I have a celestial commander in my group. In our most recent game, he summoned about 6 earth elementals and had them go all around the level, working together to lift the doors up, place them in a slot, then go get another, while he convinced the trogs that they elementals were evil and acting of their own accord. He initially summoned them, spoke to them in celestial and told them to gather the doors, and spent the rest of his time essentially controlling 7 characters on his turn.
How do summoned creatures work? In this case, an earth elemental is intelligent enough to speak, but would the player have to dictate all of its actions, or can he just summon him, give him an overall objective, and let it go? It seems like there should be a limitation, like summons only being able to carry out very basic commands, or at least having the player walk them through each step. Otherwise, the player's turn is lasting much longer than everyone else's, as he now has multiple different characters to control, all with more or less free will.
How do you handle summons?
On a related note: this player is also looking to gain a follower soon, via Leadership. When this happens, does he control the cohort like a whole other character for himself?
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Re: summons, technically, he just gives commands. While many GMs allow the player to control the summoned creatures, you're well within your rights to control them once they're "off-screen". They still follow the orders they were given, but with all the intellect of an earth elemental and all the literalism of a spell.
Heck, given the nature of the Spire, they might not even be able to Earth Glide there. More research required for me there. ^_^
As for cohort, it's up to you. If you want the cohort to be more independent, keep control. If that sounds like a hassle, let the player run it. You should always run the cohort's personality, and I'd recommend controlling the build as well.
Once this book is released, I'd give it a look. ^_^
Any questions?
If you can communicate, the summons do their best to follow out your commands. But as a DM, you can limit the summons based on their own intelligence, and Earth Elementals aren't very bright. So, they would certainly do what you want given enough time, but they may take some extra oversight.
Oh man. The whole "Emerald Spire essence prevents Earth Gliding because reasons" thing never even occurred to me! He really spams those things and it's super annoying (because 99% of enemies are earth-bound), but he's well within the rules of the game, so I haven't done anything about it. I thought about just outright banning them, but that seemed a little heavy-handed.
I always assumed summoned creatures were more intelligent than the regular versions. He's always talked to, say, the void-hyena he just summoned and asked to scout ahead. It will come back and I'll have it tell him basic things like "Big room. Smelly men with shiny skin."
@Kalindlara: Funny that you mention that book. He found out about it a few weeks ago and got so excited. He's planning on ordering it.
He's recently been talking about having his cohort be a 3.5 artificer who just stays in town and makes gear for them. So I won't have to worry about controlling him in a dungeon; instead, I'll have to make sure to keep the magic item generation under control somehow.
If someone is starting to hog the spotlight at one of my tables and intends to get leadership/cohort in addition, I would likely let one of the other players control the cohort instead of the spotlight hog.
There is a good bit on information on controlling extra characters in the ult campaign book if I recall correctly.
As for the summons, unless they are acting in combat, I'd just hand wave it. "Yeah they are doing stuff. Lets focus on what the players are doing."
Summoned animals are animals. You can't talk to them unless you have 'speak with animals' or another magical effect that lets you do so. They attack your foes, because it says so in the spell, but in order to give them other orders, you have to use Handle Animal. If a GM is generous, she may allow you to assume they are trained animals and have the usual sorts of tricks an animal of their type would have if you purchased one from ye olde pett and workyng anymal shoppe. Otherwise you'd have to push them to get them to do anything.
Summoned elementals and other beings have the intelligence listed for them in the bestiaries. In order to command Earth Elementals, you have to either speak Terran or be pretty good at charades. The elementals aren't very smart so they will interpret commands very literally.
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Don't be afraid to just voice your concerns to the player in a friendly but serious manner. If he's flooding the board with summons and basically taking too much time for himself, that makes the game less fun.
A well-meaning player might make a character that's entirely legal, but still makes the game less fun. It could be because of a super-effective combo that shuts down enemies so much that they don't get even a moment to show off how awesome they are. As a result combats become boring, and disappointing, especially for the GM who prepared an awesome boss. Likewise, summoned monsters are really effective but they can be such a time sink/spotlight hog that while legal and effective, they're actually a Bad Idea.
Be nice when you explain this; it's quite likely that your player didn't mean to do harm. But he's doing it, so it'd be better if you could agree on a change of approach.
There is a good bit on information on controlling extra characters in the ult campaign book if I recall correctly.
Thanks, I'll definitely look into that.
Summoned animals are animals. You can't talk to them unless you have 'speak with animals' or another magical effect that lets you do so. They attack your foes, because it says so in the spell, but in order to give them other orders, you have to use Handle Animal. If a GM is generous, she may allow you to assume they are trained animals and have the usual sorts of tricks an animal of their type would have if you purchased one from ye olde pett and workyng anymal shoppe. Otherwise you'd have to push them to get them to do anything.
Summoned elementals and other beings have the intelligence listed for them in the bestiaries. In order to command Earth Elementals, you have to either speak Terran or be pretty good at charades. The elementals aren't very smart so they will interpret commands very literally.
I was all excited to enforce this rule...until I checked this celestial commander page and saw the following:
Divine Tongue (Ex)
At first level, a celestial commander learns the celestial language. In addition, every creature they summon can understand, but not necessarily speak, Celestial.
So while I now realize most of his creatures can't speak back to him, am I correct in assuming he is otherwise perfectly capable of simply asking his creature to do something? As opposed to having to use Handle Animal.
Summoned animals are animals. You can't talk to them unless you have 'speak with animals' or another magical effect that lets you do so. They attack your foes, because it says so in the spell, but in order to give them other orders, you have to use Handle Animal. If a GM is generous, she may allow you to assume they are trained animals and have the usual sorts of tricks an animal of their type would have if you purchased one from ye olde pett and workyng anymal shoppe. Otherwise you'd have to push them to get them to do anything.
Summoned elementals and other beings have the intelligence listed for them in the bestiaries. In order to command Earth Elementals, you have to either speak Terran or be pretty good at charades. The elementals aren't very smart so they will interpret commands very literally.
Pett shop - a shop for the purchasing of more Petts - a damn fine idea sire!
Huzzah!
I would have just banned that Archetype. Master Summoner is already very powerful and this is master summoner with extra Cheese. It is IMO A poorly thought out third party archetype with a nice concept but awful execution.
Given the power of the archetype enforce strongly restrictions due to his religion, his summoned creatures being as dumb as rocks and anything else you can think of. Bad guy wizards with Bite the Hand and Anti summoning spells would actually be appropriate