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<blockquote data-quote="Radiating Gnome" data-source="post: 4235526" data-attributes="member: 150">The impression I got from reading Rodney Thompson's blog post about the <a href="http://www.gleemax.com/Comms/Pages/Communities/BlogPost.aspx?blogpostid=52008&amp;pagemode=2&amp;blogid=2100" target="_blank">economy of actions</a>&nbsp; is that we won't get to see PCs that summon or that have animal companions in the first round of books for this edition -- If he's thinking about these issues when he was writing that blog post (late march) he wasn't doing it for the initial release.&nbsp; He mentions working on an upcoming SW:Saga edition book that will introduce rules for followers, but I'm sure what happens there will also impact future 4e books. I actually really like this blog post, and encourage you to read it -- it's a terrific window into the sorts of considerations that go into game design, and specifically into the design efforts that WOTC has put into 4e.&nbsp; I'm sure that most folks have had my experience with 3.5 summoning -- when the druid's turn comes around, everyone else goes to the bathroom or gets drinks while the druid works through the attacks made by his handful of crocodiles&nbsp; . . . or whatever. That's a huge fun suck for the rest of the table, but after reading Rodney's post we can talk about it as a huge inflation in the number of actions a single PC gets to take in a round -- and how that's really not fair to the rest of the players. My guess is that this was a tough enough question that it was tabled for the first edition.&nbsp; Of course, I haven't seen the core books yet, so it's possible that the ranger still has an animal companion . . . and the wizard and cleric may have summoning rituals that allow them to summon creatures to join the party in battle . . . but I'll be surprised to see it. -rg</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Radiating Gnome, post: 4235526, member: 150"] The impression I got from reading Rodney Thompson's blog post about the [URL=http://www.gleemax.com/Comms/Pages/Communities/BlogPost.aspx?blogpostid=52008&pagemode=2&blogid=2100]economy of actions[/URL] is that we won't get to see PCs that summon or that have animal companions in the first round of books for this edition -- If he's thinking about these issues when he was writing that blog post (late march) he wasn't doing it for the initial release. He mentions working on an upcoming SW:Saga edition book that will introduce rules for followers, but I'm sure what happens there will also impact future 4e books. I actually really like this blog post, and encourage you to read it -- it's a terrific window into the sorts of considerations that go into game design, and specifically into the design efforts that WOTC has put into 4e. I'm sure that most folks have had my experience with 3.5 summoning -- when the druid's turn comes around, everyone else goes to the bathroom or gets drinks while the druid works through the attacks made by his handful of crocodiles . . . or whatever. That's a huge fun suck for the rest of the table, but after reading Rodney's post we can talk about it as a huge inflation in the number of actions a single PC gets to take in a round -- and how that's really not fair to the rest of the players. My guess is that this was a tough enough question that it was tabled for the first edition. Of course, I haven't seen the core books yet, so it's possible that the ranger still has an animal companion . . . and the wizard and cleric may have summoning rituals that allow them to summon creatures to join the party in battle . . . but I'll be surprised to see it. -rg [/QUOTE]

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