A Unique Familiar Focused Build for D&D 5e 

This build is great. Being poisoned by something the size of a fly would be like contracting Dengue Feaver.

100% agree on the Sprite's ranged attack. But... You don't have to chose 1 form. You can recast the ritual for different forms as needed. For instance, the Imp is IMMUNE to fire and poison damage. Those are especially common in Area Affect damage. It retains these immunities even if shapeshifted into an animal form, AND brings Devil's Sight and Magic Resistance to the mix. The ranged attack of the Sprite is a clear combat advantage. But the other features make the Imp the better scout. Luckily you can have both.

personally i love the invocation Gift of the Ever-Living Ones with this style of build. Anytime you recieve healing its treated as max. If you go Charisma Constitution for your build you can also get the feat from Mercer called Remarkable Recovery which adds your Constitution to all healing you recieve, so now your familiar is op and your undying nature makes it hard to stop you. I also love the psedodragon cause baby dragon is adorable.

Nice build! The build that came to my head uses the Familiar to deliver Touch Range Spells, like cure wounds and inflict wounds

i love that you make builds with a mix of flavor and power. i either come across min-maxing or all flavor, so its nice to get a mix. definitely earned a new fan!

Polymorph would be a good spell for this flavor! but I guess it wouldn't work well on the familiar because of the CR restriction...

I was just thinking about a build like this the other day. You beat me to it!

Could also do 5 in warlock take flock of familiars giving you 3 sprites, use glyph of warding on it with the sorcerer and while concentrating on bane, and casting non concentrating spells for healing or attacking.

Awesome. You and Colby at D4 should do a build together! He'd love this.

Build Challenge: 3 levels of soulknife ,3 levels astral self ( reflavored as psionic monk ) 3 levels of psi warrior. If there is room add mind sliver through magic/ spellcasting adept and spell sniper .

I was thinking Imp (or other warlock pet that can be invis) and putting dragons breath on it (taking levels in sorcerer), making sure to take a 1 level dip into cleric (for peace domain, but it might not be needed.) I would also have taken the inspiring leader feat, along with aid. The rest seems pretty good. If YOU are going full support, you might aswell play the part!

With this combination of classes, you can actually have many summons and conjurations out at once. Your Familiar, Spiritual Weapon, Guardian of Faith, and things like a Draconic Spirit or a Celestial from the 5th level Summons spells. Only one of these things requiring concentration. Plus, your Familiar can use touch range spells like Shocking Grasp or Inflict Wounds. And until you get those 5th level summons, you've still got Spirit Guardians and Spiritual Weapon. I think you could also give your Familiar Mage Armor as well?

I'm doing something similar with kinda like a Pokemon trainer that is themselves a Pokemon to their patron. Genie Warlock, pact of the chain multiclassed with Wildfire Druid, the vessel is our Pokeball, and self imposed restriction of "types", like he can inherently use "psychic type" spells but he can only use fire if the wildfire spirit is out, or poison, water, earth, etc, if a corresponding familiar or summon is out(in my mind he kinda psychic links with his pets to share their power). Not sure how effective it will be in battle but seems fun for flavor and loads of non-combat shenanigans. Fun interactions with Dao bludgeoning and crusher to add to the psychic vibe too plus the weirdly perfect flavor of Dao genies and enslavement with a Pokemon theme.

A really good spell I'd recommend for a familiar build is to grab "flock of familiars" which allows you to conjure 3 familiars at its lowest level of cast and if you already have a familiar it's added into the group you summon for 3 sprites which benefit from your warlock about to command your familiars to attack as your action and bonus action so that's 3 shortbow attacks at advantage because they previously went invisible with the option of doing 3 more attacks at normal for 6 whole poison saves that can knock someone unconscious they then turn invisible on their turn and move around so enemies don't know their location making sure to keep in the air to be "spriteful" towards melee enemies, additionally if you ever get a magic item that has set dc's on effects feel free to give them to your familiar because investment of the chain master scales any dc originating from your familiar to your spell save dc this is in addition to stuff like ball bearings and caltrops which I think are goofy and also fragmentation grenades which are in the dmg here's what they do in case people ever play in modern dnd games As an action, a character can throw a grenade at a point up to 60 feet away. With a grenade launcher, the character can propel the grenade up to 120 feet away. Each creature within 20 feet of an exploding fragmentation grenade must make a DC 15 Dexterity saving throw, taking 5d6 piercing damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one. (They're what give my thief rogue's and gimmick builds like swarmlock life)

My first instinct is shepherd druid/life cleric build, for quantity is a quality onto itself. Like yours too

last year I used the fractal familiar for my warlock with a similar build it was super fun what made it different was flight and mounting due to it size alteration my character was a time displaced child trying to save her mother at her most dangerous time

Flock of familiars!!!

Familiars are super fragile and normally take a long to resummon, so for a familiar focused build I would take 2 levels of druid for the wild companion feature which nets you 2 find familiar action castings per short rest, each lasting an hour, and then focus your levels in warlock. Shepherd druid's totem effect is a separate resource from wildshape, so that would be a useful tool at your disposal. Alternatively, Dreams druid could get you 2 more BA healing dice/long rest to make up for those missed from diverting warlock levels. Since you're getting more healing light dice, you can be a lot more durable by combining it with the Gift of the Ever Living One's chain pact invocation. Meanwhile, druid levels will get you medium armor and shield proficiency to make you harder to hit when you end up in the fray. For familiar durability I would either take the inspiring leader feat,and/or focus your levels in celestial warlock to share THP with the celestial radiance feature. For debuffing, I would go with the pseudodragon. It will be in melee, but with druid it's simpler to bring back and it's secondary unconscious effect is a lot more likely to go into effect. For the psedodragon it would into effect if the target fails against your dc by 5 or more; For the Sprite it would only fall unconscious if the rolls total [including modifiers] is 5 or less, which is impossible for many monster, and unlikely for the vast majority. Also a correction, the sprite can't go invisible after getting its 2 attacks in, because its invisibility requires an action to activate

Super cool video as always! Incidentally in Kobold Press's Tome of Heroes has a familar based subclass for Wizards.

ok, ok, ok.... that's a neat build, I would have done Artificer/wizard using a Homunculus to deliver touch range spells. However, i have another build challenge for you that kind of ups the ante: A Battle Smith build where you focus everything on building up your Steel Defender, using it to dish out most of the damage (as well as making sure it can survive anything.) That is my build challenge to you!

Build challenge request: Artificer grapple build. More of drag them to somewhere nasty variety, than pure damage. We have: Bonuses to str checks: L1 (guidance cantrip), L2 (amor of magical str infusion), L7 flash of genius Extra movement from spells and several sub-classes. Jump height from jump spell and couple of infusion items for suplexing. Flight speed as early as L3 if alchemist. Several ways to gain swim speed and water breathing There are so many tools I get analysis paralysis. Athletics skill can be gained from background, but BA dash from rogue2 might be desirable.

The other direction is outfitting an imp with magic items. Crawford has said they can use and attune to their own. A combination of Dragons Breath with Aid, a wand of magic missile, talk to your DM about a Circlet of Human Perfection to add a human form to the imps shapechange and now you have the most regular Joe who can also fly and turn invisible at will along with whatever other “retired” Magic items the party “outgrew”

I can really picture the character . Great build

If you get that 5th level of warlock, try slipping in Summon Undead. The putrid spirit option synergizes with your sprite’s minute long poison effect to force a paralyzed effect on hit.

Fun addendum to this: if you don’t mind going into Melee with the familiar and dropping the invisibility the psudodragon has a similar poison effect that’s actually better. Unlike the sprite that knocks people unconcious on a 5 or lower the pseudodragon knocks people unconcious on a fail by 5 or more- meaning the unconcious chance scales with your spell save dc. Depending on your PB and save dc that can make the chance of knocking an enemy unconcious double or higher than that of the sprite

Realises sprite has hands Instantly competes with flying monkey

I quite like your builds. I'm all for gimmicks and playing differently, I play with people that "Have it in the bag" most of the time so finding weird ways to support them and enable them (IE, through poisoning and debuffing as seen here) it really helps me feel like I'm doing my own thing while making sure everyone else gets to do their own thing better. Everyone has fun.

Having the owl with dragon breathe works

amazing build, warlock is my favorite class, keep up with the great work!

Not necessarily a powerful build per say, but a fun one that i've wanted to try is using Pact of the Chain in conjunction with the Strixhaven Mascot feat. More specifically the Fractal Mascot. The Fractal Mascot can change its size, and with the Investment of the Chain Master invocation it can get a fly speed of 40 feet, giving you the ability to have a flying mount as early as 4th level. Not to mention any other shenanigans you can get up to with a familiar that can shrink or grow, and that you can swap places with via its teleportation ability, as long as it's within 60 feet of you. (Especially because it can pass through solid matter.) Like I said, not particularly powerful in the combat sense, but quite versatile in what it provides.

Get a bat familiar and cast Dragons Breath into it. Pyrotechnics creates Smoke that even Devils Sight cannot see through but the bat has Blindsense. More levels of Warlock can allow upcasting Dragons Breath most combats.

There is a build like this which is very familiar focused. The idea is to get a flying mount which you can ride, resummon and could carry the entire party (In a lot of situations.) Start with the feat Strixhaven Initiate with custom origin or variant human. Take the Quandrix school of magic. At level four Strixhaven Mascot feat and gain a Fractal Mascot. Now importantly about the Fractal Mascot it can change its size up to huge. A huge creature can easily carry you and can maybe carry the entire party (Given different party sizes and weight). It can also shrink down! Here is where warlock comes in. Take at least 4 levels of warlock and get pact of the chain. After that you take Investment of the Chain Master which gives your familiar flying speed of 40ft. As well as a bunch of other bonuses. So what you get is this. A giant entire party mount. Or if your in combat and it's just you can use it to have a permanent 40ft fly speed mount as well as an amazing familiar. This can make for a really cool build core and the best part is none of these options limit the build to much! You can still play any kind of warlock you want. But for maximum cheese Eldritch blast build would work well here.

I could see this being better as a Ranged Battlesmith Artificer with Homunculus Servant 7/wizard (whatever). Almost all the wizard subclasses synergize with this to create different flavors. Additionally, it can give you a second "familiar" for greater versatility. Various feats would round out this build pretty nicely.

I did something like that, I used chronurgy wizard for that, At 3rd level, owl familiar, dragon breath as a buff //flock of familiars for multy help action and as a way to have the summon if its killed. Mage armor is a glood buff on familiar for survival. Casting levitate from the familiar is good too. At 5th level you can use hypnotic pattern even if there are allies on the way and wake them up using your familiar. At 7th level you can polymorph enemies into small creatures and have your owl carring it as far as it can before coming back, or throwing it on a clift. Is not going to die but it solves many things. At 10th level you can give to every party member its own familiar using the chronurgy feat(Arcane Abeyance). Now everyone have its own familiar. After that you can take 3 levels o warlock for better familiars for everyone but you need to have the Cha if wanna do it.

What a flavor filled solution to the challenge. This would be a fun character to play or to have in your party!

ooooh, really interesting build Very cool

Flock of Familiars. Give each of the familiars a wand. Three magic missiles/fireballs/lightning bolts per turn

Good build idea

I would like to see how you go about making a sniper build

A really cool spell for this build is dragons breath. Because the familiar doesn’t use it’s action you can cast it on them to give the a damage aoe

Jack Vance's writing includes the Twykmen, minuscule little fey guys who ride dragonfly's and trade secrets for salt.

One thing you could do is reflavor it as a Cupid or something of that nature.

Build challenge: An unarmed fighter, but not in the typical sense. This character has been challenged by his twin, they both will go out and adventure to see who's more worthy of the throne, only caveat is that they cannot use their own weapons. My idea is a battlemaster fighter with disarming attack who steals the enemies weapons and uses them against the enemy, so that combat is always a new challenge.

My current character is a Celestial warlock 3 levels, then the rest draconic sorcerer. The theme I was starting off with was dragons, so my race is dragonborn and my familiar is always a pseudodragon. I am also using Eldritch Adept feat so I can have a total of 3 invocations. I got Investment of the Chain Master, Voice of the Chain Master, and Agonizing Blast. My familiar helps with delivering healing spells (like Cure Wounds or Lesser Restoration) and occasionally a Shocking Grasp to help a teammate escape an enemy without provoking opportunity attacks. I have invisibility for my pseudodragon mostly to improve his scouting further. I also have Dragon's Breath spell so he can fly around breathing down fire or lightning on enemies (or in one instance he breathed fire onto dynamite to pretty good effect; poor guy). With Voice of the Chain master, if the party is split up, my pseudodragon will often go with the rest of the party so we can communicate at unlimited range. On top of all of this RAW stuff, our DM has allowed us to use Stibbles Companions Codex to improve pets and familiars through "Bond levels". Using the rules defined in that book, my pseudodragon has grown to 31 HP and can use a healing ability called Holy Healing Burst once per day on his own action economy; which is a 10 foot radius healing of 2d6 for any allies within range. Eventually he will get to learn 1 cantrip of his own, which I'm considering giving him Minor Illusion.

Here’s a build concept: Curse/hex/debuff build, a brutal concept of bringing absolute despair to your foes for your party to bully.

Build challenge: Mutant healing factor, Regeneration specialist. The best I can come up with is a Half-Orc combination of Celestial Warlock X Healing Light + Gift of the Ever-living Ones/Fighter 1 Second Wind.

Build challenge: thrown weapon tank

Genuinely love this concept. But, it really gets hard countered after level 5 because poison is the most heavily resisted damage/status in the game. Definitely good for a lower level one shot or mini campaign. I’d personally go Artificer/theurgen wizard. Or go cleric because most support spells you’d be using don’t really need much stat investment and so you could easily lower priority on Wis without a huge impact

This Build alongside a pacifist's paladin and a good party or something like that would be so perfect

what a fun build,

Something about this build seems.... familiar

Duergar Mind Masters have the ability to become Tiny, and when they do, they gain a +5 to their AC and Stealth checks. I think it would be fair to rule that the same would count for a Sprite when it becomes even smaller than Tiny, though it's good to note that RAW there is no size smaller than Tiny, so even if a Sprite shrinks, it would still always be considered Tiny.

An idea is take the strixhaven feats to get a Fractal mascot take investment of the chain master and bang now I have a flying familiar that I can make at most size huge and can be ridden at level 4, right before other casters gain the spell fly. If allowed I cast Flock of familiars to gain multiple fractals command them to grab multiple boulders and then drop them on my enemies. At later levels may take mounted combatant to protect my familiar while I am riding it. I would play as a celestial warlock who acts like an insane priest/pastor who proclaims he can manifest the wings of his god to aid him in his divine quest. His God/patron being a seraphim with three pair of wings and uses its fanatical warlock as an anchor to the material plane allowing it to partially manifest parts of its body as one or more fractal familiars. Going all in with the biblically accurate angel motif. Fun stuff.

Honestly my first instinct with this challenge would've been going with either Prismari or Lorehold Student as a background and taking the mascot feat at level 4. Comes online one level later than this, but it vastly frees up class selection and you also get a decent set of spells for free.

Cast Dragon's Breath (cold) on my Imp CR1 familiar, so it can make a cold breath as action (won't break the invisibility by RAW) to solo a CR5 fire elemental. :P

Bit surprised you didn't say anything about the spell Flock of Familiars. DM willing, you just summon out 2+ more fairies for an hour. lol Also, perhaps a bit debatable, but I could almost see Twined Spell letting you cast a touch spell through two of your fairies, and/or DM willing, allow you to use a bonus action to have all your fairies attack. That said however, I think you may have misspoke slightly (no offence, but you seem to be doing that a lot lately.) when you said you could Attack then let your fairy attack then bonus action to let them attack again. Problem is, unless you went Pact of the Blade and got Thirsting Blade, Warlocks can only attack once. Also, there may be a slight problem with this build. That being the Fairies attack. Most monsters tend to be resistant if not immune to poison. So, little fairy is really only doing 1 damage. Though... cast Enlarge on it then DM might treat its weapons as normal size and give them the full 1d6 damage, or at least 1d4.

Honestly, change the Sorc to Wild Magic, and add 3 levels of Swarmkeeper Ranger, and you have one of my favorite characters I've ever played. The 42nd Airborne Division, a fairy army PC.

I know your stance on monks being best when they specialize and I’ve said it before and gonna keep mentioning it til you do it: Long death Dodgey Hill Dwarf Tank monk. Con focused with patient defense for heals while dodging and still getting some consistent damage from your action. Honorable mention to pariapt of wound closure and or durable to up the healing even more. Alt:Dodgey Dwarven Tank Sorcerer Blaster. Dwarven fortitude on hill dwarf draconic sorcerer. 13+DEX AC and fire resist with quicken spell and dodge action on same turn. Same pariapt and durable for extra heals but also bloodwell vial to bump up DC and attack bonus(we’ll be slightly less than usual to allow CON focus) and first time using dwarven fortitude after long rest will also give you 5 sorcery points.

Weird idea imma just throw out as you seem to take suggestions from the comments sometimes 😁. Armorer/lycan blood hunter tank build. get a soft taunt, a rage like resistance, and the ability to still cast spells

Does it have to be official sources only? If not, I would totally go to the third-party book, Zargoth's Tome of Familiars for some other feats and familiars as well as special items, like the collars that let you and your familiar trade places and such.

Level 8 Ultra Sprite Fear and Poison Coffeelock. You get your own micro tank or poison ranger. Read the stat block for Sprite and really focus on the shortbow attack carrier. A full combat familiar with 3 attacks a turn, a nasty poison carrier to those attacks 100 foot flying speed, and good AC supported by a terror inspiring Form of Dread with a Menacing second attack every turn. 4x Attack rolls, 2x Fear effects, and 3x Poison effects each turn. 3 Warlock/Undead/Chain - Dread Form - Investment of the Chain Masters - gets YOUR save DC and triggered attack - "unarmored sprite" -1AC 5 Sorcerer/Shadows(in case you go to 6) - Menacing feat. - Twinned Haste! - Coffeelock Unarmored Sprite with Mage armor = 17AC Sprite takes reaction attack when you use a bonus action and it uses your spell save DCs. With haste this adds another attack and brings AC to 19. Upto three attacks per round. 16sp worth of short rests(4 hours) provide a full combat of resources. Precast Mage Armor and Longstrider on Sprite.(4sp) Precast Gift of Alacrity and Longstrider on self.(4sp) 1st Round Action - Twin Haste(2+5sp) Bonus - Dread Form Haste Action - Attack w fear effect Sprite - 2x Attacks w poison 2nd Round Bonus - command sprite Action - Attack w Fear Haste - Replace with Menacing Sprite - 3x attacks with poison *4 attacks, 2 fear, 3 poison* One more level of Sorcerer adds the ability to summon Hounds of Ill Omen with their chance to knock people prone, also via your spell save DC. Giving the Sprite items with which it can cast Hex adds damage and helps lower enemy saving throws. Can a Sprite use a shield(now a 21AC)? It's stat sheet info for flight doesn't restrict it, nor does the movement granted by Investment of the Chain Masters.

I love the idea of having a super small sprite that can drop people unconscious. TBH casting reduce on it was the first thing I didn’t really see coming. Question though! Do the penalties from bane and mind sliver factor into the auto drop ability of the sprite?

doesnt this also stack with your celestial warlock tank video?

Idk i would have took the and combined with articfer so that way you havean invisible Eldritch cannon

build idea: (totally not my current character) swords bard/kensei monk, aiming for max ac 'cant touch this'

I was going to suggest casting dragons breath on your familiar but realized pact of the chain specifically says your "Attack Action" which is sad b/c dragons breath isn't an attack action. It would be awesome doing 3d6 3x per round.... Speaking of dragons breath.... Any build ideas for maximizing dragons breath? It seems like such a fun spell but it falls off quickly as you level up.

Have you ever done Gandalf?

Why not use the strixhaven familiar options?

Can I submit my ideas or requests in RU-vid comments or it is only possible via patron?

Usually @dnd_daily you give out where you would put points into which stats, but you didn't this time. Is there a way to edit and add it to this video?

So, I have a question (please don't laugh). The rules text for Flock of Familiars says that it follows the normal rules for Find Familiar. Does that mean Pact of the Chain buffs carry over to it?

Good man I disagree with you about Eldrich blas. And here is why, you can use Eldrich blass along with two modifications (repelling blas and grasp of hadar invocation) to have a control over foe.

Where does it say that your familiar shares your spells?

It's a group game, you don't have min max everything on your char

Way too many enemies are immune to the poisoned condition. It won't work as well as you expect.

Make a Good paladin druid multiclasd

I actually played this. Instead of divine soul though, I took Peace domain cleric for the emboldening bond and bless combo to keep my familiar effective. I didn't limit myself to just one familiar though, they all have uses. .out of the time I used imp or psudodragon. Also an interesting thing that you missed is that you canake your familiar attack twice with this build: once using its reaction as you mentioned and then it use its action because of investment of the chain master.

This build does not work as you present it. 1: Your familiar still only gets one action. It’s can’t attack twice in one round period. (But this does free up you up to choose either your bonus action or action for your Sprite attack.) * I’ve had it pointed out to me bellow that the Pact Feature which allows you familiar to make an attack only uses your familiars Reaction. So this does appear to work. 2: The spite poison says “If its saving throw result is 5 or lower” not “if it fails by 5 or more”. So RAW the creature literally has to get less than a 5 on their save to get knocked out, which can still happen sometimes but is rare. That being said the poison effect is still solid and does work. * I was surprised to not see the iconic cast Dragon’s Breath on you Familiar recommendation.

Everyone has been sleeping on the Sprite for years, maybe ya'll failed yer save by 5 or more?

Only 3 levels of warlock basically means losing an ASI, which is a pretty big cost on top of losing single-class spell progression.