D&D 5E Bag of Tricks Question

[Lakesidefantasy]

From the description for Bag of Tricks:

"The creature is friendly to you and your companions, and it acts on your turn. You can use a bonus action to command how the creature moves and what action it takes on its next turn, or to give it general orders, such as to attack your enemies. In the absence of such orders, the creature acts in a fashion appropriate to its nature."

Can you pull three creatures out of the bag in the morning, then give them general orders to follow you around peacefully for the rest of the day?

 

[jgsugden]

From the description for Bag of Tricks:

"The creature is friendly to you and your companions, and it acts on your turn. You can use a bonus action to command how the creature moves and what action it takes on its next turn, or to give it general orders, such as to attack your enemies. In the absence of such orders, the creature acts in a fashion appropriate to its nature."

Can you pull three creatures out of the bag in the morning, then give them general orders to follow you around peacefully for the rest of the day?

Up to your DM. There are a half dozen elements here that DMs will rule differently.

The technical requirement is that you use the bonus action to give it a command or it will act in a fashion appropriate to its nature (with the caveate that it is friendly to you and your companions). If you do not use a bonus action each turn, the animal is supposed to behave as a normal animal would - which might be to attack non-companions of yours if it is a predator, flee if it is skittish or would be afraid of what is before it, or whatever else the DM decides.

If you summon two, you can't give orders to both as you have just one bonus action - but you can just hand the bag to someone else and have them summon a second animal as the bag does not require attunement.

As the creature is friendly to you, the DM may decide that it will voluntarily hang out with you as a friend in the absence of orders. However, that is up to the DM. I don't hang out with my friends all day every time I run into them, afterall.

 

[Lakesidefantasy]

Thanks Jgsugden!

 

[Older Beholder]

Can you pull three creatures out of the bag in the morning, then give them general orders to follow you around peacefully for the rest of the day?

My question was ‘how long do the animals last?’ as it doesn’t really specify.

My Barbarian/Druid has a bag of tricks, and every night he draws out 3 animals and lets them out into the wild. If he has any wild-shapes left he’ll turn into whatever animal gets pulled out and do some frolicking.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

My question was ‘how long do the animals last?’ as it doesn’t really specify.

My Barbarian/Druid has a bag of tricks, and every night he draws out 3 animals and lets them out into the wild. If he has any wild-shapes left he’ll turn into whatever animal gets pulled out and do some frolicking.

The creature vanished at the next dawn or when reduced to 0 hit points.

As to the OP question, I would allow it for what that is worth.

 

[Lakesidefantasy]

Thank you all for the feedback. It's nice to see things from other points of view. Helps me to see myself.

Also, I think the dawn duration of the animals' existence must have been later errata, because the first printing of the Dungeon Master's Guide doesn't seem to have it.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

My vote would be for commanding them individually at all times. If they want to have one just follow them around, I'd be fine with that, but anything more and I'd rule that the other creatures would wander off. But I'm also burnt by a player that front-loaded their bag of tricks companions and was commanding them all with a single bonus action before we caught that he wasn't following the rules on how it's supposed to work. And it was hella OP.

 

[MatthewJHanson]

My interpretation is that the "general orders" clause does not specify a time limit, so I'd allow it, but I see how other GMs might interpret it differently.

 

[Lakesidefantasy]

In previous editions (1st, 3rd, pathfinder, 4th) the animals disappear after 5 or 10 minutes, and you can only have one out at a time.

Oh well, I'll report back on how it goes.