Baldur's Gate : The Sword Coast Chronicles : NWN2 Persistent World

Passiflora wrote:Pretty sure the buffs stack, Rask, but don't show up. I remember Rasael saying that somewhere.


And Aelcar, Bulls and bears are awesome for a sorc. Especially for a summoner!

It's just fun to do nothing and watch your friends do all the work... for us, lazy bums.

No buff will ever allow you to "do nothing". You'll always need to proactively put the summons in a situation where they safely deal dmg in your stead. No long-term summon is made to tank aside from the Pale Master's creatures (even there, you have limits, but they are the best ones at it).

If you want a tank, use Gate.

Aelcar wrote:

Passiflora wrote:Pretty sure the buffs stack, Rask, but don't show up. I remember Rasael saying that somewhere.


And Aelcar, Bulls and bears are awesome for a sorc. Especially for a summoner!

It's just fun to do nothing and watch your friends do all the work... for us, lazy bums.

No buff will ever allow you to "do nothing". You'll always need to proactively put the summons in a situation where they safely deal dmg in your stead. No long-term summon is made to tank aside from the Pale Master's creatures (even there, you have limits, but they are the best ones at it).

If you want a tank, use Gate.

Not true once again.

Did you ever play a sorcerer/thaumaturge all the way up, maxed in summons? I did.

It was so lazy I barely fell asleep while leveling - which is awesome.

Never ever challenge me to a wizard contest mate . I leveled 5x Wizards on the server to lvl 30, of all kinds, all ECLs, both surface and UD, and I extensively played them at lvl 30 too in every area .

Of course I can crap a summon in the world, buff it, and then go in an area with a CR -5 respect to mine and watch. But I level to 30 in...how many hours? What balanced DM event is there in which this is sustainable?

Go to an area like the Wyrm Lair, the Frost Keep or the Greypeaks...hell, even the Vault. Common high epic areas. THEN tell me your summons are just a "sit and watch" show. But you wont .

Not true? To me? LMAO

Your wizard beats mine for sure. But you've never been as lazy, I'm pretty sure.

Passiflora wrote: Not true once again.

Did you ever play a sorcerer/thaumaturge all the way up, maxed in summons? I did.

It was so lazy I barely fell asleep while leveling - which is awesome.

1. Netherese ruins.
2. Sunset mountains.
3. lair of great white wyrm.

Even lesser enemies occasionally do amusing things like throwing banishment at your summons.

So, yeah, you can sit back and relax. If you pick areas carefully.

Oh yes, you don't 'need' to go to crazy places.

Passiflora wrote:Oh yes, you don't 'need' to go to crazy places.

Well, you can summon unbuffed dire wolf at bandit cave near BG as well.

That would be over-the-top lazy.

Passiflora wrote:Your wizard beats mine for sure. But you've never been as lazy, I'm pretty sure.

Ok...this lazy is kinda top notch...

No, I don't think my wizards are better than yours. They're different, some more than others, but not better.

I'll clarify something incase it was missed:

After you summon a creature with the augment summon feat, look at the portrait. If it has small spell icons (for bulls and bears) next to it, then you can't stack bulls and bears to it. If the icons aren't there, then you can cast bulls and bears on it (thus stacking with augmented stats).

I found that some summons keep these icons everytime, so they can't be buffed. Some other spells (like Gate) often had the icons disappear after 1-2 seconds, so they could be buffed. The intention is, as Rasael said, for the icons to disappear after the summoning so you can stack augment summons with the bulls and bears spells.

Perhaps the code just doesn't catch on with some summons.

Btw regarding thaumaturge's power I'd like to note that the epic spell epic gate is affected by one the Thaumaturge bonuses, auto-extend. Meaning the epic gate summon lasts 80 rounds, 8 minutes, which is long enough to buff it so that it can lay waste to mobs (buffed epic angel, the balor is a bit weaker).

From what I can tell, Thaumaturge class itself is fine (I've been testing builds w/ Augment Summoning, and the bonuses are applying correctly), but the summons themselves need some work. I'm going to piggyback on Valefort's last post, noting that the good epic gate summon is slightly stronger than the balor.

Major issue to me seems to be the marked disparity between good and evil summons - erinyes, for example, pales in comparison to elemental and celestial dire bear; likewise succubus compared to regular celestial bear. And I've heard than angel is significantly better than horned devil, though I don't have personal experience with that one so I can't say.

About the only justification for this that I've seen so far for evil summons being weaker is "RP potential," but that strikes me as running afoul of the Stormwind Fallacy (the theory that power and RP are mutually exclusive, opposing forces). Evil summons should be on par with good summons (esp. given the heightened difficulty of playing an evil character on most RP servers). I hope the scaling idea gets implemented soon, and is applied evenly. I'm not saying that each summon should just be a reskin with the same stats, but summons should be very close to the same power level regardless of alignment.

I know, I know, evil characters can just use CGU instead. But some of us want to fulfill our fiendish desires without being put at a mechanical disadvantage as compared to another character with the exact same stats & build, just with "LG" on their character sheet instead of "CE."

End rant, thanks for reading.

gnorman wrote:From what I can tell, Thaumaturge class itself is fine (I've been testing builds w/ Augment Summoning, and the bonuses are applying correctly), but the summons themselves need some work. I'm going to piggyback on Valefort's last post, noting that the good epic gate summon is slightly stronger than the balor.

Major issue to me seems to be the marked disparity between good and evil summons - erinyes, for example, pales in comparison to elemental and celestial dire bear; likewise succubus compared to regular celestial bear. And I've heard than angel is significantly better than horned devil, though I don't have personal experience with that one so I can't say.

About the only justification for this that I've seen so far for evil summons being weaker is "RP potential," but that strikes me as running afoul of the Stormwind Fallacy (the theory that power and RP are mutually exclusive, opposing forces). Evil summons should be on par with good summons (esp. given the heightened difficulty of playing an evil character on most RP servers). I hope the scaling idea gets implemented soon, and is applied evenly. I'm not saying that each summon should just be a reskin with the same stats, but summons should be very close to the same power level regardless of alignment.

I know, I know, evil characters can just use CGU instead. But some of us want to fulfill our fiendish desires without being put at a mechanical disadvantage as compared to another character with the exact same stats & build, just with "LG" on their character sheet instead of "CE."

End rant, thanks for reading.

Hi Gnorman,

sorry for the late reply, I did not notice your post.

Evil wizard have extremely strong options at their disposal that good aligned ones do not. Aside from PrCs like Blood Magus, Pale Master, Shadow Adept and the likes (one could say Red Wizard, but that is not especially powerful, it's an RP class), there is a significant and intrinsic SPELL ADVANTAGE:

-) Vampiric Feast is the strongest spell in the game bar none, and one of the best feats in the game. Only evil.
-) Avasculate is another fantastic spell that no serious good character would ever use
-) Undead summons are extremely good, even more so the Pale Master ones.

I could go on for a bit, but let's instead check which kind of mechanical advantage the good mages have:

-) Angel and Thaumaturge PrC and summons.
-)...that's it.

The only reason there is no problem with this IS the setting, aside from the fact a good mage is still extremely powerful and can be played easily to success.

Good mages don't need buffs. But thinking evil ones do is a serious misconception.

Have fun!

gnorman wrote:Major issue to me seems to be the marked disparity between good and evil summons - erinyes, for example, pales in comparison to elemental and celestial dire bear; likewise succubus compared to regular celestial bear. And I've heard than angel is significantly better than horned devil, though I don't have personal experience with that one so I can't say.

About the only justification for this that I've seen so far for evil summons being weaker is "RP potential," but that strikes me as running afoul of the Stormwind Fallacy (the theory that power and RP are mutually exclusive, opposing forces). Evil summons should be on par with good summons (esp. given the heightened difficulty of playing an evil character on most RP servers)

Can this be looked at? If the summon for "planar cohort" and "planar ally" are so much weaker then the good aligned summons, perhaps this can be done something about?

I am not saying that it -has- to be changed, but perhaps at least have a look at stat differences and see if there is a clear difference in power level.

Absolution