TRPG General Chat

NautArch

20:04

@SirCinnamon yeah I got that. But it seemed more like he just didn't want it to be a spirit which find familiar needs. And I don't understand why you couldn't just have it be a spirit and then everything would work fine. If it's a physical animal just out of curiosity how would you have the fluff work that it gets resummoned?

Rubiksmoose

@NautArch That was my first thought honestly.

Sir Cinnamon

@NautArch A one time homebrewed ritual which converts a critter into a spirit that can be the familiar? Let me reread the poster question...

David Coffron

@NautArch you could just say it doesn't get resummoned. You can do the pocket dimension stuff and all but if it dies that animal is gone forever

Sir Cinnamon

Right okay so he says "...Find Familiar spell summons some kind of spirit to become my familiar... but I don't want a spirit, I want this one specific squirrel." and I interpret that as i dont want any old new creature I want my existing one not necessarily a strict opposition to following the rules of the spell

David Coffron

@SirCinnamon right. He wants to make his pet his familiar

Sir Cinnamon

20:08

@DavidCoffron Could do this too. It's still an improvement over the current situation

Pull the consciousness out of the squirrel and convert it to a familiar spirit, summon it as a squirrel, bing bang boom everyones happy

Mike Q

@SirCinnamon I imagine the squirrel would not be too happy

Sir Cinnamon

@MikeQ Why not? He just got granted near immortality!

Mike Q

They're going from their squirrelly life in the woods, gathering nuts and climbing trees, to the back pocket of some adventurer who will lug them around monster-infested dungeons

Sir Cinnamon

@MikeQ It's already a pet, sounds like it's already doing that

Now its just safer

and can channel spells!

NautArch

@SirCinnamon exactly! But that means that the problem is with the player, not with the DM.

Mike Q

20:13

So it's a promotion of title and increase of responsibilities, but not increased pay or change in healthcare plan? That squirrel should join a union.

Sir Cinnamon

@NautArch It's not RAW but there isn't really a good reason not to allow it IMO

David Coffron

@NautArch I don't think there is a problem at all. He wants his pet to be a familiar. He is asking if it's possible. We told him not RAW but a DM might allow.

NautArch

@DavidCoffron right he wants to be his familiar but it's an actual animal so you just have to figure out how the resummoning works. But if he doesn't want it to be a spirit then he needs to figure out how it gets resummoned if it's already

Dead

Sir Cinnamon

And personally I think that a DM that would squash a good RP motivated request like this just because "the book says so" is making a mistake

NautArch

but I'm not sure that the DM is doing that. It's the player that seems to be unsure about how to handle it if he doesn't want it to actually be a spirit. If you wanted to be a regular creature that he still has to figure out what happens when it dies.

Sir Cinnamon

20:16

@NautArch Even so - it dies: you resummon it

David Coffron

@NautArch shrug id just ignore that line. If it dies the familiar is permanently gone too and you create a new one if you want. Or maybe summon the spirit of the squirrel to take on a familiar form after it's dead

Sir Cinnamon

why does it matter if it's a spirit or an animal

NautArch

@DavidCoffron because he doesn't want it to be a spirit you just wants it to be an animal. So yeah I guess it DM could just say okay we'll just make it an animal not a spirit everything's fine and hunky dory.

David Coffron

@NautArch isn't that what the answers say?

Sir Cinnamon

@NautArch Again, I think you're reading the wrong intent into that sentence

NautArch

20:18

It's more just a weirdness about resurrecting a creature rather than resummoning.

Definitely somebody is misinterpreting, but the only person that can tell us who that is is the querent.

David Coffron

If he's okay with subtle spell for wizards, maybe He will allow a variant familiar along the lines of the Gazer, pseeudodragon, quasit, and imp in the monster manual and Volos (with some investment)

Sir Cinnamon

From the other room that was opened with the asker he gives a little more context:
>At level 1, I did not know the Find Familiar spell but I had the squirrel as my "companion", basically a glorified pet. I'm now level 3, and once I reach level 4 I wanted to take the Find Familiar spell to turn the squirrel into my familiar. But the DM says that because the spell specifically states that it summons a spirit to be my familiar, I cannot turn the squirrel into the familiar instead.

>But because the rules say the spell summons a spirit, instead of giving powers to a pre-existing creature, it won't work.

Yuuki

If Find Familiar summons a spirit, could I use it to get a bottle of whiskey?

Sir Cinnamon

@Yuuki I wish this chat allowed me to give negative stars

Rubiksmoose

@SirCinnamon I believe the correct term for "negative star" is "black hole"

Yuuki

20:25

@Rubiksmoose Actually, a black hole isn't a negative star. It's still a star just moreso.

It is in fact more star than the average star.

BESW

A black hole is a star that went through a mid-life crisis and decided everything sucks.

Rubiksmoose

@Yuuki Well...sure yeah you are technically correct. But that science fact also contradicted my attempted joke so I ignore it.

:)

Sir Cinnamon

Technically Correct - Futurama

►

NautArch

@SirCinnamon ugh. Not cool, DM guy.

Let the squirrel be a familiar.

Mike Q

@SirCinnamon Ok, what if the squirrel runs off as part of the ritual, and then comes back as a familiar

NautArch

20:31

Unfortunately, were now in opinion based?

Sir Cinnamon

There are a lot of ways to let the player have fun in this case, with literally no downside. Yeah it's not within the rules but who cares it doesnt give him anything powerful

Mike Q

Kinda. I don't think the rules specify what a spirit has to be or look like, or where it has to be summoned from. In fact, I don't see why it can't be summoned from and to the same location.

Sir Cinnamon

I wish the DMG more clearly stated something along the lines of other RPGs "Be a fan of the characters" rule

And yeah this is all opinion so I cant put it in an answer

Rubiksmoose

@SirCinnamon It might somewhere... But it really should be printed in huge bold letters on like every other page of the DMG.

BESW

"I summoned a spirit... into my squirrel."

doppelgreener

20:34

Is that a spirrel?

Rubiksmoose

@BESW Why would you do that; that's nuts!

Yuuki

@SirCinnamon I mean, if I was a DM and for some reason had to be super hardcore about RAW, then I'd just write up a setpiece where the squirrel sacrifices itself to save the player or something or other and then comes back as a familiar.

David Coffron

@Rubiksmoose leave :)

Rubiksmoose

@DavidCoffron hehehe

BESW

@doppelgreener It's more like a squirrit.

GreySage

20:43

@BESW It that like a squirtle?

Mike Q

Can the spirit be the squirrel's alter-ego, so that it doesn't have to die

As part of the summoning process, the squirrel runs into a tiny phone booth, and then comes out as a familiar that looks like the squirrel minus the glasses

Yuuki

@MikeQ But also giant ears.

Rubiksmoose

@MikeQ But still not ginger.

Yuuki

And it occasionally mutters "fantastic!" to itself.

Mike Q

There is a reference here but it's going over my head

Rubiksmoose

20:47

eh I kept picturing doctor who when you said phone box (misreading as police box). So I was the one that was out of the loop here. Carry on lol.

GreySage

@MikeQ Like a bird or a plane?

doppelgreener

@GreySage It's more like a spookle.

nitsua60

@MikeQ I would only have been impressed if the end of that sentence were where the preposition were at. Then you'd have hit the trifecta =)

13

Q: Is there a style guide for posts?

I understand editing questions for clarity, but is there a style guide somewhere for Questions and Answers, detailing things like "These things should be italic, these should be bolded, capitalized these powers but not these in references, etc."? I'd like to have some reference so that I can for...

discussion

^^ Has a relevant bit

Yuuki

@MikeQ I prefer the Cambridge comma. It's simple, it's sensible and, it facilitates readability.

3

doppelgreener

@Yuuki that is evil

Rubiksmoose

21:01

@Yuuki I can't stop hate-reading it

doppelgreener

@Rubiksmoose same

David Coffron

Are the variant familiars in the monster manual allowed to use find familiar abilities? (I can't remember)

I never use them personally which is why I ask

BESW

21:32

@doppelgreener Other way around: that the story-driven reason for wanting a particular kind of worldbuilding, like for it to reinforce a particular theme, was getting edited out of questions as unnecessary rambling that was unimportant for answerers to know.

doppelgreener

@BESW wow, that's bad

i just thought you meant they were deciding they didn't need to mention it

but actively removing it is awful

Rubiksmoose

Yeah that seems aggressively bad.

doppelgreener

proactive badnifying

BESW

Maybe they've changed? But it was all very Tolkien-esque, where the worldbuilding happens independent of, and often before, the storytelling.

Or, if you prefer, Asimovian, where the worldbuilding was considered the point of the story.

doppelgreener

that strikes me as being like having an rpg community where people would edit out what game you're playing whenever you ask about subjective questions

BESW

21:37

The idea is that worldbuilding is an exercise in logic, physics, sociology, etc.

The focus is on a world that "makes sense" rather than a world that serves a story.

I believe the argument was "We trust our askers to have all that under control and to be asking the questions they need to ask in that regard, and if they need help with it there's writers.se."

In practice, this meant that there was active resistance to the notion that worldbuilding advice had to be different if it was worldbuilding for a TTRPG, a video game, a novel, a TV show, etc.

nitsua60

21:54

@DavidCoffron Yup. (The "variant" is that they can be used as a familiar at all. Once they're a familiar, they inherit all the usual features of a familiar.)

David Coffron

22:40

@nitsua60 I'm not sure... might be worth asking on the stack

David Coffron

22:52

@nitsua60 As I suspected if an NPC has one of the variant familiars none of the PC rules take effect. This answer is fairly comprehensive

You only get the benefits listed in the feature itself

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