Arcane Tradition
At 2nd level, a wizard gains the Arcane Tradition feature, which offers you the choice of a subclass. We present here a new option available to you when making that choice.
Familiar Keeping
Familiars are as ancient as wizardry itself. As soon as the magical art sprouted, one could catch many of its practitioners with an owl perched on their shoulders, a feline companion elegantly by their side, or even a tiny frog peeking out of their long coats – all with a strange glimpse of consciousness in their eyes, and an uncanny mutual understanding with their masters.
Those following the Familiar Keeping tradition make that bond into the very core of their magical crafts. Always surrounded by their personal managerie, these wizards share their knowledge and capabilities with their sidekicks, who in turn act as their apprentices, assistants or even comrades in battle. Most of the time, they are an invaluable help; occasionally, they'll knock some precious flask down, or purr during a ritual.
Extended Family
2nd-level Familiar Keeping feature
You learn the find familiar spell if you don't know it already, you always have it prepared, and it doesn't count against the number of spells you can prepare each day. You can have up to two familiars at the same time, and you can summon a number of familiars up to your familiar limit with a single casting of the find familiar spell. In combat, you roll initiative once for all familiars, which can go in any order on that initiative count. The first time that each of your familiars would be reduced to 0 hit points, it instead disappears and reappears within 5 feet of you with full hit points.
Additionally, when you make a Constitution saving throw to maintain concentration on a spell, any of your familiars that are within 10 feet of you can take a reaction to help you keep concentrating. For each familiar that takes this reaction, you gain a +2 bonus to your saving throw.
Your familiar limit increases by 1 when you reach 6th, 10th and 14th level in this class.
Witchy Aides
2nd-level Familiar Keeping feature
Your familiars are your most valued work assistants, aiding you while organizing spells and making rituals. When you cast a wizard spell as a ritual, your familiars can join in the ritual. A familiar must be within 5 feet of you to join the ritual, and can't get further until the ritual is completed. For each familiar that joins the ritual, the casting time is reduced by 2 minutes. You can't reduce the casting time of a spell below its normal casting time.
Additionally, you can send your familiars to fetch material components for you. Choose one spell material component with a cost and one or more of your familiars to send searching for it. The material component must be for a spell that you have in your spellbook. Finding a component requires 1 hour for each 10 gold pieces that it costs. If you send multiple familiars looking for a component, each familiar can search for an additional 10 gold pieces every hour (so sending three familiars to retrieve a 60-gold-pieces component, produces the component in 2 hours.) The search can't take less than 1 hour, regardless of the number of familiars you send. Your familiars disappear when you send them to fetch the component and reappear with the component the appropriate number of hours later. While a familiar is on its search, you can't link your senses to it. As an action, you can dismiss a familiar from its search early and have it reappear within 10 feet of you. If you do, it stops contributing to the search but any contribution it already gave is not lost. If you retrieve all familiars from a search, the search fails and must be started anew.
When you reach 10th level in this class, each familiar can reduce the casting time of a wizard ritual spell by 5 minutes.
When you reach 14th level in this class, each familiar can search for 50 gold pieces worth of material components every hour.
Imbue Spells
6th-level Familiar Keeping feature
You can grant your familiars a fragment of your magical power for later use. When you finish a long rest, after you prepare your spells, you can imbue your familiars with a spell. To do so, you expend a spell slot as if you were casting that spell at it base level, and must provide all components the spell requires. The casting time of the spell can only be 1 action, 1 reaction or 1 bonus action. Any one of your familiars can cast the spell at its base level at an time, without the need for any component. If the spell is a concentration spell, you keep concentration on it as if you cast it. Once one of your familiars has cast the imbued the spell, the spell is expended. If, when you finsh a long rest, your familiars are still imbued with a spell, the spell fizzles and is wasted.
Magical Boost
10th-level Familiar Keeping feature
Your familiars can strengthen your spells with a touch of their magical essence. When you cast a spell of 1st level or higher at its base level, one of your familiars within 30 feet of you can take a reaction to empower it. An empowered spell counts as being cast 1 level higher than the expended spell slot. Each casting of a spell can't be empowered more than once.
Your familiars can use this feature a number of times equal to your familiar limit. You regain expended uses when you finish a long rest.
Perfect Assistants
14th-level Familiar Keeping feature
Your bond with your familiars has grown so deep that the boundaries between your selves have thinned. You can dismiss your familiars in the pocket dimension freely (no action required), and making a familiar reappear counts as interacting with an object.
Additionally, whenever you cast a wizard spell, you can cast it as if you were in one of your familiars' space, instead of your own, using its senses. You can do so a number of times equal to your familiar limit, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.
When Familiars go Shopping
The Witchy Aides feature allows you to send your familiars looking for spell components for free, essentially trading the gold cost with a time tax. The feature is left vague on how they manage to retrieve those components, leaving it up to the DM whether to make it more specific or leave it mysterious as it is. If you go with specificity, be aware of the consequences that it can have on both the story you are telling and the overall enjoyment of this subclass. If, for example, the spell components always come from some poor shopkeeper that gets constantly robbed by magical pets, it might become tedious to always have to deal with the law and it might make the player just stop using that feature. The sweet spot should be in adding that bit of pepper once in a while, when the story can really benefit from it.
Changelog
Version 1.1
- The Witchy Aides feature now only allows to reduce casting time down to the base casting time of the spell.
- The Witchy Aides feature now only allows to send familiars to search for components needed by spells in your spellbook.
- Added the "When Familiars go Shopping" note.
