Best Familiars for Every Class in Tales of the Valiant

Introduction

Familiars in Tales of the Valiant are tools, not replacement player characters. A normal ritual familiar scouts, takes non-attack actions such as Help, and delivers touch spells. Pact of the Chain is the important exception: its familiar can attack and has stronger communication rules. Choose the access route first, then pick a form that solves the job your party actually has.

This guide covers the core rituals, Pact of the Chain, and source-specific options. For the wider system, start with the Tales of the Valiant class guides.

Source note (Monster Vault): Creature names, CRs, and stat-block traits in the form rankings below use the Tales of the Valiant Monster Vault. The Monster Vault appendix explicitly lists these create familiar forms: bat, cat, crab, frog/toad, hawk, lizard, octopus, owl, poisonous snake, fish/quipper, rat, raven, seahorse, spider, and weasel. It also flags additional familiar candidates in the main bestiary: blink dog, quasit, imp, pseudodragon, homunculus, dust mephit, ice mephit, magma mephit, steam mephit, and robot drone.

Source note (Monster Vault 2): Monster Vault 2 adds optional familiar animals and several explicit familiar sidebars. Every Monster Vault 2 option in this guide is labeled (Monster Vault 2).

Source note (Player's Guide 2): Player's Guide 2 adds the Enhance Familiar ritual, familiar reference tables, Summoner Wizard familiar tech, Theurge ritual access hooks, and Elemental Regent Warlock mephit support. Every Player's Guide 2 option in this guide is labeled (Player's Guide 2).

Source note (Labyrinth Worldbook): Labyrinth Worldbook adds explicit familiar sidebars for light drake and widross. These are not automatic default ritual forms; treat them as GM-approved, story-facing familiars unless your table expands the create familiar menu. Every Labyrinth option in this guide is labeled (Labyrinth Worldbook).

Source note (Book of Blades): Book of Blades does not add new familiar stat blocks in the material reviewed for this guide. It matters because it expands the animal-adjacent side of play: Horse Lord heritage, Fell Rider, the Equine Soul Monk bonded horse, mount gear, and mounted magic items. Those are labeled (Book of Blades) and treated as mount support, not familiar rankings.

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Rating Legend

Ratings compare options in their stated role. A dot always appears alongside the option name, not in a separate rating column.

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How Familiars Work in ToV

The ritual's tradition matters. Do not collapse Create Familiar and Find Familiar into one generic rule.

Familiar Access Routes

Witch Ritual Familiar (Player's Guide 2) Player's Guide 2 Witch familiar play runs through Wyrd ritual access. The quick-build route points at find familiar, and later ritual expansion can deepen that toolbox. That means the PG2 Witch familiar is best treated like a ritual familiar unless your table is explicitly using another Witch source that grants a separate scaling familiar feature.

Pact of the Chain Familiar (Warlock Pact Boon) Mechanically the most combat-capable familiar in the game. Pact of the Chain grants access to the standard Find Familiar ritual forms plus four special forms: blink dog, imp, pseudodragon, and quasit. The Monster Vault also identifies homunculus, dust mephit, ice mephit, magma mephit, steam mephit, and robot drone as additional familiar candidates that may require GM permission or specific requirements. The Old Margreve expands that list for specific patrons: Hunter in Darkness adds a hunting hound option and can unlock death dog, dire wolf, and a temporary winter wolf form, while Elder Wood can choose plant familiars. The critical distinction: your Pact of the Chain familiar can attack. It shares your initiative, takes its turn immediately after yours, and obeys verbal commands — no action cost from you. In addition, you can communicate telepathically with it and see through its eyes at any range on the same plane (no 100-foot restriction). The Enhanced Boon at 6th level gives your familiar temporary HP equal to your PB + CHA modifier per rest, and lets it use its reaction to grant you advantage on attack rolls against creatures within 5 feet of it.

Create Familiar and Find Familiar Rituals Create Familiar is a 1st-circle Arcane ritual. It makes a Construct familiar from a 10 gp vessel, lowers the creator's hit point maximum by 1 while it lives, and lets it regrow one hour after it is destroyed. Find Familiar is a 1st-circle Wyrd ritual that binds a Celestial, Fey, or Fiend spirit from the listed forms; it requires a new casting after the familiar reaches 0 hit points. Both familiars cannot attack, can act independently, can deliver a touch spell within 100 feet by using their reaction, and are chiefly for reconnaissance, non-attack actions, and spell delivery. The relevant class or talent determines which ritual you can learn.

Monster Vault familiar list: The appendix list matters because it is broader than "owl, cat, or raven." It confirms aquatic picks (crab, octopus, quipper, seahorse), sensory picks (bat, spider, poisonous snake), and mundane infiltration picks (lizard, rat, weasel) as create familiar options. That does not make all of them good, but it means they are source-backed.

The Action Economy Argument

The useful question is not whether a familiar is "free advantage." Help helps with a specific creature's next ability check or attack against a target; it does not improve a target's saving throw or your spell save DC. A familiar can still create a meaningful edge when it can safely take the right non-attack action, relay reconnaissance, or deliver a touch spell without putting the caster in danger.

Pact of the Chain familiars and source-specific enhanced familiars can do more than the standard ritual familiar. Chain familiars can attack. Wildlife Bard familiars and some story familiars have their own upgrade text. A normal ritual familiar remains a Help, scouting, and delivery tool unless the feature that created it says otherwise.

The Find Familiar ritual familiar is locked into Help and scouting. That is still excellent — but it is a narrower tool.

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Who Gets a Familiar

Note on the Ranger Pack Master: The Beast Spirit is frequently confused with a familiar, but it operates under entirely different rules. It is a medium-sized combat companion with its own attack stat block, not a tiny utility creature. It is covered in the Ranger guide, not here.

Note on the Ritualist Talent: Ritualist requires a Spellcasting class feature. Choose Arcane to add create familiar or Wyrd to add find familiar; the talent adds rituals from the chosen source to its ritual book as the character unlocks spell circles. The familiar ritual then takes 1 hour and uses no spell slot.

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Witch Familiars

Player's Guide 2 ritual route: ●

Player's Guide 2 makes Witch an excellent familiar user through Wyrd ritual access. That is different from saying every PG2 Witch automatically has a permanent scaling class familiar. If your table uses another Witch source that grants a separate familiar chassis, use that source's text and label it separately. In a PG2-only reading, build around find familiar and Enhance Familiar as the big upgrade button.

Core Mechanics

• Ritual access: The Witch's Wyrd ritual access is the familiar entry point. This keeps familiar play attached to spell and ritual choices rather than a separate always-on pet chassis.
• Enhance Familiar (Player's Guide 2): The 2nd-circle Arcane/Wyrd ritual temporarily upgrades a familiar into the giant version of its form, with cat becoming panther and fish/quipper becoming reef shark. That is the Witch's most important PG2 familiar button.
• Shadow Craft: Later ritual expansion can let a Witch pull more broadly from ritual lists, making the familiar package more flexible over time.
• Normal ritual limits still matter: Unless the ritual or feature says otherwise, the familiar is still a scouting, Help-action, and touch-delivery tool rather than a full combat pet.

Familiar Form Choices for the Witch

Owl (Monster Vault) ●

Best all-purpose ritual familiar. Fly speed, Flyby, and excellent darkvision make the owl the safest default for combat positioning and scouting.

Raven (Monster Vault) ●

Flight plus Mimicry gives the Witch a better social and infiltration familiar. It is slightly worse than owl in combat, but much funnier when the plan is "make the guard hear the captain's voice from inside a barrel."

Cat (Monster Vault) ●

The cat is not the best combat familiar, but Player's Guide 2 changes the conversation because Enhance Familiar turns a cat into a panther. That does not make it subtle. It does make it memorable.

Hawk (Monster Vault) ●

Outdoor scouting specialist. The Monster Vault standard familiar list supports hawk, not eagle, so use hawk unless your GM adds eagle separately.

Bat / Spider (Monster Vault) ●

Bat is the darkness/invisibility sensor. Spider is the wall-and-crack infiltrator. Neither beats owl as a default, but both solve problems birds cannot.

Fish / Quipper (Monster Vault) ●

Weak on land, useful underwater, and newly relevant because Enhance Familiar turns the form into a reef shark. This is either brilliant or how the tavern aquarium becomes evidence.

Practical note: Player's Guide 2 Witch familiar play is ritual tech, not a free pass to import every older Witch familiar feature. Owl is a sound normal form, while Enhance Familiar gives a cat a specific temporary combat role.

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Warlock: Pact of the Chain

Pact Boon rating: ●

Pact of the Chain is one of three starting Pact Boons available to the Warlock. It is the least-flashy on paper and the most undervalued at the table. Players see Pact of the Blade (a sword!) and Pact of the Tome (three free cantrips!) and overlook the fact that a permanent combat-capable familiar is a round-by-round advantage that scales across the whole campaign.

What Makes Pact of the Chain Different

Your familiar can attack. This is not available to Wizard or Ritual Find Familiar familiars. Your Pact of the Chain familiar shares your initiative, takes its turn immediately after yours, and attacks on its own. A verbal command from you (free action) directs it. If you issue no command, it takes the Dodge action — passive defensive positioning, not wasted turns.

Expanded familiar communication. Both core familiar rituals already allow same-plane telepathy and sensory communication. Pact of the Chain additionally lets you speak through the familiar in your own voice while perceiving through its senses. That makes it particularly useful for remote scouting and social misdirection.

Special forms access. You can choose blink dog, imp, pseudodragon, or quasit instead of standard beast forms. These have meaningful combat utility that beast forms do not.

Enhanced Boon (6th level): Temporary HP equal to your PB + CHA modifier per rest. Your familiar uses its reaction to grant you advantage on attack rolls against creatures within 5 feet of it. This converts your familiar into a guaranteed-advantage source for your Eldritch Blast — no Help action command required, no action cost.

Elemental Regent note (Player's Guide 2): Elemental Regent Warlocks with Pact of the Chain can choose a mephit familiar tied to at least one of the patron's elements, using Monster Vault and Monster Vault 2 mephit options where allowed. That adds glass, sludge, and storm mephit to the familiar conversation alongside dust, ice, magma, and steam. It is not automatic for every Chain Warlock; it is specifically the elemental pet build.

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The Old Margreve Familiar Options

The Old Margreve adds familiar material that matters most for Warlocks and Bards. These options are campaign-source material, so confirm table availability before building around them, but they are strong enough to change recommendations when allowed.

Hunter in Darkness Hounds (The Old Margreve) ●

Hunter in Darkness is the Warlock patron that most directly improves Pact of the Chain. Its Expanded Pact Boon lets your Chain familiar be a hunting hound using wolf statistics, and the Hunting Hound (The Old Margreve) invocation upgrades the package further: death dog or dire wolf familiar forms, then a 9th-level bonus-action transformation into a winter wolf for 1 minute once per short or long rest.

Why this is good: The base Chain forms are mostly tiny infiltrators and debuff pets. The hound line gives you a real battlefield body. A dire wolf familiar is big enough to matter for blocking space, threatening melee, enabling advantage lines, and physically chasing targets. The winter wolf transformation is the burst mode: use it when the fight is already committed, not while scouting.

Tradeoff: You are buying into a patron plus invocation package. If your campaign does not reward darkness, fear, pursuit, or battlefield pets, an imp or pseudodragon remains more universally useful. If the campaign does reward hunting, chase scenes, ambushes, and open battlefields, the hound package is one of the best Old Margreve Warlock payoffs.

Best use: Hunter in Darkness Chain Warlock, ranged Eldritch Blast controller, bow-Blade hybrid with Chain as a second boon, or any Warlock whose party wants an extra melee body without hiring a sidekick.

Practical note: Hunting Hound (The Old Margreve) is most useful when the party needs a familiar with physical presence, rather than the infiltration or defensive utility of other Chain forms.

Elder Wood Plant Familiars (The Old Margreve) ●

Elder Wood's Expanded Pact Boon lets a Chain familiar be a plant using the statistics of an awakened shrub or child of the briar, or one of your normal options. This is flavorful and very campaign-dependent.

Why this is good: Plant familiars fit Margreve play better than generic beast forms. An awakened shrub can hide in plain sight in wilderness scenes, while a child of the briar style familiar gives the Warlock a stranger, more fey-forest identity than imp-or-pseudodragon defaults.

Tradeoff: These forms are not as generically reliable as imp, pseudodragon, or Hunter hounds. They are at their best in forests, fey politics, plant-heavy adventures, and campaigns where a walking bramble spy can gather information without being treated as a monster immediately.

Best use: Elder Wood Chain Warlock in a forest campaign, especially if the GM lets plant creature traits matter in exploration and social scenes.

College of Wildlife Familiar (The Old Margreve) ●

College of Wildlife Bards get the most familiar-forward Bard package in the game: Lasting Familiar (The Old Margreve) gives create familiar as a free ritual, faster action casting, and easier regrowth; Nature's Song (The Old Margreve) improves familiar durability with Bard-level-based HP plus PB to AC and saves; and Inspiring Familiar (The Old Margreve) lets the familiar hand out Bardic Inspiration with its own bonus action a limited number of times.

Why this is good: Wildlife Bard turns a familiar from "nice ritual utility" into a subclass engine. The familiar helps enable Hymn of the Hunt, survives better than a normal ritual familiar, and eventually contributes Bardic Inspiration without spending your own bonus action.

Tradeoff: Wildlife still wants animal-heavy play. If your campaign is court intrigue with no beasts, summons, wilderness, or familiar positioning, Lore remains easier to recommend. If your party actually plays around summons and Beast allies, Wildlife becomes much better than its narrow theme suggests.

Monster Vault 2 Familiar Options

Monster Vault 2 adds two different familiar layers: optional animal forms that a GM can add to create familiar or find familiar, and bestiary creatures with explicit familiar sidebars or familiar hooks (Monster Vault 2). Treat this whole section as source-enabled material, not a default core list.

Optional Animal Familiars (Monster Vault 2)

Best picks: Opossum is the cleanest all-purpose addition because Tiny size, climb speed, darkvision, smell, and Feign Death all matter outside combat (Monster Vault 2). Giant Honey Bee is better for Wildlife Bard, Witch, or table-approved combat familiar play because it can fly and contribute a defensive reaction (Monster Vault 2). Skunk is the funniest and most campaign-dependent option: great for tracking, sabotage, and low-level disruption, but it can become a social liability fast (Monster Vault 2).

Explicit Familiar Candidates (Monster Vault 2)

These creatures have familiar sidebars or familiar hooks, but most are stronger than normal ritual familiars. Use them for Pact of the Chain expansions, Witch story familiars, NPC spellcasters, boons, downtime rewards, or GM-approved special familiars (Monster Vault 2).

Practical note: Eldritch Sable is a strong Monster Vault 2 choice if the GM allows it, particularly for a party that values Luck-based features.

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Player's Guide 2 Familiar Tech

Player's Guide 2 does not just add more names to a familiar menu. It adds a real upgrade ritual, a Wizard subclass that can run two familiar-style creatures, and a Warlock patron that makes mephits an actual build choice instead of a GM appendix shrug.

Enhance Familiar (Player's Guide 2) ●

Enhance Familiar is a 2nd-circle Arcane and Wyrd ritual with a 1-minute casting time, 10-foot range, and 1-hour duration. The familiar uses the giant version of its current form, except cat becomes panther and fish or quipper becomes reef shark. Higher-circle access improves the duration, and at 6th-circle access the duration reaches 24 hours.

Why this matters: Normal ritual familiars are incredible because they are cheap, mobile, and disposable. Enhance Familiar lets the same slotless utility creature become a real temporary board piece. The cat-to-panther line is the obvious joke, but the fish-to-reef-shark line is the one that makes underwater encounters suddenly become somebody else's problem.

Best users: Witch, Wizard, Theurge with the right Arcane ritual access, and any ritual-focused Bard or Ritualist who can legally acquire the spell. For cross-list spell context, use the Wizard spell guide and the Witch spell guide.

Practical note: Enhance Familiar gives a prepared caster a temporary answer for situations where the normal scouting form is not enough.

Summoner Wizard (Player's Guide 2) ●

The Summoner Wizard can support the first real two-familiar-style shell: one creature from create familiar and one from find familiar. The important limitation is that Twinned Conjuration does not double create familiar, so do not pitch this as infinite pet accounting. It is a two-body utility package, not a portable zoo.

Why this matters: A Wizard with two small helpers can separate scouting from combat positioning. One familiar checks the next room while the other stays near the fight to deliver Help or touch spells. That sounds simple because it is; simple action-economy advantages are usually the ones that survive contact with the table.

Use the Wizard class guide and Wizard spell guide for the broader Summoner and ritual package.

Theurge Ritual Access (Player's Guide 2) ●

The Theurge can choose a ritual from the Arcane or Divine list at 1st level. If the table allows the familiar ritual choice, Theurge gets a clean familiar route without needing to pretend it is a Wizard. That matters because Theurge already plays in the cross-list magic lane, and a familiar gives it scouting, touch delivery, and Help action pressure.

Use the Theurge class guide for the class shell and the Theurge spell guide for spell-list context.

Elemental Regent Chain Warlock (Player's Guide 2) ●

Elemental Regent makes the Chain Warlock mephit build real. When your patron element lines up, a mephit familiar can be selected from Monster Vault or Monster Vault 2 options. Dust, ice, magma, and steam remain the baseline conversation; glass, sludge, and storm from Monster Vault 2 expand it.

Hot take: This is not "imp but elemental." Mephits are less clean as infiltrators and more interesting as campaign texture. If your patron is storm and your familiar is a tiny thunder problem with opinions, you are playing the subclass correctly.

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Labyrinth Worldbook Familiar Options

Labyrinth Worldbook adds two explicit familiar sidebars: light drake and widross. These are not presented as default create familiar or find familiar menu entries. Treat them as GM-approved special familiars, patron rewards, Witch story familiars, Chain Warlock expansions, NPC familiar options, or campaign boons (Labyrinth Worldbook).

Light Drake (Labyrinth Worldbook) ●

The light drake is a Tiny Dragon built for bright, heroic, anti-darkness play. It has a 60-foot fly speed, darkvision, radiant resistance, necrotic vulnerability, and a theme that points hard at caverns, undead, will-o'-wisps, and anything using darkness to prey on travelers (Labyrinth Worldbook).

Familiar bond: A light drake can serve a good-hearted spellcaster as a familiar. While bonded, the companion can sense what the light drake senses within 1 mile. While the light drake is within 10 feet of its companion, the companion gains the sacred flame cantrip, using the companion's spell save DC or the light drake's, whichever is higher (Labyrinth Worldbook).

Why this is good: Flight plus 1-mile sense sharing is already a strong familiar shell. The nearby sacred flame rider gives non-Divine casters a clean radiant backup option and gives Divine-themed characters an on-brand support familiar. It is especially good in undead, fiend, Void, underground, and darkness-heavy campaigns where radiant damage and light magic matter every session.

Tradeoff: This is not a stealth familiar. A glowing Tiny Dragon is memorable, valuable, and conspicuous. It also has necrotic vulnerability, so the exact enemies it thematically hates can punish sloppy positioning. Ask for this when the campaign supports visible heroic companion play; do not take it when the job is quiet burglary.

Best use: Theurge, Cleric, Paladin-adjacent caster, Witch ritual user, celestial Warlock concept, Wizard in an undead-heavy dungeon campaign, or any character whose familiar is meant to be a luminous ally rather than a hidden spy.

Widross (Labyrinth Worldbook) ●

The widross is a Tiny Fiend familiar for players who want social mischief, message theft, and magical defense. It has darkvision 120 feet, Demonic Resilience, Magic Resistance, Mimicry, Mimic Message, and the ability to change into a Tiny CR 0 Beast while keeping its own statistics except speed (Labyrinth Worldbook).

Familiar bond: Some widross serve spellcasters who enjoy causing mayhem. While bonded, the companion can sense what the widross senses within 1 mile. While the widross is within 10 feet of its companion, the companion shares the widross's Magic Resistance trait. The widross can end its service at any time and for any reason (Labyrinth Worldbook).

Why this is good: Shared Magic Resistance is the big prize. The widross asks you to keep a Tiny Fiend near your body, but advantage on saves against spells and magical effects is a serious defensive payoff. Mimic Message also gives it a niche the imp does not fully cover: it can memorize a short spoken message and repeat it in the voices it heard, which is excellent for cult infiltration, false orders, and social traps.

Tradeoff: This familiar is a problem on purpose. It hates pets, likes mayhem, is explicitly fiendish, and can walk away from the bond. That is not a rules drawback so much as a table contract: if you ask for a widross, you are asking the GM to make the familiar a living complication. That can be fantastic, but it is not neutral.

Best use: Warlock, Witch, Bard, Rogue-adjacent Ritualist, intrigue-heavy Wizard, infernal or Void-adjacent campaign, or any character who wants a familiar that creates opportunities and problems in equal measure.

Labyrinth Worldbook Quick Picks

Hot take: Light drake is the better Labyrinth familiar for most parties, but widross has the higher ceiling at ruthless tables (Labyrinth Worldbook). Sacred flame and flight are easy to use. Shared Magic Resistance, Mimic Message, and Tiny Beast shapechanging are much nastier if the party actively runs schemes.

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Book of Blades Animal-Adjacent Support

Book of Blades does not add a new familiar list. That is the most important optimization note in this section. Do not treat its bonded horse, mount items, or mounted heroic endowment as familiar upgrades. They belong to the wider animal-ally system, covered in the Monster Vault Animal Allies and Summons Guide.

What Book of Blades does add is support for characters who want animals to matter on the map. That overlaps with familiar users in three places: Wildlife Bards who already think in animal positioning, Warlocks or Witches who also want a travel/mounted identity, and any Ritualist character who wants both a Tiny scout and a recurring horse.

Horse Lord Heritage (Book of Blades) ●

Horse Lord is a mounted heritage, not a familiar feature. Expert Trainer improves one horse after a long rest by adding your PB to its HP maximum and DEX saves. Clansman gives Animal Handling plus Perform or Survival, and advantage on Animal Handling checks to calm horses. Master of Horse adds trapper tools and land vehicles.

Familiar-user angle: This is useful when your character runs both a familiar and a real mount. A Wildlife Bard can use the familiar for scouting and Hymn of the Hunt positioning while the horse handles travel and mounted scenes. A Warlock or Witch can let the familiar scout ahead while the horse stays as durable transport. If your campaign leaves mounts outside every dungeon, skip it.

Fell Rider (Book of Blades) ●

Fell Rider is a mounted heroic endowment that requires Animal Handling proficiency. It lets a mounted character ride through smaller creatures and potentially knock them prone, splash STR-modifier damage near weapon hits, and move the mount up to half speed as a bonus action.

Familiar-user angle: Fell Rider has almost no direct familiar synergy because familiars are usually Tiny scouts, not mounts. The overlap is party positioning. A familiar can scout the charge lane, mark priority targets with Help, or create early information while the mounted character uses the actual mount for board control. Treat Fell Rider as mounted tech, not familiar tech.

Bonded Horse (Book of Blades) ●

The Equine Soul Monk's bonded horse is the closest Book of Blades gets to an animal companion stat block. It is still not a familiar. It is a subclass mount with scaling HP, Hit Dice, telepathic command, shared initiative, Trampling Charge, Hooves, and rider-protection features (Book of Blades).

Familiar-user angle: If you are comparing "familiar versus bonded horse," you are comparing different jobs. The familiar is a Tiny scout, Help-action engine, and spell-delivery tool. The bonded horse is a mobility and mounted-combat body. The best animal-heavy parties use both roles without pretending one replaces the other.

Book of Blades Gear and Items for Familiar Tables

Book of Blades Talent and Background Notes

Book of Blades does not add a new Magic Talent for familiars. The familiar-access talent remains Ritualist. What the book adds is background access to existing talents that can support familiar users:

• Judicial Champion (Book of Blades): Can choose Combat Casting, Scrutinous, or Weapon Option Specialist. Combat Casting is the relevant caster pick; Scrutinous is excellent for social/investigation familiar users.
• Prodigal (Book of Blades): Can choose Covert, which fits imp, cat, rat, spider, and urban familiar play.
• Battle Academician (Book of Blades): Can point tactical characters toward Battle Tactician and Tactical Planning through the broader commander build space. These do not improve the familiar, but they reward parties that use scouts and pre-fight information well.
• Horse Lord (Book of Blades): Pairs best with Friend of the Forest from The Old Margreve when the campaign is animal-heavy, though that is a table-shape choice rather than a raw familiar optimization pick.

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Pact of the Chain — Special Forms Ranked

Pseudodragon ●

The correct choice for most warlocks. The pseudodragon has three features that matter:

Magical Resistance: Advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects. This is a passive defensive benefit that makes your familiar dramatically more durable in the spell-heavy encounter environments that warlocks typically inhabit. More importantly: this resistance can be extended to a creature adjacent to the pseudodragon (per standard pseudodragon rules — GM discretion on interpretation in ToV). If your table allows this, park your pseudodragon next to yourself or a key ally and run one of the most powerful defensive buffs in the game at zero cost.

Sting (Poison, Sleep rider): The pseudodragon's sting deals 1d4+2 piercing + 2d4 poison damage, and on a failed CON save, the target is poisoned for 1 hour — and if the creature fails by 5 or more, it falls unconscious for the same duration. At low levels, this is a fight-ending attack against individual humanoids. The DC is low (11), but poisoned targets have disadvantage on attack rolls and ability checks, which stacks with your Eldritch Blast suppression to make priority enemies dramatically less effective.

Limited Telepathy: The pseudodragon can communicate emotions and simple concepts to creatures it can see within 100 feet. This is situationally useful in social encounters — your familiar acts as an emotional reader, alerting you to deception or fear without any Insight check.

Practical note: Pseudodragon is a strong Pact of the Chain choice when the party values defensive utility and its specific stat-block features. Check the current creature entry before building around a particular saving-throw rider.

Imp ●

The infiltration specialist. The imp has the most active-skill toolkit of any familiar:

Invisibility (at-will): The imp can turn invisible as an action, remaining invisible indefinitely until it attacks or the effect is dismissed. An invisible familiar is significantly harder to target and kill — and can position adjacent to enemies without triggering visual reactions or alerting guards. The invisibility makes it the best scouting familiar in the game: it can enter any room, observe any conversation, and report back without being detected.

Devil's Sight: Sees in magical darkness and normal darkness to 120 feet. If you run the Beyond Sight invocation (which does the same for you), you and your familiar can coordinate in any darkness environment — including the magical darkness of other warlocks or darkness spells.

Sting (Poison, DC 11 CON save): On failure, poisoned for 1 minute. Less dramatic than the pseudodragon's sleep rider, but the imp also deals fire damage alternatively and has resistance to cold, fire, and lightning damage — making it more durable in common damage environments.

Shapeshifting: The imp can take the form of a rat, raven, or spider (small beast forms). This is primarily a flavor/stealth feature — an imp disguised as a rat is nearly impossible to distinguish from a normal rat. In infiltration scenarios, this is invaluable.

Best scenario: Urban intrigue campaigns, infiltration missions, heist scenarios, any campaign with significant social/investigative content where an invisible shapeshifting scout is perpetually useful.

Quasit ●

The chaos agent. The quasit is the offensive-first option among the special forms:

Frighten (Scare ability): As an action, the quasit forces one creature within 20 feet to make a WIS save (DC 10) or become frightened for 1 minute. A frightened creature cannot willingly move toward the quasit and has disadvantage on attack rolls and ability checks while it can see the quasit. Low DC (10), but against low-WIS enemies (most martial creatures), this fires consistently. A frightened brute with disadvantage on attack rolls is now a dramatically less dangerous threat to your melee allies.

Claw (Poison): On a failed CON save (DC 13), the target is poisoned for 1 minute. Stronger poison DC than the imp, and the quasit attacks twice per Multiattack equivalent. Consistent poison application pressure.

Shapeshifting: Three forms (bat, centipede, toad). Less useful than the imp's more practical forms, but provides concealment options.

Resistance to Cold, Fire, Lightning: Solid passive defensive coverage.

Best scenario: Campaigns where your warlock is focused on control and debilitation — the quasit's frighten ability compounds your existing control spells. A frightened target saves against your hold person at disadvantage; pair with your spell debuffs for layered action denial.

Blink Dog ●

The disappointment. The blink dog's signature ability — Blink — allows it to teleport to an unoccupied space within 40 feet as a bonus action after attacking. Mechanically, this enables hit-and-run tactics: attack, teleport away, avoid the retaliatory strike. It also has Keen Hearing and Smell (advantage on Perception checks using those senses) and is a Medium creature rather than Tiny (more presence on the battlefield).

The problem: The blink dog is a Medium beast with CR 1/4 stats. Its attacks are weak (bite for 1d6+3 piercing). Its Blink is tactically interesting but does not compensate for the fact that every other special form brings either passive defensive utility (pseudodragon), active stealth (imp), or debuff application (quasit). The blink dog is a better combatant than a cat, but it is a worse familiar than any of the other three special forms.

Practical note: Blink dog is a niche Chain choice. Pick it when its movement and story fit matter more than the broader infiltration or defensive tools of other special forms.

Dire Wolf / Death Dog (The Old Margreve, Hunting Hound) ●

The battlefield familiar. These are not subtle scout forms. They are hound bodies for Hunter in Darkness Chain Warlocks who want their familiar to occupy space, chase targets, and matter in melee. Dire wolf is the cleaner general-purpose pick because it brings size, speed, and pack-style pressure. Death dog is the nastier pick when your table uses its disease/poison-style rider aggressively.

Why they beat blink dog: Blink dog is mobile but underpowered. The Old Margreve hounds are less elegant, but they do the job a Chain familiar most often fails at: acting like a meaningful physical threat. They are especially good when your party has melee allies who benefit from another body locking down enemy movement.

Best scenario: Open battlefields, pursuit-heavy campaigns, fear-and-darkness Hunter in Darkness builds, and parties that want an extra frontline body more than another invisible scout.

Winter Wolf (The Old Margreve, Hunting Hound 9th-Level Transformation) ●

The short-rest burst form. At 9th level, Hunting Hound lets you transform your familiar into a winter wolf for 1 minute as a bonus action, then refresh the transformation after a short or long rest. Treat this like a combat resource, not a default form.

Why it matters: A temporary winter wolf gives the Chain Warlock a legitimate encounter button. You are not just scouting with a familiar anymore; you are adding a threatening body at the moment initiative matters. Use it when terrain is open enough for the wolf to reach targets and when the enemy cannot immediately erase it with area damage.

Best scenario: Boss fights, ambushes, and encounters where the party needs a second melee pressure point.

Awakened Shrub / Child of the Briar (The Old Margreve, Elder Wood) ●

The forest campaign forms. Elder Wood Chain Warlocks can choose plant familiars such as awakened shrub or child of the briar. These are not default optimization picks, but they are extremely on-theme in Margreve play.

Why they matter: Plant forms create social and exploration hooks normal Chain forms do not. A shrub familiar can blend into woodland scenes; a briar familiar feels like a living extension of the patron rather than a generic summoned pet.

Best scenario: Forest campaigns, fey courts, plant-heavy adventures, and Elder Wood Warlocks who care more about theme and local infiltration than raw combat value.

Eldritch Invocations That Affect Your Familiar

The Second Boon play: Taking Second Boon at 5th level (invocation slot, prerequisite: 5th level) lets you add Pact of the Tome for three free cantrips from any spell list. This combination — Chain + Tome — gives you a combat-capable familiar and expands your cantrip versatility. The Boon Savant invocation at 7th level then enhances the Tome pact with ritual-casting capabilities. Chain + Tome is the premier multifunction warlock build, no Blade required.

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Wizard: Create Familiar Ritual

Access rating: ●

The Wizard learns Create Familiar as a 1st-circle Arcane ritual, available from the Arcane ritual list at character creation. It uses no spell slot, consumes a 10 gp vessel, and takes 1 hour to complete. Once cast, the Construct familiar persists and regrows one hour after it is destroyed while its creator lives.

Player's Guide 2 adds two Wizard notes that matter. First, Summoner can run a create familiar creature alongside a find familiar creature, which gives the Wizard separate scouting and combat-positioning bodies. Second, Enhance Familiar is a 1-minute ritual rather than a 1-hour familiar-creation ritual.

The Wizard's Create Familiar cannot attack. It is a Construct that uses the statistics of its chosen animal form. What it can do is:

• Help action: Help can give an ally advantage on its next attack against a target, or help with an ability check. It does not alter a target's saving throw.
• Senses sharing: Communicate telepathically and receive what the familiar senses while it is on the same plane. Use that for scouting, pre-fight reconnaissance, and safe investigation of trapped rooms.
• Touch spell delivery: You can cast a touch-range spell as though you were in the familiar's space when it is within 100 feet and spends its reaction. This can keep the caster out of immediate danger when a legal touch spell is the right tool.
• Fragile utility: Because it cannot attack, a normal familiar is best used for scouting, Help when the positioning is safe, and touch delivery rather than as a front-line combatant.

The Wizard familiar loop:

1. Keep familiar adjacent to your priority target.
2. Familiar takes Help action on its turn (no command needed if you've established a routine — just position it correctly).
3. You make the helped attack roll before another creature acts.
4. Repeat.

Create Familiar — Beast Forms Ranked

Owl (Monster Vault) ●

Best Wizard familiar, full stop. Fly speed 60 feet, Flyby (no opportunity attacks when flying out of melee), darkvision 120 feet, and advantage on Perception checks using sight. The owl can fly from enemy to enemy, maintaining Help action positioning across a dynamic battlefield without being struck for leaving melee. At 120-foot darkvision, it scouts further than any other form. No other beast form at this tier offers flight + Flyby + superior darkvision in combination.

Practical note: Owl is a dependable default for a Wizard, but cat, spider, and aquatic forms are better when the adventure presents a specific infiltration or terrain problem.

Bat (Monster Vault) ●

The darkvision option. Fly speed 30 feet (slower than owl), Blindsight 60 feet (doesn't rely on vision — sees through magical darkness and invisibility effects within 60 feet), and Echolocation (passive Blindsight works unless deafened). The bat trades the owl's superior sight range for a fundamentally different sensory mode — it cannot be blinded by magical darkness or dazzle effects, and can detect invisible creatures within 60 feet. In campaigns with heavy use of darkness and invisibility, the bat outperforms the owl.

Best scenario: Campaigns with frequent darkness environments, underdark exploration, enemies who rely on invisibility or concealment.

Hawk (Monster Vault) ●

Outdoor scouting specialist. Fly speed 60 feet (matches owl), Keen Sight (advantage on Perception using sight), no Flyby. In open-air and wilderness environments, the hawk's superior sight range and flight speed make it an excellent long-range scout. It lacks the owl's Flyby, which makes it slightly worse in close melee combat situations, but the tradeoff is minimal for ranged-combat Wizards who position the familiar for Help rather than maneuvering.

Cat (Monster Vault) ●

Ground infiltration. No flight, but can squeeze into tight spaces, has Keen Smell (advantage on Perception via smell), and is conspicuously mundane — nobody looks twice at a cat. In urban infiltration scenarios, the cat is the correct choice: send it through ventilation shafts, under doors, across guard-patrolled corridors. Combat utility is below owl/bat/hawk, but in the right campaign it is uniquely suited.

Spider (Monster Vault) ●

Dungeon crawler. Web Walker (ignores movement restrictions from webs), Spider Climb (can traverse walls and ceilings), Blindsight 10 feet. For dungeons with complex vertical architecture — ceilings, walls, pit traps — a spider can access positions a grounded familiar cannot. No fly speed limits its battlefield mobility, but Spider Climb covers a specific niche that nothing else does.

Raven (Monster Vault) ●

Communication and distraction. Fly speed 50 feet, Mimicry (reproduces sounds and speech it has heard). The Mimicry feature is useful in social and deception scenarios — a raven that can repeat heard phrases or reproduce environmental sounds is a distraction tool and communication relay. Slightly slower than owl (50 vs. 60 feet), no Flyby. In combat, use the owl; for social play, the raven adds utility the owl lacks.

Lizard / Rat / Weasel (Monster Vault) ●

Mundane infiltration package. These are not combat picks. Their value is that they look normal in places where an owl, raven, or bat draws attention. The lizard is the wall-and-crack scout, the rat is the urban-undercity scout, and the weasel has excellent hearing and smell plus the ability to steal a small worn or carried item instead of dealing bite damage. If your campaign includes keys, notes, rings, belt pouches, or guardhouse desks, the weasel deserves more respect than it usually gets.

Poisonous Snake (Monster Vault) ●

Sensory and contact-poison niche. The Monster Vault poisonous snake is Tiny, has keensense 10 feet, and can punish nearby melee attackers with a reflexive poisoned rider. A standard ritual familiar still cannot attack, so do not take this expecting snake damage. Take it when a Tiny crawling form with short-range nonvisual sensing solves a specific dungeon problem.

Crab / Octopus / Quipper / Seahorse (Monster Vault) ●

Aquatic-only package. The Monster Vault confirms these as create familiar options, which is useful if the campaign spends real time underwater. On land they are dead picks. In water, octopus is the standout because tentacles, reach, and underwater scouting create actual options; crab and seahorse are mostly flavor, and quipper is only valuable when a fish can go where a bird or spider cannot.

Frog / Toad (Monster Vault) ●

Almost never worth it. Standing leap (10-foot jump distance) and nothing else of note. Small size, grounded movement, no special passive. The only argument for toad is a campaign where the Wizard is in aquatic environments — the toad has a swim speed. Otherwise, it is the weakest familiar form in the Find Familiar list.

Mostly a formality. The Monster Vault familiar list treats frog/toad as a legal create familiar form. It has a narrow amphibious/infiltration identity, but the aquatic package above or spider usually covers the same problems better.

Additional Familiar Candidates (Monster Vault)

The Monster Vault's Additional Familiars table is not the same as the standard create familiar list. It points to creatures that can serve as familiars but may require Pact of the Chain, a class feature, a spellcaster-only requirement, a construct creator, or explicit GM permission.

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Spellcasters: Ritualist Talent

Talent rating for non-caster classes: ●

The Ritualist talent requires a Spellcasting class feature and grants a ritual book. Choose Arcane, Divine, Primordial, or Wyrd when you take it, then choose rituals from that source. An Arcane Ritualist can add create familiar; a Wyrd Ritualist can add find familiar.

Investment cost: One Improvement (talent slot) + the ritual acquisition (usually achievable through play, low GP cost if purchased from a guild).

Return: A persistent utility familiar for scouting, Help when the situation allows, and touch-spell delivery. The familiar does not spend spell slots, but the talent has a real opportunity cost and the initial ritual has its listed component cost.

Player's Guide 2 note: Valedictorian does not grant familiar access, but its class-specific benefits can support familiar users indirectly: Wizard improves Arcane Recovery, Warlock can gain extra invocation pressure relief, and Witch gains extra Hex dice. Take Ritualist when you need the familiar; take Valedictorian when your class resources are the bottleneck.

Who Benefits Most from Ritualist → Find Familiar

Bard ● The Bard is an Arcane spellcaster with an existing spell list that already demands a lot of spell slots for Inspiration, crowd control, and utility. Adding a familiar through Ritualist gives the Bard a round-by-round advantage source without spending any slots. Bards already operate at the intersection of combat, social, and exploration — a familiar amplifies every pillar. A bard with an owl familiar is running advantage on critical spell attacks for free every fight.

Sorcerer ● The Sorcerer's primary limitation is a small spell selection and pressure on class resources. A familiar can provide Help for an attack roll when it can safely reach the target, which is independent of spell slots. That is useful support, but it does not change a target's saving throw.

Paladin ● The Paladin already has demanding action economy (smites, auras, spell slots for concentration spells). A familiar through Ritualist adds scouting and Help capability — but the Paladin's combat identity is melee-first, which creates positioning tension between keeping the familiar useful (adjacent to enemy) and keeping yourself safe in melee. Worthwhile in combat-light, dungeon-exploration-heavy campaigns. Skip in hack-and-slash games where you are always in melee.

Ranger ● Rangers have Primordial spell slots, not Arcane — but Ritualist lets them learn Arcane rituals regardless. An owl familiar for aerial scouting amplifies the Ranger's already-strong exploration toolkit. In campaigns with significant wilderness and dungeon exploration, the familiar adds a sensory layer (120-foot darkvision scouting) the Ranger otherwise lacks. Less useful in combat-heavy games where the Ranger's own damage output is the priority.

Fighter / Barbarian / Rogue ● Martial classes gain less from a familiar because their turn is already occupied by attacks, class mobility, or rage-related mechanics. The familiar can Help — but providing advantage on an attack roll for a Fighter who already has access to multiple attacks, Action Surge, and Fighting Styles is not as marginal-value-per-action as it is for a caster. The investment of a talent slot for a martial class is high relative to the return. Only take this if your character concept specifically calls for a familiar companion.

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Familiar Utility by Scenario

Combat

Best use: Help action every round on the priority target. Your familiar's turn should follow a simple loop:

1. Move to within 5 feet of your priority target.
2. Take the Help action to aid an ally's next attack against that target.
3. Make that attack before another creature acts.

For Pact of the Chain warlocks, the loop becomes more complex: your familiar attacks instead of helping when attacking is more valuable (low-HP priority target, poisoned condition pressure), or Helps when your spell/blast success rate matters more. Read the combat state each round.

Positioning rules:

• Keep the familiar at least 30–40 feet from any enemy caster using area spells.
• During a Fireball or equivalent, your familiar should be behind a pillar, high up (if flying), or in a protected position.
• Do not park it next to a Raging Barbarian who is in melee with multiple enemies — splash damage and AoE reactions will shred it.

Familiar combat ratings by class:

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Exploration

This is where familiars pay for themselves even in combat-light sessions. Every ToV adventure has locked doors, trapped corridors, unknown rooms, and locations where the wrong step costs HP or resources. A familiar eliminates most of that uncertainty.

Standard scouting loop:

1. Send familiar ahead (fly or walk) into the unknown space.
2. Use senses sharing to perceive through the familiar's senses — see everything it sees, hear everything it hears.
3. Report to party. Plan accordingly.

Specific applications:

• Trap detection: Your familiar cannot disarm traps, but it can trigger them (at the cost of familiar HP or destruction) or navigate around them (if it has the movement to avoid pressure plates, tripwires, etc.). More practically: it detects traps visually before your rogue approaches, reducing the chance of surprise.
• Enemy reconnaissance: Before the party enters a room, your familiar peers inside. You see the number of enemies, their positions, their equipment. The party can plan the encounter rather than react to it.
• Item identification: The familiar can pick up and handle items (within its size category), allowing you to examine objects remotely via senses sharing.
• Message relay: A raven or pseudodragon familiar with speech or Limited Telepathy can deliver messages to specific people without you being present.

Best forms for exploration:

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Social Encounters

Familiars have underappreciated social utility. The key is that they are a persistent presence that most NPCs either ignore (it's just a pet) or underestimate.

Specific applications:

• Emotional reading (pseudodragon): The pseudodragon's Limited Telepathy can perceive and relay emotional states — it senses whether a creature within 100 feet is lying, frightened, or concealing something. This is a passive lie-detector that requires no check.
• Distraction and disruption (raven Mimicry): A raven that can reproduce any sound it has heard can create disturbances in the next room, draw guards away from positions, or repeat overheard conversations for intelligence gathering.
• Surveillance (imp, invisible): An invisible imp can attend any meeting, observe any negotiation, and report everything to you via your senses-sharing connection. In political intrigue campaigns, this is a permanent, undetectable intelligence asset.
• Concealed delivery: Your familiar can deliver messages, drop items, or pick up objects in social spaces without drawing attention. A cat slipping a poisoned trinket into a noble's pocket. An owl dropping a forged letter on a desk.

Best forms for social encounters:

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Hot Take

Hot Take: A standard familiar is worth protecting because it scouts, takes non-attack actions, and delivers touch spells; it is not a disposable front-line source of advantage. Pact of the Chain is the exception because that feature expressly permits its familiar to attack.

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Practical note: The imp is the most versatile Chain familiar for infiltration.

Every analysis of Pact of the Chain says "pseudodragon for magical resistance." That is correct for combat-primary games. For any campaign with significant social, urban, or investigative content — which is most campaigns — the imp wins. At-will invisibility means it is permanently undetectable during any mission. Shapeshifting into a rat means it can infiltrate anywhere. The combination of invisibility, shapeshifting, flight, and magical-darkness vision makes the imp a multi-tool that covers every non-combat familiar application better than any other form. The pseudodragon's magical resistance is powerful; the imp's at-will invisibility is never, ever useless.

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Practical note: Enhance Familiar is a temporary utility upgrade.

It is not cute. It turns a familiar into the giant version of its form, or turns a cat into a panther and a fish into a reef shark. That is not "my pet is bigger." That is "the utility creature now changes encounter geometry." The owl remains the default scout, but the panther is what happens when the scout is done taking notes.

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Practical note: Summoner Wizard can use two familiar routes.

One familiar scouts. One familiar stays near the combat plan. That is the whole trick, and it is strong because the table can actually run it without needing a spreadsheet with feelings.

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Practical note: Animal Spy does not improve a familiar.

Player's Guide 2 is clear that Animal Spy does not affect conjured animals or familiars. It is a real spell, but it is not a familiar upgrade. Do not spend table time trying to make your owl file paperwork.

Pick pseudodragon if: Your campaign is primarily combat-focused dungeon delving. Pick imp if: Your campaign has cities, courts, factions, or NPCs that matter.

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Practical note: Ritualist gives a Sorcerer a useful out-of-combat ritual option.

The Sorcerer has two mechanical bottlenecks: limited spells known and pressure on its class resources. A Wyrd Ritualist can add find familiar as an out-of-combat utility tool and occasional Help source for attack rolls. It does not improve saving throws, and the talent competes with other Improvement choices.

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Practical note: Pact of the Chain rewards an active familiar plan.

The baseline warlock who takes Pact of the Chain runs the familiar as a scout and forgets it exists in combat. This is suboptimal to the point of being a build failure. At 6th level, the Enhanced Boon gives your familiar a reaction that grants you advantage on attack rolls when it is within 5 feet of your target. This means: every Eldritch Blast you fire against a target adjacent to your familiar is at advantage. Agonizing Blast adds your CHA modifier to each beam. Four beams at 14th level, all at advantage, all with CHA modifier damage bonus — that is approximately 80+ expected force damage per turn with minimal variance. The familiar enabling this is not optional maintenance; it is the core combat loop.

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Practical note: Owl and pseudodragon solve different familiar jobs.

Witches are strongly associated with ravens and cats in folklore, but the mechanics point unambiguously to the owl. The owl's 60-foot fly speed + Flyby means it can Help from any position on the battlefield without getting punished for repositioning. The pseudodragon's magical resistance is only meaningfully valuable when the familiar would otherwise fail saves — and a Witch familiar's HP is high enough that it is not dying to every stray spell. Fly. Help. Fly away. The owl's mobility superiority compounds every round.

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Practical note: Do not risk a ritual familiar for a routine benefit.

First-time familiar users treat familiar destruction as a catastrophic failure. It is not. A familiar that sacrifices itself to trigger an enemy's opportunity attack, absorb a Fireball, or block a critical-hit melee attack against your back-line caster is performing its highest-value action. A well-timed familiar loss at the cost of 10 gp and 1 hour of ritual time is one of the best HP trades in the game. Stop protecting your familiar like it is irreplaceable. Use it aggressively and resurrect it on the next rest.

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Practical note: Chain plus a second boon can broaden a Warlock's utility.

Chain gives you a combat-capable familiar with unlimited telepathy. Adding Second Boon (Tome) at 5th level costs one invocation slot and adds three cantrips from any spell list (grab guidance, mending, and a damage cantrip from the Divine list). Boon Savant at 7th level (second invocation slot) enhances the Tome boon with ritual access. You now have: a permanent fighting familiar, unlimited telepathy, three bonus cross-list cantrips, ritual casting capability, and the full warlock chassis. Two invocation slots for this package is the best invocation-per-benefit ratio available.

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Practical note: Hunter in Darkness hounds matter when physical board presence is the goal.

Elder Wood plant familiars are flavorful. Wildlife Bard familiars are real subclass support. But Hunter in Darkness + Pact of the Chain + Hunting Hound is the Old Margreve option that actually changes board state. Dire wolf and death dog forms make the familiar physically relevant, and the 9th-level winter wolf burst gives the Warlock a short-rest encounter button. This is not better than imp or pseudodragon in every campaign, but it is the best familiar option in the book for players who want their familiar to feel like a dangerous ally instead of a scouting accessory.

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Practical note: Book of Blades supports mounts rather than familiar selection.

The book is excellent for mounted campaigns, but it does not change the familiar rankings. Horse Lord, Fell Rider, bonded horse, and mount magic items all matter when a horse is part of the build. None of them make owl, imp, pseudodragon, or Ritualist worse. They live in a different lane.

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Practical note: A scout familiar and a mount do different jobs.

If your table allows Book of Blades and cares about travel, the strongest animal-heavy setup is usually an owl, imp, or other familiar scouting ahead while Horse Lord or mounted gear keeps the party's real mount alive. The familiar gathers information. The mount changes movement, load, and battlefield geometry. Trying to make one creature do both jobs is where the build gets sloppy.

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Practical note: Light drake is a GM-approved story familiar, not a default ritual form.

Flight, 1-mile sense sharing, and a nearby sacred flame rider are easy value. You do not need a complicated build to make that useful. The light drake scouts, supports anti-undead and anti-darkness play, and gives the party a visible magical ally that feels like part of the story (Labyrinth Worldbook). The only reason it is not rated higher is access: it is a special familiar sidebar, not a default ritual form.

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Practical note: Widross is a campaign-specific alternative to an imp.

The imp is cleaner: invisible, shapeshifting, disciplined, and generally easier to run. The widross is messier, but shared Magic Resistance plus Mimic Message can be campaign-warping in intrigue play (Labyrinth Worldbook). If your group actually forges orders, impersonates cultists, baits rival factions, and accepts the consequences of traveling with a mayhem-loving Fiend, widross becomes disgusting. If the party just wants a scout, take the imp.

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Practical note: Labyrinth familiars need explicit GM approval or story access.

Light drake and widross are explicitly familiar-capable, but that does not make them free menu picks for every Wizard with 10 gp and an hour (Labyrinth Worldbook). They should enter play through GM permission, patron bargains, Witch stories, Chain Warlock expansions, downtime rewards, or campaign events. That keeps them special and prevents every familiar conversation from becoming "why not take the Tiny Dragon?"

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Familiar Access Comparison

Form Summary by Use Case

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Final Notes

The biggest mistake familiar users make is thinking about the familiar only when it is convenient — when they want to scout, or when someone asks what the familiar is doing. The players who extract maximum value from familiars treat the familiar as an active participant in every round, every scene, every decision.

Before combat starts, ask: where should my familiar be positioned to Help on the first turn? During combat, ask: is my familiar adjacent to the right target, or did I leave it in the starting position while the battlefield moved? After combat, ask: should I reposition my familiar for the next room before the party moves?

Those three habits — pre-positioning, active repositioning, and post-combat setup — are what separate a familiar that contributes 10% of your theoretical DPR in advantage terms from one that contributes 10% to every important roll the class makes across an entire session.

For the Player's Guide 2 Witch, familiar play is ritual tech: get the familiar, use it well, and turn to Enhance Familiar when the situation calls for a larger problem. For the Pact of the Chain Warlock, the familiar is an independent combatant that follows verbal commands without using the Warlock's action. For the Wizard, Create Familiar costs a 10 gp vessel and 1 hour to cast, with Summoner adding the two-familiar angle. In all three cases, use the familiar as a deliberate scouting and support tool rather than a replacement character.

For standard ritual familiars, pick the owl. For Chain Warlocks, pick the form that matches the job: imp for infiltration, pseudodragon for defensive utility, Elemental Regent mephits (Player's Guide 2) for elemental patron identity, and Hunter in Darkness hounds (The Old Margreve) when you want the familiar to actually hold space on the battlefield. For Labyrinth Worldbook, ask for light drake when the campaign rewards radiant support, heroic scouting, and visible magical companions; ask for widross when social sabotage and shared Magic Resistance matter more than being polite. For Book of Blades, use the mounted support guide when your animal plan involves horses, saddles, bridles, and battlefield riding rather than Tiny scouts. Position it every round. Issue commands. Everything else follows.

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Tales of the Valiant is published by Kobold Press. This guide is fan-made and not affiliated with or endorsed by Kobold Press.

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