[RPG] How much control does an Unconscious caster maintain over his familiar

dnd-5efamiliarsspellstelepathy

There's no stipulation in the Find Familiar spell that states your familiar disappears when your character dies, or is knocked out. There's also this small statement within the spell about what a familiar does of its own volition:

Your familiar acts independently of you, but it always obeys your commands. In combat, it rolls its own initiative and acts on its own turn. A familiar can't attack, but it can take other actions as normal.

What dictates what these actions are? Based off the other thread, it seems that because the familiar is of the spirit, it therefore can understand your intentions perfectly.

If that's the case, I have 3 questions based off this particular set of circumstances:

  1. Does Familiar telepathy work when unconscious? If so;

  2. Can I direct my familiar to take certain actions while being unconscious? If so;

  3. Can I have my familiar cast a touch spell like Spare the Dying cantrip while unconscious?

Best Answer

The unconscious condition says:

An unconscious creature is incapacitated, can't move or speak, and is unaware of its surroundings.

and incapacitated says:

An incapacitated creature can't take actions or reactions.

So:

  1. No, the unconscious wizard can't speak or communicate because they are unconscious. They are literally passed out, unaware of anything and unable to do things. The telepathic bond is still there but one end of the line is dead.
  2. No, the wizard is unable to communicate. You cannot instruct a familiar to take certain actions without communicating with it.
  3. No, the wizard casts the spell, the familiar only delivers it.

    When you cast a spell with a range of touch, your familiar can deliver the spell as if it had cast the spell.

    (emphasis mine)

    Since the wizard is incapacitated, they cannot cast spells. Since they cannot cast spells, the familiar cannot deliver them.

The wizard being unconscious does not affect anything the familiar could already do on its own as it is perfectly capable of independent action. That means that a wizard could have arranged for the familiar to follow actions in the case of the wizard getting knocked out.

What actions they are capable of taking is going to depend on the situation, the statistics (especially Intelligence score which is usually between 2 and 4), and the physical characteristics of the familiar. Your DM will have to work with you to decide what a familiar can do and what it actually does. For more discussion on this see What can a familiar actually do?.