Arcane Power excerpt: Summoning

[CapnZapp]

The game's starting to get crowded with different ways to get extra allies onto the playing field.

So I sure hope there are one and only one set of (basic) rules governing summons.

That is: are the rules from this AP excerpt identical to those from PHB2?

 

[Nymrohd]

Yes the rules are the same. Still between animal companions, spirit companions that anyone can have with a feat, summon dailies that every controller seems to get (and a few others as per the Dragon necromancy article), and heck even conjurations which still take up space from the enemies the 4E battlefield can get really crowded. Ofc economy of actions is largely retained so we will never have the craziness of 3E druid and wizard summon builts but still between what we can summon and the minions the other side can field we are headed to the grand melee.

 

[Mercule]

Minor action? The summon fire warrior in the preview requires a standard action to give the attack command.

Isn't that the Conjuration, rather than Summoning, spell? I thought the point of Conjuration was that it was, for the most part, just another attack spell for a Summoner. That is to say, a Conjuration takes an action (in this case, standard), does its thing, then disappears. It's also an encounter power.

A Summoning, on the other hand, takes an action to cast, but the critter sticks around for the encounter. After that, it's considerably cheaper to make it do something.

I think the issue is that you're looking at what is basically a fancy fireball spell and trying to read it like Summon Monster I from 3.5.

 

[chaotix42]

No, the fire warrior has the summon keyword - you command it to attack a single foe as a standard action, and it sticks around for the encounter. The astral wasp is the conjuration.

 

[DracoSuave]

I think the issue is that you're looking at what is basically a fancy fireball spell and trying to read it like Summon Monster I from 3.5.

The irony of this statement is that CS makes the same reading on Shaman Spirit Companions....

 

[BartD]

(mistake)

 

[WalterKovacs]

The summoner will want a good con for (a) more surges (b) better HP which also improves the summoned creature (c) if they use the staff of defense, they will improve the AC of their summoned creatures and (d) at least some of the summoning power involve con as a secondary so it gives them additional bonuses as a result.

If you summon the creature and it gets laid out, the wizard basically takes 1 surge to absorb at least twice their surge value (probably more since the killing blow is probably not going to be for exactly enough) in damage, which otherwise would have been dealt to another party member. At say level 1, it would be something like 12 or more damage absorbed, which is probably 2 hits from most nasty monsters, which should be saving an ally from losing a surge or more worth of damage, which someone would have to spend a limited resource (potion, healing word or second wind) to spend that surge during the combat. And that is the 'worse case scenario' of the summoned creature being killed in a single round. Otherwise you'd get a chance to attack with it once or twice, and dismiss it before it is killed (which would mean absorbing a chunk of damage without anyone in the party suffering).

 

[Caliban]

Wizards aren't doing much with their minor actions anyway, right? Asides from sustaining stuff.

Maybe there'll be a feat where your summons are immune to your own spell effects...

Well... the summons are also conjurations, and conjurations are ignore any effect other than damage according to the rules update in the PHB2.

Hopefully by the time the book hits print they will make sure that the "summons" and "conjurations" rules are cleaned up a bit so that they are either completely seperate, or have exactly the same wording for stuff like that.l

 

[Mercule]

The irony of this statement is that CS makes the same reading on Shaman Spirit Companions....

Could you elaborate? I don't have PHB2 and decided early on that I didn't really care for most of what I'd heard about the Primal source, anyway, so I didn't pay much attention.

 

[Rachel]

I think I would prefer summons that worked like this:

1) Encounter & Dailies where you select a pre-existing monster (the higher the lvl, the more powerful) that is *autonomous*. It follows simple commands issued via free (or perhaps minor) actions from it's summoner.

2) A *control* roll must be made at summoning. Success makes it an ally to you and your companions, failure the opposite (it is hostile).

3) The stats of a particular summons are not determined by the caster's stats, but those do provide bonuses or penalties to it.

4) You may only have a single summons active at any one time, and if that summons is killed it's summoner takes a reasonable penalty, such as the healing surge loss. But it could be other things, such as being dazed/stunned by the monster's loss.

5) While a summoned monster is active, it's summoner takes penalties of some sort indicative of their need to keep active *control* of the monster. Action loss could be involved, or negative modifiers to most actions. This is just illustrating the will and concentration required to keep the summoned monster "bound".

6) Additional spell powers which can enhance/alter the summoned monster as well as some fun Utility spells.

7) In essence, you will be picking which monsters from a selection of choices at different levels as you advance, leading to your own personal *stable* of monsters that you know how to summon. Fun!

Just some ideas. I don't hate the Arcane Power iteration, just prefer this one. It does add an extra combatant to the field, but the feel is more classic summoner to me.