epic summons

Death Dealer1 · Post by **Death Dealer1** » Tue Jul 11, 2006 1:42 am

ok, now, i know zing did a great job getting summon into a competitive state. dragon knight works really well, blackgaurds are good, PM's have nice one also. one thing though, why is mummy dust so jacken ape to use? i've been using the mummy lately and i've noticed a trend, moderate ac, ab, lower saves, no special abilities.

more often than not he dishes out about 5-15 damage and takes 25-75 damage in return..not that fair of a trade off. i know mummy dust is the only guy that doesn't cap, but at lvl 28 he has almost the exact same stats as a mort summoned off a create undead scroll that is capped around lvl 20. i'm talking +1ab maybe +2ac almost exact hp...any reason that is?

kingfatzo · Post by **kingfatzo** » Tue Jul 11, 2006 5:03 am

mmmm i dunno....and i want to say the opposite --- for example :

i was fighting someone the other day, i think it was a mage , and this individuals mummy king was more of a threat than the mage itself ? ...compared to other summons which i often disregard...i have to disagree with ya there DD1 ...tho maybe focuses were devoted to summons....

(or mummys hate fat people)

bring on the nerf gun !

Though, i will agree that PM summons as well as BG and others as u have mentioned , are well balanced and seem to work nicley...

Elagneros · Post by **Elagneros** » Tue Jul 11, 2006 1:55 pm

I have a few views on the epic summons myself.

For the most part, they're good, though the full True Seeing they have is pretty powerful. It would probably be more balanced if they got See Invisibility and Spot +20 like casters normally get around here.

Neutrals also get it badly as well, since the Slaad summons for Gate and Dragon Knight don't seem to be as good as the Planetar/Solar or Pit Fiend/Balor summons. And also, many if not all of the Slaadi summons have an alignment of Neutral Evil, why do neutral summons call up evil creatures?

And while they're not at all epic, something really needs to be done about the really, really, bad AI for the chickens and bisons. Everyone knows they're little more than a joke, half the time they just stand around rather than actually fight. If they can't be fixed, then they should at least be replaced by something more useful.

Blystos Re · Post by **Blystos Re** » Tue Jul 11, 2006 2:10 pm

Everyone knows they're little more than a joke, half the time they just stand around rather than actually fight. If they can't be fixed, then they should at least be replaced by something more useful.

In my experience, all the summons have to be told what to do.

It doesn't surprise me in the slightest that you would have to remind a chicken of what it's supposed to do every couple minutes or so. Chickens are ADD on legs.

kingfatzo · Post by **kingfatzo** » Tue Jul 11, 2006 2:16 pm

true, but nonetheless the AI on the summons is lacking .....and ill bet bioware is at fault there

other causes of poorly responsive summons: lag

algol333 · Post by **algol333** » Wed Jul 12, 2006 1:08 am

while on topic of summons.. i am curious as to why the lich has tons of wpn specializations and focuses but fights unarmed; can he be equipped somehow?

Death Dealer1 · Post by **Death Dealer1** » Wed Jul 12, 2006 1:28 am

its the default bioware lvl up for summons. they give them stupid feats they will never use then i think they laugh because its spent on useless stuff. the lich is however equiped with his own creature weapon much like monk gloves that give him power to kill.

MasterYoda · Post by **MasterYoda** » Wed Jul 12, 2006 4:00 pm

I think the mummys tradeoff for the damage is all his immunities. he is immune to crit and sneak.

pre wipe I had a level25 pure cleric death trickery cleric and fully buffed the mummy dust summon was damn near untouchable. granted alone he didn't do much for damage but put a cleric behind him with despells an imobilizing spells and he becomes just as powerfull as a solar or a balor.

Death Dealer1 · Post by **Death Dealer1** » Thu Jul 13, 2006 1:58 am

true..if your building a cleric summoner. clerics always have the best summons no matter what it is, they buff them. mummy dust is less of a threat than the PM's master lich and at lvl 27 has exactly the same stats as a lvl 20 mort summoned from create greater undead...a cleric spell. all i'm asking is if its an epic summon why can i get something just the same from a lvl 17 cleric spell? if i have to invest to get this guy why can't he be better?

disastro · Post by **disastro** » Fri Oct 27, 2006 2:07 pm

I've got a death domain/all necro feats cleric going now, and I'm wondering if any thing has changed for mummy dust since this thread was posted? as i read it mummy dust is about as good as the top regular spell for undead summoning, if that's still the case I'd rather put the feat somewhere else.

Post by **Mr. O'Dearly** » Fri Oct 27, 2006 2:14 pm

im not too impressed with my mummy dust so far.
Unlike dragon knight, mummy dust should keep getting tougher till 40. (i think dragon knight caps at 25)
My lvl 21 wiz with spell focus and greater focus in necro almost killed my mummy with the ninth lvl bigby. He got to near death, quite disappointed in his performance, i promptly finished him off.

anyone with a higher lvl mummy dust wanna share how it worked out? Is it worth it to take mummy dust over dragon knight in the long run?

Post by **TheBestDeception** » Fri Oct 27, 2006 2:33 pm

Mr. O'Dearly wrote:im not too impressed with my mummy dust so far.
Unlike dragon knight, mummy dust should keep getting tougher till 40. (i think dragon knight caps at 25)
My lvl 21 wiz with spell focus and greater focus in necro almost killed my mummy with the ninth lvl bigby. He got to near death, quite disappointed in his performance, i promptly finished him off.

anyone with a higher lvl mummy dust wanna share how it worked out? Is it worth it to take mummy dust over dragon knight in the long run?

Unless it has been changed within the past 6 months or so, the way the summon system in general worked is:

Summon Animals and Summon Planars are a set level, regardless of the caster level.

Summon Undead scale with caster level, though most are capped. Mummy Dust is not capped.

Therefore, when you say you wish the Mummy Dust scaled like Dragon Knight, you actually have reversed the ways in which the summons are powered - Mummy Dust DOES scale, but Dragon Knight does not.

Documentation: http://www.nsrealm.com/public/ns4/viewtopic.php?t=3488

disastro · Post by **disastro** » Fri Oct 27, 2006 2:44 pm

TheBestDeception wrote: Summon Undead scale with caster level, though most are capped. Mummy Dust is not capped.

my main concern was this bit from the top of the thread: "at lvl 28 he has almost the exact same stats as a mort summoned off a create undead scroll that is capped around lvl 20".

perhaps the level scaling doesnt really show yet with a +8 difference on mummy dust (maybe at 30+ it's much more visible?), so if anyone has high level experience with mummy dust vs the high level create undeads I would appreciate if you could post your thoughts. if the difference is only 1 or 2 points of ab then i can definitely use that feat elsewhere.

this is probably the wrong place for it but it would be great if the undead summons had any kind of weapon, just so you have another spot to buff (gmw, darkfire, etc). right now my guys are decent tanks but they deal 1-3 points of damage due to everything's DR.

Post by **Mr. O'Dearly** » Fri Oct 27, 2006 2:55 pm

erm... thats what i said....

Mr. O'Dearly wrote: Unlike dragon knight, mummy dust should keep getting tougher till 40. (i think dragon knight caps at 25)

Post by **TheBestDeception** » Fri Oct 27, 2006 2:58 pm

As far as undead weapons, I saw this not too long ago:

Lokey wrote:Full story is there's an annoying set of dependencies among the 2das for giving them a specific list of feats to take at whatever level. Wasn't worth the time to deal with when it was straightforward to script bonuses for them.

Which is the reason being given for unarmed undeads.

Neversummer 4 Forum Archive

epic summons

epic summons

cleric undead summons changed at all?