Some people believe that familiars ALWAYS go on the same turn as their masters. Other people insist they roll initiative independently.
Problem is, nobody has come up with something from RAW that explicitly says one way or another.
I seem to recall that familiars don't roll initiative but animal companions do, but I might be conflating a rule from one of the D&D editions.
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Issues of Control
The GM should keep in mind several factors when it comes to companions, whether handling them as suggested above or altering the balance to give you more or less control.
Ease of Play: Changing who controls a companion can make the game easier or harder for the GM. Controlling a cohort in combat is one more complex thing for the GM to deal with. The GM must keep track of a cohort’s tactics and motivations and how those affect it in combat while keeping her own knowledge of the monsters separate from the cohort’s knowledge; otherwise, the cohort will outshine the PCs with superior tactics. Giving you control over these decisions (while still allowing the GM to veto certain actions) alleviates some of the burden and allows you to plan interesting tactics between yourself and your cohort, much as you would have mastered during times you trained together.
Conversely, giving a player full control over the actions of two characters can slow down the game. If you’re prone to choice paralysis, playing two turns every round can drag the game to a halt. If this is a problem, the GM should suggest that another player help run the companion or ask you to give up the companion and alter yourself to compensate (such as by choosing a different feat in place of Leadership, taking a domain instead of a druid animal companion, or selecting the “companions” option for a ranger’s hunter’s bond ability instead of an animal).
Game Balance: Even a simple change like allowing players to directly control companions has repercussions in the game mechanics. For example, if a druid has complete control over an animal companion, there’s no reason for her to put ranks in Handle Animal, freeing up those ranks for other valuable skills like Perception. If a wizard with a guard dog doesn’t have to use a move action to make a Handle Animal check to have the dog attack, he has a full set of actions each round and a minion creature that doesn’t require investing any extra time to “summon” it. If companion animals don’t have to know specific tricks, the PC can use any animal like an ally and plan strategies (like flanking) as if the animal were much smarter than it actually is.
With intelligent companions such as cohorts, giving you full control means you’re controlling two characters and can take twice as many actions as the other players. The GM can create a middle ground, such as requiring you to put ranks in Handle Animal but not requiring you to make checks, or reducing the action needed to command an animal, but these decisions should be made before the companion joins the group.
Personally, I run it with AC's, Familiars, and Cohorts/Hirelings acting on their own Initiative, while Summons act on the Caster's Initiative.
While I couldn't find anything that definitively says that Familiars, Cohorts/Hirelings, or Animal Companions act on your turn as a hard rule for or against, I think that is implied that anything you control (including summons) are supposed to act on your turn, but tbh, this doesn't really make a whole lot of sense to me; I think they should act on their own Init. I do think that Summons or Ongoing Spells (such as Aqueous Orb) should act on your turn. Though, I see no reason why you couldn't have AC's, familiars, and cohorts act on the PC's initiative though.
I'd say this is a GM call insofar as also garnering the agreement from the Players, tbh. Go with whatever you all agree upon is appropriate.
Familiars can always just be in a perpetual state of delaying their turn until their master gives them orders.
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Personally, I run it with AC's, Familiars, and Cohorts/Hirelings acting on their own Initiative, while Summons act on the Caster's Initiative.
While I couldn't find anything that definitively says that Familiars, Cohorts/Hirelings, or Animal Companions act on your turn as a hard rule for or against, I think that is implied that anything you control (including summons) are supposed to act on your turn, but tbh, this doesn't really make a whole lot of sense to me; I think they should act on their own Init. I do think that Summons or Ongoing Spells (such as Aqueous Orb) should act on your turn. Though, I see no reason why you couldn't have AC's, familiars, and cohorts act on the PC's initiative though.
I'd say this is a GM call insofar as also garnering the agreement from the Players, tbh. Go with whatever you all agree upon is appropriate.
It appears where you designate and acts immediately, on your turn.
Summons act at the same initiative that you had when summoning them simply because that is when they came into being.
But they don't act during your turn. They act before it or after it.Very few creatures act during your turn. AFAIK only the mounts can do that, and only if they are used as a mount and nothing more.
To have something act during your urn you need to have it share its action with you, deciding who moves and acts and how that affect both creatures. We have rules for that only for mounts.
Familiars, eidolon, and co can be surprised separately from the PC, can act if it is paralyzed, unconscious, if he flees or teleports away, it is dominated, etc.
If they are somewhat summoned during the fight they share the same initiative result of the PC because the rules say so,
Source PRPG Core Rulebook pg. 178
At the start of a battle, each combatant makes an initiative check. An initiative check is a Dexterity check. Each character applies his or her Dexterity modifier to the roll, as well as other modifiers from feats, spells, and other effects. Characters act in order, counting down from the highest result to the lowest. In every round that follows, the characters act in the same order (unless a character takes an action that results in his or her initiative changing; see Special Initiative Actions).If two or more combatants have the same initiative check result, the combatants who are tied act in order of total initiative modifier (highest first). If there is still a tie, the tied characters should roll to determine which one of them goes before the other.
Each combatant, no exception.
BTW, if the PC delay, ready an action, etc, his initiative can become different from that of a summoned creature, and vice versa, if the summoned creature delay or readies an action, it can change its initiative.
Taken to the extreme you can read that as saying that even mounts have a separate initiative roll, but that is too penalizing for people riding the mounts (like having mounts roll a perception check to see if they are surprised). But besides the mounts, which are treated more like a vehicle directed by the rider, every single creature has its initiative.
It is possible to delay so that their initiative goes side by side with the PC (it is what my animal companion does most of the time unless the action to take is evident), but they never go during your turn, as there is no rule to have multiple creatures split their initiative during a turn.
The rules also don't handle how surprise works with readied/delayed actions. A familiar can delay until you simply give it an order, at which point it can follow that order as long as it doesn't have to take into account an enemy (i.e. deliver a touch spell to that enemy over there) and can still act while surprised. If it did get an invalid order, it simply wouldn't be able to carry out the part that involves the surprising enemy.
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The RAW rules for familiar and animal companion initiatives can actually be found through a few specific archetypes... though it’s more extrapolated than directly written...
The school familiar archetype, specifically for Divination grants the ability every ready, which by its wording implies that familiars normally don’t roll initiative separate from the master, which means familiars act on their masters initiative... the ability enables your familiar to roll a separate initiative that you may choose to swap with your own if it is more advantageous to you.
The ambusher animal companion archetype grants bonuses to your animal companions initiative. The existence of these bonuses means that your animal companion has its own initiative separate from your own.
Note: none of the familiar archetypes grant any bonuses to the familiars initiative, all initiative interactions with familiar affect the master specifically.
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The rules also don't handle how surprise works with readied/delayed actions. A familiar can delay until you simply give it an order, at which point it can follow that order as long as it doesn't have to take into account an enemy (i.e. deliver a touch spell to that enemy over there) and can still act while surprised. If it did get an invalid order, it simply wouldn't be able to carry out the part that involves the surprising enemy.
What?
Unaware Combatants: Combatants who are unaware at the start of battle don’t get to act in the surprise round. Unaware combatants are f lat-footed because they have not acted yet, so they lose any Dexterity bonus to AC.
Surprised creatures can't act. I don't know where you have dreamed of an exception for familiars. (Except those with the Every ready SU ability.)
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The RAW rules for familiar and animal companion initiatives can actually be found through a few specific archetypes... though it’s more extrapolated than directly written...
The school familiar archetype, specifically for Divination grants the ability every ready, which by its wording implies that familiars normally don’t roll initiative separate from the master, which means familiars act on their masters initiative... the ability enables your familiar to roll a separate initiative that you may choose to swap with your own if it is more advantageous to you.
The ambusher animal companion archetype grants bonuses to your animal companions initiative. The existence of these bonuses means that your animal companion has its own initiative separate from your own.
Note: none of the familiar archetypes grant any bonuses to the familiars initiative, all initiative interactions with familiar affect the master specifically.
Lesser—Ever Ready (Su): At the start of combat, the familiar and its master each roll initiative separately, and the master can choose to trade his initiative result with his familiar’s. The familiar gains the benefits of the diviner’s forewarned school power and can always act on the surprise round.
Big leap of logit to say that it means that normally the use the same initiative.
Lesser—Ever Ready (Su): At the start of combat, the familiar and its master each roll initiative separately, and the master can choose to trade his initiative result with his familiar’s. The familiar gains the benefits of the diviner’s forewarned school power and can always act on the surprise round.Big leap of logit to say that it means that normally the use the same initiative.
Not at all... the ability says they roll separately for it, which implies that their initiatives were rolled together before... now that could be taken one of two ways admittedly... one being only the master rolls normally, while the other being that a familiar normally uses your d20 roll for initiative but with its own bonus...
There is no reason for it to specifically say to roll separately if that was already how their initiative worked. Instead it would be worded similar to other abilities that allow you to swap initiative results, and simply state that when rolling initiative you may choose to swap you initiative result with your familiar’s.
That said... after rereading the ever ready ability again and the forewarned ability... I’m leaning more towards familiars using their masters d20 result normally but with their own bonuses... since the a divination school familiar gains benefit of the forewarned ability which grants a bonus to initiative equal to 1/2 wizard level.
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Lesser—Ever Ready (Su): At the start of combat, the familiar and its master each roll initiative separately, and the master can choose to trade his initiative result with his familiar’s. The familiar gains the benefits of the diviner’s forewarned school power and can always act on the surprise round.Big leap of logit to say that it means that normally the use the same initiative.Not at all... the ability says they roll separately for it, which implies that their initiatives were rolled together before... now that could be taken one of two ways admittedly... one being only the master rolls normally, while the other being that a familiar normally uses your d20 roll for initiative but with its own bonus...
There is no reason for it to specifically say to roll separately if that was already how their initiative worked. Instead it would be worded similar to other abilities that allow you to swap initiative results, and simply state that when rolling initiative you may choose to swap you initiative result with your familiar’s.
Or it can repeat a common rule (all creatures roll initiative differently unless some specific rule says the opposite for some specific situation) to make clearer that the wizard can select two different results. Note that the wizard trade the result, so a value modified by the stat and feats of the roller.
That said... after rereading the ever ready ability again and the forewarned ability... I’m leaning more towards familiars using their masters d20 result normally but with their own bonuses... since the a divination school familiar gains benefit of the forewarned ability which grants a bonus to initiative equal to 1/2 wizard level.
It is possible to use the same die roll for speeding up the play, but them having different modifiers means that they act during different turns, even when they act at the same initiative number.
Just to be clear:
go at the same turn as means that the creature act during the turn of another creature, like a mount moving during the rider turn.
go at the same initiative number the initiatives are tied, one of the creatures complete its turn (or readies an action/delay) before the other creature start its. The turns are one after the other.
Regarding the ruling of mounts acting on their riders initiative... at many tables, familiars are often treating their master as a mount... so... wouldn’t that equate to familiars acting on their masters initiative?
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Regarding the ruling of mounts acting on their riders initiative... at many tables, familiars are often treating their master as a mount... so... wouldn’t that equate to familiars acting on their masters initiative?
The familiar is being carried by the master, not used as a mount. A mount is guided by the rider, a wizard isn't guided by his familiar.
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I GMed many, many tables of PFS and instituted a simple question: “Will your familiar be an active participant in combat or does it just ride your shoulder all day?”
If it is normally a combatant roll separate initiatives. If it normally does nothing in combat just roll your initiative.
Basically, my rule was a simple way to speed up the game while avoiding the particularly egregious cheese some players pulled on other GMs when they had them both act on the master’s initiative. I’m thinking of a diviner wizard with a +16 initiative (and a +2 initiative Improved familiar). Familiar would use a wand of ill omen on the BBEG then the wizard would end the fight before the BBEG had a chance to do anything.
Not that you can’t still do it later in the round, but at least it’s not the first turn of every fight.
As long as the player is controlling their class feature the point is somewhat moot. This isn't RAW, it's just looking at the math.
If using separate initiative, the player can have either the familiar or the master delay until the other creature. At that point, there's no benefit to separate initiative from any sort of balance standpoint.
Sometime the familiar will roll better, sometimes the master will, but ultimately the two numbers will be reasonably similar on average. Unless the master is a hyper-Initiative-optimized character, it doesn't matter.
So... just roll the master and move on with your life.
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Why would someone want to delay to the same initiative?
For a pet class, particularly a familiar, you often want/need Ability A to be used before you can do Attack B.
If your familiar is delivering touch spells, it doesn't do any good for the familiar to go before the master.
If the master wins initiative, you might want to wait to cast the spell to be delivered until the familiar's turn so that you don't cast something that turns out to be useless.
If you have an animal companion, you may want to delay it until your turn so you can cast a buff like strong jaw.
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Why would someone want to delay to the same initiative?For a pet class, particularly a familiar, you often want/need Ability A to be used before you can do Attack B.
If your familiar is delivering touch spells, it doesn't do any good for the familiar to go before the master.
If the master wins initiative, you might want to wait to cast the spell to be delivered until the familiar's turn so that you don't cast something that turns out to be useless.
If you have an animal companion, you may want to delay it until your turn so you can cast a buff like strong jaw.
And then, after your turn end, the familiar/AC takes its delayed turn.
It is using its initiative, which has been delayed till that point.
rolling separately and taking the worst is dramatically worse (‘delaying to same initiative’) than either just using one or rolling separately and each acting on their own initiative, so i don’t see the difference as ‘moot’. Why would someone want to delay to the same initiative?As long as the player is controlling their class feature the point is somewhat moot. This isn't RAW, it's just looking at the math.
If using separate initiative, the player can have either the familiar or the master delay until the other creature. At that point, there's no benefit to separate initiative from any sort of balance standpoint.
Sometime the familiar will roll better, sometimes the master will, but ultimately the two numbers will be reasonably similar on average. Unless the master is a hyper-Initiative-optimized character, it doesn't matter.
So... just roll the master and move on with your life.
I get the feeling that in most circumstances the player would delay the worse initiative until right after the better initiative on the following round... effectively having either the familiar or master take no action in round 1 in order to get a better spot in the initiative for round 2.... and since many optimize wizards (which are the ones most likely to perform such a tactic if their familiar acts on a separate initiative) build high initiative in order to all but guarantee a high initiative result for themselves, it will almost always be the familiar who’s initiative is delayed... and a familiar taking no action for a round is far less detrimental than a wizard taking no action for a round... it is quite possible that all that would be lost from such a decision is one round of double movement on the familiars part...