Hello,
I am the DM of a game, and on Saturday, my villainous druid summoned (at first) a bear, then after the bear was killed, a dire ape.
With the bear, I announced it was "full attack"ing a PC, and the whole table was all "you can't do that". So we looked at the rules. I couldn't find anything where it said a newly summoned creature doesn't get it's full attacks the round it appears, but I let it go, in the interest of moving things along.
Since it was getting very late (2am), we decided to end the session at the top of the round when the ape will appear. I told the group I was going to do more investigation, so when we play next weekend, I'll know whether the ape will make one attack, or three.
So, help us out here. A summoned creature gets full attacks as soon as it appears, yes?
(The druid spent the entire previous round casting the spell, so there's nothing odd about the casting)
Thank you kindly.
T
Summoned creatures can MOVE action and then regular STANDARD attack action. If it does not move, then why would it not get both as a full attack action as per usual Non-summoned rules?
"The summoned ally appears where you designate and acts immediately, on your turn. It attacks your opponents to the best of its ability."
As long as you had the time for the 1 round casting, I see no reason it couldn't full attack.
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The summoned bear would appear just befor the druid's next round. At that point, it gets it's full actions. If in a position where it can fill attack, it can full attack. The Druid then gets her full actions.
Find out why your players think it can't to straighten out the misunderstanding bits possible they just "know" that as a result of a prior HM's misunderstanding or ruling.
A creature acts immediately upon summoning. Since summon spells have a range (25ft + 5ft/2lvl), a summoned creature can appear within reach of a viable target and can do a full attack if it chooses to.
While we're on the matter of Summon Nature's Ally, many big cats (lion, tiger, etc.) have the "pounce" ability that combine charge movements and full attacks.
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Right. Most of the time the summoner will cause the summoned creature to appear adjacent to its target. The summoned creature then gets a full attack.
Sometimes circumstances don't allow the summoned creature to full attack:
* Perhaps the summoner lacked the range to start the summoned creature near its target.
* Perhaps the summoner used some special Standard Action summons trick, in which case the summoned creature would only get a Standard action.
Right. Most of the time the summoner will cause the summoned creature to appear adjacent to its target. The summoned creature then gets a full attack.
Sometimes circumstances don't allow the summoned creature to full attack:
* Perhaps the summoner lacked the range to start the summoned creature near its target.
* Perhaps the summoner used some special Standard Action summons trick, in which case the summoned creature would only get a Standard action.
Where do you get that the critter only gets a standard action if the summoning is a standard action? I have seen nothing that restricts the actions of summoned critters if the casting time is shortened. After all, you do not say that a critter summoned via a Quickened Spell only gets a swift action.
No time-saving tricks were involved, the druid was behind an allied ranger and two animal companions, so she was well protected and just spent the regular amount of time, and dropped the bear adjacent to the target.
Thank's everyone for the clarification/validation, we'll see how my players take the news.
T
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Where do you get that the critter only gets a standard action if the summoning is a standard action? I have seen nothing that restricts the actions of summoned critters if the casting time is shortened. After all, you do not say that a critter summoned via a Quickened Spell only gets a swift action.
I say this only because I've observed numerous tables all doing it that way. Now that I've done a little rules digging I can't find anything on this topic. Will someone with more rules-fu please provide a definitive answer?
Question: If a monster is summoned via Standard Action Summon Monster spell, does that monster get a full round of action, or only a standard action?
There's no precedent for the monster to have only a standard action if the spell time was shortened. Think of it this way: if the spell was then quickened, would the monster only have a swift action available? If the spell time was somehow lengthened to 10 rounds, would the monster get 10 rounds worth of actions? Of course not.
There's no language in any of the spells that preclude limitation of monster actions depending on casting time. There is, however, language that explicitly states the monster gets to take its actions:
"The summoned ally appears where you designate and acts immediately, on your turn. It attacks your opponents to the best of its ability."
From this we must logically assume the monster gets a full round worth of actions unless specified otherwise. It does not specify otherwise in relation to casting time.
That has to be it. My group never actually played with anything from Unearthed Arcana, so we would never have thought of that. Obviously some groups who have played with that variant wizard from Unearthed Arcana generalized from a very specific rule for that variant to applying it to all cases where a summoning takes less than a full round -- not noticing that the variant linked to seems to be the only place that such an option is ever mentioned.