One of my players has chosen the pact of the chain for her half-elf warlock, and she wants to know if she can have a faerie dragon as her PC's familiar instead of a pseudodragon.
Faerie dragons come with spells, superior invisibility, and a breath weapon on top of magic resistance and telepathy, which pseudodragons also have. They also have slightly better stats and more hit points.
She says I can "nerf" it by taking away its spells and euphoria breath and such. I sort of feel like if I'm going to do that, she might as well just use the pseudodragon stats and call it a baby faerie dragon or something.
What do you guys think? What should I do?
Where are the stats for a faerie dragon?
My first thought is...I like the refluffing idea best. Can you modify the pseudodragon's sting into a faerie dragon-like breath weapon? Looking at it, you wouldn't even necessarily need to tweak the mechanics at all. Just say it's due to a stupefying gas cloud rather than a venemous sting.
I haven't seen the faerie dragon writeup. Going without the spells wouldn't be a big deal to me personally, I don't think...not if you're still getting to have the faerie dragon. The invisibility is harder to give up. Another player's character in a game many years ago had a faerie dragon familiar and the invisibility was pretty distinguishing. Maybe one or the other between the breath weapon or the invisibility?
Just some thoughts.
You could also refluf the sprite to be a faerie dragon. The poison arrow attack could be a sleep-poison breath weapon.... maybe it spits poison darts.
On a side note, I am disappointed they removed one of the signature abilities of pseudodragons; their camouflage. They should have something like expertise to sneak and the ability to hide in lightly obscured areas.
marius4 wrote:
pukunui wrote:
I think there would be no problem since the spell states the following: " You gain the service o f a familiar, a spirit that takes an animal form..." This means you have a fey spirit copy instead of a true faerie dragon. As DM I would say that the familiar could only duplicate the physical features of the faerie dragon (breath weapon), but not the mental ones (spells).
Thank_Dog wrote:
pukunui wrote:
pukunui wrote:
Centauri wrote:
pukunui wrote:
I think that my player just thinks a faerie dragon is cooler than a pseudodragon. I doubt she's thought about it any more than that. As for leaving the nerfing up to her, she is the one who suggested I take away the faerie dragon's breath weapon and spells. She even said I could make it a faerie dragon/pseudodragon crossbreed, if I wanted to.
I'm not so much concerned with being unable to challenge the player. I'm more concerned that it might make her character overpowered compared to the others, and I don't really see how "give everyone else extra cool stuff too" is a viable solution to that. It would be easier to simply not give the one player anything "extra" in the first place.
I'm also concerned with giving her such a complicated creature as a familiar. She struggles enough to manage her PCs' abilities. She's the type who always has to have some kind of animal companion, though. She'd probably be better off with something simple, like one of the base forms the spell provides (bat, cat, rat, etc).
Centauri wrote:
I'd offer a full-on faerie dragon, but at a great risk or personal cost. The risk would be a perilous quest that contains suitable rewards for the other players. The personal cost might be some kind of setback or price only she can pay. At the end of the day, it's at best +1 PC to the party and benefits everyone anyway.
iserith wrote:
In a practical sense, all that invisibility will do is make creatures have disadvantage to attack it and allow it to take a Hide action in the open. You can counter that with any number of things, not the least of which is the Help action from one monster to another. I don't see anything too bad here.
iserith wrote:
Muahaha, sucker!
Just kidding. Have fun with it and tell us how it goes. 
iserith wrote:
pukunui wrote:
I found it quite useful actually.
pukunui wrote:
pukunui wrote:
pukunui wrote:
Thank_Dog wrote:
It's okay. we already know the full stats on a faerie dragon. Why don't you tell us what you think they are, and that way we'll know that you know.
Honestly I would just let her have it. I seriously doubt it would provide much extra power, especially as she continues to level up. That said, it could be interesting to require her to acquire a faerie dragon egg to make it happen.
I would have it be a pseudodragon for now ... with the possibility of being a faerie dragon when you discover the stats of that creature when the Monster Manual comes out.
With regards to earlier posts to keep the creature as just a physical manisfestation, not the magical, I disagree. The creatures (pseudodragon, sprite, imp, and quasit) are all located in the back of ... get this ... the Player's Handbook. To me this clearly means the special familars are available to the PCs.
Please see post #17.