Can I act normally while seeing through my familiar's eyes, per the Find Familiar spell?

Question

The description of the Find Familiar spell says (PHB, p. 240):

...as an action, you can see through your familiar's eyes and hear what it hears until the start of your next turn, gaining the benefits of any special senses that the familiar has. During this time, you are deaf and blind with regard to your own senses.

Because the senses you gain are only those of sight and hearing, and sight and hearing are the only ones explicitly called out as lost, my thinking is that, while your sight and hearing are replaced with that of the familiar, you would still have your other senses, i.e. touch, balance, etc. Your familiar can see you and your surroundings, so you wouldn't be hampered. Would this be correct?

Assuming this is true, you could then use your familiar-vision to see unseen opponents. My thought here is having an owl (darkvision) or a bat (blindsight) as my familiar, so that I can see enemies in the dark, or who are invisible. This would take away their advantage (if they can see me) and, though I've used my action in order to see, it would allow me to make Attacks of Opportunity against them with advantage. (I can take Move and Bonus actions normally) Also, if I can cast Beast Sense, which has identical sensory alterations but lasts much longer, I can make normal attacks with advantage.

Additionally, assuming all of this is true, if I spend a turn looking through my familiar's eyes, could I then know where my opponents are on my subsequent turn in order to attack them?

Answer 1

I had this exact issue when DMing recently. The way I ended up playing it was by allowing to try to move but every motion and action required an intelligence check DC 10 as he would have to deduce the direction he needed to move etc based off the altered and changing perspective of his familiar. However when he had the bat land on his head so its perspective was the same as his own I lowered the DC to 2 because now it was just a slightly different sensory experience. This seemed to work really well and the players thought it was fair.

Answer 2

RAW, when attacking an unseen opponent you designate a square to attack and then roll at disadvantage. You miss if you designate the wrong square.

The wording of Find Familiar is

While your familiar is within 100 feet of you, you can communicate with it telepathically. Additionally, as an action, you can see through your familiar's eyes and hear what it hears until the start of your next turn, gaining the benefits of any special senses that the familiar has. During this time, you are deaf and blind with regard to your own senses.

The spell Beast Sense is very similar but the last sentence becomes

While perceiving through the beast’s senses, you gain the benefits of any special senses possessed by that creature, though you are blinded and deafened to your own surroundings.

I believe that the RAI for Find Familiar are the same as in Beast Sense despite the slightly different wording. An alternative interpretation is the you are blinded and deafened to things the familiar cannot see or hear.

So with a bat/owl familiar you can spend an action to see through its eyes, and hopefully spot your opponent. You can still use your bonus action/move/free action in the rest of your turn as well as your reaction when available, but you may be blinded and deafened at your DM's discretion.

At the beginning of your next turn you get your sight back, and presumably the enemies become unseen again. Assuming you saw the enemies via your familiar, you can attack the correct square. The attack is still at disadvantage as they are unseen, but at least you are attacking the right square.

However you interpret the blinded/deafened question, Find Familiar is not a great shortcut to darkvision/blindsight. Darkvision/True Seeing spells are far superior as you don't lose all your actions and are definitely not blinded/deafened. So Find Familiar passes The test of "does not duplicate a higher level spell more cheaply".

Answer 3

Seeing/hearing through your familiar is not the same as seeing/hearing yourself

Your familiar can see you and your surroundings, so you wouldn't be hampered.

On the contrary, you would be affected by the blinded and deafened conditions when you can't see and hear, if you are trying to act. (Your familiar's actions would not be affected.)

Could I then know where my opponents are on my subsequent turn in order to attack them?

The answer to this question is yes although it doesn't grant advantage like you describe above. To get advantage as an unseen attacker, you need to be able to see them. Just knowing a target's location is not enough.

However, knowing the target's location does have its benefits. You would be able to target the correct location. That's all you need for an area-of-effect spell or Magic Missile. And for other attacks, you at least are more certain you are targeting the correct location, in order for your attack to have a chance of success.

Answer 4

I would say moving your body while looking through your familiars eyes is possible, but would require an enormous amount of concentration.

You could of course look through the eyes to spot an enemy and attack them the next turn, but in the same turn the malus would be as high as attacking a target you cannot see, i guess.