D&D 5E The semantics of the spell Sending

[TaranTheWanderer]

Sending:
You send a short Message of twenty-five words or less to a creature with you are familiar. The creature hears the Message in its mind, recognizes you as the sender if it knows you, and can answer in a like manner immediately. The spell enables creatures with Intelligence scores of at least 1 to understand the meaning of your Message.

So....

1. You must be FAMILIAR with the recipient. What does that mean? If I managed to get within 30 feet of someone and spoke to them, am I familiar with them? What if they were disguised? What if I scried them first?

2. The creature recognizes you as the sender (makes sense since you are familiar with them)

3. recognizes you IF IT KNOWS YOU. Which implies that ... they aren't familiar with you...

How do you rule this kind of thing?

In our game, I met a powerful illusionist. I got within 30 feet of her, while she was disguised, had a conversation with her. Then, later, I scried her and she looked totally different. Later, I attempted to send her a Sending to set up a meeting: "Hi, I'm a fellow Magician and I want to trade spells with you. Would you like to meet? Where?"

The DM ruled that I was not sufficiently 'Familiar' with the person to send a sending.

Due to that ruling, I was unable to send a Sending to a fellow PCs father to warn him of danger because I'd never met him in person. Despite all the stories I'd been told about him.

What is your experience with this spell?

 

[Norton]

I think the sender can be familiar with the target without the target knowing they exist. I'm familiar with Margo Robbie but believe me, she doesn't know I'm on the planet. But if she did, she would recognize that it was me so that I don't have to make that clear and lose a few words of my 25 word limit.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

I'd take it as "familiar with" as in the sense of "having a basic knowledge of". You can't just send it to someone about whom you know nothing but a name, nor could you just target the fellow PCs father as just "X's father" knowing nothing about him.

Obviously there is a lot of wiggle room on what "familiar" means, but the possibility that the spell specifically anticipates of the recipient not knowing you seems to clearly encompass a more liberal definition of "familiar with" than your DM is allowing.

That said I'd rather live in your DMs world than one where any rando that had done some basic data mining about me could send junk sending calls directly to my brain.

 

[the Jester]

The only rules for familiarity I've been able to find are under teleport circle, so I'd start there.

 

[Stormonu]

I'd sort of apply the same rules as texting an individual.

Something along the lines of:

• You need to know who they are (if disguised, polymorphed or otherwise when you met, it will only work while they remain thusly obscured)
• You need to have been within 5 of the individual and made eye contact*
• You need to have talked at least a minute and exchanged names/identities

* I might wave this if the two have been pen pals or otherwise been in personalized contact with one another (a love letter, letter of introduction from both sides, correspondence, etc.), but may require they have exchanged pictures/self-images in some form.

 

[humble minion]

Another question - what happens if the recipient is asleep? Do they 'receive' the message when they wake up and can reply then, or does the message wake them up? The spell description says 'can answer in a like manner immediately', which very tenuously implies the latter. But that'd be a fairly nasty way of fighting a known spellcaster in that case - organise your party to send Sendings to them every 7 hours for a few days to make sure they can't get a long rest, then come at them when their spells are depleted and when they've got a few levels of exhaustion stacked on.

 

[MarkB]

The "disguise" part might get interesting for characters who have innate disguise capabilities, such as changelings or firbolgs. You might even have such a character as a PC in the party, but who has never revealed their true race or appearance to their companions.

If that's sufficient to foil the "familiar" requirement, then the first the other players know of it may be when they try to use Sending while split up.

 

[Zubatcarteira]

Scrying mentions "familiar" as well, and it says this:

Secondhand (you have heard of the target) - +5
Firsthand (you have met the target) +0
Familiar (you know the target well) - -5

Which is not too helpful, but I guess it's worth mentioning.

 

[Shiroiken]

I'd say someone you've at least seen and know of. If you've seen the king give a speech on the balcony, and you know him to be the king, then you know him. If it was a shapeshifter giving the speech, the spell would fail (not that you'd know) since you're not familiar with them. With the illusionist, I would have given the +5 to the save against scrying, since you don't really know her (you know her disguise). However, if you successfully scry someone, you should be familar enough with them to cast sending.

 

[MatthewJHanson]

I think its pretty subjective so the GMs have room to choose how to use it in their own campaign. I'm pretty loose with it, as long as the PCs are clear about who they are sending it to and it couldn't be confused with another person, I allow it, but GMs vary and I think you're GM's call is with the realm of interpretation.