When A Familiar Dies... - Rules & Game Mechanics - D&D Beyond

• Esquire
• Join Date: 12/10/2017
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...does its caster sense it?

Assume that the caster is NOT using the familiar's sight and smell. If a surprise attack - arrow, claw, whatever - were to take out the familiar (most have pretty low hit points and can easily be "killed" by a single hit) - would the caster automatically know?What if there were some kind of magical barrier between the caster and familiar - a wall of force, tiny hut, or antimagic field?

• Master of Skullduggery
• Join Date: 6/11/2019
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You have telepathic communication with your familiar up to 100 feet, even when you don't use it's senses. If it dies within that range, you'll know. If it's beyond that range, you won't.

• Half-Dragon Archmage
• Join Date: 4/5/2018
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It is not clear if characters are aware when they lose actions (the ability to dismiss the familiar in this case).

At the very least you will know if it was within 100 feet unless something blocked telepathy.

• Esquire
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Quote from Wtfdndad >>

You have telepathic communication with your familiar up to 100 feet, even when you don't use it's senses. If it dies within that range, you'll know. If it's beyond that range, you won't.

Let me set up an analogy:

I'm standing facing west. My friend is 90 feet away, facing east. Something quickly and quietly surprises my friend and, unfortunately, kills them.

Unless my friend somehow actively communicates with me - a shout, a whistle, something - as they're dying, I wouldn't know.

How would a caster know their familiar died without active communication? Simply being able to communicate doesn't seem like it's enough for the caster to automatically know if the familiar has been killed.

• Tracker
• Join Date: 4/26/2018
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Conversely - if you've sent your familiar 90ft away from the group - why would you not be actively communicating with it?

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• Esquire
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Constantly? Every minute? What if you've set up camp, and your familiar is flying a perimeter? Are you really talking to it every minute, or just tell it to alert you if it spots something?

• Veteran
• Join Date: 4/22/2021
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If there is a radio silence between a spellcaster and it's familiar, it can easily be deduced something happen, death being a top probable cause but it could also simply be incapable of communicating at the moment (feeblemind, antimagic etc)

• Master Trickster
• Join Date: 2/22/2020
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Quote from Xukuri >>

Constantly? Every minute? What if you've set up camp, and your familiar is flying a perimeter? Are you really talking to it every minute, or just tell it to alert you if it spots something?

If I could talk telepathically to a pet you better believe I'd be doing it all the time -- and that's before getting into it being magical and doing cool stuff

More seriously, a telepathic link wouldn't require constant messages going back and forth for you to be aware of it being there, or be aware when it was severed

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• Master of Skullduggery
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Quote from Xukuri >>

Constantly? Every minute? What if you've set up camp, and your familiar is flying a perimeter? Are you really talking to it every minute, or just tell it to alert you if it spots something?

Are you really just trying to make things harder that they need to be? It's pretty simple. The book doesn't tell you in the wording that you obviously want, anywhere. Ask your DM to resolve it. If you are the DM, just make a choice?

• Hero
• Join Date: 3/15/2019
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Familiars are magical creatures, and you are linked to them, so you will absolutely know they have died... eventually. You will know if you have a sense that detects death. Sight, Taste, or Touch. Of the many senses people have, those are the only ones you can rely on, as the rest are not directional. You will know if you are looking right at it, it's in your mouth, you can touch it, or you make a check and don't get a response.

But wait, you might ask, what about that telepathic bond? Nope. One of the advantages of Telepathy is that it is non-directional. It allow communication with people you can't perceive directly. The Telepathy Feat does come bunded with the spell "Detect Thoughts" that allows pinpointing beings that are thinking. So you're back again to the problem. How long exactly do you wait?

I suggest rolling a d20 for the number of minutes that pass before you begin to wonder. Then you will have to go and check if you want to be certain.

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