Spatzimaus
First Post
I'll preface this with a disclaimer: this isn't really a D&D thing. We're making a homebrew game system, and I'm trying to flesh out the magic part, but since the spells themselves are very similar to D&D and are meant to be balanced with the base 3E classes, I figure it's fair game to ask here.
The Summon Monster/Summon Nature's Ally spells always seemed a bit strange to me. First, the balance was off; there were some clearly superior and clearly inferior creatures on each list. Second, when summoning a sentient creature, there are all those metaphysical issues; is it okay to ask him to charge to his "death", knowing that it won't be permanent? How come the party is never Summoned by casters on other planes?
In our new cosmology there aren't alignment planes, or a Prime Material; it's all Elemental Planes, and we happen to life on the Elemental Plane of Life (a.k.a. "Gaia"). Summoning from another plane just isn't appropriate in that sort of system. So, we decided to toss the whole thing and replace it with something similar to the Astral Construct series of Psionic spells, inspired by the EQ "Magician" style of summoned elementals.
The basic idea is that when a caster wants a "pet", they call up an Astral Construct, infuse it with an element, and voila, they have an "Elemental". It's not a sentient creature, and can't do anything other than what it's told.
What I'm looking for is feedback, how to make it balanced with other spells, or whether I should just go back to a 3E-style Summon system instead.
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All casters can cast the Astral Construct spells. There's one for each spell level (and I added a cantrip one, too, that makes a Tiny creature). They only take 1 action to cast, don't get the "Menu A/B/C" abilities, and you can't choose to summon more creatures from a lower list.
Instead, each caster develops a "summon template" as they increase in level, which applies to all of their constructs. Basically, every two caster levels, you pick one of the following: +2 STR, +2 DEX, +2 to base Natural Armor, +4 base HP, +2 to the DR soak (the number before the slash), or any one ability from Menu A. Once you pick an ability it's final, and applies to all constructs you summon, no matter what size or type.
The numerical boosts all stack with themselves (except that each Menu A ability can only be chosen once). If you want to take the Natural Armor boost ten times to get a massive +20 bonus feel free, but some spellcaster is just going to Fireball it to death or use a touch spell.
Between the above two things, all constructs you make will have variations of a certain appearance based on the choices you made. Maybe you chose STR and HP a few times; all of your constructs will look like big, bulky things that vaguely resemble bears. Maybe you concentrated on DEX more, in which case they might look more like snakes or cats or somethng.
So now we've got the constructs. The next step is to add the Infusion spells. There's one for each element (in our system there are 10 elements, but just stick with the basic 4 for this discussion), as well as a Psionic Infusion.
To cast an Infusion, you have two choices:
1> It can be cast as part of the construct-casting action, which extends it to a full-round casting time. At the end of that time both slots are expended. Interrupting loses both spells, and countering either spell counters both.
2> It can be cast separately as a 1-action spell, on any one construct you touch.
There are nine Infusions for each element, one per spell level, but it's easier to explain them all at once. The level of the Infusion doesn't have to match the level of the Construct spell; you can have a level 9 Infusion in a level 1 Construct or vice versa, it just isn't usually a good idea to have a big gap.
No Construct can have more than one Infusion on it at any given time, unless you take the Infusion Admixture Feat (which lets you have two). They all have a duration of "while the construct exists", and can't be dispelled separately from the construct itself.
Each elemental infusion adds the following, where X is the level of the Infusion spell used:
> +X damage of the appropriate element to each physical attack the construct makes.
> Element resistance 2*X to that element
> Some basic physical boosts. Each element adds X to three things:
Earth adds X to STR, Natural Armor AC, and DR soak
Air adds X to DEX, Deflection AC, and gives Fly of (10*X)' with Good maneuverability
Fire adds X to STR, anyone making a physical attack on the construct takes X fire damage, and when the elemental makes a physical attack it adds 2X fire instead of X
Water adds X to DEX, Natural Armor AC, and gives a Swim speed of (20*X)'
> And, most importantly, they can cast any spell from the appropriate elemental Domain of up to spell level X. But, they can only cast each spell once per N rounds where N is the spell level of the spell cast. So, if you cast a level 6 spell you have to wait 6 rounds before doing it again, but you could cast the level 5 one the next round instead. With a duration of 1 round/level, that means you can only use your biggest gun twice, but you can mix lower stuff just fine (6-3-4-5-3-2-4-6-5 and so on)
(Like I said, IMC there are 10 elements: Life and Death are the other two "basic" elements, so a Life Elemental is an "Angel" and casts Healing spells. It gets stranger once you get to the "advanced" elements: Light, Force, Nexus, and Time, but mere mortals can't cast those Infusions anyway)
The Psionic Infusion adds:
> +X subdual damage to each physical attack
> The Menu A/B/C options of the appropriate level. So, Psionic Infusion 9 adds three Menu C choices. These can be traded down on a 2-for-1 basis. It's not incredibly powerful, but it's far more flexible than the elemental ones.
> Spell Resistance of (Caster Level)+X. If the construct has or gains SR through any other means, add +X to its other SR instead.
> The construct gains a +X bonus to defend against a dispel check targetted on it. Enchantments on the construct don't benefit from this, it's only to prevent it from being unsummoned easily.
These also physically warp the construct, so a Fire pet looks different than an Earth one. The construct gains the appropriate modifiers ([Fire] for fire pets) but not any other subtype characteristics.
********
Anyway, I realize that these are a lot of abilities to give something, but spending two spell slots per one pet seems to be a decent cost, and memorizing spells that can only be cast on a small subset of targets is a serious drawback.
So, the question is: can this be balanced? What would you change? Should I replace the Infusion spells with a more generic "Bestow Template" type of spell that works on any target? Does anyone read posts this long?
The Summon Monster/Summon Nature's Ally spells always seemed a bit strange to me. First, the balance was off; there were some clearly superior and clearly inferior creatures on each list. Second, when summoning a sentient creature, there are all those metaphysical issues; is it okay to ask him to charge to his "death", knowing that it won't be permanent? How come the party is never Summoned by casters on other planes?
In our new cosmology there aren't alignment planes, or a Prime Material; it's all Elemental Planes, and we happen to life on the Elemental Plane of Life (a.k.a. "Gaia"). Summoning from another plane just isn't appropriate in that sort of system. So, we decided to toss the whole thing and replace it with something similar to the Astral Construct series of Psionic spells, inspired by the EQ "Magician" style of summoned elementals.
The basic idea is that when a caster wants a "pet", they call up an Astral Construct, infuse it with an element, and voila, they have an "Elemental". It's not a sentient creature, and can't do anything other than what it's told.
What I'm looking for is feedback, how to make it balanced with other spells, or whether I should just go back to a 3E-style Summon system instead.
**********
All casters can cast the Astral Construct spells. There's one for each spell level (and I added a cantrip one, too, that makes a Tiny creature). They only take 1 action to cast, don't get the "Menu A/B/C" abilities, and you can't choose to summon more creatures from a lower list.
Instead, each caster develops a "summon template" as they increase in level, which applies to all of their constructs. Basically, every two caster levels, you pick one of the following: +2 STR, +2 DEX, +2 to base Natural Armor, +4 base HP, +2 to the DR soak (the number before the slash), or any one ability from Menu A. Once you pick an ability it's final, and applies to all constructs you summon, no matter what size or type.
The numerical boosts all stack with themselves (except that each Menu A ability can only be chosen once). If you want to take the Natural Armor boost ten times to get a massive +20 bonus feel free, but some spellcaster is just going to Fireball it to death or use a touch spell.
Between the above two things, all constructs you make will have variations of a certain appearance based on the choices you made. Maybe you chose STR and HP a few times; all of your constructs will look like big, bulky things that vaguely resemble bears. Maybe you concentrated on DEX more, in which case they might look more like snakes or cats or somethng.
So now we've got the constructs. The next step is to add the Infusion spells. There's one for each element (in our system there are 10 elements, but just stick with the basic 4 for this discussion), as well as a Psionic Infusion.
To cast an Infusion, you have two choices:
1> It can be cast as part of the construct-casting action, which extends it to a full-round casting time. At the end of that time both slots are expended. Interrupting loses both spells, and countering either spell counters both.
2> It can be cast separately as a 1-action spell, on any one construct you touch.
There are nine Infusions for each element, one per spell level, but it's easier to explain them all at once. The level of the Infusion doesn't have to match the level of the Construct spell; you can have a level 9 Infusion in a level 1 Construct or vice versa, it just isn't usually a good idea to have a big gap.
No Construct can have more than one Infusion on it at any given time, unless you take the Infusion Admixture Feat (which lets you have two). They all have a duration of "while the construct exists", and can't be dispelled separately from the construct itself.
Each elemental infusion adds the following, where X is the level of the Infusion spell used:
> +X damage of the appropriate element to each physical attack the construct makes.
> Element resistance 2*X to that element
> Some basic physical boosts. Each element adds X to three things:
Earth adds X to STR, Natural Armor AC, and DR soak
Air adds X to DEX, Deflection AC, and gives Fly of (10*X)' with Good maneuverability
Fire adds X to STR, anyone making a physical attack on the construct takes X fire damage, and when the elemental makes a physical attack it adds 2X fire instead of X
Water adds X to DEX, Natural Armor AC, and gives a Swim speed of (20*X)'
> And, most importantly, they can cast any spell from the appropriate elemental Domain of up to spell level X. But, they can only cast each spell once per N rounds where N is the spell level of the spell cast. So, if you cast a level 6 spell you have to wait 6 rounds before doing it again, but you could cast the level 5 one the next round instead. With a duration of 1 round/level, that means you can only use your biggest gun twice, but you can mix lower stuff just fine (6-3-4-5-3-2-4-6-5 and so on)
(Like I said, IMC there are 10 elements: Life and Death are the other two "basic" elements, so a Life Elemental is an "Angel" and casts Healing spells. It gets stranger once you get to the "advanced" elements: Light, Force, Nexus, and Time, but mere mortals can't cast those Infusions anyway)
The Psionic Infusion adds:
> +X subdual damage to each physical attack
> The Menu A/B/C options of the appropriate level. So, Psionic Infusion 9 adds three Menu C choices. These can be traded down on a 2-for-1 basis. It's not incredibly powerful, but it's far more flexible than the elemental ones.
> Spell Resistance of (Caster Level)+X. If the construct has or gains SR through any other means, add +X to its other SR instead.
> The construct gains a +X bonus to defend against a dispel check targetted on it. Enchantments on the construct don't benefit from this, it's only to prevent it from being unsummoned easily.
These also physically warp the construct, so a Fire pet looks different than an Earth one. The construct gains the appropriate modifiers ([Fire] for fire pets) but not any other subtype characteristics.
********
Anyway, I realize that these are a lot of abilities to give something, but spending two spell slots per one pet seems to be a decent cost, and memorizing spells that can only be cast on a small subset of targets is a serious drawback.
So, the question is: can this be balanced? What would you change? Should I replace the Infusion spells with a more generic "Bestow Template" type of spell that works on any target? Does anyone read posts this long?
