This can't be right.

[Doctor DM]

No, those comments are helpful. I think a watered down greenbound is in order.

I knew it would be bad, but not this ridiculous. It really starts to show once you get the d4 animals in a cast. Combined with Ashbound, that's a lot of critters that are around for a while.

In my defense, the DM did say to make a strong character, since this would be a tough campaign. Guess he's just a little too strong.

 

[Elethiomel]

What gets me is the futility of giving an XP penalty to offset powerful characters. If the DM otherwise follows the treasure generation systems in the DMG, for instance, characters who gain less XP per monster killed will quickly be even more powerful for their level.

 

[Bagpuss]

The OP was asking about a ruling of his DM, not the legitimacy of Greenbound.

Yeah but it seems clear that Greenbound is the broken bit, and the DM has ruled to poorly to counter the Greenbound, when really he should have banned (or nerfed) that feat and allowed a rebuild.

 

[Thurbane]

I'd say you have four options:

1. Convince the DM to change his mind.

2. Learn to accept his house ruling and move on.

3. Reach a compromise in the middle of options 1 and 2.

4. Leave the game.

...IMHO, if someone is good enough to put in the time and effort to DM a game, then the players should learn to accept his house rulings. I don't always agree with the house rules my various DMs. I will talk it over with them - if they stand firm, I generally accept the houerule and move on. If it was something that totally ruined the game for me, I'd vote with my feet - but so far that has never happened.

Interestingly, I've had a similar but "opposite" problem when I was DMing. My players were getting snarky about not earning XP for summoned creatures, which the rules clearly state to be the case.

 

[the Jester]

IIRC the original author has stated that greenbond summoner was supposed to be a metamagic feat with a +2 or +3 level adjustment. I think that's the best answer, personally... though I'd be kind enough to not extend the casting time in this case.

 

[Storme]

I'd like to give you some suggestions as to how to resolve this. We all know the rule is illogical and poorly thought out, but here's my idea on what you could do.

1) Remind the DM that Cohorts (mention that) aren't considered as part of the party when calculating xp even though they get xp. Refer him to page 104 of the DMG where this rule is described in full. Therefore, its illogical that a summoned monster should take xp from the party when a Cohort, who is better, learns, levels and is more powerful, doesn't.

2) Suggest to the DM that since your summoning spells are effectively impaired below the intent of the game designers and game balance, suggest that you be allowed to keep track of the xp your summoned creatures get. Since they will be lower level than you, remind the DM that they will go up in levels faster than you. Set aside a write-up sheet complete with skills and feats, etc. Then ask him, "Are you SURE you want to give them xp?"

3) If the DM isn't keen on any of this, suggest to him that a better solution might not be to "NERF" your party (this is a PARTY PENALTY...not a CHARACTER PENALTY). Recommend instead that it would be more effective to better prepare his encounters.

RANT INCOMING: I am a FIRM believer in that there very few cases of an unbalanced power, item or ability. Just because a +1 Ring of Protection is more powerful than a ring made of bundled straw doesn't mean it's unbalanced. If a level 2 fighter takes a core feat that gives him 50 attacks in a single round...fine. It's only UNBALANCED if he's the ONLY ONE in the game that has that available. So when the displacer beast attackes every member of the 6 man party 8 times, no one is surprised and the game is effectively balanced. If everyone in your game has a +5 sword...it's okay...the monsters do to, negating any imbalance. I know I'm exaggerating quite a bit, but...suggest to your DM that a better solution would be for him to utilize summoning with some of his monsters, thereby negating any perceived imbalance. It will make the fights harder but...if the fights are being made easier by your summoning...shouldn't the encounters get harder? Thus...BALANCE is restored. The DM's job is to scale the monsters and conflicts so that they are challenging to the party. Some DM's, quite frankly, aren't very good at this job. It is SO not hard. I'm guessing it's never occured to your DM to just toss in another ogre into the monster group....

4) If your DM won't budge...don't worry about it. Just adapt and when you level, ask him if he'll let you "rebuild" your character (PH2, pg 192) since the recent change has heavily impaired your party under the pretext that you would have NEVER have built your character in that way if you knew how harmful to the party it would be (use the words "impaired" "penalty" "burden to the party" "negative" "harmful," etc). Heck, ask him if you can do it NOW. If he won't do that...ask to change characters so as not to be a PENALTY to your party simply by being in it. If he won't do that...find another DM.

 

[Delta]

Actually, to me this seems like a pretty minor rule change -- I'm surprised everyone's so worked up about it. Yes, it's not how RAW works, but that's why it's an established House Rule. Yes, it cuts into the party's XP, but by how much? Around 20% is some encounters that use summoning? I don't think I'd really notice the difference in my game, honestly.

If the DM doesn't like summoning, consider the House Rule in my game. All summoning is banned -- except for elementals (only those in core rules; plus, heavy restrictions about what environment you can summon into). I'd be interested in seeing if there would be more or less compaints about that rule.

 

[Rackhir]

Actually, to me this seems like a pretty minor rule change -- I'm surprised everyone's so worked up about it. Yes, it's not how RAW works, but that's why it's an established House Rule. Yes, it cuts into the party's XP, but by how much? Around 20% is some encounters that use summoning? I don't think I'd really notice the difference in my game, honestly.

If the DM doesn't like summoning, consider the House Rule in my game. All summoning is banned -- except for elementals (only those in core rules; plus, heavy restrictions about what environment you can summon into). I'd be interested in seeing if there would be more or less compaints about that rule.

I'm guessing you kinda just skimmed the thread. The character in question was built around summoning stuff. So it's something he was doing in most, if not all encounters.

Also the DM's problem wasn't with summoning, so much as it was that the character was using an incredibly broken feat to make his summons into overpowered monstrosities.

As far as your rule goes. Seems kind of pointless except perhaps for flavor purposes. Summoning is usually a poor choice, except for optimized characters and even then it's often not the best choice. Smaller than Large Elementals are weak summons and even the smaller ones don't show up on the lists until relatively high up (SM III). Though of course Druids do get them a level earlier. So it would simply shift it from an occasional use spell to a never used spell. Until the Large Elementals show up at SM VI.

 

[Delta]

As far as your rule goes. Seems kind of pointless except perhaps for flavor purposes.

Is that not the most important purpose when designing a campaign?

 

[Rackhir]

Is that not the most important purpose when designing a campaign?

No. There are plenty of ways to give a campaign flavor without arbitrary rules changes. Also I would rate "Fun" and "Letting the players run the kind of characters they want to (within reason)" as higher, but I'm a player and not a DM.

Your rule isn't a horrible imposition, but does rule out certain character classes/types. I would probably create new summons to fill the old slots, rather than effectively banning most of the summoning spells.

IME, I've found that DMs who like to make radical changes to the rules, often want to be running something other than D&D.