Familiars in D&D 5e: How They Work and How to Use Them

Time to get familiar with familiars

How do you get a familiar?

Getting a familiar is really simple. All you need is a level 1 spell called find familiar. When you cast it, you summon a familiar of your choice that has a CR of 0 and is a beast. If you lose your familiar, you can recast the spell to summon a new familiar.

Find familiar is only found on the wizard spell list, however, if you aren’t a wizard, it’s actually not that hard for any other class to get access to this spell:

• Warlocks can take the pact of the chain eldritch invocation to gain access to the spell.
• Druids can use their level 2 feature, wild companion to cast find familiar.

• Alternatively, anyone can take the magic initiate (wizard) origin feat at level 1 and pick find familiar from the wizard’s spell list. You can get this by taking the sage background (or updating an old background and taking the magic initiate origin feat for that background).
• At level 4, you can take the ritual caster feat, and because find familiar is a level 1 ritual spell, you could choose it as one of your optional spells.
• If you’re using a 2024 fighter or rogue, the eldritch knight and arcane trickster subclasses pick spells from the wizard’s spell list, and as they aren’t limited by magic schools anymore, can both take find familiar from level 3.

How do familiars work?

The rules are pretty similar across D&D 2014 and 2024. I’ve favoured the 2024 rules in this article and highlighted any meaningful differences with the 2014 rules. There are some minor differences though so make sure you check the individual spell and class features for whatever edition you’re playing.

Heres how it all works:

Telepathic connection: You have a telepathic connection to your familiar. It allows you to give commands through non-verbal communication. This is great when trying to maintain a sense of stealthiness or discretion. You can also use a bonus action to see and hear what your familiar sees and hears (or an action with the 2014 rules). Not only is this useful when apart from one another, it also means you can use any special senses they have (like darkvision or blindsight).

Combat: Familiars can’t attack, but they can take other actions as normal. This means moving, providing the help action or doing things like searching.

Touch spells: When casting spells with a range of touch, you can deliver them through your familiar instead (as long as you’re within 100ft of your familiar).

Changing form: You can change the form of your familiar by recasting find familiar allowing you to adapt your familiar’s form to your needs.

Pocket dimension: If you want to send your familiar away, you can dismiss it to a pocket dimension. It also goes here if it drops to 0HP. You can resummon it by recasting the spell if the familiar dropped to 0HP or by using a magic action to resummon it if it has just been dismissed.

Pact of the chain: If you take the pact of the chain eldritch invocation as a warlock, you get access to several special forms of familiars (detailed below) that are more powerful (up to CR1). You can also allow your familiar to attack by foregoing one of your attacks instead.

Which familiar should I use?

What creatures can be used as familiars?

The find familiar spells suggests several creatures you can summon as your familiar as well as indicating you can use any CR0 beast as a familiar. Warlocks with the pact of the chain eldritch invocation can also choose from an expanded list of more powerful familiars.

Below are all the familiars you can choose from. If they are only found in the 2014 rules, then I’ve indicated this below, otherwise, these creatures are available for both editions:

Suggested familiars

• Bat
• Cat
• Frog
• Hawk
• Lizard
• Octopus
• Owl
• Rat
• Raven
• Spider
• Weasel

Other creatures that can be familiars

• Baboon (2014)
• Badger
• Crab
• Deer
• Eagle
• Giant fire beetle (2014)
• Giant fly (2014)
• Goat
• Hyena (2014)
• Jackal (2014)
• Quipper (2014)
• Scorpion
• Sea horse (2014)
• Vulture (2014)

Pact of the chain, warlock exclusive familiars

• Imp
• Pseudodragon
• Quasit
• Skeleton
• Slaad tadpole
• Sphinx of wonder
• Sprite
• Venomous snake

What can different familiars do?

That’s 33 familiars to choose from! And that doesn’t even go into some of the other options you could take from outside the core rulebooks.

You’ll likely want to choose a familiar form based on what the familiar can do. So below, I’ve presented certain abilities some familiars have and the potential familiars that have those abilities to help you make your choice. Remember, you can change the form of your familiar by recasting the spell so feel free to change your familiar to suit a given situation.

Climb speed: Baboon, cat, goat (2024 only), lizard, rat (2024 only), spider, weasel

Fly speed: Bat, eagle, giant fly, hawk, owl, raven, vulture, imp, pseudodragon, sphinx of wonder, fly

Swim speed: Crab, frog, octopus, quipper, sea horse, venomous snake

Burrow speed: Badger, slaad tadpole

Faster than average: Cat, deer, goat, hyena, jackal, quasit

Darkvision: Badger, cat (2024 only), frog, giant fly, goat (2024 only), lizard, octopus, owl, quipper, rat, spider, weasel (2024 only), imp, pseudodragon, quasit, skeleton, slaad tadpole, sphinx of wonder

Blindsight: Bat, crab, giant fire beetle, scorpion, pseudodragon, venomous snake

Heightened stealth: cat, octopus, owl, spider, weasel, imp, pseudodragon, quasit, slaad tadpole, sphinx of wonder, sprite

Heightened perception: Badger (2014 only, keen smell), bat (2014 only, keen hearing), cat (2014 only, keen smell), eagle (keen sight), hawk, jackal (keen hearing and smell), owl, rat (2014 only, keen smell), vulture (keen sight and smell), weasel (2014 only, keen hearing and smell), pseudodragon

Which familiars are the best?

This mainly depends on what you want to accomplish, but here are some great options:

• Giant fly – I’m not quite sure how this one snuck in to become available, but giant flies are the toughest non-warlock familiars around with a whopping 19hp. They can also fly and have darkvision. They’re large though, and buzz, so likely terrible for stealth.
• Badger – If you want something that can burrow, a badger is your only non-warlock option. It’s slow but will get there eventually.
• Owl – Owls are almost the full package. They can fly as fast as anything else, have darkvision (120ft so the furthest possible), are good at stealthing and perception too. A top choice for a familiar.
• Bat – If you’re after blindsight, then bats are your best option. They can fly too which makes them generally handy.
• Octopus – Your best option for a swimmer, they happen to have darkvision and are stealthy too!
• Cat – If you want something that can climb and stealth around, then a cat is a great option. It’s even considered tiny so can squeeze through small spaces.
• Imp (pact of the chain only) – Imps can fly, have darkvision, can see through magical darkness and can turn invisible making them one of your best options for stealth and seeing through their eyes.
• Quasit (pact of the chain only) – These fiends can also turn invisible, have darkvision and can shapeshift. They can also attempt to frighten enemies too.
• Sphinx of wonder (pact of the chain only) – Flight, high hit points, decent stealth and darkvision are all good, but this little fellow will enhance your ability checks if you need a little boost too.
• Sprite (pact of the chain only) – With flight, excellent stealth and invisibility, sprites make one of the best scouts you can get.

Tactics

Familiars are only great if you know how to use them. Below are some tactics for making the most out of your familiar:

• Darkvision – If you don’t have darkvision, you can perch your familiar on your shoulder and look through it’s eyes instead of your own, allowing you to effectively have darkvision of your own.
• Blindsight – Similarly, if you don’t have blindsight and you’ve been blinded or affected by some sort of magical darkness, then just use your familiar’s senses instead. You can even work tactically with your familiar to create magical darkness that shrouds you (and potentially enemies too) giving you a layer of protection and some easy advantage.
• Help – Familiars can’t take the attack action themselves, but they can use the help action. Use them to help you in combat for easy advantage or to help you with ability checks.
• Scouting – Familiars are small and discreet looking (mostly, let’s ignore giant flies for a moment). Some are decent at stealth, are smaller than most characters and many can climb or fly making them great at accessing secret places and scouting out an area. Remember, you can see and hear what your familiar sees and hears if you’re 100ft from one another. You can also communicate with your familiar making this superior to other ways of using creatures to scout for you.
• Touch spells – The problem with touch spells is you have to make your delicate spellcaster vulnerable to deliver them or they might be too far from a target. But with a familiar, you can send them into danger instead. They’ll usually get ignored and when they aren’t, they can just be resummoned so it’s a worthy option. Unfortunately, most of the touch damage spells are bettered by ranged spells anyway. Plus, most touch spells are healing or buff spells so mainly, this allows you to help allies with cure wounds, greater restoration or some other spell while staying away from danger areas of combat.
• Using magic items – There’s nothing in the rules that says a familiar can’t use a magic item. In fact, this has been confirmed by Jeremy Crawford through his sage advice. So if you want your familiar to have something to do on its action, give them a magic item to use. I’d just check with your DM that they’ll be ruling it this way as some DMs won’t allow this…
• Mounts for small creatures – Deer, goats and hyenas are all medium creatures. They’re also faster than the average creature. If you’re a small species, then you can ride one of these familiars. So far, only goats are available in D&D 2024, but that’ll get you a 40ft move speed and a climb speed too. If you want to fly, giant fly’s are large so can technically carry any playable character (including a Goliath)! Maybe speak to your DM before you try this one though… It is questionable whether a giant fly has the right kind of anatomy to be ridden.
• Decoy – Use a familiar to distract enemies with noise or some other distraction. This might allow you to sneak past guards or surprise them from behind.
• Familiar attacks (pact of the chain only) – The best attack you can make through a familiar is 3d6+3 damage from the imp. That’s not bad at low levels (average of 13.5 damage per attack) which will out perform a lot of single attacks early on. However, all other familiars will be weaker than what you can accomplish with your own attacks. Some familiars can cause effects like poisoned which is good if you can land it. Your own attacks should normally be more powerful than your familiar’s, but if you take investment of the chain master, you can command your familiar to make attacks with your bonus action, stopping this competing with your own attacks. You might also opt for this if you’re affected by a condition that gives disadvantage on your attacks like being restrained or poisoned. It does also mean that when using your familiar’s senses when separated, it can still make attacks of its own.

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There’s a lot of really useful ways to use a familiar, making them one of the best level 1 spells in the game. Even if you’re not a wizard or warlock, it’s easy to grab find familiar from a feat like magic initiate (wizard) or ritual caster making familiars viable for any class.

Do you have tactics for your familiars? Let me know about them in the comments below.

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