A question / an obserbation on conjuring spells

[ironkid]

Question: It says conjured creatures roll their own initiative. So do they have to roll less than the caster did to be able to act on the turn they are summoned?

Observation: Spells like the one that conjures a celestial have casting times of 1 minute, and a duration of up to one hour. Aren't those spells useless, or at least very situational? I mean, 1 minute casting means they're useless in a combat that already started, and with a max duration of one hour pretty much mean we cast them when a fight with the big bad is inminent - but somehow we have a minute to spare.

Any comments would be much appreciated!

[Aett_Thorn]

Question: It says conjured creatures roll their own initiative. So do they have to roll less than the caster did to be able to act on the turn they are summoned?

Observation: Spells like the one that conjures a celestial have casting times of 1 minute, and a duration of up to one hour. Aren't those spells useless, or at least very situational? I mean, 1 minute casting means they're useless in a combat that already started, and with a max duration of one hour pretty much mean we cast them when a fight with the big bad is inminent - but somehow we have a minute to spare.

Any comments would be much appreciated!

Spending time preparing for the BBEG is kind of expected, I would think. Spending a minute of that planning time to conjure a decent ally would be time well spent. I mean, unless the BBEG is coming right at you, then maybe not.

My casters that use summoning spells tend to go later in the round anyways, so this might just be me, but I've never minded having my summons not get an action on the turn that they are brought into existence. They just roll initiative and join in on the next round.

[Regulas]

Technically yes, they would go into the order wherever they roll which means potentially "on the next turn". However it will always be before the caster gets to go again.

However if you're grp will be using summons a lot then i would highly recommend you house rule summons to be on the casters turn. This is more for practical management reasons then anything, because summons tend to bog down the game (adding on a full turn each) especially if you tend to have more then one, it's far easier to just manage all summons and yourself at the same time (e.g. all movment, roll all attacks/actions, do all follow-ups.).

[Easy_Lee]

I was under the impression that you rolled initiative for the creatures as a group, meaning it shouldn't add too much extra time.

That said, I hesitate to use this spell because it can slow down the game considerably if you don't have stats and minis handy, or if your DM decides what appears (he certainly can as per the text) and has to look up the stats.