5 Ways to Get Pets in D&D 5e

[@RingXross]

I'm particularly fond of the owl. Flying, 120ft darkvision, flyby, stealth and perception and keen hearing and smell. BEST. SCOUT. EVER.

[@NRMRKL]

Since you brought up Stibbles Codex of Companions, may I suggest you also check out MCDM's Beastheart and Monstrous Companions? (or Flee Mortals for the general companion rules and some statblocks) Also, and I realise this option is very unlikely to happen by chance alone, but most beasts with a Charisma score of 3 or less can't succeed against the the DC 17 of the Bridle of Capturing (including a CR 8 Huge Giant Crab).

[@RingXross]

@@NRMRKL Haven't had a chance to check out the Beastheart yet outside of the playtest. It looked good and I like MCDMs stuff. Good idea.

[@SarJulem]

"sensing" through Bat familiar + fog cloud. Good when paired with darkness or eversmoking bottle, sucks for your party though Great for staying in heavily obscured area to avoid being targeted by spells / attacks, while casting spells and making attacks within range

[@Pre-GenCharacter]

With a little creativity, a cat is the most useful animal companion. Just look at the vg Stray.

[@TheDJColby13]

I am confused about the Ritual part of Find Familiar. I am playing an Arcane Trickster level 2, my first character since 3.5. I can not cast Ritual spells as a Rogue but most guides say to use an Owl to force my Sneak Attack. So Find Familiar isn't always a Ritual Spell?

[@RingXross]

There are 2 ways to cast a spell that has the ritual tag. First, is to cast the spell normally using an appropriate spell slot. Second, is to cast it as a ritual spell. Add 10 minutes to the casting time of the spell and the spell is cast without using a spell slot. But you can only do this if you have the ritual caster feature usually given by your class which, unfortunately, arcane tricksters do not have. So find familiar always has the ritual tag, but it is not always cast as a ritual. For the Arcane Trickster, you would have to use spell slots. But if I may make a suggestion? The Ritual Caster feat is really underrated. It gives you the ability to cast spells as rituals, a ritual book, and 2 ritual spells. You can add more later with spell books and scrolls. Great for an arcane trickster as long as you have a WIS or INT of 13. And I agree, the owl is one of the best familiar choices, especially for a Rogue. Unless your DM lets you choose a Tressym. Flying kitties😁 are best. I hope this helped. If you have anymore questions, feel free to ask.

[@TheDJColby13]

​@@RingXrossso Ritual Caster gives you an additional Spell Book and Spells Slots? Interesting. Is there a time limit on how long a Familiar may be summoned?

[@RingXross]

@@TheDJColby13 No additional spell slots. The spells you have in the book can only be cast as rituals and therefore do not require any spell slots. There is no time limit on how long your familiar lasts. Basically until it's destroyed or dispelled. You can cast it again to change it's form if you wanted. Like maybe you needed to scout some underwater location and needed to change your owl into a fish.

[@TheDJColby13]

​@@RingXross Thank you for the clarification. It does feel like it would be a good fit, just need to check out what rituals I would have available.

[@wolfyblackknight8321]

@@TheDJColby13 i think the way it works is if you selected say the wizard spell list for your ritual spells you can copy any wizard spell into the the rital book (the only downside being the gold cost for paper and ink aswell as the downtime needed to do so) but after that you could cast any of those spells as rituals without expending a spellslot so having spells like find familer, detect magic. identify or so on keeping in mind every casting is gonna take about 10 minutes, but for out of combat utility spellcasting its pretty useful just make sure you protect the ritual book you have it all scribed in, since without that you can't ritual cast anything. and you still need any material components the spells specify.

[@danielknapp3141]

Oliphants are not on the list.

[@RingXross]

@@danielknapp3141 Oliphaunts are just dire elephants. We can work something out.

[@danielknapp3141]

@RingXross perhaps, but it is quite a stretch to show an Oliphant and say, "You can buy this in the Book," when you mean you can buy elephants. I know you may not be able to change it, but perhaps you could try adding after that: "Just kidding, you can buy these though". Then, show an illustration of real-life war elephants in history.