I've looked online about this and haven't come across much. The text of tiny servant reads as such (emphasis mine).
You touch one Tiny, nonmagical object that isn’t attached to another object or a surface and isn’t being carried by another creature. The target animates and sprouts little arms and legs, becoming a creature under your control until the spell ends or the creature drops to 0 hit points. See Tiny Servant for its statistics.
As a bonus action, you can mentally command the creature if it is within 120 feet of you. (If you control multiple creatures with this spell, you can command any or all of them at the same time, issuing the same command to each one.) You decide what action the creature will take and where it will move during its next turn, or you can issue a simple, general command, such as to fetch a key, stand watch, or stack some books. If you issue no commands, the servant does nothing other than defend itself against hostile creatures. Once given an order, the servant continues to follow that order until its task is complete.
When the creature drops to 0 hit points, it reverts to its original form, and any remaining damage carries over to that form.
The spell says that you give the command for what it will do on its next turn, but it doesn't specify when that occurs. Other summoning spells, such as conjure animals or find familiar, specify that you roll initiative for your summons, but tiny servant has no such text. My instinct is that it uses its own initiative, but I could also see an argument for the tiny servant acting on the caster's turn when they use their bonus action to command it. Is there any official ruling or designer tweet that I'm missing? Any other rules I'm overlooking?
It rolls its own Initiative. Take note that Tiny Servant has a casting time of 1 Minute, so it's not something you can normally cast during combat. You're assumed to be entering combat with the Tiny Servant as a loyal NPC who's on the board from step one. I think that, unlike Find Familiar, they didn't explicitly state that it rolls its own initiative just as a bit of housekeeping... it's basically an unnecessary detail in the Find Familiar spell, since, by default, every creature involved in combat rolls its own initiative and you really only need to clarify if a creature doesn't obey those rules, for whatever reason.
I wasn't looking to cast it in combat anyway, but that's a good point that it would roll anyway because it's already there at the start of combat and doesn't explicitly work differently from the general rule. Thanks!
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I've looked online about this and haven't come across much. The text of tiny servant reads as such (emphasis mine).
The spell says that you give the command for what it will do on its next turn, but it doesn't specify when that occurs. Other summoning spells, such as conjure animals or find familiar, specify that you roll initiative for your summons, but tiny servant has no such text. My instinct is that it uses its own initiative, but I could also see an argument for the tiny servant acting on the caster's turn when they use their bonus action to command it. Is there any official ruling or designer tweet that I'm missing? Any other rules I'm overlooking?
It rolls its own Initiative. Take note that Tiny Servant has a casting time of 1 Minute, so it's not something you can normally cast during combat. You're assumed to be entering combat with the Tiny Servant as a loyal NPC who's on the board from step one. I think that, unlike Find Familiar, they didn't explicitly state that it rolls its own initiative just as a bit of housekeeping... it's basically an unnecessary detail in the Find Familiar spell, since, by default, every creature involved in combat rolls its own initiative and you really only need to clarify if a creature doesn't obey those rules, for whatever reason.
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I wasn't looking to cast it in combat anyway, but that's a good point that it would roll anyway because it's already there at the start of combat and doesn't explicitly work differently from the general rule. Thanks!