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I think that GMs should have the first opportunity to run summoned monsters, as the PC rightfully has no way to control its exact actions. The GM can always pawn this back off on the player. I don't see how this affects the necessity of having the Bestiary.
Actually, the ability to control summoned creatures is built right into the spell...
It appears where you designate and acts immediately, on your turn. It attacks your opponents to the best of its ability. If you can communicate with the creature, you can direct it not to attack, to attack particular enemies, or to perform other actions.
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I think he's referring to those situations where the caster can't easily converse with the creature.
Not many summoning PCs can inherently speak with animals; even a druid has to cast a spell to do so, or else rely on Handle Animal checks (albeit, a druid is better at it).
If you fail one, the animal will still act, but not necessarily do what you expected.
Even with the ability to cast speak with animals, that has a duration, which may have expired before the next encounter.
It's something many players forget, since it gets handwaved in a lot of games. I'd say a wand of speak with animals would be a valuable purchase for anyone intending to make frequent use of summons.
Other situations, where communication is limited, include:
when the caster loses line of sight to the battle.
when either is silenced.
when the caster is KO'd.
The important text is that the creature will act 'to the best of its ability', which may not match the wishes of the summoner.
At these points, the GM should have the ability to step in, and overrule actions which rely on metagaming, or are far too specific.
And players should be aware of this potential overruling, and not freak out about it. They can avoid this happening by picking actions which fit the context of the encounter, and abilities of the creature.
Note that, the GM having the option to overrule specific out-of-character creature actions, is in no way equivalent to a player assuming he can dump control of the creature on the GM.
And the player should still bring a Bestiary, because the GM isn't forced to have one (if he printed out only the specific creatures he needed from the scenario).
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I think that GMs should have the first opportunity to run summoned monsters, as the PC rightfully has no way to control its exact actions. The GM can always pawn this back off on the player. I don't see how this affects the necessity of having the Bestiary.
Because the GM doesn't have to have the whole Bestiary with him when he runs a game. He only needs to have access to the Bestiary while he's prepping the scenario. He can choose to print out only the pages from the Bestiary he needs (or print out those creatures from the PRD).
So if there isn't a Bestiary available, then summon spells cannot work. The player needs to provide his own stat blocks for summoned creatures.
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Yeah. The player needs the Bestiary. I never disputed that. The player has to have his own monster stats for this to work. But that doesn't mean the player automatically runs the summoned monster, particularly in the case where the PC doesn't speak an appropriate language or has very low handle animal.
And even if the PC can communicate with the creature, I'd say its most appropriate for the GM to move the summon and decide how the summoned monster will specifically execute the instructions.
Obviously at many tables, the GMs are going to kick this back to the players. But I don't.
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Yeah. The player needs the Bestiary. I never disputed that. The player has to have his own monster stats for this to work. But that doesn't mean the player automatically runs the summoned monster, particularly in the case where the PC doesn't speak an appropriate language or has very low handle animal.
And even if the PC can communicate with the creature, I'd say its most appropriate for the GM to move the summon and decide how the summoned monster will specifically execute the instructions.
Obviously at many tables, the GMs are going to kick this back to the players. But I don't.
You would be taking way too much liberty as the GM then.
The spell itself says how the creatures act.
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Yeah, and that's how I have them act. If a PC summons an air elemental and speaks Auran, he/she can tell it to act a specific target, but the GM should decide the exact movement path, etc. The PC does not have a telepathic link to direct its actions.
Of course summoned creatures is one issue of control that was left out of UCampaign. I've never really had any complaints about this, as intelligent summoned creatures will move into flanks, etc. Summoned creatures are particularly powerful in PFS, and I find this is a useful way to curb abuses.
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You can curb abuses by simply telling a player that the creature wouldn't act that way. You can instruct them how to adjudicate the spell.
But taking authoritarian control over the creatures is not fun for the players. I summon a creature to give me something else to help out in our battle (perhaps something else to do rather than stand back and cast buff spells or whatever). I don't cast summon spells so the GM can have another figure on the board to move around as he wills.
It is straight up, not fun to watch the GM play Pathfinder by himself.
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Well, it's not exactly as the GM wills.
Interestingly, animal companion users gave the exact same reasons for why they should have total control over their pets, but lo and behold, Ultimate Campaign mostly vindicated those advocating the handle animal interface.
If druids, the masters of all things animal, can't directly control their companions, why does some wizard get to directly control some elemental they pulled out of thin air?
Again, I've never really had any complaints because I always maximize the summon effectiveness based on the knowledge the summoned creature has. I don't see how this qualifies as the GM "playing by himself".
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"Direct" is not the same as "take the complete turn for". Druids "direct" their animal companions with handle animal, yet don't get to decide every space the animal travels through anymore.
So, yes, the air elemental will follow your instructions to the letter, but it will decide which squares to tumble through and how best to carry out a command like "kill the dark elf" or "stop the dark elf from casting", etc.
Of course, there will be table variation on this, because again, it was not covered in Ultimate Campaign like all the other pet types.
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Watching you move the summoned creature about, roll the dice for it, choosing which of your badguys it will attack, etc.
That is GM-control.
What I think you are suggesting, actually, is:
Player summons creature (or uses handle animal to command a non-sentient Animal Companion) and moves it where it wants, and picks which badguy it will attack. In most cases, they just summon it right next to the guy its supposed to attack, right? Then they roll the attacks etc.
If they do anything with those animals that you, as GM, feel is too metagamey, or outside what the spell should allow (such as I had a guy summon 1d3 eagles and try to have them flank immediately; I'm like no, you can't communicate with them, so your eagles are just going to fly up and attack in the first available square where they threaten the guy) you get to let them know that they can't do that action.
Sentient animal companions (Int of 3+, per Ultimate Campaign) are under player control, and that will likely happen at level 4.
So in other words, the player is controlling the action, and the GM decides whether that action is correct based on the circumstances. The hold over what they allow and disallow is just going to be a little stronger for summoned creatures and dumb AC's than for PCs and smart ACs.
But you taking control of the summoned creatures is NOT FUN!
The key should be FUN!
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"Direct" is not the same as "take the complete turn for". Druids "direct" their animal companions with handle animal, yet don't get to decide every space the animal travels through anymore.
First of all, this assumption is dependent upon everyone actually owning Ultimate Campaign. Since it is not a Core Assumption, you cannot assume that.
Secondly, this really is only a somewhat "good" assumption up to level 4. Once the animal has an Int of 3+, which likely will be the first stat bump, then Ultimate Campaign indicates the animal is now under player control.
So if its under Player control, they do get to move it where they want, within the limits of what the rules for AC's indicate. The GM just adjudicates those rules. So if a Player, with a dumb or smart AC, tries to go outside what those rules say, the GM can ask them to choose a different action.
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Actually, in PFS, increasing the intelligence of an animal companion provides no additional utility in the control area. This overrides the clause from Ultimate Campaign.
This is the relevant statement from March 11:
Smart Kitty: If you have increased your animal companion's intelligence score to 3 using various means, then great! You can now have your companion learn any feat it can physically perform, and it can put ranks into any skill. What this increase does not accomplish, however, is any advantage in commanding your companion whatsoever. It's still the same DC 10 to handle and DC 25 to push. It may still only learn six tricks plus your druid bonus tricks. However, for every point of Intelligence it gains above 2, that is three more tricks it can learn. A smart animal will have more versatility without needing to rely on pushing.
And in homebrew, we can just make whatever rules we want. So, yeah.
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Watching you move the summoned creature about, roll the dice for it, choosing which of your badguys it will attack, etc.
That is GM-control.
What I think you are suggesting, actually, is:
Player summons creature (or uses handle animal to command a non-sentient Animal Companion) and moves it where it wants, and picks which badguy it will attack. In most cases, they just summon it right next to the guy its supposed to attack, right? Then they roll the attacks etc.
If they do anything with those animals that you, as GM, feel is too metagamey, or outside what the spell should allow (such as I had a guy summon 1d3 eagles and try to have them flank immediately; I'm like no, you can't communicate with them, so your eagles are just going to fly up and attack in the first available square where they threaten the guy) you get to let them know that they can't do that action.
Sentient animal companions (Int of 3+, per Ultimate Campaign) are under player control, and that will likely happen at level 4.
So in other words, the player is controlling the action, and the GM decides whether that action is correct based on the circumstances. The hold over what they allow and disallow is just going to be a little stronger for summoned creatures and dumb AC's than for PCs and smart ACs.
But you taking control of the summoned creatures is NOT FUN!
The key should be FUN!
No, what I'm really suggesting is that the PC tells the summon what to do and it goes and does it. Just like it says to. Players in my group seem to like how I'm doing it just fine. It also helps keep the wizard's turn shorter, so you don't end up with one PC getting tons of screen time while the fighter gets his one hack and done.
Most people seem to think it's fun that I use the summoned monsters to take out my frustration on poorly written encounters by helping the PCs beat them up!
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Actually, in PFS, increasing the intelligence of an animal companion provides no additional utility in the control area. This overrides the clause from Ultimate Campaign.
This is the relevant statement from March 11:
Smart Kitty: If you have increased your animal companion's intelligence score to 3 using various means, then great! You can now have your companion learn any feat it can physically perform, and it can put ranks into any skill. What this increase does not accomplish, however, is any advantage in commanding your companion whatsoever. It's still the same DC 10 to handle and DC 25 to push. It may still only learn six tricks plus your druid bonus tricks. However, for every point of Intelligence it gains above 2, that is three more tricks it can learn. A smart animal will have more versatility without needing to rely on pushing.
You are reading way too much into all this David.
I a guarantee you that the first time you take full control of my summoned creatures or animal companion, I will never sit at your table again.
But I also follow the rules as a player. I don't metagame my animals actions. I have them act as an animal.
The statement from March 11 that you quoted (although did not provide a link to) is not PFS specific and predates Ultimate Campaign by quite a bit, and only refers to people thinking that 3+ gave them full, willy nilly control of the animal companion. They were using that as an excuse to let them use weapons, flank, and otherwise act just like another fully intelligent PC.
Ultimate Campaign, on the other hand, is not suggesting that a Sentient Companion (Int 3+) can do all those things, but rather that the player controls them. Regardless, the player still has to follow the rules of animal companions.
If a player is unwilling to follow the rule of an AC, then the GM can step in and say no.
But you will provide a very unfun experience for players if you are controlling their stuff. I don't play roleplaying games to watch the GM roleplay with himself.
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Actually, in PFS, increasing the intelligence of an animal companion provides no additional utility in the control area. This overrides the clause from Ultimate Campaign.
This is the relevant statement from March 11:
Smart Kitty: If you have increased your animal companion's intelligence score to 3 using various means, then great! You can now have your companion learn any feat it can physically perform, and it can put ranks into any skill. What this increase does not accomplish, however, is any advantage in commanding your companion whatsoever. It's still the same DC 10 to handle and DC 25 to push. It may still only learn six tricks plus your druid bonus tricks. However, for every point of Intelligence it gains above 2, that is three more tricks it can learn. A smart animal will have more versatility without needing to rely on pushing.
You are reading way too much into all this David.
I a guarantee you that the first time you take full control of my summoned creatures or animal companion, I will never sit at your table again.
But I also follow the rules as a player. I don't metagame my animals actions. I have them act as an animal.
The statement from March 11 that you quoted (although did not provide a link to) is not PFS specific and predates Ultimate Campaign by quite a bit, and only refers to people thinking that 3+ gave them full, willy nilly control of the animal companion. They were using that as an excuse to let them use weapons, flank, and otherwise act just like another fully intelligent PC.
Ultimate Campaign, on the other hand, is not suggesting that a Sentient Companion (Int 3+) can do all those things, but rather that the player controls them. Regardless, the player still has to follow the rules of animal companions.
If a player is unwilling to follow the rule of an AC, then the GM can step in and say no.
But you will provide a very unfun experience for players if you are controlling their stuff. I don't play roleplaying games to watch the...
Okay I see how the 3+ int thing is separate from the handle animal mechanic. So that would place the animal companion under player control but still has to use handle animal. Okay, then. I guess that makes sense.
As for the summons, I don't know what to tell you. I'm not the only GM around my area that does it this way. I find it interesting that your threshold for "won't sit with this GM" is so low in the scheme of things, at least in comparison to some of the things I've seen.
I suppose it's probably not worth bad blood over, so I suppose I should at least mention it when the table starts. If someone objects strongly enough, I'd probably cave against my better judgment. My pre-game disclaimer is getting pretty long :)
I don't find it unfun to summon a completely disposable creature and not run it. Most of the time, I just want another damage sponge out there. I expect the GM to run a non-PC like a summoned creature. Different expectations I suppose.
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...Actually, in PFS, increasing the intelligence of an animal companion provides no additional utility in the control area. This overrides the clause from Ultimate Campaign.
This is the relevant statement from March 11:
Smart Kitty: If you have increased your animal companion's intelligence score to 3 using various means, then great! You can now have your companion learn any feat it can physically perform, and it can put ranks into any skill. What this increase does not accomplish, however, is any advantage in commanding your companion whatsoever. It's still the same DC 10 to handle and DC 25 to push. It may still only learn six tricks plus your druid bonus tricks. However, for every point of Intelligence it gains above 2, that is three more tricks it can learn. A smart animal will have more versatility without needing to rely on pushing.
You are reading way too much into all this David.
I a guarantee you that the first time you take full control of my summoned creatures or animal companion, I will never sit at your table again.
But I also follow the rules as a player. I don't metagame my animals actions. I have them act as an animal.
The statement from March 11 that you quoted (although did not provide a link to) is not PFS specific and predates Ultimate Campaign by quite a bit, and only refers to people thinking that 3+ gave them full, willy nilly control of the animal companion. They were using that as an excuse to let them use weapons, flank, and otherwise act just like another fully intelligent PC.
Ultimate Campaign, on the other hand, is not suggesting that a Sentient Companion (Int 3+) can do all those things, but rather that the player controls them. Regardless, the player still has to follow the rules of animal companions.
If a player is unwilling to follow the rule of an AC, then the GM can step in and say no.
But you will provide a very unfun experience for players if you are controlling their stuff. I don't
My threshold is if I'm not having fun.
If I build a character who's primary schtick is summoning creatures, I full expect to be able to actually play those creatures. That character won't be fun if all I do is summon, cast a few buff spells, and then sit back and watch you roleplay my creatures vs. your badguys.
Let me reiterate:
It is not fun to sit back and watch you roleplay my creatures vs. your badguys.
And if you were sitting at my table, with such a character, I'd expect you to run your own creatures. If you want to summon them, you get the task of making sure they take their actions.
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Just curious: what about other players that might find it not fun that your PC gets 3-4 turns versus their one turn? I could extend your logic somewhat to say that if I show up to play PFS, I fully expect to get to play, not watch the druid move four figures a turn and roll 12 dice a turn. The bottom line is that fun is subjective and a very slippery slope as a justification for a position. This is the reason they banned the master summoner, but yet the druid can still do the exact same thing.
Furthermore, I don't find it particularly fun to sit with animal companions on either end of the GM screen. The scenarios are not written to deal with the extra beef in a group. But if I'm ever going to get a table in Ohio, it's just something I have learned to deal with. It still sucks they get two turns (or more) compared to the kinds of PCs I build, but whatever.
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Just curious: what about other players that might find it not fun that your PC gets 3-4 turns versus their one turn? I could extend your logic somewhat to say that if I show up to play PFS, I fully expect to get to play, not watch the druid move four figures a turn and roll 12 dice a turn. The bottom line is that fun is subjective and a very slippery slope as a justification for a position. This is the reason they banned the master summoner, but yet the druid can still do the exact same thing.
Furthermore, I don't find it particularly fun to sit with animal companions on either end of the GM screen. The scenarios are not written to deal with the extra beef in a group. But if I'm ever going to get a table in Ohio, it's just something I have learned to deal with. It still sucks they get two turns (or more) compared to the kinds of PCs I build, but whatever.
I have a Druid. I took the Animal Domain, and then Boon Companion, so I have both a domain and an animal companion.
One of the spells in the animal Domain is Summon Nature's Ally IV I believe.
I can count on one hand the number of times I've actually used it, and I usually only use it as the domain spell, not as the spontaneous casting.
But the two or three times we were fighting a creature we were having a ton of trouble with, I cast it to give that creature something to hit, while we stat back and peppered it from range. I summoned 1d3 Giant Crocodiles. I also one time summoned a deinonychus at Gen Con 2012 while playing Golemworks Incident.
And if the GM had taken control of those creatures, I'd have been pretty upset.
The problem isn't the summoning. Its the players who dominate the table with whatever they do. If it weren't dominating the table with masses of summoned creatures, an AC, they'd dominate with their ridiculous DPR Barbarian, or machine-gun archer, or blaster wizard that does +4 damage per damage die.
Creating a way to deal with those players should not then hinder me, who uses those abilities responsibly.
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Just curious: what about other players that might find it not fun that your PC gets 3-4 turns versus their one turn? I could extend your logic somewhat to say that if I show up to play PFS, I fully expect to get to play, not watch the druid move four figures a turn and roll 12 dice a turn. The bottom line is that fun is subjective and a very slippery slope as a justification for a position. This is the reason they banned the master summoner, but yet the druid can still do the exact same thing.
If you (as GM) take over the control of the druid player's critters, the same number of dice are getting rolled, and it's taking (more or less) the same amount of time that it would if the druid player were doing it himself. I wouldn't be surprised if it took you more time, if the druid player is well-prepared and knows his spells and summoned critters well.
You started with, "I prefer running summoned creatures myself", and it's now apparently morphed into "I don't like summoned creatures, period", which still isn't much of a justification for your first position.
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Yeah, and that's how I have them act. If a PC summons an air elemental and speaks Auran, he/she can tell it to act a specific target, but the GM should decide the exact movement path, etc. The PC does not have a telepathic link to direct its actions.
Out of curiosity, I've been trying to figure out if creatures summoned with the Celestial template speak Celestial. Any ideas?
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Just curious: what about other players that might find it not fun that your PC gets 3-4 turns versus their one turn? I could extend your logic somewhat to say that if I show up to play PFS, I fully expect to get to play, not watch the druid move four figures a turn and roll 12 dice a turn. The bottom line is that fun is subjective and a very slippery slope as a justification for a position. This is the reason they banned the master summoner, but yet the druid can still do the exact same thing.If you (as GM) take over the control of the druid player's critters, the same number of dice are getting rolled, and it's taking (more or less) the same amount of time that it would if the druid player were doing it himself. I wouldn't be surprised if it took you more time, if the druid player is well-prepared and knows his spells and summoned critters well.
You started with, "I prefer running summoned creatures myself", and it's now apparently morphed into "I don't like summoned creatures, period", which still isn't much of a justification for your first position.
Oh no, no. I love summoned creatures. I think they are actually one of the coolest effects of spell casters. I was merely taking a devil's advocate position. Going through the logical paces.
However, since it is indeed a game to have fun with, I will be sure to ask players about summoned creatures in the future. Especially now that it seems that druids definitively run the animal companions with 3+ int.
Time has rarely been an issue at my tables, especially after they canned faction missions. I have just had a couple of conversations with players that specifically mentioned that they liked the GM running the summons and one of the reasons they stated was that no one *player* turn dominated the initiative sequence. Evidently there were okay with the GM taking a bit longer. And, as I said, I'm far from the only GM doing this in my area.
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I have just had a couple of conversations with players that specifically mentioned that they liked the GM running the summons and one of the reasons they stated was that no one *player* turn dominated the initiative sequence. Evidently there were okay with the GM taking a bit longer. And, as I said, I'm far from the only GM doing this in my area.
Well, as long as it's the social norm in your area, and the players of the affected summoners are honestly cool with it, more power to you.
Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
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I really feel this is diverging onto another thread. Anyway.
I'm also from the school of the GM controls the Summons but may pass that job back to the players. One of the more creative versions of that that was on these boards, was someone who had a players PC summon a whole lot of animals, and to keep game moving quickly handed them around the table, one to a player. (And no one at the table seemed particularly unhappy with that solution)
Let me take this a step further. Traditionally, the problem with summoning demons is that they will do what you tell them, but they will do it in the most evil and damning way possible in order to pull you deeper into evil. If they can do it in a way that creates a problem that you will need to summon more demons to fix, that's even better.
So, when a nuetral PC summons a Demon or Devil, do you let them play it? And thus forgo a lot of the traditional down side of summoning demons?
(The example I gave earlier is the demon can't burn down the orphanage if you tell it not to, but if you are fighting outside an orphanage, and you don't say anything, there is nothing stopping it from "fighting your enemy" by grabbing them, lighting them on fire, and then slamming them through the wall of the nearby orphanage.)
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Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
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Lighting someone on fire and throwing them through a wall is very effective use of it's abilities. :)
It's a Demon. It's *job* is to screw you over. (For the record, I don't usually screw people with wish spells either. Not unless they are getting them by conjuring demons to cast the spell, then that whole "Hi! I'm an incarnation of pure evil, what did you expect to happen?" comes into play.)
I'm sorry if it upsets people that I play demons as evil, scheming, monsters who will try to get away with exactly as much evil and mayhem as they can any time they get to the material plane. But frankly, it's a role playing game.