Flock of Familiars: A Threesome Seldom Lives Up to the Hype

Usable By: Warlock, Wizard

Spell Level: 2

School: Conjuration

Casting Time: 1 minute

Range: Touch

Duration: Concentration, up to 1 hour

Components: V, S

You temporarily summon three familiars – spirits that take animal forms of your choice. Each familiar uses the same rules and options for a familiar conjured by the Find Familiar spell. All the familiars conjured by this spell must be the same type of creature (celestials, fey, or fiends; your choice). If you already have a familiar conjured by the Find Familiar spell or similar means, then one fewer familiars are conjured by this spell.

Familiars summoned by this spell can telepathically communicate with you and share their visual or auditory senses while they are within 1 mile of you.

When you cast a spell with a range of touch, one of the familiars conjured by this spell can deliver the spell, as normal. However, you can cast a touch spell through only one familiar per turn.

At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 3rd level or higher, you conjure an additional familiar for each slot level above 2nd.

Review by Sam West, Twitter:@CrierKobold

The law of diminishing returns: as more is invested into something, the less proportional value you’ll get out of it. Find Familiar is a top tier spell that wildly warps the game. Getting to play as two characters at once, have the sight of two different places, have two different sizes, speeds, the works, it’s all amazing stuff, and only costs you a first level spell in your spell book and a bit of gold. Flock of Familiars, introduced in the Lost Laboratory of Kwalish, an adventure supporting the Extra Life charity produced by Wizards of the Coast, gives you access to three times the familiars. If you don’t have a familiar already, this is spectacular. If you already have one, this is pretty underwhelming.

Realistically, you don’t need more than one familiar. Having access to a creature with all the statistics familiars offer is useful for performing tasks you couldn’t. Having multiples doesn’t strictly multiply the scenarios they’ll help you in; they can’t be different creatures, so you’re not getting any additional features. There may be a few situations where three ravens is preferable to one, but if you’re using them for espionage, communication, or item delivery mid combat, three doesn’t really offer you that much more. You can come up with clever plans and neat tricks that use all of the familiars, but how much of the time in those plans would one familiar be enough? I’d guess most of the time.

This is probably at its best when taking the help action over and over again. Helping three creatures each round get advantage on attack rolls is really solid for an hour long duration 2nd level spell. A major hiccup Find Familiar faces in combat is how fragile familiar’s are; having three means the spell is eating more attacks and giving out more benefits. All in all good stuff here.

If you’re a warlock without pact of the chain, this gives you access to a higher level version of one of the best spells in the game that scales with your pact magic in a neat way. Warlocks with pact of the chain rules as written can’t use Flock of Familiars to the chain specific familiars, but that might be something you can work out with your DM as it's not entirely intuitive. Wizards and warlocks with pact of the chain still probably don’t need or even want this unless you’re going hard into the summoner fantasy; if that sounds like something you’re excited to try out, get it! Flock of Familiars is an extension of a busted low level spell that doesn’t get that much better, especially when it's attached to concentration and a higher level slot.

5e Spells

Flock of Familiars: A Threesome Seldom Lives Up to the Hype