. This is chosen at the time of summoning and cannot be changed unless Find Familiar is cast again.

Variant Ability (choose one): Select one ability from the list below. This is chosen at the time of summoning and cannot be changed unless Find Familiar is cast again.

Actions:
Attack: Melee Weapon Attack: +0 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 1 (1d1) slashing, piercing, or bludgeoning damage, chosen at time of summoning.

Variant Movements:

Airborne: Your familiar gains a flying speed of 50 ft. Selecting this changes your familiar’s base speed to 10 ft.

Stealthy: Your familiar adds its master’s Proficiency to any Dexterity (Stealth) checks it makes.

Aquatic: Your familiar can breathe underwater and gains a swimming speed of 30 ft. Selecting this changes your familiar’s base speed to 5 ft.

Amphibious: Your familiar can hold its breath underwater for up to one hour, and gains a swimming speed of 20ft. Selecting this changes your familiar’s base speed to 20ft.

Spider Climb: Your familiar can travel along surfaces such as walls and ceilings using its base movement speed, and cannot be affected by natural webs or similar effects such as the Web spell.

Burrower: Your familiar gains a burrow speed of 10 ft. Selecting this changes your familiar's base speed to 20 ft.

Glider: When your familiar falls and isn’t incapacitated, it can subtract up to 100 feet from the fall when calculating falling damage, and it can move up to 2 feet horizontally for every 1 foot it descends.

Variant Senses:

Darkvision: Your familiar gains Darkvision to a range of 60 ft.

Perceptive: Your familiar adds its master’s Proficiency to any Wisdom (Perception) checks it makes.

Tremorsense: Your familiar has Blindsense to a range of 10 ft. while it is in contact with the ground.

Scent: Your familiar has Advantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on smell. In addition, it can remember and recognize specific scents.

Variant Abilities:

Speech: Your familiar gains the ability to speak and understand one language that its master already speaks.

Envenom: Using fangs, quills, or a stinger, your familiar can attempt to poison an enemy within 5 ft. as an Action. The target must succeed at a Constitution saving throw equal to its master’s Spell Save DC or become poisoned for one minute. A creature can repeat the saving throw at the end of each of its turns, ending the effect on a success. Once this ability is used, the familiar’s master must finish a Long Rest before it can be used again.

Prehensility: Using a hand, tail, tentacle, or other such grasper, your familiar can hold, carry, or manipulate objects. It is still limited by its size and strength, and lacks the dexterity or know-how to manipulate complicated mechanisms.

Armor: Due to tough scales, quills, shell, or other such armor, your familiar is far more durable than most, and adds its master’s Proficiency to its Armor Class.

Socialized: Your familiar is adorable or otherwise charming. It can use the Friends cantrip, using its master’s Spell Save DC. Once this ability is used, the familiar’s master must finish a Short Rest before it can be used again.

Talented: You can select either the Stealthy or Perceptive features (as seen above) if you have not already chosen it for your Movement or Sense, respectively.

I really like the concept and the implementation!

I do like build-a-bear.

I don't like nearly at-will build-a-bear.

I'd give players (proficiency bonus) familiar forms they can choose between. And swapping known familiars might take something like a week of downtime.

But I agree here. And might go a step further in saying that if you learned the spell through a feat instead of your class you can only make 1/2 your PB different forms.

[RavynsLand]

I do like build-a-bear.

I don't like nearly at-will build-a-bear.

I'd give players (proficiency bonus) familiar forms they can choose between. And swapping known familiars might take something like a week of downtime.

I really like the concept and the implementation!

But I agree here. And might go a step further in saying that if you learned the spell through a feat instead of your class you can only make 1/2 your PB different forms.

Noted. Will consider ways to limit it.