Is this flightless homebrew “riding bird” familiar balanced?

Question

A player in the new campaign I am DMing wants their character, a halfling wizard, to ride around on a small bird, going for a Sir Didymus from Labyrinth feel. He suggested this could be his familiar, though he was very clear he doesn't expect this give him any special advantages (increased speed, flight etc.) beyond those a familiar normally grants. I liked the idea, so I came up with the following creature which would be added to the list of animal forms for the find familiar spell:

Bococho (riding familiar)
Small fey, unaligned
AC 12
HP 3 (1d6)
Speed 25 ft. (cannot fly)
STR 7 (-2) DEX 15 (+2) CON 10 (+0)
INT 2 (-4) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 7 (-2)
Skills: Perception +4
Senses: Passive Perception 14
Magical Mount. A bococho can carry its master (including their belongings), as long as they are of size Small or smaller. It won’t carry anything else.
Actions:
Peck. Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 4 (1d4 + 2) piercing damage.

It's based on the eagle's stats (since that's a Small-sized bird which is still CR 0), but with no flying speed (it's flightless), a better walking speed (matching a halfling's normal speed), no Keen Sight trait, and the new Magical Mount trait allowing it to carry its master and for simplicity's sake to magically ignore how much gear they're carrying. (For reference, the slightly increased Strength of 7 means it can carry up to 105 pounds, which seems pretty reasonable for carrying a halfling wizard, who will only weigh around 40 pounds plus gear.) It retains the eagle's hit points and (slightly tweaked for theme) attack.

Is this balanced? I'm pretty sure that the hp and attack won't be an issue, since it still has a tiny number of hp and it can't attack in normal circumstances anyway, but have I made it too weak removing it's ability to fly at all (rather than just specifying it cannot fly while being ridden, say) and removing it's sharp sight feature (advantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks involving sight)? Are there any drawbacks or advantages to this familiar that I haven't considered?

Answer 1

It breaks some rules, but should be fine

You are breaking some things that D&D tries to enforce:

• A creature can only ride on a creature at least 1 size category larger than itself. A small creature riding another small creature breaks this idea, and leads for a more mobile mounted combatant.
• The only way to get a magical mount is higher level spells. You're giving something that wizards and paladins get at higher levels at first level.
• Not sure if it's intended, but your mount sounds like it can carry any weight as long as the master is carrying the loot. How gamebreaking this is depends entirely on how strict you are on the weight of loot in the first place.

However, while your familiar breaks those "rules", it looks fairly harmless. A familiar can't attack, so Peck is entirely irrelevant. Its high perception might cause some problems, but that is something other familiars can do as well, and its inability to fly makes it less viable for scouting.

The only real problem I see is that your wizard would be able to have the mount dash to double his normal movement speed every turn. How gamebreaking this ends up being depends a lot on how often you simply sneeze on the bird in round one to kill it.

For people who claim that this isn't really a problem because you can compare it to a 8 GP mule, there are a few key differences:

• You can't stash a mule in hammerspace.
• You can't buy a replacement mule in advance for when your current one dies halfway through the adventure, you can buy extra compoments to resummon your familiar.

How important those two points are depends entirely on how your campaign. For some campaigns this would make no difference at all, for others where mounts die constantly, this could be a huge boon.

Answer 2

Yes, it's balanced.

First of all, let's compare your homebrew familiar with the "regular" version. I'm assuming that, when you're talking about familiars, you're referring to those accessed via the Find Familiar spell, not the variant familiars as described next to (for example) the Pseudodragon's stat block in the MM on page 254.

With this presumption made, the strongest familiar available via Find Familiar is arguably the Owl.
In comparison to the owl, your familiar has:

• (+) more AC
• (+) more HP
• (+) overall better ability scores, although that is likely irrelevant
• (+) a better melee attack, although you can't use that
• (−) lower speed and no flight
• (−) no Flyby (which prevents opportunity attacks on the familiar)

These pros and cons keep in balance, since the increase in AC, HP and ability scores won't matter a lot (it's still too weak to fight).

Now, how big is the benefit of being able to ride your familiar?

Not particularly unbalanced, considering you can get a Donkey for 8 GP according to the PHB, page 156 (chapter "Equipment"). This donkey even has 40 base speed, and is hence faster than your homebrew rideable familiar.

Just make sure you adhere to the mounted combat rules as specified in the PHB on page 198.

So, overall, your familiar would be sub-par without the Magic Mount trait, while, with the trait, it is slightly above average concerning usefulness.

If you want to, you could even add the Beast of Burden trait, which the Mule possesses:

Beast of Burden. The mule is considered to be a Large animal for the purpose of determining its carrying capacity.

This trait effectively doubles the carrying capacity, which ensures that you don't have to worry if your halfling can ride the familiar with all of his gear.

Keep in mind that your familiar won't spawn with a saddle - you'll need to bring that along (or houserule that it does spawn).

Answer 3

Your HB non-flight bird as steed and a familiar, is unbalanced for a few reasons:

• Low Strength 105 lb carry capacity (PHB pg. 176)

Halfling and exotic saddle alone weigh 80lbs (give or take 5lbs based on location in PHB), 25lbs left for ALL your gear and gold. This puts you in the realm of monitoring your weight as opposed to something with 13 Str and 195 carry capacity.

• Low HP effectiveness as a mount

1 hit and it’s gone, spilling you and your gear all over. Costing 10 you to recast, if you can find your coin purse.

• mount is not one size larger (PHB pg. 198)

Represents the physical stature of an beast to properly accept a rider without strain on themselves.

• must have an appropriate anatomy to serve as a mount (PHB pg. 198)

Stating you must be able to add a saddle or have a supportive locaction that doesn’t interfere with the beast natural movements.

• does not follow Find Familiar 1st lvl spell (PHB pg. 240)

Spell states tiny in which Pact of the Chain upgrade, are still tiny.

• negates the Find Steed 2nd lvl spell (PHB pg. 240)

Benefits of a higher level spell, without it being known or on spell list.

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Albeit not very well, but even real people can ride on an ostrich. This seems more like a thing of convenience than practical use.

As a mount and not a familiar, you benefit from it being able to attack, carry proper weight without having to monitor the mechanics, you can cast self spells that apply to it using using FS etc like other companion type npcs.

You are trying to upgrade a class feature that neither has the supporting spell Find Steed nor using a beast for an equivalent substitution for the new beast.

Suggestion for a beast as a non-flightless bird: (natural or Find Steed)

• Mastiff (medium beast) base stats; requiring exotic saddle
• 50 speed via ostrich comparison
• Keen Eyesight via ostrich comparison
• Hoof attack via ostrich comparison
• Dash action via ostrich comparison
• -2 Str, -2 Cha, +1 Dex, +2 Wis

You, the DM, can approve anything into House Rules, even then, the OP is a bit abstract to allow for all the factors mentioned above.