Rules question. Playing a Shepard Druid and I feel I got a little boned.
- I summon creature. - DM says each creature needs its own initiative, ok fine. - creature gets a 20 on initiative, my initiative was at a 16. - DM rules that my summons starts at 20 next round, almost punishing it for rolling well. -my summons get the hell beat out of it before it even gets to act.
I would maybe suggest that my summon act on my turn if it rolls another initiative, but im not sure of thats balanced either
By RAW, your DM is correct. Many DMs house rule that summoned creatures share the summoner’s initiative roll, acting after them. Talk to your DM to see if they might do that.
It really depends on what spell/feature you used to summon the creature, because the spell/feature may specifically address the initiative.
For example, Tasha's new Summon spells specifically include a line "In combat, the creature shares your initiative count, but it takes its turn immediately after yours. It obeys your verbal commands (no action required by you). If you don’t issue any, it takes the Dodge action and uses its move to avoid danger."
Without a clear line such as that, your DM can adjudicate as mentioned (with a separate and distinct initiative roll).
"Roll initiative for the summoned creatures as a group, which has its own turns. They obey any verbal commands that you issue to them (no action required by you). If you don't issue any commands to them, they defend themselves from hostile creatures, but otherwise take no actions."
Your spell describes the exact process, the DM is correct. TCE released a ton of additional summon spells (most were recent UA versions) and each of them state they use your initiative. Maybe RAI the developers decided to address the exact issue you are describing. It's probably worth discussing a house-rule compromise given the new sourcebook, but considering this is the Rules and Mechanics forum, your answer is defined.
Rules question. Playing a Shepard Druid and I feel I got a little boned.
- I summon creature. - DM says each creature needs its own initiative, ok fine. - creature gets a 20 on initiative, my initiative was at a 16. - DM rules that my summons starts at 20 next round, almost punishing it for rolling well. -my summons get the hell beat out of it before it even gets to act.
I would maybe suggest that my summon act on my turn if it rolls another initiative, but im not sure of thats balanced either
I've heard this complaint before and I'll repeat my argument then.
Initiative is relative. If your druid's initiative was 20 and the summon rolled a 4, the exact same scenario plays out. For that matter if you cast at 16 and they roll a 14, but every enemy goes at 15, same thing.
Whether it is after you in the current round or before you in the next round they will always get 1 turn before your next turn. It is all relative and when rounds begin/end literally never matters.
That said, house rules that make summons/pets go on the same initiative as the PC is fine, I prefer to play that way too. My point is only that there is no unfairness in the RAW regardless of how the scenario plays out.
It is all relative and when rounds begin/end literally never matters.
Disagree. What does an initiative modifier even represent then? Nothing? It seems that you could be conflating "all relative" with "all random", which this game is not. This is why the game has modifiers. It's why an gelatinous cube has a lower initiative modifier than a fey quickling. To say those modifiers are random or represent nothing is kinda boring and sad.
I believe the game designers intended "Initiative" to represent a creature's quick reflexes/thinking and its initiative to act on those. And since initiative has a modifier, wherein a typically quicker-acting creature has a positive modifier (to increase their initiative roll), and typically slower-acting creatures have a negative modifier (lowering their initiative score), a creature's calculated initiative score should reflect that intended attribute representation. OP describes a scenario where if their character had summoned a slower, dopier creature with a poor initiative modifier and then rolled the exact same number on the initiative die, that slower creature would have had a chance to take an action before it was killed, whereas his supposedly quicker-acting (higher initiative-scoring) creature did not get that chance, and was killed before it could get a word in edgewise. Mopier creature being rewarded for being mopey, quicker creature being punished for being quick... OP is right: he got shafted. As a DM I've 100% come across this and had the same head-scratching feeling of... but that doesn't make sense.
I agree with the OP. Punishing a quick-thinking/acting summoned creature does seem wrong. To me, it just feels like a miss on the game designers' part, and I would encourage house rules to overcome it. Simple fix (house rule): if the summoned creature rolls a higher initiative than its summoner, it instead acts immediately after the summoner in the initiative order.
It is all relative and when rounds begin/end literally never matters.
Disagree. What does an initiative modifier even represent then? Nothing? It seems that you could be conflating "all relative" with "all random", which this game is not. This is why the game has modifiers. It's why an gelatinous cube has a lower initiative modifier than a fey quickling. To say those modifiers are random or represent nothing is kinda boring and sad.
[Snip]
There is some randomness to initiative, yes (d20 says hi), but the order is not random once established.
I do see what you are saying about how low rolls actually get rewarded by being rolled mid round compared to at the top of the round, though.
It is more involved, but my fix for initiative would work like this: after rolling initiative, add 1 to everyone's initiative roll until someone reaches 30, it is your turn when your number is 30, then it is reset to 0 and counts up again. When you summon a creature on your turn when your initiative is always 30, a higher roll is always better than a lower roll while maintaining everyone else's "readiness" so to speak (a number higher than 30 acts next then the difference becomes their reset value).
This is a system I've been brewing to maybe use with the speed factor variant rule to remove having to reroll initiative every round.
I do see what you are saying about how low rolls actually get rewarded by being rolled mid round compared to at the top of the round, though.
Yep, this was the OP's original point.
I like your mechanic for initiative... 30 seems a little arbitrary though. And I think in practice this is going to be cumbersome to pull off. The rules makers worked very, very hard to make a set of rules that was simple, which I've come to realize is both A) really a blessing to players/DMs that we take for granted, and B) reeeally hard to do (i homebrew a lot of mechanics... and they all end up being a page long where a real 5e rule would be a paragraph, or taking 5X as long to resolve at the table). But I'd love to know if it came off successful if you try it out.
I have a homebrew rule that summoned creatures always act immediately after being summoned but then that counts as their turn for the round. Then when the next round begins they act in their initiative order. This rewards a high roll for initiative for your creature and stops creatures being destroyed before you can even use them. I’m not sure where I picked this up from as for a long time I swore that this was the RAW for summoning.
Since we're bringing this thread back... Has anybody played with the RAW rules for these spells for any amount of time? I'm kinda curious how much it affects the actual power of the spells. But in my own games we've always house ruled it. (For the purposes here, I'm not interested in how the house rules might smooth out the gameplay experience, or how it might make players feel like rolling high initiative sucks, or whatever. I'm just concerned with how it affects the power of the spells.)
I'd rule that the summoned creature can act immediately, as it has surprise for showing up unexpectedly (except for the caster). The next round it it uses the rolled initiative.
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"Semper in faecibus sumus, solo profundum variat" playing since 1986
Since we're bringing this thread back... Has anybody played with the RAW rules for these spells for any amount of time? I'm kinda curious how much it affects the actual power of the spells. But in my own games we've always house ruled it. (For the purposes here, I'm not interested in how the house rules might smooth out the gameplay experience, or how it might make players feel like rolling high initiative sucks, or whatever. I'm just concerned with how it affects the power of the spells.)
I've played with the RAW for them in terms of initiative. They act as a nerf, as you'd expect, compared to summoned minions that instead act immediately after their summoner (or, even more powerfully, summons that act during their summoner's turn). Said nerf scales with the caster's initiative - a faster caster needs to deal with the problem less often - and inversely scales with minion initiative (slower minions trigger the issue less often).
However, I've never had a DM obey the RAW for summoning spells where the DM picks what you summon at cast time, because it's too much work for them to do that on the fly. I don't know to what extent that exacerbates the issue - I've always been able to cast summoning spells while knowing the initiative bonus of my summon.
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Rules question. Playing a Shepard Druid and I feel I got a little boned.
- I summon creature.
- DM says each creature needs its own initiative, ok fine.
- creature gets a 20 on initiative, my initiative was at a 16.
- DM rules that my summons starts at 20 next round, almost punishing it for rolling well.
-my summons get the hell beat out of it before it even gets to act.
I would maybe suggest that my summon act on my turn if it rolls another initiative, but im not sure of thats balanced either
By RAW, your DM is correct. Many DMs house rule that summoned creatures share the summoner’s initiative roll, acting after them. Talk to your DM to see if they might do that.
It really depends on what spell/feature you used to summon the creature, because the spell/feature may specifically address the initiative.
For example, Tasha's new Summon spells specifically include a line "In combat, the creature shares your initiative count, but it takes its turn immediately after yours. It obeys your verbal commands (no action required by you). If you don’t issue any, it takes the Dodge action and uses its move to avoid danger."
Without a clear line such as that, your DM can adjudicate as mentioned (with a separate and distinct initiative roll).
I used Conjure Beast (or animal, I forget) 3rd level spell
"Roll initiative for the summoned creatures as a group, which has its own turns. They obey any verbal commands that you issue to them (no action required by you). If you don't issue any commands to them, they defend themselves from hostile creatures, but otherwise take no actions."
Your spell describes the exact process, the DM is correct. TCE released a ton of additional summon spells (most were recent UA versions) and each of them state they use your initiative. Maybe RAI the developers decided to address the exact issue you are describing. It's probably worth discussing a house-rule compromise given the new sourcebook, but considering this is the Rules and Mechanics forum, your answer is defined.
Thank you!
I've heard this complaint before and I'll repeat my argument then.
Initiative is relative. If your druid's initiative was 20 and the summon rolled a 4, the exact same scenario plays out. For that matter if you cast at 16 and they roll a 14, but every enemy goes at 15, same thing.
Whether it is after you in the current round or before you in the next round they will always get 1 turn before your next turn. It is all relative and when rounds begin/end literally never matters.
That said, house rules that make summons/pets go on the same initiative as the PC is fine, I prefer to play that way too. My point is only that there is no unfairness in the RAW regardless of how the scenario plays out.
Disagree. What does an initiative modifier even represent then? Nothing? It seems that you could be conflating "all relative" with "all random", which this game is not. This is why the game has modifiers. It's why an gelatinous cube has a lower initiative modifier than a fey quickling. To say those modifiers are random or represent nothing is kinda boring and sad.
I believe the game designers intended "Initiative" to represent a creature's quick reflexes/thinking and its initiative to act on those. And since initiative has a modifier, wherein a typically quicker-acting creature has a positive modifier (to increase their initiative roll), and typically slower-acting creatures have a negative modifier (lowering their initiative score), a creature's calculated initiative score should reflect that intended attribute representation. OP describes a scenario where if their character had summoned a slower, dopier creature with a poor initiative modifier and then rolled the exact same number on the initiative die, that slower creature would have had a chance to take an action before it was killed, whereas his supposedly quicker-acting (higher initiative-scoring) creature did not get that chance, and was killed before it could get a word in edgewise. Mopier creature being rewarded for being mopey, quicker creature being punished for being quick... OP is right: he got shafted. As a DM I've 100% come across this and had the same head-scratching feeling of... but that doesn't make sense.
I agree with the OP. Punishing a quick-thinking/acting summoned creature does seem wrong. To me, it just feels like a miss on the game designers' part, and I would encourage house rules to overcome it. Simple fix (house rule): if the summoned creature rolls a higher initiative than its summoner, it instead acts immediately after the summoner in the initiative order.
EDITS: spelling, grammar
There is some randomness to initiative, yes (d20 says hi), but the order is not random once established.
I do see what you are saying about how low rolls actually get rewarded by being rolled mid round compared to at the top of the round, though.
It is more involved, but my fix for initiative would work like this: after rolling initiative, add 1 to everyone's initiative roll until someone reaches 30, it is your turn when your number is 30, then it is reset to 0 and counts up again. When you summon a creature on your turn when your initiative is always 30, a higher roll is always better than a lower roll while maintaining everyone else's "readiness" so to speak (a number higher than 30 acts next then the difference becomes their reset value).
This is a system I've been brewing to maybe use with the speed factor variant rule to remove having to reroll initiative every round.
Yep, this was the OP's original point.
I like your mechanic for initiative... 30 seems a little arbitrary though. And I think in practice this is going to be cumbersome to pull off. The rules makers worked very, very hard to make a set of rules that was simple, which I've come to realize is both A) really a blessing to players/DMs that we take for granted, and B) reeeally hard to do (i homebrew a lot of mechanics... and they all end up being a page long where a real 5e rule would be a paragraph, or taking 5X as long to resolve at the table). But I'd love to know if it came off successful if you try it out.
I have a homebrew rule that summoned creatures always act immediately after being summoned but then that counts as their turn for the round. Then when the next round begins they act in their initiative order. This rewards a high roll for initiative for your creature and stops creatures being destroyed before you can even use them. I’m not sure where I picked this up from as for a long time I swore that this was the RAW for summoning.
Since we're bringing this thread back... Has anybody played with the RAW rules for these spells for any amount of time? I'm kinda curious how much it affects the actual power of the spells. But in my own games we've always house ruled it. (For the purposes here, I'm not interested in how the house rules might smooth out the gameplay experience, or how it might make players feel like rolling high initiative sucks, or whatever. I'm just concerned with how it affects the power of the spells.)
I'd rule that the summoned creature can act immediately, as it has surprise for showing up unexpectedly (except for the caster). The next round it it uses the rolled initiative.
"Semper in faecibus sumus, solo profundum variat"
playing since 1986
I've played with the RAW for them in terms of initiative. They act as a nerf, as you'd expect, compared to summoned minions that instead act immediately after their summoner (or, even more powerfully, summons that act during their summoner's turn). Said nerf scales with the caster's initiative - a faster caster needs to deal with the problem less often - and inversely scales with minion initiative (slower minions trigger the issue less often).
However, I've never had a DM obey the RAW for summoning spells where the DM picks what you summon at cast time, because it's too much work for them to do that on the fly. I don't know to what extent that exacerbates the issue - I've always been able to cast summoning spells while knowing the initiative bonus of my summon.