Quick question for fellow DM's... How many of you have animal companions and familiars act on their owner's turn and how many have them act on their own rolled initiative? I've always ruled that creatures of animal intelligence (such as companions) act on their owner's turn and those of higher intelligence (such as familiars and improved companions) act on their own initiative.
Opinions? Comments? Rules interpretations? Help!
One of players has become sore with me and I don't want to screw him or cheat him. (I have found the core rulebook to be pretty silent on this issue.)
It depends how lazy I'm feeling. :)
I've been known to do either. Even when I roll separate initiatives, I ometimes have the familiar/animal companion delaying until the master has a chance to act.
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Quick question for fellow DM's... How many of you have animal companions and familiars act on their owner's turn and how many have them act on their own rolled initiative? I've always ruled that creatures of animal intelligence (such as companions) act on their owner's turn and those of higher intelligence (such as familiars and improved companions) act on their own initiative.
Opinions? Comments? Rules interpretations? Help!
One of players has become sore with me and I don't want to screw him or cheat him. (I have found the core rulebook to be pretty silent on this issue.)
Summoned critters act just before their summoner's initiative step the round they come into initiative (same count, just before). I'd say that animal companions act depending on what tricks they were taught. Namely, if they were taught to guard, they wouldn't wait for orders if their subject of their guarding were attacked. Any animal companion that is actively attacked wouldn't wait either. However, if they were on "follow" duty they would wait for orders (a move or free action by the owner).
As for familiars, the whole "shared soul/mystic conduit/shared senses" thing would make me think they go on the same initiative count as their master, but I don't have a hard ruling in front of me to confirm or deny this.
Usually only cohorts get their own initiative in my game. Familiars and animals companions go on the player's turn.
I considered having two rolls pick the lowest for mounted combat etc, but I decided it wasn't worth worrying about.
What I would *like* to do to address this (if I could only get the people I play with to be anything but uncaring about it) would be to just use one roll for initiiative, but apply each individual's init mod to the roll.
What I usually find is my init mod is always lower than my [insert animal extension's title]'s inti mod. This method keeps the rolls down, but reflects the fact that your companion/familiar moves/reacts differently than you do.
So if I have an init mod of +1 (I'm not that quick) and my weasel has a +3 (he is quick), I roll the d20, get a 13 on the die, and add the mods. I would go on 14, but the weasel would go on a 16. It's fair, it takes all the individual combatant's initiative strengths into account, and it doesn't add extra rolls to slow things down.
Now if I could just get everyone else in the game to actually discuss it ....
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Same initiative. Even if the Familiar or Companion or Summoned critter has Improved Initiative or whatever, they go when the player character goes, just because I personally don't want to deal with breaking up the player's actions so that he is going more than once in a single round of action.
We did that in Villains & Vigilantes and Vampire: the Masquerade, and it sucked donkey huevos, so the rule for D&D has always been, 'you go, okay, you're done, next dude goes.'
Yeah I have also used the "one roll, separate modifiers" method. So the player rolls and all the related creatures uses that roll but add their own modifier.
Familars and companions always go on the same action as the character. It's just easier for me. I only have to go to the player once for actions and the player doesn't get the opportunity to have another "wait maybe I should do this instead" moment because something has chnaged between when his companion goes and when his character goes.