Improved Familiars (Hands)


Rules Questions


Do all improved familiars have hand to manipulate wands or is there some way to tell which ones do and don't?


The usual way is to look them up. Look at their picture and description in the bestiaries to see if they have hands.

Were you wondering about a particular familiar?


Not all of them. You can tell by looking at the images of most of them. There is one that is basically a floating metal ball. It reminds me of those flying balls from hellraiser. They definitely do not have hands.


I wonder how the improved wasp familiar does on this. It has the stats of an imp, but not the body. But real wasps totally can and do carry things.

Imagine the caterpillar is a wand.


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Melkiador wrote:

I wonder how the improved wasp familiar does on this. It has the stats of an imp, but not the body. But real wasps totally can and do carry things.

Imagine the caterpillar is a wand.

Almost all animals can carry things. That isn't the same as fine manipulation.


Wands don't usually have triggers or buttons. They usually have command words. Which means the familiar also needs to be capable of speech. Most animal-ish mouths might not be, even on advanced familiars.

That's probably more a call for GMs than the question of hands (which is probably more evident from art and descriptions so usually requires less of a GM decision).


Wands spell trigger activated, not command word. They do require speech, but they also require spellcasting knowledge(the spell must be on your class list).

Otherwise it's umd time, and a GM may rule that you can not use the wand properly such as with a wand that has a ray attack, not being able to point it in the right direction would be an issue if the GM doesn't think the form of the creature allows for it.


I was looking today and you don't really need hands:

To activate a wand, a character must hold it in hand (or whatever passes for a hand, for non-humanoid creatures) and point it in the general direction of the target or area. A wand may be used while grappling or while swallowed whole.


Hmmmmm.....

"A wand may be used while (grappling or) swallowed whole."

Parse out that bit about grappling, you get:

"A wand may be used while swallowed whole."

As for me, I try not to swallow my wands, wholly or otherwise, but it's nice to know that if I do swallow them whole, I can still use them. In fact, given my lack of fine manipulation and all (big armored tarrasque claws), and given my propensity for swallowing lots of things - people, villages, monsters, towns, ships, just about anything - it's a safe bet I've swallowed dozens of wands whole over the years. I should start using them!

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