Baldur’s Gate 3: Recruit Scratch and Get His Familiar

Invite Scratch without turning him hostile

Find Scratch in the forest west and above the Owlbear Nest, around X: 69, Y: 476. He guards the body of the courier Gomwick. Tell him you mean no harm. Without Speak with Animals, inspect his collar with the DC 10 Perception option or use the DC 10 Animal Handling option to kneel. Speak with Animals provides extra dialogue but is not required.

Once he calms down, choose the invitation that lets him follow your scent to camp: hold out your hand without Speak with Animals, or tell him that he can follow your scent and you have a camp with it. Scratch stays with Gomwick at first, then arrives during the next long rest and grants 15 XP. Do not use the hostile “guarding a corpse” answers, attack him, shove him, or throw objects at him.

Get Scratch’s Ball at camp

After Scratch has been at camp for a while, he approaches with Scratch’s Ball. With Speak with Animals, ask him to hand it over. Otherwise pass Animal Handling DC 15, Strength DC 15, or Sleight of Hand DC 10. Throw the ball at camp to play fetch.

Keep the ball directly in a character’s inventory. Its action appears on the hotbar when it is inside a bag, but it cannot be used there. If it is lost anywhere other than a chasm, Scratch can provide another ball at camp.

Use the familiar outside camp

The ball gives its carrier Find Familiar: Scratch, a level-one spell requiring an Action that refreshes on a short rest. Throwing it away from camp also casts the familiar when available. The summoned Scratch is separate from the camp follower, so a familiar death does not kill the camp dog.

Summoned Scratch can find hidden items and use Help. He can also remove Burning, Downed, Ensnared, Entangled, Enwebbed, Prone and Sleeping from allies. Keep him out of trap-heavy routes: his sniffing behaviour can send him toward buried chests, enemies or hazards, and he may fetch items you throw.

Related: Resting and camp and Owlbear Cub.