Swordmage Warding and Summons

[Shin Okada]

The online compendium says,

Summoner’s Defenses: The summoned creature’s defenses equal the summoner’s, not including any temporary bonuses or penalties.

When calculating a summoned creature's defenses, shall I add my Artificer/Swordmage hybrid's Swordmage Warding bonus to AC and Ref, or not?

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Well... that gets into the question of what exactly is a 'temporary bonus'. Some things clearly are 'temporary', like buffs and debuffs with durations, situational modifiers based on terrain etc. When it comes to things like warding they ARE situational, but you normally have them. So it is a bit of a grey area. I think the INTENT is the summons gets your ordinary defenses that are written on your sheet. Personally I would just go with that. I don't think it is super critical and the more you think about it, the more you can go down the rabbit hole anyway. Is a wizard using a Staff with Hafted Defense supposed to use the bonus gained from wielding the staff? I'd think yes, but it is really about the same situation as the swordmage. Besides, I'd always opt for the simpler solution, and nothing is simpler than "it has the same defenses as what is on your character sheet".

 

[Ferghis]

I don't know if there was an official clarification, but I drew the line at: buffs that only last a few rounds don't apply. Anything that lasts more than an encounter is in. Therefore item properties, class features, effects that are continuously ongoing, or can be activated and maintained with little continuous effort are in.

I'd allow the swordmage warding AC boost to apply to the summons.

This also makes game-balance sense to me, whatever that might mean. I think it's fair to give the summoned creature the defensive benefits that the character enjoys regularly.

 

[mkill]

It's one of these 4th edition rules that exist purely as a game balance shortcuts and make no sense from an in-world perspective whatsoever. Based on that, I would say Swordmage warding applies - after all, it exists to balance the fact that you only wear leather armor and no shield.

From a game design perspective, a better solution would be to set the defenses of summoned creatures at the expected average armor class. This would be something like 16 + level.

 

[Shin Okada]

Thanks for replies. It seems that indeed the simpler, the better.

From a game design perspective, a better solution would be to set the defenses of summoned creatures at the expected average armor class. This would be something like 16 + level.

This is an interesting option indeed. Maybe as a house rule, we can use the defense values based on level, like companion characters.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Thanks for replies. It seems that indeed the simpler, the better.



This is an interesting option indeed. Maybe as a house rule, we can use the defense values based on level, like companion characters.

You could, but I would think 16+level (or any other particular number) is no more or less arbitrary than the character's defenses. The advantage of the later is that when the summoner invests in better defenses they get that benefit for their summoning spells too. Given that summoning spells are marginal to start with it seems to me it is a bit nice that you can buff them some this way.