New summon changes

[Nachti]

Ye, chances are good to see Slaads and Aurumachs in the near future.

[Asmodea]

Ye, chances are good to see Slaads and Aurumachs in the near future.

I would mostly like there to be an option to summon something that is semi-useful without having to explain to people why I summon and bound an angel for the task.

An example that happens a decent amount in RP: Big sturdy door in a DM event. I want to knock it down. I used to summon an Earth Elemental! They smack the door. All is good. On with RP. Now all I can summon that would make sense is a Planatar. A Death Slaad or such could somewhat fill in that gap as the 'toss away' summon. I admit I will miss sleeping on the back of an Earth Elemental though but I can manage.

[Darkwind]

However, there are talks of an epic feat that would upgrade Greater Planad Binding, together with the PRC summons. Nothing is certain but the dream of effortless mage playstyle isn't dead just yet.

This would be umm... epic? Seriously though, this seems like a no-brainer to me as it would be a really nice way for epic mage characters to play that isn't just dumping vampire feast, etc. onto creatures.

Ye, chances are good to see Slaads and Aurumachs in the near future.

Thank you for the quick turn around on this.

Also I spend a few hours doing some "unsolicited beta testing" today since you all were awesome and got this in so quickly. I hope you did not take my initial post as wanting some cheese to go with that "whine" as it sounded like that to a degree. It was more that having considerable background as both a DM and an area builder for NWN I'm acutely aware of the impact sweeping changes can have on the player base. I hope my comments were taken in that spirit.

Anyways on to my findings briefly----

The Good:

Variety! A really nice mix of creatures across the board most of which are actually useful instead of "summon the horned devil and ignore the other 10 summons" like before.

Strategic element- This IMO is -huge- you all did a great job on this in particular. Each summon is situationally useful unlike before. There is a rhyme & reason to why I may pick one over another depending on what enemy I'm facing. This is the best part of the change and makes the spell much better than before. Undead, construct, fleshy, etc. you have a specific pick for each.

Combat AI / Strength- It is one thing to just summon up the entire list and look at stats and metagame. I actually put all of them through the motions. AI was admirable across the board and even surprised me in some cases with use of spells / feats / abilities where it was appropriate. Likewise, the relative strength of most of the creatures seems very good and with a set of buffs they become useful again. (Horned Devil Mode )


The Bad:

Some of the creatures still are way under par. This may be for RP purposes, I'm uncertain but if not they should either be replaced or buffed with "Greater" versions of themselves. I will never ever call an Erinyes or a Succubus when I can call far more effective creatures. Although! The Erinyes is a good example of a creature that is -almost- part of that great strategic list. She has been reworked as an archer build and that is situationally awesome and useful but her AB / AC / stats are so much lower I will never ever summon her. With a Greater Erinyes? Or something to that effect where her stats are in line with the others, I would absolutely like to have an archer in some encounters.

Neutrality- This is going to be addressed apparently but I did notice we don't have a Planetar / Horned Devil to call our own. I'd like to see two very equitable top tier things like the Death Slaad or something mentioned before that is quite powerful in its own right. Since Nachti mentioned wanting ideas for top tier neutral Summons I will actually do some homework on that in the editor and my own little QA module using the same monsters available here. I will post it here or send you a PM regarding what I find.


The Ugly:

Efreet- He is pretty ugly, right? I'm totally kidding on that but it is an -amazing- character model that is tragically under utilized in this game world. He is another just completely subpar summons I would never use which is criminal. "Greater Efreet" would be awesome and appropriate for a Neutral top tier caster IMHO. Same range of AC/AB and stats as the other creatures, fire dmg bonus (obviously), big ass flaming two-hander with appropriate 2 hand feats. (G. Cleave, Imp. Knockdown,etc.) This and the Slaad to me would fill that gap for neutral casters nicely. Just thought I would put that out there as it is a really great model that sees no usage at all really.


My .02 hope that helped and I will follow up about potential Neutral summons as I said.

[Theodore01]

Please i want my Xorn back - that was such a beautiful creature

Does weapon finesse work with creature weapon ?
Have the summon creature 1-5 changed also?

Other than that nice work, thxs.

[Nachti]

Thank you for the quick turn around on this.

I never turned around. I always thought there should be more neutral creatures. Its just that I already put like 80 hours into the current summons and I burned out before making more neutrals (and lack of models). After all, at some point you have to stop as druidic summons also need a look.

An example that happens a decent amount in RP: Big sturdy door in a DM event. I want to knock it down. I used to summon an Earth Elemental! They smack the door. All is good. On with RP. Now all I can summon that would make sense is a Planatar. A Death Slaad or such could somewhat fill in that gap as the 'toss away' summon. I admit I will miss sleeping on the back of an Earth Elemental though but I can manage

You still can. Just with another spell - summon creature VI- IX. And now you can also use an ice elemental to do the job. Or have an shadow elemental sneak through the door.

Efreet- He is pretty ugly, right? I'm totally kidding on that but it is an -amazing- character model that is tragically under utilized in this game world. He is another just completely subpar summons I would never use which is criminal.

I am sure the QC will take a look at the summons and give me feedback so balancing will still happen.

The Erinyes is a good example of a creature that is -almost- part of that great strategic list. She has been reworked as an archer build and that is situationally awesome and useful but her AB / AC / stats are so much lower I will never ever summon her. With a Greater Erinyes? Or something to that effect where her stats are in line with the others, I would absolutely like to have an archer in some encounters.

I am working on the scripts so all creatures summoned by
a) Gate have 20 HD
b) Greater Planar Binding have 16 HD
c) Planar Bindin have 12 HD

That means an Erinye summoned by Planar Binding has 12 HD but when summoned with Greater Planar Binding she will have 16 HD.

Does weapon finesse work with creature weapon ?
Have the summon creature 1-5 changed also?

Creature 1-5 lost their bear picture

Weapon Finesse should work for them I think.

[Asmodea]

You still can. Just with another spell - summon creature VI- IX. And now you can also use an ice elemental to do the job. Or have an shadow elemental sneak through the door.

I am a LG Sorcerer with Gate and not Summon Monster IX. All I can summon now is a ton of Angels and a familiar.

[Theodore01]

But what about the Xorn ???

[izzul]

please also have a look at GATE and EPIC GATE

if gate have 20HD

would Epic gate have same 20HD or higher?

[dedude]

The new summons are very cool Nachti. Really love the different themes around them.

They generally seem to be well balanced around wizard buffs (IMA,spiderskin,cats), which can put their AC high enough to survive as "tanks". But what about for a caster cleric using planar ally? Only thing you can buff is deflection (which is already mostly covered by the angel auras). Do any of the summons even have an armor so you can cast magic vestment on them?

[Nachti]

Thats actually a good idea. I could give each summon a cloth armor (0 AC) and thus allow magic vestment cast on them. Since Magic Armor is available as wand it shouldnt be an issue - QC wise.

[dedude]

That would help alot, thanks Nachti!

[izzul]

Thats actually a good idea. I could give each summon a cloth armor (0 AC) and thus allow magic vestment cast on them. Since Magic Armor is available as wand it shouldnt be an issue - QC wise.

Thank you for adding cloth to them Nachti. that hard work and effort 80 hours of your time is very appreciated.

though i do hope you also look at the 20HD
-gate spell-20HD
-epic gate spell- 20HD

if gate, and epic gate spell have almost the same summon,HP, and stats, i think i will have to RCR the toon, just to take other better useful feat while casting normal gate spells as they are almost similar.

(can i apply for 100% RCR by removing epic gate feat?)

[Glowfire]

Epic Gate should summon a new outsider if the first one falls, or so I am told! Not sure if that is the only difference, it shouldn't be the only difference as Epic Gate is after all, an Epic Feat.

I imagine there may be some more fixes, this and that needing to be done. Maybe give it some time and see what the feedback is before RCRing, at least I would


Unless Nachti says he has had enough of staring at summons...

---

I do have a few remarks about the Call ... line of spells. (Call Elementals, Animals, whatever).

- Call animals summoned a kobold for me in the UD. Pretty sure kobolds aren't animals.

- It says it summons 1d3, and lasts 6 sec/lvl. If you get 1 summon only, its a pretty crap spell tbh. Their power levels seemed to be (before at least, haven't compared now) less than that of a regular 1 min/lvl summon. I don't quite like this gamble. I'd prefer that you were always guaranteed to have 2 (which would make the spell worthwhile) and then a chance of 1 more. Having 3 every time might be a bit powerful... but it's very awesome looking when you manage to roll for that. There's also not time enough to buff up these summons, which may be taken into consideration.

[Nachti]

1) The Quality Control didnt allow more then 20 HD(BAB) for epic gate.

2)

though i do hope you also look at the 20HD
-gate spell-20HD
-epic gate spell- 20HD

if gate, and epic gate spell have almost the same summon,HP, and stats...

They dont.

Code: Select all

Angel (Gate)	          Planetar (Gate)			Solar (Epic Gate)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
20 Cleric		          20 Outsider			    20 Outsider
15 BAB (3 Attacks)	    20 BAB (4 Attacks)		20 BAB (4 Attacks)
28 STR			          26 STR				      32 STR
12/6/12			         12/12/12			       12/12/12
220 HP			          180 HP				      180 HP
30 AC                    29 AC                   35 AC
0 Regen			         5 Regen				     5 Regen
0 SR			            30 SR				       32 SR
1 Immunity 		        2 Immunities			   2 Immunities
5 DR/+1			         10 DR/Evil			     15 DR/ Evil
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sword +2, +1d6 elec      Sword +2, +1d4 elec     Sword +3, +1d4 divine (unresistable)
                         Sword pierces DR/good   Sword pierces DR/good   
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
		                   Heal				        Heal
			                Mass Cure			      Regeneration
                         Greater Restoration	  Greater Restoration
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Holy Aura		          Holy Aura			      Holy Aura
                                                 Righteus Might
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Greater Dispel		     Greater Dispel		    Invisible Purge
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Word of Faith		      Word of Faith			  Word of Faith
Hammer of Gods		     Flame Strike			   Prismatic Spray
Blade Barrier            Power Word Stun			Power Word Stun
                        			                Power Word Blind
				             Implosion			      Storm of Vengeance
							                            Fire Storm

The 10 DR alone is more worth than 40 HP.

[Nachti]

I do have a few remarks about the Call ... line of spells. (Call Elementals, Animals, whatever).

- Call animals summoned a kobold for me in the UD. Pretty sure kobolds aren't animals.

- It says it summons 1d3, and lasts 6 sec/lvl. If you get 1 summon only, its a pretty crap spell tbh. Their power levels seemed to be (before at least, haven't compared now) less than that of a regular 1 min/lvl summon. I don't quite like this gamble. I'd prefer that you were always guaranteed to have 2 (which would make the spell worthwhile) and then a chance of 1 more. Having 3 every time might be a bit powerful... but it's very awesome looking when you manage to roll for that. There's also not time enough to buff up these summons, which may be taken into consideration.

These spells are on my list to look at.

There's also not time enough to buff up these summons, which may be taken into consideration.

Thats why they are two levels higher then other summons of the same level.