Minionmancy and action economy

[ayvango]

How many actions and what kinds of actions minion management costs? I suppose for different kinds of minions it differs. Familiars have empathic connection and possibly telepathic link from the Permanency spell. Animal companions are not so directly connected. If you animated army of undead what differences in managing intelligent and non-intelligent undeads? Does it matter where undead is animated, commanded or rebuked? If managing is action costly could you use issue single order to group of minions? And what about summons from summoning spells?

I'd like to try minion master but unsure how many my actions would be consumed to direct minions and if there is some tricks like standing orders to make reduce costs.

[Necroticplague]

This isn't 4e, you don't need to spend actions to have minions work. The only limits on your ability to command minions is to communicate with them. For Animal Companions, this uses Handle Animal (see that skill), Familiars are smart enough to understand spoken orders (int minimum 6), as are all summons (celestial and fiendish set int to at least 3, lower end of human-like, but still human-like). Undead created through Animate Dead follow 'spoken orders', so you can command them as fast as you can speak (free action). Undead controlled through Rebuke Undead require a standard action to give commands to (though presumably, standing commands to follow spoken orders could reduce this back down to a free action).

[Hellpyre]

Most intelligent creatures can be commanded as a free action. Non-intelligent mental commands are often standard actions.

[BlackOnyx]

Like others have been saying, in most situations, minions can be directed with speech as a free action. Bringing necromancy into play, this could go so far as to include:


Familiars
Animal Companions
Animated Undead
Rebuked Undead
Commanded/Controlled Undead
Undead Cohorts/Followers
Living Cohorts/Followers


That said, per the SRD, speech as a free action is typically limited to no more than "a few sentences."


This in mind, I would suggest trying to imagine what you could realistically relay in six seconds (one round).


From what I could tell after a quick search, it seems that the upper limit for most English speakers is somewhere around 350 words per minute (or 35-40 words per round). And that's assuming you know *exactly* what you want to say without hesitation.


For the purpose of relaying orders in the heat of combat, managing even half of that (20 words a round) would probably be an accomplishment. Specific code words could be used to pack more information into fewer breaths, but orders would still have to be very concise.


That said, it's worth noting that intelligent minions might be able to extrapolate more ideal actions based off of vague orders (i.e. "execute attack pattern delta"), whereas mindless minions will typically take the most direct/literal route (for better or worse) based off of your commands.

[Hellpyre]

Like others have been saying, in most situations, minions can be directed with speech as a free action. Bringing necromancy into play, this could go so far as to include:


Familiars
Animal Companions
Animated Undead
Rebuked Undead
Commanded/Controlled Undead


Undead command via Rebuke are specifically called out as a standard action to direct mentally, and verbal commands only apply to Int>3 creatures.

[BlackOnyx]

Undead command via Rebuke are specifically called out as a standard action to direct mentally, and verbal commands only apply to Int>3 creatures.

As far as the rebuking issue, my interpretation was in line with that of Necroticplague's from above:


Undead controlled through Rebuke Undead require a standard action to give commands to (though presumably, standing commands to follow spoken orders could reduce this back down to a free action).

Though, given the verbal/language barrier (as you mentioned), this would probably only work for intelligent rebuked undead.

Concerning mindless undead from other sources, the spell descriptions for animate dead and command undead should allow for spoken orders. The orders themselves are just limited to simple commands.