New Design & Development: Feats

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

That is a player problem not a summoning problem. People complain about polymorph, wildshape, and summoning all with this specific note. "All the time it takes!" One very simple ruling eliminates this problem entirely for all three of those actions. Inform players that wildshapes, summoning, and polymorphs must be pre-statted to use, the spend forever deciding and looking up the numbers goes away with that one provision.

Polymorph: Might work fine. (Except that people, even with the numbers, might still contemplate which one is better, but I guess that might not be worse than just picking a spell. Unless you are just contemplating whether you pick the Polymorph spell or another one...)

Summoned Monsters: You are still handling two creatures instead of one, which means twice the action each other players get at the table.

 

[Wormwood]

Inform players that wildshapes, summoning, and polymorphs must be pre-statted to use, the spend forever deciding and looking up the numbers goes away with that one provision.

Good idea, but the zookeepers are still moving their animals all over the map, rolling dice, and generally sucking up a lot of time.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Inform players that wildshapes, summoning, and polymorphs must be pre-statted to use, the spend forever deciding and looking up the numbers goes away with that one provision.

That's the absolute bare minimum for admission. It's what we do currently and it still eats up way more than its share of time. With polymorph/wildshape that's due to the complexity of multiple sets of stats (in fact I'm planning on banning polymorph and enforcing the PHB2 version of wildshape to reduce this considerably). With summon it's due to the multiple combatants, no real way to avoid this and have it still feel like summon.

You could make it more like direct damage - animal appears for an instant, does a full attack then nicks off, all it needs is +hit and damage stats - which is a compromise between a normal spell and a summon. If the animal does stick around you could have it use the summoner's stats for +hit, hit points, saves, and armor class, that would help a bit.

 

[The Little Raven]

In all likelyhood, Wizards just punted this problem downfield. I'm sure it'll be addressed by the time we see Core 2.

Exactly, why rush it out into the first core books when you can take the time to make it super-cool and it's own thing, rather than just a little tack-on ability of an existing class. I'd much rather have a Summoner class than just jamming the ability into the wizard class.

 

[Imp]

But yes you are right if the attack a pile of monsters is there current design goal, one I really like(wasn't a fan of the one monster or small groups 3e emphasized) the summoner with a horde shouldn't be a problem in any game.

Well, I wouldn't go that far, a horde is a horde, unless there's a graceful way to implement fighting en-masse into D&D-style skirmishes. But neither do I grant the absolute notion that more actions granted to the summoner is an imbalance on general principle – if the stat blocks are easy enough to deal with, then it mitigates the overhead of summoning a great deal, subject of course to the number of things summoned. If the actions are easy, "twice the time" is not much time at all. Like most everything else it's not a binary issue.

The idea of having more of a bond between the casters and the things they summon, so that they have a relationship with a few beings that they summon over and over again, seems like a way to simplify things that also adds fun to the concept.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

That's the absolute bare minimum for admission. It's what we do currently and it still eats up way more than its share of time. With polymorph/wildshape that's due to the complexity of multiple sets of stats (in fact I'm planning on banning polymorph and enforcing the PHB2 version of wildshape to reduce this considerably). With summon it's due to the multiple combatants, no real way to avoid this and have it still feel like summon.

You could make it more like direct damage - animal appears for an instant, does a full attack then nicks off, all it needs is +hit and damage stats - which is a compromise between a normal spell and a summon. If the animal does stick around you could have it use the summoner's stats for +hit, hit points, saves, and armor class, that would help a bit.

I think that wouldn't really "feel" like summoning any more.

A "short term" solution would be to have Summoning spells with a duration of "Concentration". Casting time reduced to standard action maybe. The caster must spend his own mental effort to keep the summoned creature under his control/on this plane. Obviously, only one creature per summoning. Though you could use the other options to get a "renewed" monster after the first is killed or you were forced to cease concentration.
You still need a stat-switch, but there is only one action to compare with.

Alternatively, summoning spells are actually like teleport spells, and the character and the summoned monster exchange place. (Not so great, because _where_ is the caster? He's a PC, you can't just hand wave that, can you?)

Another solution might be a table rule - every player gets one round of the summoned creatures actions. So every round, one player gets to play with the creature and have his "extra spot light"...

 

[Imp]

Additionally:

- summoning fits right snugly in to the "controller" role that the wizard is supposed to play, unless he's supposed to just lay down magical carpeting everywhere, which sounds super boring. Also, to a more limited extent, it could work for "leader" types. I would be for hard caps on active summons – give a wizard 3 effective summons and a cleric one, let's say. Together with simplified stats and possibly other restrictions on summons, this could keep things flowing relatively smoothly.

- retconning campaign worlds to disappear summoned monsters would be a huge headache... it's a big big part of fantasy settings and an even bigger part of the D&D fantasy setting if you're one of those who takes D&D's status as a unique setting real seriously.

 

[Ahglock]

Exactly, why rush it out into the first core books when you can take the time to make it super-cool and it's own thing, rather than just a little tack-on ability of an existing class. I'd much rather have a Summoner class than just jamming the ability into the wizard class.

Because I don't want half a game. If summoning is the only time they do this its not that huge of a deal, but the entire idea of punting it down field just means you are getting lots less from the get go.

Summoning isn't something like Super Sayan obscure prestige class, its a fairly core and common magical system in fantasy, its about on the scale of saying sneaking around you know that is kind of tough to figure out, lets just punt the entire sneaking around thing till we figure it out in PH3.

Again luckily it doesn't sound like they are punting summoning.

 

[The Little Raven]

Because I don't want half a game. If summoning is the only time they do this its not that huge of a deal, but the entire idea of punting it down field just means you are getting lots less from the get go.

Keep in mind that there are more classes than just spellcasters. Before the introduction of the Sorcerer class, the 3e PHB would have had 1/3 of it's full page count devoted to the ability of ONE CLASS out of TEN (eleven with Sorcerer).

Now, since they decided "Hey, let's stop giving wizards 100x more options than EVERYONE ELSE," obviously some of that content has to be put somewhere else.

Summoning isn't something like Super Sayan obscure prestige class, its a fairly core and common magical system in fantasy, its about on the scale of saying sneaking around you know that is kind of tough to figure out, lets just punt the entire sneaking around thing till we figure it out in PH3.

So, you're saying that calling creatures from other realms of existence, binding them to your service, and controlling them against your foes is just as easy as walking slowly and softly? I'm afraid I don't see it.

 

[neceros]

So, you're saying that calling creatures from other realms of existence, binding them to your service, and controlling them against your foes is just as easy as walking slowly and softly? I'm afraid I don't see it.

Some would argue that writing, drawing or dancing come so easily to them that they do it instinctively. I doubt, however, that most people have this amount of competence in the arts.

It's all about what you study in. A summoner indeed will know how and be able to summon as easily as the rogue sneaks about. After all, he's trained to do it his whole career.