Summon Monster duration

[IceBear]

How about this for a modified sentence:

Summoned creatures act normally on the last round of the spell and disappear at the end of their turn [rather than sticking around until just before their next turn.]

That's the way I read it.

Let's look at how we are each defining the "last round of the spell."

Without the sentence the sequence would be:

Round 1, Initiative 16. Spell is cast.
Round 2, Monsters appear. (After 15 but before 16) and on Initiative 16 the Monsters attack.
Round 3, Monsters disappear. (After 15 but before 16)

Sorta. With your modified sentence:

Round 1, Initiative 16. Spell is cast.
Round 2, Monsters appear, JUST before 16 and then the monsters attack, and then the wizard goes.
Round 3, Monsters disappear, Just before 16.

You say the last round is round 3, right?

I say the last round is from intiative 16 to just before 16, and that the terms "round 2" and "round 3" have no meaning here.

Does that about sum it up? [/B]

I agree with the terms round 2 and round 3 should have no meaning, but isn't that normally how you track spell durations? I'm not going to use one method to track most spells and a different one for Summon Monster.

Maybe I'm reading too much into the inclusion of that sentence, but I really don't see any need of including it if they didn't mean for the monster to get an action just before the spell ends. I mean the monster will aways get to "act normally", and it's common sense that the monster would disappear when the duration ends. Thus, I see it as meaning the monster gets to act before it disappears, and it disappears when the duration ends, which is just before the wizard's turn in Round 3. I think, maybe the problem is because they let the monster take an immediate action in Round 2. If it didn't get that attack, this debate would go away - as then we would have the monster getting one attack in round. It's almost like the monster appears with a free action.

IceBear

 

[Greatwyrm]

The "act normally" language may be a red herring here.

<begin pure speculation>

Maybe they put that phrase in so that people wouldn't say, "Well, if it takes a full-round for them to get here, then it should take a full-round for them to leave. That makes a one-round summon useless!"

<end pure speculation>

 

[IceBear]

I agree that it might be a red herring, but it is the inclusion of that phrase that's causing this problem. Without it, I would firmly state that the monster attacked in Round 2, and then disappeared just before the initiative count in Round 3. The fact that they included it makes me think about their intentions for including it.

My conclusions are that they get to take an action before they disappear, and since I use the same rules for durations with this spell as any other spell, it wouldn't disappear until the next round.

The more I think of it, if the monster didn't get to act until the next round (summoning sickness anymore? ) then no one would be arguing either. As it is written, the monster appears just before the spellcaster's action and gets to immediately take an action, and then the spellcaster (who's action sets the duration) gets to go. So, the monster is effectively getting an action outside of the spellcaster's round.

IceBear

 

[IceBear]

Ok, Artoomis is right. Here is The Sage's response:

Q: Hi Sage,

Quick, minor question.

If a wizard casts Monster Summoning I with a duration
of one round, what's the correct sequence.

Case 1
Round 1 - Wizard casts spell
Round 2 - Monster appears and attacks and disappears

or

Case 2
Round 1 - Wizard casts spell
Round 2 - Monster appears and attacks
Round 3 - Monster disappears

or

Case 3
Round 1 - Wizard casts spell
Round 2 - Monster appears and attacks
Round 3 - Monster attacks and disappears.

The reason for the confusion is the line about the
monster getting to act normally in the last round of
the spell seems redundant if you use Case 2, and Case
1 seems to break the rules for spell duration. Case 3
seems to make the spell, effectively, a 2 round spell.

A: It's case 2.

Skip Williams
RPG R&D

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Good to know. Yet another case of me reading more into something than I should have. They *really* shouldn't have included that sentence in the spell, as it's redundant with how spells normally work.

IceBear

 

[Greatwyrm]

I'm not sure I understand the idea of the monsters appearing sometime other than the caster's initiative. Going by the SRD, since I don't have a PHB at work, "It appears where the character designates and acts immediately, on the character's turn." To me, that says on the caster's first action after spending a complete round casting Summon, stuff shows up and attacks at the same time the caster is taking his/her next action.

 

[Greatwyrm]

Sage's response was put up while I was writing my last one. Please merrily disregard.

 

[IceBear]

I'm not sure I understand the idea of the monsters appearing sometime other than the caster's initiative. Going by the SRD, since I don't have a PHB at work, "It appears where the character designates and acts immediately, on the character's turn." To me, that says on the caster's first action after spending a complete round casting Summon, stuff shows up and attacks at the same time the caster is taking his/her next action.

Yeah, I was going by memory. We always played it that the summon monster attacked and then the spellcaster did something (more for preference of order than anything), so I made the mistake that the monster appeared just before the spellcaster's initiative (just because we always rolled the monster's dice first )

Anyway, I sent him a reply basically saying that they shouldn't have included that sentence. If they didn't I wouldn't have disagreed It's simply redundant.

IceBear

 

[Xahn'Tyr]

Heh, that answer just shows that he did not read the spell description before he answered

Art was arguing for Case #1, Ice was arguing for Case #3.

Case #2 is the one that we all agreed was incorrect. That's the one where the spell lasts one round regardless of that additional text in the spell description. Oh well, I'll play it Skip's way; but it really needs an erratta!

 

[Li Shenron]

I'd like to add my personal opinion, if I may.

I agree with the one of you who play it this way:
(example for 1st level Summon Monster)

Round 1: Full-round casting of the spell
Round 2: Monster appears and acts before the spellcaster
Round 3: Monster disappears before the spellcaster's turn

We play it this way because we think that the duration of the spell is meant to be indeed the number of (full) rounds for the summoned monster to be there. Hence, a 1st level spellcaster summons a monster for the duration of 6 seconds. The full-round is not the same as making it disappear after his action: instead, the monster is able to make AoO for example. Also, we find it nice that someone opposed to a summon creature may think it's going to stay longer (and attack once more) because he doesn't see it disappearing immediately after its action.

To me, I think the problem comes with how you look at the "During the last round the creature gets to act normally and then disappear".

I have always thougth that this line is damned: I believe it was written exactly to "dispel doubts" and say that there is nothing special in the last round of the spell duration, i.e. the last round is exactly the same as the previous ones, i.e. it is a full round. Unfortunately this line in the PHB has caused many more doubts than there would have been if nobody had wrote it (many, many threads ago...).

 

[IceBear]

Agreed...that's why I sent him back a reply stating that his ruling made that sentence in the spell description redundant - it's exactly like all other spells

I guess they suspected that people would have some other issue if they didn't include that sentence, but I don't know what.

*Sigh* I must have too much time on my hands to think too much.

IceBear