Standard Action Summoning and Full Round Attacks

[rpewin01]

If a character has an ability to cast SM or SNA as a standard action (in this case, the feat Academae Graduate, but could also be Sacred Summons or the Summoner Class SLA), do his summoned monsters still get the opportunity to take full-attack actions that turn?

The Summon Monster spell says the monster appears and acts immediately, but my DM is questioning whether the monster can only take as many actions as the summoner would have remaning between the end of his spell and the end of his initiative.

[Grick]

rpewin01 wrote:

The Summon Monster spell says the monster appears and acts immediately, but my DM is questioning whether the monster can only take as many actions as the summoner would have remaning between the end of his spell and the end of his initiative.

The actions of summoned monsters have no relation to those of the character that summoned them.

[Dolanar]

Once the creature appears it has its own separate actions completely separate from the person who summoned it. I would treat it just as if you had used a Full Round Action & it appeared right before your turn on the next round.

[Dennis Baker]

If you are in PFS or just looking for the RAW answer, Grick has the gist of it.

Personally, I limit summoned creatures to a standard action but that's an Ogre house rule. Maybe your GM has some house rules about it and you should talk it over with him. I know a fair number of GMs have house-rules or just misunderstandings about summoned creatures.

[rpewin01]

Dennis Baker wrote:

If you are in PFS or just looking for the RAW answer, Grick has the gist of it.

Personally, I limit summoned creatures to a standard action but that's an Ogre house rule. Maybe your GM has some house rules about it and you should talk it over with him. I know a fair number of GMs have house-rules or just misunderstandings about summoned creatures.

You always limit them to a standard action, or just on their first turn? Specifically I was planning on summoning multiple Aurochs to use their stampede ability (which is a full-attack action). I want to take the feat so they can do so first round of combat.

[MechE_]

I look at this two ways. First, I think in terms of time, with each round being 6 seconds long.

If a spell caster (in this case, a Wizard) casts a spell as a standard action, then he has consumed a portion of his 6 seconds - I'll say half, just for the sake of argument. It makes perfect sense to me that a summoned monster who appears at the end of the standard action would not have a full round available to him on that round. I could see limiting the summoned creature to a single standard action as a very viable house rule that prevents 9 seconds of actions from happening in 6 seconds of time. Does that make the feat you mentioned less powerful, sure. But it's still nice to be able to complete a spell on your round to prevent the enemy's leader from saying "Look, that guy with no weapons appears to be casting a lengthy spell - Archers, FIRE!" - taking a few arrows means potential concentration checks which means potential spell failure.

The second way I look at this is from a history perspective - i.e. 3.5e. In 3.5e, the ruling was that creatures summoned by use of a standard action spell cast only got a standard action on the round which they were summoned. I know I'm welcoming the "this is PF, not 3.5e comment", but since PF is made under the OGL and borrowed about 90 some odd percent from 3.5e, when I don't see an explicit rule saying that something works a certain way, I simply go back to 3.5e and look for a rule. You can't deny that the systems are similar and that more rules are the same than different. That's my strategy as a GM.