SUMMON CHANGES

[WillPower]

About the Summon changes earlier today...
Seems like no one wants to break the bad news here on the forums but there is non-stop talking about it in the Chatbox!

Theyve been NERFED. Lol

When it comes down to it what most players (correct me if Im wrong) are saying right now is that summons are unusual etc and neat looking/spells but FAR too weak. It has become a pointless spell until its fixed.

What does this mean? Any casters trying to level or druids or clerics etc are left wihtout any decent protection. And in turn cant hardly level worth anything...

Take my cleric for example. Level 8 cleric, 1 paladin. Level 4 summon....
The Celestial Bison.
What I had before the change was the Lantern summon... which could take an ogres bashing for at least a couple rounds... usually just long enough for me to fire off a few spells and get the ogre within killing range in melee combat.

!!!!My bison was killed one on one with a goblin warrior!!!!

And from what Ive heard no one else is praising their summons either... excepting the Chicken summon which seems to be the best out of all of them so far... Bison... chicken...

WHAT ARE WE FARMERS? Thats an "udderly" ridiculous idea!

(I can hear it now "Okie McDonald had a farm... Ee Iii Ee Iii Ooohh"

Im not sure whether you meant to weaken the summons with the change but isnt that a bit extreme?

[Ryddwillow]

my 39th lvl sorc/sd/rog cast an 8th lvl summons and i get an greater elemental who dies w/ 3 hill giants attacking him. i thought at least a greater elemental should handle small change. needs a lil more beef i think, something like an greater elemental being taken down by 3 hill giants is not right.




Black Willow

[AlienOverlord]

The summons aren't useless, they just have to be supportive instead of front line, which seems more like the role they should take. As it was a sorc could just take all summon spells at first level and cast and wait for it to kill all and repeat not having to rest until all summons are used. Too easy, wiz are supposed to suffer at low levels not have a cake walk. I don't think the weaker summons makes it too difficult for any class, you may have to fight weaker enemies than you had been. Besides, we still don't know what they are doing with the familiars. At the least, the pm summon looks better now.

[Throst54]

just spend ten minutes buffing them, then u have 1 minutes left till they unsummon to attack stuff...

[Lokey]

Yay, something positive!

Testing them all myself was getting too time-consuming. (First version of the Solar/Death Slaad/Balor line chewed up Drakmarr and spat him out without a scratch, oops. I disavow all knowledge of the 450 hitpoint chicken one experiment produced as well.)

The thing to fix was the summon kills everything while you watch...it threw out the balance of spell power for a given spell level. Level 4: I can cast Lightning Bolt or summon something that has 3 x Chain Lightning, Level 9: Maximized damage spell, possible mass death or 34 hit die dragon...at least it was a harder decision there. Another basic assumption is that summoned creatures don't replace class abilities--a scroll shouldn't give you an epic companion for free.

The goals of whatever the summoning line of spells turns into are as follows:
- Summons useful but not overpowering when you get them.
- Scaling of summons while your abilities increase, though not to a point of eclipsing the next available spell.

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Mummy Dust, maybe go 1 monk/9-14 fighter as a base and level up with undead for the remainder? Monk level had one purpose that I have a way around now Not sure about the power attack/flurry problem, that didn't come up for me but will be fixed.

Worth looking into this but remember undead get MAJOR protections and immunities. Plus sending undead out to fight a mob of club swinging Giants is probably the toughest thing for them to face (excepting Daeron of course).

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Feedback lines: all summons should have hides (slot 17), and at least one creature weapon. Exception is undead, their item is created after that.

Monster abilities need work as well (like the 500 odd normal abilities aren't enough).

[chrisem]

One thing that I did notice today at least was that the TN lvl 2 summon was "fixed", I was summoning a fiendsih wolf before (on which the script read NE), now it summons a kenshar (code TN).

Unfortunately I didn't get to play enough to really say if it was nerfed or not. I would say yes, but the lack of farmiliars really skews the perspective.

[Denort]

Spell focuses in conjuration and if possible being a specialist conjurer should greatly increase the power of summons. Thats what a conjurer does best he... well... conjures things.
The question is would casters with spell focuses in the more common necromancy or invocation be willing to spend an additional 3 feats to get better summons? If so then having a subclass that relies heavily on powerful summons would throw things out of whack when other casters take the feats.
What school does conjuration oppose anyway?

[chrisem]

ok well either I was wrong on the whole alignment matching the script on summon thing or it's happening again. level 3 tn sorcerer summons a ne creature. stats look okay, don't get me wrong ..

I think the AC definitely needs to be looked at. This lvl 3 summon wolf's got the same AC as my sorcerer (before buffs), which doesn't make for strong melee support in battle. You move just a little over the XP hump and it's over for him in a few hits.

[satantrik]

I don't really play casters, but I think the apparent change in the qualitative function of each of the different types of summons is really nice. As far as their specific implementation, these things take time to work out. I did feel that summons were a little too uber, but now a lot of people feel they're under-powered. I like the "flavor" of how they've been sorted out: vanilla, undead, and planar.

[The Rizz]

--General Summoning---

The thing to fix was the summon kills everything while you watch...it threw out the balance of spell power for a given spell level.

I agree with that, but don't agree with the diretion you're taking them. I think that most summons need to be able to stand up to the monsters you're currently fighting without being killed in 2-3 rounds.
I'd say they should be able to take out several of your current emeies by themselves at low levels, then slowly go down in relative power until they even out with enemies at around summon 6-7, and be slightly less powerful than the highest CR critters (but still be able to go toe-to-toe with them for a while).

I would actually like to see different summons for not just different caster levels / spell levels, but also based on the class of the summoner. (I absolutely LOVE variety - it is interesting to see different summons from everyone.)
They way I see it, mages' summoned creatures should be there to do some damage, but primarially be something to take the hits while the mage unloads his other spells on the enemies.
Cleric and druid summons are less important to use as "meat shields", as the cleric is often in the front lines anyway. Their summons could be more powerful offensively, and have a little less defense, and it would still work out.

--- Mummy Dust ---

Anything summoned by an epic spell should be really epic - make sure that whatever it summons is better than anything you could summon with a standard spell.

Mummy Dust, maybe go 1 monk/9-14 fighter as a base and level up with undead for the remainder? Monk level had one purpose that I have a way around now.

This could work, but if you do make sure that their fighter levels are computed first. A good BAB class is pretty much worthless if you don't 'take' the levels until after 20th.

However, I think it would be much more interesting to see the Mummy Dust summons increase the class levels, rather than the 'undead' levels, perhaps even gaining a PrC at a certain point. (A Fighter/Weapon Master mummy? That would be a very, very cool thing to see as your epic summon.)

One thing I would like to see is Mummy Dust summon mummies again. They just plain look cooler than the zombies. Or, perhaps even make the undead type vary with the class/alignment of the summoner. (Epic undead barbarian/monk dire grizzly bear for druids? Yow!)

One last suggestion on Mummy Dust: It should get bonuses for the Spell Focus lines in both Conjuration and Necromancy, as well as specialization in those two schools. Also, a Pale Master should get an additional bonus of some type, as they are supposed to be THE undead summoners.

Worth looking into this but remember undead get MAJOR protections and immunities.

Don't forget that there are MANY spells and items that specifically target them, which balances out many of their immunities.

---Class Feature Summons---

(Note: I have not played these classes yet, so maybe this has already been changed. If so, ignore this part)

I don't know if this has been addressed anywhere yet, but you should also consider doing something with the summons that some classes get as class features (Blackguard, Shadowdancer, Pale Master, etc).

Simply put, I think these creatures summoned by a special class feature should not be "instead of" a regular summon. Instead they should be treated in the same way as familiars/animal companions, and be in addition to regular summon spells.

[nargileh]

One last suggestion on Mummy Dust: It should get bonuses for the Spell Focus lines in both Conjuration and Necromancy, as well as specialization in those two schools. Also, a Pale Master should get an additional bonus of some type, as they are supposed to be THE undead summoners.

You already get a bonus for being specialized in a school of magic : an EXTRA SPELL PER DAY of that school. Which mage in his right mind specializes in conjuration anyway?

edit: If there's something that NEEDS to be changed about summons is the fact that a summon killing a PC still cause gold/exp loss.

[WillPower]

My Suggestion

Go through and RAISE the HP on several of the summons... Raise it ALOT... as well as possibly their AC... but dont raise their Attack in any way....
Either that or give us two summons each time we cast... cuz they seem less then 1/2 the power that we had before now.

(Yes the first idea was the more serious one)

This would allow em to survive a round of blows but still not kill everything...

It sounds like a good idea to me cuz something has to be done because right now there pointless.

[AlienOverlord]

I think maybe people have gotten used to being able to fight things that give 100+ xp with the summons doing most of the killing. My low level druid's level 2 summon can stand up to goblins and gargoyles, which is what i should be fighting at level 5. The way it was I would be at ogres right now, letting my summon kill them while i chip away a couple points a round. I think the summons can stand up to things that give you 30 xp or so, which is a cr pretty close to your level. This is a low level perspective but not purely druid, my wiz summon can fight mobs close to my level in cr. You still have to admit the summons are far better than the nwn standard

[Old-Sire]

I don't particularly care for the idea of using summons as the sole method for leveling to start. I do believe that the high level and epic summons are the ones that should count for something. These are feats not spells or class perks. You don't take Dragon Knight to go out and kill ogres at level 21, its redundant (though necessary given the way the xp system works right now, I digress).

When you look at specific summons that were used before to level characters solo, you saw alot of the same ones being used, in particular small xorn, belbelith/avoral, and dragon (but not limited to). The animal domain was a big boost for a cleric to get to those summons faster (or at all in the case of the dragon). Though most of the summons between the aforementioned ones really didn't pack comparable punch.

I feel that the exp system is also a contributer to people relying on their summons so much. I think the synergy system bears a more thorough looking into, due to the fact that parties at low level are almost non-existant the way factions cut up the player base and that a small difference in level goes a long way into cutting down exp for one player or another.

[WillPower]

What it comes down to is whether or not the summon should be able to distract an enemy while the caster casts whatever they need to...

They SHOULD be able to survive a few hits from anything moderate to the caster...

Why?? --- Because thats what a caster needs, while they are casting the summon is there to protect them and divert some of the blows away from the caster.

Why the hell do you think fighters and barbarians dont have summons? They dont need protection while casting stuff because they dont usually cast near as much in battle (if at all)!

In the end weakening the summons is just trying to revert and caster classes back into fighter classes.... if things keep going this way then all that will be left viable on the server will be PK characters...

Dont get me wrong thats cool to have on the server but it SHOULD NOT BE THE ONLY VIABLE TYPE OF CHARACTER... like alot of people seem to think it should be...