Forked Thread: Action economy with companions/summons

[Nightson]

No, it wouldn't. A properly balanced creature can take their action along with the caster and wouldn't feel completely artificial like it does now. If the DM adds a couple minions to most encounters it won't break things, likewise if a player could bring in a couple vanilla minions it isn't going to far and away outstrip other powers.

Even if you had "economy of action" and had to give up your action for your summon to act, a 3.5E 17th level wizard would gladly give their action for a gated 34th level Solar to take theirs! "Economy of action" is utter drivel. Balanced companions and summons are the answer.

A summon balanced the way you suggest would do in the area of 1d4+Int damage at level 1, maybe 1d6+Int.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

A summon balanced the way you suggest would do in the area of 1d4+Int damage at level 1, maybe 1d6+Int.

Exactly. It would be like maybe equivalent of a Zombie Rotter, which AFAIK is THE weakest official monster in the game. Maybe that would be OK at 1st level, but you would certainly never be able to summon anything interesting at ANY level. And at the higher levels monsters have auras and AoEs that will make just as short work of 'minion class' summonings as wizard make now of actual minions at those levels with THEIR AoEs. So it REALLY would not be all that interesting.

Of course there could be different classes of summonings as well, so possibly both ways can work, but to me it doesn't seem all that weird that a wizard has to concentrate on his elemental or whatever to make it act. It really ISN'T a free willed monster, it is a summoning. If you don't use your magic to MAKE it do something, it just doesn't do anything. I got no problem with that.

If you REALLY do want to have monsters that you can 'summon' and are free willed then there are rituals for that kind of thing, but then you're dealing with creatures that would probably like to just plain eat you or have to be paid (and the kind of pay they want isn't likely to be anything a PC wants to pay).

 

[LostSoul]

If a summoned creature gets its full complement of actions, can it stunt? I don't see any reason why not; it makes sense, right?

 

[Regicide]

I think the people complaining about the new focus on the economy of actions haven't had the pleasure of playing at a table with a druid or artificer who has something like 5 minis to keep track of between companions and summons, moving and then attacking with them all on his turn. Comparisons to twin strike are not really valid, since twin strike caps out at 2 identical attacks.

Take the current 4E spell being looked at and have it summon 6x the pets it currently summons... guess what, even with economy of action, still busted. Plonk 6 creatures down and have the Warlord smack them with party powers and stuff explodes. Your example was of the 3.5E magic system being busted, not of economy of action making sense. Besides, artificer was the most broken class in the history of DnD.

 

[Bladewing]

I think a summon should be able to attack or move (either/or, once per turn, and not using a second attack if it already made one with the standard action of the character, or a third move if it already made two with the characters actions) with a minor action, and be balanced for that to be "useful but not overpowered.

That way you avoid most of the issues like one player character crowding the table with summons that take up a long time to play out each turn while boring the other players, because having more then one or two summons out isnt efficient. At the same time you make sure the summon feel alive because it can act without the controlling character standing around picking his nose that turn.

There's already a kind of precedent for it with the ranger epic feat (and I'd extent this ruling to ranger companions too, with proper balancing). The feat doesnt even turn useless because it doesnt have the list of strings attached to the minor action use.

So where's the problem with my line of thought? I've not seen much of the preview material (no DDI) and havent played with a beastmaster ranger, so I might have overlooked something.

 

[jgsugden]

Let's take a look and see what a summoned creature really is in 4E:

1.) It is a ranged at-will attack power. You use the initial power to gain access to a ranged at-will attack power.

2.) It is a blocker - it can disrupt enemy movement paths and keep open a path for PCs to pass through that enemies can't occupy (until they kill the summon).

3.) It is a sacrifical tool - There are a lot of places that PCs should not go in a combat because of the danger involved. The summon can go there without risking lasting harm.

4.) It is an action accelerator - You can use minor actions to do things that normally require move actions, and sometimes get free attacks that might have otherwise required a standard action, such as with the summons for the druid in the recent Dragon article.

You get a heck of a lot out of a summon spell. I think it looks like it will work well. I play tested (causally) some druidic summoning and it certainly did not seem underpowered.