Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Technical & Gameplay Problems Suicide is so familiar...

On my last few playthroughs I've been using flying familiars (usually an invisible imp provided by Wyll) to scout out enemy positions. For the most part, this has worked out really well. But recently I ran into an amusing glitch.

There is a map transition in the form of a large hole guarded by a certain oversized arachnid. When sending a flying familiar down said large hole, the **entire party** suddenly thinks it's a great idea to jump in after the familiar. Doesn't matter if feather fall is active or not, the whole gang decides taking a swan dive to their doom is a great idea.

Of course this results in a TPK. It is possible to 'unchain' the familiar's uh...owner I guess?...from the rest of the party, and only that team member will jump after their little buddy. This is still rather inconvenient.

I'm thinking this is a bug or oversight, but it might be by design. Any thoughts?

its by design
of course the design was untested because they released that as a patch i.e, people had to jump down holes one at a time so Larian 'fixed' that by adding a script to make the party follow unless they are unlinked

so yes the party falls to their death unless they have feather fall active and they jump in because Larian [in their wisdom] decided not to allow unlinking summons so [by script] your summon jumping in the hole is exactly the same as you jumping

p.s, yes they are well aware

Thanks for letting me know. It seems like an odd design choice, for sure. For the most part, familiars can operate pretty independently of their summoners/owners so this seems kinda weird. But whatever, still having loads of fun...

It would be a little wierd if you could explore the whole map with an invisibile imp, but maybe not out of line. Under the D&D rules, don't chain warlocks have some kind of rediculous range to communicate with their familiars?

This is the best discussion I can find on the subject. Apparently a Warlock with pact of the chain can communicate with their familiar as long as it is on the same plane of existence.

https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/76171/can-a-familiar-travel-any-distance

Most other classes (Sorceror and Wizard for the most part) can communicate telepathically out to 100', or empathically out to 1 mile. That said, there's no maximum distance that a familiar can travel from it's master, it just won't be able to instantly communicate.

Pact of the Chain Warlocks need to take the Voice of the Chain Master Invocation to be able to communicate with their familiar at those large distances. By default, they're restricted to 100 ft for telepathically communicating with their familiar. The familiar can still travel a farther (unlimited) distance away, but would just need to return to within 100ft of their master in order to communicate/see through eyes/hear through ears.

But yes, it would be a bit much if your familiar could explore all the maps in BG3. In tabletop, a DM can introduce complications to prevent this type of thing, but for a video game with set rules, it makes some sense to prevent solo familiar exploration.

to be clear, you can explore the entire map with your invisibile pal... in fact that is really the only point of having him

in the past he would jump down [prob die or get stuck] and you would recast to make another... not the same imp?

@Ussnorway When I do have a familiar or animal companion, they can do far more than scouting. In particular flying/invisible familiars are great for occupying or even killing squishy ranged enemies (think mages and archers.)

I don't think familiars are meant to be fog-of-war removal machines. As A DM I would simply arrange some encounters with creatures that can see/sense invisibility (of which there are a few - also invisible does not mean you can't be detected) - it should be hazardous to send your familar far away like this, and if they die repeatedly due to your negligence/abuse, your patron should disallow you a new one: they are not supposed to be mere canon fodder.

Do familiars still unlock waypoints? Its certainly a strategy to quickly unlock parts of the map.

@booboo That kind of begs the question, what is the purpose of a familiar? Are they just supposed to add a bit of RP flavor? Are they supposed to act as rather incompetent melee protection for a spell caster? Enhance his or her spell casting abilities?

In some prior version(s) of D&D, familiars had the ability to deliver touch spells cast by their master. An interesting mechanic, but it certainly put their pets in jeopardy. I'm not sure why this ability was added in the first place, or why it was removed in subsequent editions.

Btw:
Right now, familiars can concentrate on spells. If you buy some bless/ shield of faith and healing word scrolls, you can have an invisible, flying healbot

Familiars can not interact with objects, open doors, pick up chests etc
So it is not really a replacement for exploration.

In act 1, where we are out in the open, maybe.
But when we arrive at moonrise towers, with more dungeon like areas, or in BG3, with a city obviously, and so many buildings with doors, you can not just scout with your imp everywhere

I hope they don't limit your familiar range. Would be very annoying. I mean, in tabletop, when Astarion is at one part of the map and gets ambushed, and the others are somewhere else, they would not know that either. But as it is, since you are the player, obviously they are going to go to Astarion and help him.

In a way, that is equivalent to the voice of the chain master invocation. Free communication over a distance, BECAUSE IT IS A GAME

they can 'move' items