Author Topic: 5e A Familiar Handbook  (Read 85191 times)

Offline sambojin

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Re: 5e A Familiar Handbook
« Reply #20 on: September 29, 2015, 09:09:14 PM »
For the variant familiar rules, there's some interesting low CR beasts available in the early adventure supplements.

For the evils, but also for weird utility, it's got to be Rot Grub (Against the Slave Lords Bestiary). Mostly for Warlocks, because you might have to attack with it to burrow it into creatures. Dropping it into a creature's ear might work just as well though. Maybe even your own ear.

You can use it to burrow against incapacitated enemies for interrogations, but there's other stuff too. You can also cast touch spells from inside them if you'd like.

Burrow it into yourself so you never lose the advantages (?) of having a familiar. You're the safest carrying pouch in the game. Get it to pop out of your forehead and use its senses for when you need 25' blindsight. Any AoE charm or frighten might (big might) be stopped while it's looking out from your forehead too. But unburrow it completely before an hour is up, or you lose 5 maximum HP. Forever. You could, in theory, tell it not to eat your brains while it's inside you, but RAW says it will.

With Voice of the Chainmaster, you can also use it as a loudspeaker. If you've got any particularly funky undead servants that you wished could speak, now they can. At least, it'll sound like they're speaking, in your voice, from inside their skull. It'll impress other necromancers no end. Plus you can cast touch spells on them whenever you want (within 100' range).

Rot Grubs are tiny. Like, actually tiny, not just fairly small like most beasts. Think of a worm or maggot, and not even a big one (1/2-3" long). There even used to be a 75% chance that they'd be mistaken for regular worms. Sometimes small and concealable is better than invisible. They make for great spying bugs to plant in rooms or even on people. You can then use their senses to see and hear anything you need to know. AFAIK, Rot Grubs can hear as well as use 25' blindsight (there's nothing saying they don't). This is even better with VotC, and can even be used by other party members as a plane-wide-range radio handset for split adventures. It's simpler for someone to just carry your familiar, or for you to hide it in a room somewhere, or in an item, or on a vehicle, than it is to worry about exactly what your Imp is doing every turn. You can even burrow it into a willing person as a police wire if you need to.

What happens when a Rot Grub turns into an Cat while it's inside someone's skull? You'll never know until you re-cast Find Familiar to find out. Do it for !!science!!. But not on yourself.
« Last Edit: September 29, 2015, 09:53:58 PM by sambojin »

Offline Nunkuruji

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Re: 5e A Familiar Handbook
« Reply #21 on: September 30, 2015, 05:40:23 PM »
I'll get crackin on updates as soon as I can, been busy with my groups first 5e campaign. Familiars are in use, so perhaps they'll come up with some clever ideas of their own that I can contribute into this.