NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="DreamChaser" data-source="post: 2985062" data-attributes="member: 1190">Okay. I see your point about the power level...the duration i'm not sure on. A 12th level wizard casts a summon monster iv, the creature or creatures stay around for 12 rounds. A summoner summons a 4th level esper, the creature stays around as long as he wants it to.So do you think in terms of the power that the class needs more essentia? Perhaps the incarnate class Essentia progression? Or perhaps this change to the Summoning class ability to not cause the summoning of an esper to require essentia investment.Summoning (Sp): A summoner calls upon spiritual, otherworldly entities—known as espers—creating physical form for them from her personal store of life energy and the surrounding Incarnum. She can summon any esper with whom she has a bond. Summoning requires a full round to complete and includes an incantation and requires displaying the summoning circle of the esper. The esper appears anywhere within a radius of 30 ft. + 10 ft. per summoner level its summoner chooses and cannot leave that area. If forced beyond that range, the esper is dismissed. An esper remains as long as the summoner wills it, though her actions are limited while she has one summoned. With the single exception of summoning another esper (provided she has additional espers to summon and Essentia to invest), a summoner is limited to a single move action while she has any espers summoned. In addition to move actions available to all characters, a summoner can allocate Essentia to her espers as a swift action (see Augmenting espers, below) or direct (including dismissing) any or all of her espers (or her soulspark familiar, see below) as a move action. Espers always act on the summoner’s initiative. Any damage an esper suffers remains throughout the day no matter how often it is summoned and dismissed. If an esper reaches 0 hit points, it is automatically dispelled and cannot be summoned again until it heals. A summoner’s espers heal while she rests, regaining any lost hit points after she rests for 8 hours. The Essentia invested to summon an esper remains invested for as long as the esper is summoned; once dismissed or "destroyed" the invested Essentia returns to the summoner's Essentia Pool.A summoner’s list of espers is extremely limited. She begins bonded to one 1st-level esper. As she progresses, she bonds with new espers. These espers are chosen from the Summon Monster table of the appropriate level. A summoner can research a rare or previously unknown esper, though this cannot increase the rate at which she is able to bond to new espers. In order to bond with an esper, a summoner must have a Wisdom score equal to at least 10 + the esper’s level.Upon reaching 5th level, and at every odd-numbered summoner level after that (7th, 9th, and so on), a summoner can choose to bond with a new esper in place of one she has already bonded. In effect, the summoner “loses” the old esper in exchange for the new one. The new esper’s level must be the same as that of the esper being exchanged, and it must be at least two levels lower than the highest-level esper the sorcerer can summon. A summoner may swap only a single esper at any given level, and must choose whether or not to swap the esper at the same time that he bonds new espers for the level.And this would require changing the grand summons ability:Grand Summons: The ultimate power of the summoner is the grand summons. Once per day, she can use a full round call up to 20 levels of espers. Each esper appears fully invested with Essentia, granting which ever augmentations the summoner desires. These espers remain for 1 minute (or until destroyed) before they vanish. Once called as part of a grand summons, an esper cannot be called again that day. A summoner's guardians are not affected by the grand summons. While the grand summons is in effect, a summoner cannot invest or reallocate any portion of her Essentia pool.What this does:1) Removes an upper limit on the number of espers a summoner can call. A 20th level summoner could, given enough time, summon all 18 of the espers that she has not already summoned as her guardians.2) This negates some of the need to increase their Essentia pool; in fact, it may call for a slight reduction at lower level.s3) I was also thinking of a feat that would allow the summoner to choose multiple (probably 3 for one level lower and 4 or 5 for 2 levels lower), lower-level creatures in place of one higher level creatures. (Just like the summon monster spells allow). These espers would be treated as one for all effects, including augmentation and healing (so if one died and you summoned again that one would still be dead; you could still summon the others however).What do you think? Of these changes?DC</blockquote>

Verification