Whither Summoners and Animal Companions?

[Jefe Bergenstein]

From what I glean from this thread and another thread, this guy plays magic-users exclusively, so he doesn't want a lessening of his particular playstyle in the slightest, even if he takes way more time than anyone else.

Except being a mage isnt THAT much more time consuming than being a... I dunno... warblade? Crusader? Aside from summonings you cast 1-2 spells, roll your dice, and are done. Its considerably faster than a summoning specialist. Really nothing slows combat more than a bunch of marginally effective summoned critters.

 

[Mad Mac]

Speaking as someone who's always liked summoning, I just want to say that I'd trade the ability to spend a billion rounds summoning a zillion useless mooks for the ability to summon a single bad-arse at a time, in a heartbeat. Just as long as I have enough summoning options to keeps summons tactically interesting.

Seriously. I always hated the summon monster spells in 3rd Edition. Oh goodie, my 6th level cleric can blow a 3rd level spell to summon an Azer or something to shuffle around and swing ineffectually at targets it can't even hit for a few rounds before getting iced by a stray cat that was just passing by. Arg.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Our last two campaigns have had druid PCs. In both cases the players complained about the character being too complex. I think they might prefer it if the flavour of the druid remained but with simpler mechanical options.

If I play a 3.5 druid it will be with the PHB2 option, which removes the animal companion and simplifies wildshape.

 

[Lanefan]

What's wrong with things taking a bit of time, whether it's talking with the gate guard, running 10 summoned idiots in a combat, or whatever? The adventure doesn't *have* to be finished in one session....have patience.

Lanefan

 

[Ogrork the Mighty]

I'd love to see limits on summoned creatures. With animal companions, magic item allies, summoned creatures, et al, combat is too slow.

Even 1d4+1 summoned monsters is too much.

Dramatically cut the number of summoned creatures, increase its strength, increase either its chances of acting independently or the summoner's need to control it, and summoning will be much better than just "summon and forget" that it is now.

 

[Exen Trik]

I'm hoping that in 4e summoning of multiple creatures is still around, but even with the streamlining of monsters it would be too much bookwork. Better that it uses some kind of group rules for multiple summoned monsters to keep it simple.

And really, summoning 5 celestial badgers may be more trouble than it's worth, but summoning a celestial badger swarm? Pure awesome.

 

[ptolemy18]

From what I glean from this thread and another thread, this guy plays magic-users exclusively, so he doesn't want a lessening of his particular playstyle in the slightest, even if he takes way more time than anyone else.

Firstly I'd like to say that I recognize and apologize for the tendency of my recent posts to degenerate into off-topic rants about how much I love 3E spellcasters. Sorry. I'll try to restrain myself (or confine it to different threads). :/

Secondly, and back to the point which other people have addressed, I do hope that summoners, familiars, and animal companions remain in the new edition, and I'm curious how they'll be implemented.

And yes, you're totally right that the DM has to know when to move things along and prevent certain players from always hogging the spotlight. And it's always good when there's stuff in the DMG about accomodating different playing styles.

 

[ptolemy18]

Our last two campaigns have had druid PCs. In both cases the players complained about the character being too complex. I think they might prefer it if the flavour of the druid remained but with simpler mechanical options.

If I play a 3.5 druid it will be with the PHB2 option, which removes the animal companion and simplifies wildshape.

Personally, I would change the druid (assuming it exists in some forthcoming 4e book) and wizards/sorcerers so that familiars and animal companions are an optional thing. Like a Feat, maybe, or the outcome of a chain of Feats which provides one with an increasingly stronger familiar/animal companion. Because a lot of people tend to forget they're around and not make use of them anyway.

 

[Imp]

You know, if the monsters (which would include summons) have simplified stat blocks to facilitate, for example, the DM running quite a few more monsters in a typical 4E fight than in a 3E fight, then summons should not be quite so cumbersome as they are in 3E (though you'd want some kind of cap).

Re druids, I'm fully for the notion that they should specialize in spellcasting, beastmastery, or shapechanging, and be significantly weaker in the other areas, which will make them less complicated and not so much the most adaptable class in the whole entire game...

 

[Jhaelen]

I coudl get behind the "only 1 summoned creature", especially if the duration then was expanded so that you could use the creature for something other than combat - scouting, etc.

Yup, that's also in line with the change of the astral construct power in Complete Psion.

I could see summoner classes working similar to the 'MMORPG pet classes':
Basically, your actions are replaced by the actions of the summoned creature(s). It might be 'videogamey' but it would help to avoid the problem of the summoner getting more actions and thus play-time than everyone else.