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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Wolfwood2" data-source="post: 4127062" data-attributes="member: 39394">Well I think the idea is that he is attacking enemies, but the results of his attack are averaged out to some effect that isn't resolved with the roll of dice.  Like you just assume that his attacking resulted in a +2 bonus to attack a single opponent's AC for everyone else and 3 HP of damage to that opponent.  Every round, note the effect, on to what the PCs are doing.Hardly a perfect solution.  I can see why this issue is such a struggle for the game designers.  It seems like there are three categories of potential allies (more or less) that have to accounted for.1. Allies acquired through roleplay/gameplay.  If you convince the town bully to redeem himself by helping you...  If one of the bad guy's minions turns on him because you've exposed his evil... If you offer a share of the loot if the eagle eye archer will accompany you...  you've acquired help through gameplay.These allies are usually more or less temporary and can probably be run by the DM as regular characters.  Importantly, it's easier to introduce plot twists that remove them from the scene if they become annoying.  Arguably a DM is perfectly within his rights to declare that such an NPC got critted and dies next time he's swung at, if such an extreme is necessary.2. Longterm allies acquired as part of class abilities.  Animal companions, paladin mounts, familiars, and cohorts (permanent sidekicks to your character).  These are probably the trickiest category.  From any kind of in-game perspective, it only makes sense that they can take their own independent actions.  Yet for all the reasons discussed in this thread, they're very troublesome.Because they're always around, even having the DM run them can be frustrating.  Something that hasn't really been touched on in this thread is that for some DMs, it can be unfun to be 'playing against yourself'.  That is having the DM control monsters to attack and then control a different set of creatures to fight back.  While this is something most DMs will have to manage on occasion, it's not satisfying (IMO) to have to constantly double-think yourself.Giving control of them to the player drops right back into the, "You're playing two characters," problem as well as not solving the action economy.  I don't have a solution.3. The third category is Summons.  I think we're on the right track in making these powerful per-day type abilities.  I think both approaches discussed are rreasonable.  Either you have to devote all your actions to puppeting the creature (certainly something we've seen from many characters in fiction) or it's basically a special effect which continues to do do damage each round until your opponent makes his saving throw (in this case represented in-game by finally managing to land a solid hit sufficient to make the creature go poof).For 'all actions are spent puppeting creature' I think it could result in some very interesting effects where by varying your choice of creatures, you can fill different combat roles on an as-needed basis.  However, I would expect most of this sort of summoning to be reserved for a dedicated summoning class, with a wizard only maybe getting a taste as an optional per-day ability.I don't see why being 'distracted' should make you/your summons lose your actions, unless it's already some effect that would make you lose your actions.</blockquote>

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