Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Find Familiar - Renamed for Ranger?

Watching yesterday's stream I noticed that they had given Find Familiar to the Ranger (Beastmaster) as a 'cantrip'. While in the base 5e rules the BM Ranger's companion is different than what is provided by the Find Familiar spell, I had a few questions:

1. The in-game spell description says its a level 1 spell, which matches the 5e rules. However, typically it will be cast as a Ritual so it is functionally a 'cantrip' with a 1 hour and ten minutes cast time.

2. The in-game spell description matches the 5e rule set (while leaving out some information). This is important because of the text that states a Familiar cannot attack. However a BM Ranger Companion is both allowed and expected to attack, so that's an understandable change. However, a BM Ranger is not allowed to see through the eyes of their companions (absent magical spells like Beast Sense).

3. The in-game spell description for Find Familiar is notably missing the restriction that the caster can only see and hear through the Familiar while they are within 100ft/30m. Sven even stated in the live stream that you had thought of putting in a 'leash' to the Familiar, but decided against it. The leash is already there, in the base rules. The Familiar can operate beyond that range, the caster just can't control it so a 100ft/30m range in a video game makes sense.

4. The in-game spell description says that Find Familiar requires Concentration. This is a significant divergence from 5e for that specific spell given that Concentration is such an important part of game balance.

Given the above changes in the game from the 5e rule set, unless all Familiars are going to be allowed to act as the BM Ranger's Companion was in yesterday's demo, I would recommend renaming the ability.

They wanted to make (neccessary) changes to the Ranger. This one seems interesting. A familiar you can use to explore and attack works for me. Not sure if this is going to the only the ranger´s or the entire "find familiar" spell tho. In the description still says familiars cannot attack and has to be in a 30ft radious so I assume it´s different for rangers, because in the gameplay they showed us it´s not.



Sadly there is no ritual casting in BG3 as of right now. (Sc: the Reddit AMA Q&A) so it makes sense to make it a cantrip. And there´s no help action either, at least in the EA, so I assume having an attack it´s a feasible replacement.

If the find familiar of the ranger is different from the standard spell, changing the name would be logical, indeed.

PD: Love that they're using the metric system in the game, btw.

In my opinion, I suggest Larian find a compromise between respecting the core rules and the fun they want us to have with it.

Example with Find Familiar (the level 1 Conjuration spell) :

- as per rules, should not allow it to attack : it can though do actions in combat like Help (gives Advantage to an ally in combat), but only when within 100 feet.

- as per rules, you can send it to scout beyond 100 feet, but you cannot make it do "special actions" beyond 100 feet. In the game, Larian can allow us to control its movement like we were enacting the familiar obeying the last order to scout around (that last bit is a very minor transgression of the rules who state you cannot see what the familiar sees beyond 100 feet, but for practical reasons allow us to control its scouting).

Oh, and it cost gold every time you cast it (!) in the tabletop rules.

I hope all familiars would be like that for all classes: with attacks and able to scout ahead and use their skills far beyond.

The reason being told before: there´s no "help" action nor ritual casting in BG so the familiar would be useless if it can´t help you nor attack nor you can recast the spell freely (familiars are very squishy)
They will become just a glorified "mage´s eye" that is also is a concentration spell ( you can only have one of those on at the same time usually)

A Familiar, when "near-ish" an enemy, could give a bonus To Hit for example or Advantage to hit.
But I understand that the Help Action is not in-game at the moment. All good.

I would though limit attack to within 100 feet of caster/owner.

As for gold to summon a new Familiar (after being destroyed), it is just a tiresome limit. A better limit would be one familiar re-summon per Long Rest.

My Fiend Warlock can't wait for his Imp Familiar. Pact of Chains for the win!