Best DnD familiars ranked for every situation

Find Familiar is a great spell, there’s no denying that. It’s fun, flavourful, has an infinite duration, and can be quite potent if used right. On top of that, it isn’t dependent on Ability Scores, so anybody can pick it up and use it effectively with the Magic Initiate feat. All that being said, though, not all familiars are created equally, and if you choose one of the more underwhelming forms for your familiar, you could be forgiven for thinking the spell is overrated. In this article, I’ll be exploring some of the best familiar options for different uses and scenarios, so that you can make the best possible use of this spell.

Best overall familiars

Shortly, I’ll be going quite in-depth on a range of options, and I highly recommend that you create a list of your favourite familiars for a range of situations, so that you can change your familiar’s form to best suit your needs in specific moments. But, if you just want a single catch-all familiar, then look no further than this list of my top 5 general purpose familiars.

#5 best overall familiar: Owl

Anyone with any experience with this spell will have seen this one coming a mile off. The owl is a great familiar, with impressive scouting and combat potential. Its Flyby trait allows it to fly away from enemies without provoking attacks of opportunity, making it able to fly into a fray, use the Help action to grant you or an ally advantage on an attack, and then fly out of harm’s way with minimal risk. On top of that, its +3 to stealth and perception checks, 120 feet of darkvision, and Keen Hearing and Sight trait (which gives it a total passive perception of 18 in bright and dim light, and 13 in complete darkness) make it an amazing option for scouting or keeping watch over your resting party.

Owl familiar stat block:

#4 best overall familiar: Imp

For the Warlocks among you, the Imp is as strong an option as any. With its +5 Stealth score, Invisibility action, and ability to see through magical darkness, it makes an excellent scouting option, especially in situations where some of the other familiar options might alert groups of enemies. Not only this, but it’s a great pick in combat, where its damage resistances and immunities, along with its invisibility, will make its 10 HP go a long way and secure a lot of Help actions. Its ability to see through magical darkness can be a great benefit in combat too, allowing you to cast Darkness to blind your enemies, while still being able to see through the Imp’s senses.

Imp familiar stat block:

They’re not the prettiest familiar, but imps can certainly be effective.

#3 best overall familiar: Gazer

The Gazer, effectively a tiny Beholder, is an incredible choice to help in combat: while it can’t use its Bite attack, it’s still able to force saving throws using its eye rays, and while the DCs for the saves are relatively low, the beams are almost always worth spending your bonus action on when they connect. Despite its main focus being combat, the Gazer is still useful for scouting and keeping watch, with its +5 to stealth and +4 to perception, and can even be used to send messages thanks to its Mimicry trait.

Gazer familiar stat block:

#2 best overall familiar: Fractal Mascot

The Fractal Mascot needs a rather large investment of 2 feats, meaning that even Human Variant/Custom Lineage characters, or those in games with a free starting feat, won’t be able to get it until 4th level, but that’s about where the downsides end. This quantum snake can move through objects, change its size between Huge and Tiny (making it more effective in combat and stealth, respectively), and even has a decent attack for a familiar, which it can use thanks to the feat required to take it. What’s more, thanks again to the prerequisite feat, you can magically swap positions with the Fractal once per day. Combined with its ability to phase through walls, this is very potent, and allows you to bypass most solid obstacles with relative ease. With Investment of The Chain Master and Flock of Familiars, it’s even possible to drop 3 Huge Fractal Mascots onto unsuspecting enemies (or small towns) for a hefty chunk of damage, making for some of the most fun I’ve ever had using this spell.

Fractal Mascot familiar stat block:

#1 best overall familiar: Flying Monkey

The flying monkey, an option from Tomb of Annihilation, doesn’t look like much on the surface. Its 11 passive perception and +2 to stealth make it unappealing for scouting, while its 3 HP total and redundant Pack Tactics trait make it seem like a poor choice in combat, and these are very fair and correct statements, so you may wonder how this winged simian wound up at the top of my list.

The answer is simple. The flying monkey has one thing that no other familiar has, which opens up a whole new realm of possibility: opposable thumbs. Yes, the flying monkey is the only familiar with humanoid hands, and thus the only one capable of manipulating objects. This makes the monkey capable of fetching objects from hard-to-reach places, making unskilled checks using Thieves’ Tools, and even wielding weapons, though it lacks proficiency. I was skeptical as to the power of the flying monkey, until I equipped it with a Wand of Magic Missiles. Since the spell doesn’t make an attack roll, the monkey is able to use it while being a familiar, and this works with any wand that casts a spell not requiring an attack roll, including the hilarious Wand of Wonder. Everybody’s gangster until the monkey starts casting random spells.

Flying monkeys. Very little to dislike.

Flying monkey familiar stat block:

Best specific-use familiars

As I mentioned earlier, one of Find Familiar’s greatest strengths is the ability to choose the form of your familiar each time you recast the spell. This means that- if you’re willing to spend the 1st level spell slot, or your free daily cast using Magic Initiate if you took that route- you can always have the perfect familiar for your party’s particular misadventure. To that end, I’ll outline my pick of familiar for various purposes, so that you can pick and choose the right familiar for you.

Best aquatic familiar: Octopus

Aquatic adventures are somewhat rare, and assuming you can avoid drowning, can be very fun. They do however often influence your choice of class features, spells, etc. Familiars are no exception to this rule. Without Warlock’s Investment of The Chain Master eldritch invocation, many of the options I would usually recommend have no swim speed, severely limiting their movement in an arc or campaign set under the seas. In a case like this, I can’t recommend the octopus enough. Its 30 ft swim speed is nothing extraordinary, but its Underwater Camouflage and Ink Cloud abilities make it effective in scouting and combat, giving it advantage on stealth checks and the ability to escape risky situations, or just straight-up blind an enemy for a little while. What’s more, the octopus still functions on land. Though it can’t move, it doesn’t need to breathe, since it’s a spirit, so the Water Breathing trait doesn’t come into play. On top of this, its 30 ft of Darkvision lets you see in darkness if you couldn’t already, allowing you to fashion a pair of night vision octopus goggles.

Octopus familiar stat block:

Best scouting familiar: Imp, Bat or Spider

Scouting is one of your familiar’s main jobs. Whether that’s surveying an area from above, or moving stealthily through the halls of a dungeon. This is a tricky job to recommend a single familiar for, so I’ll break it down into further sections: interior and exterior scouting. Although, if your character is a Warlock with Pact of The Chain, this division is unnecessary, since the Imp can easily fill both roles. I already talked about its Invisibility ability, but its ability to shapeshift into a raven, rat, or spider, allows it to be inconspicuous even if the targets of its surveillance can see through invisibility.

For the non-Warlocks among you, the best choice for a flying scouting familiar is certainly the bat. Bats are unassuming creatures, as long as you’re scouting at night, and not likely to get noticed during the day either. What’s more, their 60 ft of Blindsight allows them to spot invisible creatures, and since they see using echolocation, their Keen Hearing ability applies to perception checks to ‘see’ things too. Important to note, as well, is the fact that the bat is not blind beyond its Blindsight, so even if it’s Deafened, it can still see perfectly fine.

In the halls of a dungeon, my highest recommendation goes to the spider. It’s small and unassuming, and even has a decent stealth score at +4 and 30 ft of darkvision. The main benefit here is, of course, that most dungeons are full of spiders anyway, making this familiar completely inconspicuous.

Bat familiar stat block:

Spider familiar stat block:

A spider, really? At least Lolth will be happy.

Best combat familiar: Owl, Imp or Gazer

In combat, familiars can fill one of two roles: direct debuffs/damage, and helping. For helping (taking the Help action), there’s no better recommendation than the owl (or the Imp, if available). As I mentioned earlier, its Flyby trait makes it a fantastic user of the Help action, and before the addition of Steady Aim to Rogue’s Cunning Action, 100% of my Rogue characters had an owl familiar, due to how much they enjoy a source of advantage. The usefulness doesn’t stop at Rogues, though. Any class that’s likely to only make 1 attack per turn, or doesn’t have another good use of their bonus action, will benefit massively from what is effectively free advantage. Just remember to have your familiar take the Help action, and then fly 30 ft away, ideally straight up, so that it’s within range to repeat the manoeuvre.

Meanwhile, for direct debuffs/damage, the Gazer is king. While its eye rays are dependent on rolling the right rays, and also on your enemies rolling poorly on their saving throws, 3d6 free damage is nothing to scoff at, the Frightened condition can absolutely cripple an enemy, and the Charmed condition has the potential to remove them from the fight entirely, swaying the action economy in your favour.

Best vigilant familiar: Tressym

Sometimes, you just need a magical guard dog to keep watch over you and your party while you sleep, or while you traverse a dangerous area. For this, I can’t recommend the Tressym more, meaning it’s really a magical guard cat. The Tressym, a winged cat, enjoys a number of benefits that make it ideal for saving your character from an untimely demise. Its 15 passive perception and Detect Invisibility trait make it an excellent protector to watch over your otherwise-indisposed party, while its Poison Sense stops you from being the victim of assassination (or just your barbarian’s cooking). On top of this, its 40 ft fly speed and +4 to stealth make it capable in combat and as a scout, so you don’t have to worry about it falling short outside of its preferred role.

Tressym familiar stat block:

Best transport familiar: Fractal Mascot

“Transport familiar? You can’t use a familiar as a mount!” I hear you thinking. But you’re wrong. You can, in fact, use a familiar as a mount. Specifically, the Fractal Mascot. Its ability to become Huge sized means that your whole party can ride on its back, and though it doesn’t move any faster than the average humanoid, it doesn’t get tired, and party members like Artificers, who may be working on projects during travel time, have a fairly stable surface on which to tinker. With the feats that are required to take the Fractal Mascot as a familiar, you also gain the ability to switch places with it, enhancing your mobility in combat and allowing you to enter places that you wouldn’t normally be able to reach. If you want even more movement, you could also use Warlock’s Investment of The Chain Master to give the Fractal a 40 ft fly speed, and while this is objectively worse than using Find Greater Steed, or buying a flying mount outright, it’s also significantly cheaper.

Best utility familiar: Flying Monkey

Once again, it all comes back to the flying monkey. Putting aside my personal bias, the monkey’s ability to manipulate objects gives it massive utility, and makes its range of uses frankly a little ridiculous. It made the perfect companion for my halfling Wizard, who moonlit as a jailbreaker, and in her case it could even function as a flying backpack. The average halfling weighs about 40 lbs, which makes up only a fraction of the monkey’s 240 lbs push, drag, and lift weight. This means that the monkey can comfortably fly while carrying a halfling, and all the equipment they could possibly need, without limiting its speed. This means that, as per RAW (Rules As Written), you can have a monkey jetpack.

Best Familiar Stats

Familiars are often much more than their stats, but sometimes you just want the best stealth or perception score, or the highest HP possible, on your familiar. These options will give you an idea of what’s possible for familiars, so that you can make your own judgement on how good a particular form’s stats are.

Highest stealth familiar: Sprite

This one goes to the Sprite, with its +8 Stealth score, and the ability to become invisible, giving other creatures disadvantage when trying to detect it. With these combined stats, it’s extremely unlikely that your Sprite will be spotted while scouting, meaning you can gain information about your enemies without them being alerted to your presence.

Sprite familiar stat block:

Highest perception familiar: Hawk

With its +4 to perception, and Keen Sight trait, giving advantage on perception checks relying on sight, the hawk can reach a passive perception total of 19, which is higher than most player characters. This will massively limit your chances of being snuck up on, and make finding objects and enemies much easier.

Hawk familiar stat block:

Even if you don’t see it coming, your hawk will

Highest HP familiar: Fractal Mascot

This award goes to the Fractal Mascot, with a whopping 27 hit points. In the context of the Strixhaven familiars, this isn’t actually that massive, nor is it a large amount of HP in the grand scheme of D&D, but prior to Curriculum of Chaos, the highest HP a familiar could have was 18, and that was by quite a margin. The Fractal can sit in the thick of combat much more comfortably than other familiars, giving it more opportunities to assist you.

Get familiar with familiars

The aim of this article was to explore the mechanically strongest Find Familiar options that are available to players, but these options aren’t the only ones available. There are 32 total forms that your familiar can take, so I’d strongly encourage you to look at all the options at your disposal and choose one that best fits the flavour and function of your character. After all, the strongest familiar won’t always be the best one for you and your party.