Previous GMs I've encountered have given us varying degrees of control over them. Was just wondering what the general opinion is.
Familiars: Total
Cohorts: Within Reason
Animal Companion: Within animal intelligence
In other words, can act as you direct it, given some constraints.
As DM, I'll generally take control of NPC-ish creatures and cohorts when communicating and doing things independently on orders from the PC. But in combat, I leave it up to the PC to control under the assumption that the familiar/companion/cohort is supposed to be a complement to the PC's combat abilities.
Familiars: Total
Cohorts: Within Reason
Animal Companion: Within animal intelligenceIn other words, can act as you direct it, given some constraints.
This.
Familiars: Total
Cohorts: Within Reason
Animal Companion: Within animal intelligenceIn other words, can act as you direct it, given some constraints.
^This.
I generally let the players control cohorts, familiars, and animal companions as long as they aren't abusing them. (As alignment dictates...) Most players I've encountered do pretty well at this.
I also let them make the dice rolls for party NPCs most of the time. In some cases the NPCs become pretty much seconadary party pcs. (In our ROTR campaign, they had no healer or brick for a while so the party picked up an NPC Witch and Barbarian who became two of the anchors for the team...they rotated rolling for the NPCs, passing around a token so that everyone got to roll...once the NPCs personalities had become firmly established, they were even allowed to play the NPCs if the party split up or if someone was incapacitated...or dead waiting to be reincarnated...)
But it depends on your players
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Fiddlers Green, you have posed an interesting question.
I think the degree of control will depend and vary from DM to DM.
Majuba seems to have summed up the general consensus.
I suppose for me the main variable is the intelligence of the familiar /animal companion in question.
I agree with Majuba, for familiars, I agree with Majuba. I tend to give the Players, for the most part total control over their familiars. Especially when dice need to be rolled, like combat.
I do have two caveats. I reserve the right to have the familiar get into some humorous animal mischief. For example I might have the cat familiar, have a habit of walking along a mantelpiece amidst the master’s precious porcelain figurine collection, just to make him nervous. I might have a raven have a penchant for stealing bright shiny objects like buttons, or maybe a little teaspoon.
My second caveat would specifically involved imps and quasits.
If the player has his spell caster bind (through the improved familiar feat) one of these evil outsiders to his service that he has chosen to bind a devil ( the former) and or a quasit ( the latter) I remind the player that there are certain risks involved in doing this. I would inform the player, before he makes the choice of spending the feat, that while he has some digree of control over the imp for example, it is an intelegent devil, with an agenda of its own, and because of its Lawful Evil nature, it will attempt to subvert any terms of an agreement to its own advantage, and simply put it is there to nudge the character towards making choices that will cause the character’s alignment to shift towards evil. the imp would want to be able to claim to his superiors that he had a hand in the "fall" of this hero. I would give a similar warning about quasits. I would remind them that their natures are LE and CE respectively, and the will act according to their nature.
Again as Majuba says, with cohorts, within reason. They are willing to serve, but within reason.
And concerning an animal companions, I also reserve the right to have the familiar get into some humorous animal mischief. The wolf might go and explore near by bushes to catch a vole, a lepord might decide to make a snack out of a farmers goat and drag it up a tree, a fox might get into the hen hutch etc. But for combat I would let the player for the most part controll his own animal companion.
I suppose an exception to this might be the undead. If it says in the undead’s description that animals shun or shy away from the creatur, I would have the druid or ranger make a wild empathy check or a handle animal check to get the animal companion to over come its natural fear and attack the undead creature.
I will admit I am not sure what to do with an eidolon.
Well those are my opinions.
Every DM will tend to do things their own way.
I hope this helps.
Previous GMs I've encountered have given us varying degrees of control over them. Was just wondering what the general opinion is.
I don't know if there is a general opinion on this or not.
For ease, nothing beats giving the player absolute control (with GM retaining a veto power for obviously stupid or suicidal moves).
However, I often see players forget that even a well trained animal companion is still just an animal. Or that somehow in the middle of combat they are able to direct their cohort to do just the right thing without uttering a word. Or that they can control summoned creatures with precise coordinated tactics.
I used to just allow a player to give a simple command to his companion then I would carry it out as my little animal brain directed me. However, this does tend to distract from the normal GM duties.
So, I've been starting to recruit other players to run the animals. This is especially helpful if you have a fighter-type who becomes bored because his turn lasts about five seconds (long enough to roll to-hit and damage) compared with a druid commanding a small menagerie of animals.
You can assume that a fellow player will try to do the best he can to carry out an order but it limits the exacting control that allowing them to be used as extensions of a single player causes. (If the fellow player turns out to be a jerk, take the critter away, and run it yourself).
Cohorts being somewhat more intelligent should be able to act more independently. But again they have their own attitudes and opinions so, players shouldn't treat them as automatons.
All this go doubly for NPCs that the players get control of via magic.
I leave it up to the player unless they do something completely out of the creature's nature too many times(an imp risking its life to save someone out of kindness) or if the mistreat the animal companion(familiar, etc) the being may stop cooperating. It won't happen all at once but there will be a time when the creature will just leave if the abuse continues. Other than extreme situations I leave it up to the players. It is one less thing I have to worry about.
I suppose I will agree with Majuba for the most part.
Familiars are magically bound to their owners so they do what the controlling players wants them to, not matter how dumb or suicidal. Of course most people I've played with aren't willing to risk their familiar unless it's really important. A hold over from 3rd/3.5 Edition I suppose.
Cohorts are about ninty-nine percent under player control. The only times I will interfer with a player's control over a cohort is when it makes no sense for the cohort to do what the player wants. I will sometimes roleplay the cohort to avoid having a player talking to them-selves, through the player can veto any actions they feel is out-of-character for the cohort. It's my opinion that if a player invested a feat to gain a cohort, then they should have say over the cohort and its actions. I would no more control a cohort than I would tell a fighter to what weapon he has to apply Weapon Focus.
Animal Companions I treat like familiars but I ask the players to keep in mind the nature of their animal.
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Previous GMs I've encountered have given us varying degrees of control over them. Was just wondering what the general opinion is.
Total.
It's either part of your class abilities (Animal Companion, Mount, or Familiar) or you paid a Feat (Cohort) for it, so it's your power, your responsibility, and your problem.
Besides, the GM has better things to do than run something that belongs to a player.
*shrug*
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Familiars are really a caster's fluff special effect so I like them control them. But sometimes will 'act' out their behavior.
Same goes for Animal Companions.
Letting the player determine the RP dynamic between character and pet is really fun if you motivate the player.
Cohorts I tend to have a rough script:
1. Primary Motivation
2. General Likes and Dislikes
3. Stereotypical personality - Silly, Brutish, etc.
With those down, I let the PC determine what the CoHort does in a general sense but adlib lines as need in RP scenes.