What the heck happened to the animal companions/familiars

Lukterran · Post by **Lukterran** » Tue Jul 27, 2004 9:28 am

I logged back on earlier today and found that my druid could no longer summon his animal companion and all my summons were nerfed.

Ok a druid is not primarly a spell cast, espically at lower levels. They only get there damaging spells at higer levels, late into their teens. How the heck did you even think about keeping this class playable when you take away their primary weapon. Half the spells a druid has been given is to assist their pet. Would you take away a fighters sword, or nerf the fireball for a mage because it does to much damage? This is a poorly thought out nerf.

That said I am mad.

Quiett · Post by **Quiett** » Tue Jul 27, 2004 9:50 am

I still don't know how to post links

but in the Spell Changes thread in the documentaion there is a post with all the info.

All of the summons have been changed, and at the moment all Familiars, animal comps, and cleric/blackguard shadow summons have been turned off.

I think it's an inconvienece too, but being still in Beta, I'm not that angry.

Off that particular subject though, I so far I think the summons are alot more balanced now. A lvl 7 Cleric should not be summoning a lvl 14-15 Creature IMHO.

TheBoris · Post by **TheBoris** » Tue Jul 27, 2004 12:33 pm

*edit*

mmmm... figured it out. This whole thing was listed under "Spell Changes" in the documentation forum, but it should have been listed under "Class Changes". The Druid has been made into the new Animal Domain Cleric.

Druid SummonIV is a gynosphynx now, III is a fenhound puppy, II is krenshaw, and I is a penguin.

Long term it might be cool once people know what the class is. Short term it sucks because if I wanted a cleric with uber animal summons, I would have made one.

I guess I'll think of it as the devs saying "Here's a character. Go test it."

Post by **TheBestDeception** » Tue Jul 27, 2004 12:50 pm

TheBoris wrote:Nerfing summons, no biggie. They were overpowered anyway. Taking away animal companions entirely? Huh?

One thing to remember:

BETA

This is by no means a final change. They are working on the companions, giving them a break. Don't get bent out of shape because the beta isn't up to your standards of perfection! It shouldn't be.

TheBoris · Post by **TheBoris** » Tue Jul 27, 2004 1:10 pm

One thing to remember:

BETA

This is by no means a final change. They are working on the companions, giving them a break. Don't get bent out of shape because the beta isn't up to your standards of perfection! It shouldn't be.

yeah, duh. beta. ya think? sorry, but you're clueless about my "standards of perfection" and you missed my point entirely.

My original point: "a druid without an animal companion is nothing but really crappy cleric".

My edited point "a druid without an animal companion is nothing but a really crappy cleric, so the devs made the druid into the new Animal Domain Cleric".

It's an interesting concept, but that's not what a druid is. Look at all the low level druid spells that are animal companion buffs. A druid's summons will always need to suck compared to his companion or the class will be completely overpowered at low level.

Arguably, the druid should be the opposite of animaldomaincleric in some ways. Make all of the druid summons one level LOWER than the cleric summons. Have you ever seen a party of three druids all lvl1? Three players plus NINE companions/summons/animalempathy! LMAO - It's a freakin' goblin killing machine.

JesterOI · Post by **JesterOI** » Tue Jul 27, 2004 4:04 pm

Would be nice to have the Bear be a barbarian.

Denort · Post by **Denort** » Wed Jul 28, 2004 3:49 am

So the animal cleric no longer gets the increase in summon creature?

If not then things are looking even worse for clerics in the Circle.

Perhaps clerics of animal could turn all summoned creatures as if they were undead, regardless of creature type. So a cleric of animal would not be able to turn an elemental like a cleric of air or a planar creature like a cleric of good unless the elemental or planar creature was a summon.

Throst54 · Post by **Throst54** » Wed Jul 28, 2004 4:53 am

or they can just make it hwo it's supposed to be...

or make up totally differnt summons for animal clerics

Smatchy-mo · Post by **Smatchy-mo** » Wed Jul 28, 2004 2:11 pm

Yeah, speaking of animal clerics, what was my dragon summons (summon creature IX) now summons a greater elder elemental, just like my summon creature XIII does. I don't mean for this to sound like a complaint, just figured and hoped it wasn't intentional that two different summoning spells summoned the same creature. Yeah, ok...I do miss my dragons. Especially my blue one, Scales

Smatchy-mo
Cleric of the Last Alliance

Smatchy-mo · Post by **Smatchy-mo** » Wed Jul 28, 2004 2:27 pm

OK, nevermind. I didn't realize one was GREATER elemental and one was greater ELDER or something like that. One other thing though. Is the render creature (summon creature XII I think) not supposed to follow you or listen to commands, because it doesn't.

Thanks

DrakhanValane · Post by **DrakhanValane** » Wed Jul 28, 2004 2:29 pm

Animal domain now gives you a bonus to summon strength like spell foci conjuration.

TheBoris · Post by **TheBoris** » Wed Jul 28, 2004 6:51 pm

DrakhanValane wrote:Animal domain now gives you a bonus to summon strength like spell foci conjuration.

Makes sense. What about the dragons though? They're stupid, fairly wimpy depending on color, and a complete pain in the [censored] in tunnels, but it's a DRAGON.

DrakhanValane · Post by **DrakhanValane** » Wed Jul 28, 2004 9:30 pm

What dragons?

TheBoris · Post by **TheBoris** » Thu Jul 29, 2004 11:54 am

Dragons. The ones they took away. They sucked in a lot of ways, but I miss the big dorks.

AndrewCarr · Post by **AndrewCarr** » Sat Jul 31, 2004 12:25 pm

I didn't think they were too scary. You could sneak around them usually, and otherwise, you could just run them around and make them cast magic missle until they desummoned.