I have a player that wants to play a sprite druid. She wants her corgi familiar. She also is getting an animal companion from being in the animal order. And she is also stocking up on summon spells. She wants to be able to have three minions out and issue commands to all three of them on her turn, with each having two actions from her one action to command/sustain - giving her a possible max of SIX actions on her turn. I'm sure her corgi's actions will be limited but that's still ALOT of actions each turn! Is this accurate or is there a limitation to minion control that I'm missing somewhere?
Under the Animate object spell; You can have a maximum of four minions under your control.
Under the minion trait; Minions are creatures that directly serve another creature. A creature with this trait can use only 2 actions per turn and can’t use reactions. Your minion acts on your turn in combat, once per turn, when you spend an action to issue it commands. For an animal companion, you Command an Animal; for a minion that’s a spell or magic item effect, like a summoned minion, you Sustain a Spell or Sustain an Activation; if not otherwise specified, you issue a verbal command, a single action with the auditory and concentrate traits. If given no commands, minions use no actions except to defend themselves or to escape obvious harm. If left unattended for long enough, typically 1 minute, mindless minions usually don’t act, animals follow their instincts, and sapient minions act how they please.
Emphasis mine.
TLDR; So yes she could command all 3 of her minions in a round. She just won't be doing anything else.
The Effortless Concentration feat will allow her to sustain as a free action, allowing her to command her summoned creatures for free, and opening up one of her actions, but that's high level.
Mature Animal Companions get one action even if you don't command them.
Yikes! Really? I only ask because I am concerned with how long it takes a player to do all these actions, not really concerned with power levels or anything like that. It's a table issue that I need to get a handle on and resolve before it gets out of hand.
yeah, I get that. It's the player taking 10+ minutes every turn to do her turn that I'm concerned about most. Because I know this particular player there's gonna be a lot of 'hmmmmm....I can run my bear in here and send my leprechaun there.....no no wait....have my corgi go here and my bear attack this....no no wait....leprechaun attack this zombie and bear move there instead....no no wait....." You get the picture.
Yikes! Really? I only ask because I am concerned with how long it takes a player to do all these actions, not really concerned with power levels or anything like that. It's a table issue that I need to get a handle on and resolve before it gets out of hand.
I really like Druid's but even I have limits. It's perfectly reasonable for a GM to make some table rules. I don't allow animal companions apart from mounts when I have 5 or more players. I encourage them on 3 or less players. Perfectly reasonable to say that you can have one familiar or companion, and leave it at that.
Exactly. Or I was also thinking that you can only control one or two minions per turn. There are 5 other players at the table, so I need to make a table rule for that.
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I have a player that wants to play a sprite druid. She wants her corgi familiar. She also is getting an animal companion from being in the animal order. And she is also stocking up on summon spells. She wants to be able to have three minions out and issue commands to all three of them on her turn, with each having two actions from her one action to command/sustain - giving her a possible max of SIX actions on her turn. I'm sure her corgi's actions will be limited but that's still ALOT of actions each turn! Is this accurate or is there a limitation to minion control that I'm missing somewhere?that's not how it works.
he will have to use a separate action to command or to sustain each minion.
OP is correct. Minions get two actions when you spend one, so using all three would give them 6 actions.
Also, there's not much the familiar would be able to do other than move, since familiars can't really attack. Animal Companions and would most likely support each round if it's a good support, or otherwise just attack which is simple. Summons as well will likely just attack, and would only be able to do advances strategies if the PC can speak to them. In the end, it won't really take that much longer for their turns (Monks can easily attack 4 times in a round too, for example).
Also note they would be totally vulnerable, so it would be a good chance for the BBEG to hurt them. Show them wasting all their actions on this isn't the best idea.
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Just tell them ahead of time if they are going to have pets, they have X amount of time for their turn, then onto the next player. Make them do pets one at a time no rolling back, make it the same order every time if you have to. Familiars rarely have any presence on a battlefield and animal companions range from liabilities to ok tertiary combatants. Neither of these have complex time consuming abilities. Summons might take up some time, but are overall more like roadblocks that might do some damage compared to being a competent companion.
So knowing the impact of these things to a battle is going to be low, you have to make the player understand it's not worth everyone else's time if they can't figure out how to streamline their turn.
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Another thing to caution the player about is that both companions and summons tend to be a smidgen weaker than full PCs, which you really notice when fighting bosses a few levels above you. If both your companion and your summons aren't really managing to land any hits, are you gonna enjoy the build?
Expending all your actions on minions actually seems like to would be faster because of how few options most minions have. I bet the slowest part would just be figuring out what to summon. There are a lot of situatioal variables there.
Another thing to caution the player about is that both companions and summons tend to be a smidgen weaker than full PCs, which you really notice when fighting bosses a few levels above you. If both your companion and your summons aren't really managing to land any hits, are you gonna enjoy the build?Well, on the other hand companions ( summons are atrocious given the action requirement and spell slot requirement, imo ) will speed up things until the boss, which means saving more spells and retaining more hp ( unless you are allowed to make 20+ minute rest after every fight, in order to entirely recover, but that would be a way to permissive scenario ).
Also, if the boss targets your companion it's jackpot.
The boss expended actions on a non really threatening creature would mean an extra turn for your party.
Meatbags power, that's it.
I would say more then just a little weaker then PCs, with how tight the math is, having minions with 3-6 less AC then even casters will get them downed really fast, this problem starts off very mild and snowballs hard into later levels for many pets.
Also the typical minion master is more likely going to be the kind of person that doesn't want their beloved minions getting crit and killed in combat. Technically a summon that does minimum damage but takes an enemy multiple attacks to remove from combat is a good use of a spell slot, but it FEELS terrible for the type of person who is likely to use those spells as they don't want to watch an ally get butchered.
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While Summoned Creatures can get downed very quickly, it's worth mentioning that EVERY Action that they soak up is typically going to be a net gain for the party. In most situations, they'll end up costing the 3 to Summon and one more each round after but they will also represent additional threats to the enemy that still need to be dealt with.
It could be that your temporary Summoned Creature forces an extra Stride or Step by the Opponent, it could simply end up being targeted because it's in the way and it dies to a single Strike and it gets even better if they are able to remain standing after taking the hit. Every Action they take in relation to the Summoned Creature might as well be a direct debuff that cost them Actions to deal with.
Even something as simple as adding another temporary combatant to a combat for one round can mean all the difference in terms of the tactical situation due to things like flanking, allowing PCs to retreat from the "front-line" for a breather, or even better to help overcome some kind of resistance or trigger a weakness.
They are really best served as "pawns" to act as bodies and meatshields with a bit of below-level versatility. As for the future, it seems like the Incarnate Spells from SoM will help make Summoning do cooler and flashier things by treating the Spell like an Effect instead of a Creature for most purposes. Currently though, looking to use Summoned Creatures as your bread and butter for being a "DPS" role in combat does not sit in a place where it would probably feel great to the player if their objective is a numeric advantage and a high success-fail ratio for their individual Actions.