Directly pulling from this Q/A about who controls a summoned steed's familiar, I am wondering what the find familiar spell targets.
Does the find familiar spell target the caster, a point in space, the familiar, or something else I may have missed?
Directly pulling from this Q/A about who controls a summoned steed's familiar, I am wondering what the find familiar spell targets.
Does the find familiar spell target the caster, a point in space, the familiar, or something else I may have missed?
Under the Targets section it states:
A spell's description tells you whether the spell targets creatures, objects, or a point of origin for an area of effect...
Technically, one could argue that the quote implies only area of effect spells can target points of origin, and thus summoning spells such as spiritual weapon and find familiar perhaps do not have points of origin; however, the summoned thing fills the space in which it is summoned, and thus, I believe, is likely still an area of effect or at the very least, should be treated similarly.
For more evidence that these should count as areas of effect we can look at a spell like cloud of daggers which also fills only a 5-by-5 area but is considered to be an area of effect.
There is also this Q/A asking about whether bigby's hand can be twinned, the second answer there says that bigby's hand targets an unoccupied space and the answer currently has 18 upvotes and nobody disagreed with this idea so it seems quite well agreed upon that summoning/conjuring spells do indeed target spaces.
And under the Range section it states:
The target of a spell must be within the spell's range...
Looking at find familiar we see that it has a range of 10 feet, so the target must be within 10 feet; the spell goes on to say:
You gain the service of a familiar... Appearing in an unoccupied space within range...
While it does not explicitly say that the caster chooses which space it appears in, I have never seen it done another way. Regardless, find familiar at least targets the space they (the player or DM) choose, as this is the spell's point of origin (as argued for above)
We also see under the "Targeting Yourself" section that:
If a spell targets a creature of your choice, you can choose yourself...
find familiar does not target a creature of the caster's choice so this method will not let it target the caster.
And furthermore under the "Range" section we also see that:
Other spells, such as the shield spell, affect only you. These spells have a range of self.
find familiar does not have a range of self and so cannot target the caster using this method either.
This Q/A on what counts as a target for a spell finds that the definition is quite complicated and horribly undefined/ambiguous.
If we use the approach that anything affected by a spell is considered a target then find familiar potentially does target you because it affects you in some way; it grants you a familiar, which you control, and can even look through its senses.
The comments in This Q/A however, show that adopting this idea that "anything affected is considered a target" has some issues because what counts as being affected is still just as undefined and leads to lots of questions such as these:
"Do touch spells technically target the caster?" (You are "affected" as you have to touch something)
"Does levitate target the caster?" (you can move the creature affected by the spell so is that considered to be "affecting" you?)
"Does misty step target a point in space?" (You teleport into it and that arguably "affects" it)...
There isn't a good way to use the "if something is affected it is a target" method. This is likely a result of 5e being written in "plain English" yet we attempt to apply lawer-like rules strictness to it (I am not saying that is a bad thing, just a thing that is done by many, including myself).
If you did use this interpretation, then find familiar could technically be considered to be targeting the caster as, to some degree, it is affecting them, but I would say this is more up your GM than anybody else.
Not all spells have targets. 'Target', for some reason, wasn't chosen as a term to be defined in the rules even though the rulebook likes to pretend it has some sort of unambiguous meaning. Because of this, we're supposed to pretend there's some 'normal' way of using the word and then do that. This is a serious problem for edge cases, but this isn't one of those so it's not really a problem. Find Familiar doesn't have any clear or obvious implicit targets besides maybe 'an unoccupied space within range', and that's a bit of a stretch, so it probably just doesn't target anything. 'Targetting' yourself is a weird and unnatural usage of the word if you couldn't target anything else-- 'targeting' invokes the idea of a choice being made among multiple possible options-- so it's probably not that.
But wait! Some abilities literally do nothing if there aren't any spells that can only target the caster! That clearly isn't intended. Those spells are clearly using 'target' the way it's used in Magic: The Gathering instead of normal English. With that meaning of targeting pretty much every spell that has a range of 'self' and several that don't-- possibly including Find Familiar count. D&D 5e isn't MTG and doesn't have the kind of parsimonious action resolution system that the latter employs, so it's really not very simple to decide what things each spell 'targets', if any, in such a system.
Now, even if we use targetting that way, Find Familiar has a range of 10', not self, and while it's not unreasonable to rule, in a vacuum, that it targets the caster, it's certainly not necessary-- it makes just as much sense to rule the Find Familiar has no targets. Given that allowing Find Familiar to count as targeting the caster results in a huge jump in power for the spell, it seems unlikely most GMs would rule that way.
The target doesn't have to be a creature:
A spell's description tells you whether the spell targets creatures, objects, or a point of origin for an area effect.
Find familiar doesn't target you at all. For instance no one would argue that fireball targets the finger of the caster despite reading:
A bright streak flashes from your pointing finger to a point you choose within range
We can all agree that it is the point in space that is the target. And [magic missile][4] isn't the caster despite beginning with the word "You". The target in this case is again, the people where the action happens:
You create three glowing darts of magical force.
The spell find familiar reads similiar to magical missile and fireball in this regard. You do something, and something happens to or at a target. You have not changed, the world has by the addition of the new creature:
You gain the service of a familiar, a spirit that takes an animal form you choose: bat, cat, crab, frog (toad), hawk, lizard, octopus, owl, poisonous snake, fish (quipper), rat, raven, sea horse, spider, or weasel. Appearing in an unoccupied space within range...
Leaving either the summoned animal form of the familiar or the space it appears in as the target (or both). Both are where the action of the spell actually takes place.
Between the animal form is chosen, but it isn't in line of sight at the time of casting, so it likely isn't the form or spirit.
The space makes the most sense from a logical point of view. And the wording in that regard is similar to spells like fireball which has clearer targeting language.
"Target" is a sort of nebulous concept in 5e. Based on the extensive discussion about spell targeting that Jeremy Crawford (the Sage in Sage Advice and official WotC rules guy) gave in the January 19th, 2017 episode of the official DragonTalk podcast, any creature affected by a spell is its target.
Podcast time codes:
Since find familiar creates a creature (or at least creates a body for a conjured spirit) and then bonds it to you, it seems to me that the answer is either that you and the new familiar are both targets, or nothing is. Does a spell necessarily have to have a target at all?
First off, I guess we need to discuss what a target is again (see this previous question for a more extensive discussion).
According to 5e's lead rules designer (in a Sage Advice segment on this podcast, starting around 5:25 and going for quite a while), a target for a spell is not only the chosen targets (which are often well specified in the spell text), but also other creatures, objects and locations that are obviously effected by the spell's magic. For instance, the Fireball spell has you choose to target a point in space, but creatures and objects caught in the area of effect are also targets (it explicitly causes the creatures that get damaged targets in its text).
Even if the spell specifies one target explicitly, that doesn't mean that another creature affected by it is not also a target. For example, if you cast Ice Knife, you choose a creature as your primary target, but any other creature caught in the explosion of the knife is also a secondary target (both Fireball and Ice Knife are discussed in the podcast). More controversially, Jeremy Crawford has on twitter applied the same logic to Dragon's Breath which has both an immediate target you choose (one willing creature) and only later will gain secondary targets (the creatures breathed upon by the primary target). Note that his twitter posts are no longer official rulings, just guidance towards the Rules as Intended by the designers.
So now lets run down the potential targets of Find Familiar one by one.
The caster is affected by the spell in a few ways. While they're not explicitly mentioned as a target, they gain the ability to communicate telepathically with their familiar if it's within 100 feet. And they can use an action to use the familiar's senses (becoming blind and deaf through their own body for as long as they do so). Either of those should be enough to make them a secondary target of the spell. They also gain the services of the familiar, but I'm not sure that would be enough to be a target on its own (it's more a consequence of the effects on the familiar).
The spell also targets the familiar, which is a spirit that gets formed into the shape of an animal of the caster's choosing. Getting turned from an amorphous spirit into something animal-like seems like a pretty obvious magical effect to me. They're probably also a target of the sense sharing effects when the caster uses them. Finally, the familiar is bound to serve the caster of the spell until permanently dismissed (or reduced to 0 health).
The spell probably also targets a location for the familiar to appear. The wording of the spell is actually exceedingly ambiguous about whether the caster chooses the space or not. It just says "appearing in an unoccupied space within range", which suggests the location might be chosen by the familiar (i.e. the GM). But I suspect most players expect to choose the location, even when it's worded so vaguely.
A number of other spells are also incredibly vague about whether locations mentioned in their rules are targets if they're not specifically described such by the spell. For example, it's seldom clear if you need to target the destination of a teleportation spell. Surely not for Teleport and Dimension Door (which can both send you to places you can neither see nor have ever been before), but Misty Step requires you to see the destination, so it might have target-related limitations.
So I think the argument for the space being a target is perhaps the weakest one, but it probably is a target, just a confusingly described one. Actually, since you can temporarily dismiss your familiar and then "cause it to reappear in any unoccupied space within 30 feet of you", it's possible that Find Familiar can have an unlimited number of location targets, over time.
The spell Find Familiar targets the caster.
In the targets section of the Players Handbook it states:
A spells description tells you whether the spell targets creatures, objects, or a point of origin for an area effect. (PHB, pg 204)
With the spell Find Familiar, it’s description clearly denotes that “you” are the target:
You gain the service of a familiar, a spirit that takes an animal form you choose: bat, cat, crab, frog (toad), hawk, lizard, octopus, owl, poisonous snake, fish (quipper), rat, raven, sea horse, spider, or weasel. (PHB, pg 240)
There are several key points that make for a convincing argument.
There is no more required for this interpretation to be correct, however for those unconvinced I will go on to explain why the other explanations are not sufficient.
The questioner asks if the spell can target the familiar. No the spell cannot target the familiar because the familiar doesn’t yet exist. But for sake of argument, lets pretend there is at all times an invisible celestial, fiend or fey spirit following you around waiting for you to cast the spell, the following rules would disqualify that creature from being a target.
The target of a spell has to be in the spells range. (PHB, pg 202)
A clear path to the target. To target something you must have a clear path to it, so it cant be behind total cover. (PHB, pg 204)
You can’t target an invisible celestial, fiend or fey creature because the rules forbid it.
Next, a person may mistakenly believe the target for Find Familiar could be a point of origin. However, the rules clearly state that targets with a point of origin must have an area of affect.
A spells description tells you whether the spell targets creatures, objects, or a point of origin for an area effect. (PHB, pg 204)
There is nothing in the spells description to indicate that the Find Familiar spell is an area of effect spell, no radius or diameter or shape is described in the spell to instruct that type of interpretation.
There is another simple test to determine if the caster is the target, does the spell effect the caster? Yes it does, the caster gains telepathy with the familiar in addition to service of the familiar.
The text could have otherwise read, if it were intended, unambiguously:
“You summon a celectial, fiend or fey creature.