Hi there
Say I have a warlock with the ability to summon a familiar either through the tome ritual or the chain class feature. The warlock now have the choice of either a celestial, fey, or fiend sidekick... but not an aberration?
I would prefer my servant of the great old one would be able to get an aberration as an option. But Im not sure of the ramifications ingame wise.
So here is the question: what are the pros and cons for allowing great old one warlocks to obtain aberration familiars, instead of the usual types?
If I remember correctly (away from books), the Great Old One patron, chain pact feature, includes language that the GOO is inscrutable, and can use any familiar. Granted the intention could be any of the special options, but this is really up to the DM.
I have successfully negotiated a tiny quadrone familiar with my DM for my rock gnome warlock, GOO patron from Mechanus. Nothing overpowered but strengthening a theme and the character concept. If you select something that does not overpower any of the special options, you should have a good chance to convince your DM.
Regin's recollection is correct. What spirit your familiar is made out of is pure fluff. Speaking of flu, I think a flumph makes a particularly good GOO pact familiar (and have allowed a player to do so).
I still have Cthuluh nightmares, so... I wouldn't let my players have an aberration familiar.
I imagine aberrations to be so alien that they could not comprehend our value in existence, much like the mundane mainstream citizen does not comprehend the value of the lint from the dryer screen. Where fiend, fey, and celestials all have some investment in the material world, an aberration exists completely outside of our 3 dimensions - the material reflection of the aberration is simply what we can grasp of its 3D existence in its 1222020193D.
Though it is fun to have a fiend familiar and screw with the paladin. ;)
I'm sad that paladins cannot sense aberration - that's how alien they are.
Do it any way.
Nice I like the idea of the quadrone familiar.
I do find it odd that the PHB mentioned celestial familiars and not aberrations.
So there isnt any hidden benefit/drawback from choosing an aberration/construct etc. regarding spells and other abilities? In that case im totally going for an aberration familiar for the lovecraftian warlock
In 5e, type is more about what spells will affect a critter then a descriptor of the critter's abilities (although so far all playable races have been humanoid, including warforged). There are a few spells that affect celestials, fiends, and fey that don't affect abberations (hallow and the chainlock's chains of carcini invocation [which doesn't affect fey either]). Protection from good and evil does protect against abberations. As long as you don't have more than one chainlock in your group (and one going GOO and one not), it doesn' t seem like it would create any problems to have an abberation familiar. If you do have the somewhat unlikely multiple chainlock party, I would recommend all the familiars have the same limitations via the spells (so if you have an imp familiar be unwilling to enter a hallowed area, you should do likewise for a monodrone familiar and if the monodrone is willing to enter a hallowed area, the imp should be too)--it creates less out of game problems.