WoTC Rodney: Economy of actions

[I'm A Banana]

Wasn't there a Final Fantasy game where the summons actually took your place in battle? That seems more fitting.

Well, in the early games they were basically "really powerful attack spells." They just dealt damage with a cool animation. In the more recent games, they're more like "really powerful attack spells that last a few rounds and replace the other members of your party." They deal damage over time, usually with the capability to do the really powerful attack spell at the end.

I believe the advocacy is more for the "Summons = Powerful (or not?) spells" angle. So if I summon a Pit Fiend, he deals a bunch of fire damage, and then goes away. If I summon an elemental, he beats up some guys and goes home. The summons don't stick around, and so are really just spells with cool fluff.

I agree with you that allies who actually take place in battle would be more fitting, but FF isn't necessarily a good model to use, because in those games you basically have control of your entire party, so you get as many actions as you have party members. So the balancing methods that FF uses (getting rid of party members, having MP costs that are so high you can't do anything else all day, etc.) aren't really appropriate for a game where you just control one character at a time.

I have thought too much about this issue.

 

[DM_Blake]

I think that summoned creatures should maintained by concentration: i.e. the summoner must take a standard action to keep the creature around and controlled. Another twist on this that sounds fun to me is if the summoner's concentration is broken the monster is uncrontrolled until the spell duration ends This may or may not matter depending on what was summoned; but it could be fun! This limits his actions to a minor and move which is fine. If this is done however the summoned monsters need to be considerably tougher than the old 3.5 lists as this concept severely limits what the caster can do. Without seeing all the rules and such it is hard to judge but how about summon monster 1-30 with each level summoning a level 1-30 monster? If it works out it is simple enough.

Giving up an action to replace that action with the action of a summoned creature means the summoned creature must be as effective with that action as you could have been with one of your own.

If the summoned creature is going to make an attack roll, with a 50/50 chance of hit/miss, that does 1d10+5 damage, but I could simply magic missile for 1d10+5 with no chance of missing, then I would never give up an action to let my summoned creature MAYBE do the same damage, or maybe do nothing.

I would never summon it in the first place.

Furthermore, even if I can summon a creature that is as effective in combat as I am, the mere thought that a single arrow from an orc might distract me so my summoned monster eats my paladin rather than simply doing nothing, means I wouldn't risk summoning.

In fact, the more powerful the summoned creature is, the greater the risk to me and my party if my concentration is disrupted.

Which means I would never use a summon ability ever - either it would be too weak to justify standing on the sidelines letting my weak minion make weak attacks, or it would be strong enough to justify being on the sidelines but then too dangerous to risk having my concentration disrupted.

A rule like this would break summoning and make it worthless.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Giving up an action to replace that action with the action of a summoned creature means the summoned creature must be as effective with that action as you could have been with one of your own.

I don't think it's a bad recipie for summons, because if you're using a spell, that creature can be a little more powerful than you for a turn or two before he has to go back to the planes. Though I agree with you that "accidentally out-of-control" summons are bad news like a Frenzied Berserker is bad news.

I do think it's a bad recipie for hiring Boris, the town tough, though. Losing your turn to give someone else a turn is bad news if it doesn't make sense to do so.

 

[DM_Blake]

I agree that the extra actions given is problematic. IMO, the best way to handle this is to regard companion-type characters (animal companions, followers, henchman, summoned creatures, etc.) as being essentially powers or feats that give bonuses in certain situations. For example, with a follower, it might be easier for your PC or another PC to gain combat advantage. With an animal companion like a wolf, maybe the PC gets a bonus to tracking. And so on.

So, you propose that my summoner should whip up a balor from the pits of hell so it can stand behind the encounter and say "Boo" to give my fighter friend combat advantage?

My balor won't attack, won't engage. He just maneuvers to get behind our enemy?

This kind of "Combat Advangage" is simply an effect to be applied to a weak spell. Like an Unseen Servant that lurks behind the enemy, distracting it to give your allies combat advantage.

I cannot imagine a justification for hiring a mercenary in the town to come along with our adventuring group, but his only function is to neak around behind our enemies and distract them but never attack them himself. Unless we're hiring a weak kid who wants a chance to rub elbows with big tough adventurers.

And I cannot imagine a "Summon Monster" spell that summons a monster that never attacks, just distracts enemies. That isn't the purpose of a Summon Monster spell - that is the purpose of an illusion spell.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I cannot imagine a justification for hiring a mercenary in the town to come along with our adventuring group, but his only function is to neak around behind our enemies and distract them but never attack them himself. Unless we're hiring a weak kid who wants a chance to rub elbows with big tough adventurers

I agree with you here, too. I think that the idea of abstracting NPC combat to something like "He can occupy one enemy that then will only bother attacking him," and then using level checks (or something) to abstract their combat in the background, might be an OK fix. If you combine it witih their ability to "team up" with the PC, then you preserve that feeling of "control of new abilities" that is so exciting for an ally.

 

[Saishu_Heiki]

So, just to be clear.

You're point is that if my wizard goes to town and hires Boris, the town tough guy, to come along on our adventures, then when I get into combat, Boris just stands there when I cast a spell, and I just stand there when Boris bashes an orc with his big hammer?

"Hey, Boris, it's our turn. I want to cast a spell, so you just stand there and look dumb. No, no, I promise, next time it's our turn I will let you bash something. Really. So just hold still this turn, OK? Yeah, I know that big orc is going to gut you if you don't bash him. So what? I need to cast this spell, so you gotta just stand there and get gutted."

Really, if that's how it will work, then why bring Boris along in the first place. Which leads to more interesting RP:

"No, Boris, you can't come with me. I know you're good with your big old hammer, but with you running around bashing all the orcs, I would never be able to cast any spells. I know, I know, you think you can keep the orcs away from me, but strange forces of the universe will bind my arms and keep me from casting my spells. I'd love to hire you, Boris, but I just can't turn myself into a spectator like that, so you have to stay in town."

You are correct. This is more what I want.

The other 4 people at the table should not be penalized because they don't want to micromanage a platoon of troops or summons. If the wizard wants a cool summon, that comes out of his action budget.

Fluff-wise, you can make it work. Summon: you are binding another creature's free will. That takes a tremendous effort, depriving you of your standard action. Hireling: you need to ensure that the new guy is working with the tactics of the group. Combat is a frenzy of action happening very quickly. If you don't tell him what to do, he will not be able to react. If you do tell him what to do, you can't manage to do as much as everyone else because your attention is split between yourself and your hireling.

 

[DM_Blake]

It's unclear to me whether you read the article. Your disagreement seems to center more on how to fix the power imbalance in game, meaning how to prevent the side with more dudes on it from winning.
The article, however, presents two problems with extra actions: One is that it makes the possessor of the action more potent, and the other is that they make players with fewer actions sit on their thumbs.

Do you have any reaction to the second part of this? Because it seems like your advice to the first part makes the problem of the second part even worse.

As a DM, I have used many different methods for this.

I often let the player with the simplest combat options control the NPCs. For example, the wizard's player has many decisions to make, spells to select, effects to consider. His turn can sometimes take quite a bit longer than the fighter, ranger, rogue, etc. - those guys just move and whack, usually. So I let those guys handle the NPCs. Sometimes I rotate it among the players. Whoever seems the most bored.

As for summoned creatures, I run them, not the summoner. The summoner tells me what he wants them to do, then I do it simultaneously while the summoner is taking his own actions.

I've never really seen it cause any complaints.

 

[Nytmare]

Be honest. Has this really happened in your games? Has one player monopolized the time to such a great extent?

The best and worst D&D campaign I have ever lived through was a Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil campaign where we decided to all play specialist wizards with cohorts.

When we hit combat we'd spend one full day of gaming watching the diviner scrye and map out where everything was. The next time we'd play we'd teleport in or climb out of our rope trick and the summoner/grapplemancer with the druid/grapplemancer cohort would spend the day Greco-Roman murdering everything he could get his hands on. An average turn took somewhere in the range of 45 minutes to an hour once things ramped up.

 

[Stalker0]

I think with the 4e power system, summons can work pretty well.

Summon UltraBeast (standard, encounter)

You summon an ultrabeast within 5 squares. It acts immediately and lasts for 1 round.

Sustain Standard


For a mage, its a pretty good deal to have an encounter power that can last multiple rounds, even if you have to give up your main actions to get them.


As for animal companions, that's a far trickier thing. I have seen a companion player dominate the table with actions, so I can understand the problem.

 

[Wolfwood2]

I cannot imagine a justification for hiring a mercenary in the town to come along with our adventuring group, but his only function is to neak around behind our enemies and distract them but never attack them himself. Unless we're hiring a weak kid who wants a chance to rub elbows with big tough adventurers.

Well I think the idea is that he is attacking enemies, but the results of his attack are averaged out to some effect that isn't resolved with the roll of dice. Like you just assume that his attacking resulted in a +2 bonus to attack a single opponent's AC for everyone else and 3 HP of damage to that opponent. Every round, note the effect, on to what the PCs are doing.

Hardly a perfect solution. I can see why this issue is such a struggle for the game designers. It seems like there are three categories of potential allies (more or less) that have to accounted for.

1. Allies acquired through roleplay/gameplay. If you convince the town bully to redeem himself by helping you... If one of the bad guy's minions turns on him because you've exposed his evil... If you offer a share of the loot if the eagle eye archer will accompany you... you've acquired help through gameplay.

These allies are usually more or less temporary and can probably be run by the DM as regular characters. Importantly, it's easier to introduce plot twists that remove them from the scene if they become annoying. Arguably a DM is perfectly within his rights to declare that such an NPC got critted and dies next time he's swung at, if such an extreme is necessary.

2. Longterm allies acquired as part of class abilities. Animal companions, paladin mounts, familiars, and cohorts (permanent sidekicks to your character). These are probably the trickiest category. From any kind of in-game perspective, it only makes sense that they can take their own independent actions. Yet for all the reasons discussed in this thread, they're very troublesome.

Because they're always around, even having the DM run them can be frustrating. Something that hasn't really been touched on in this thread is that for some DMs, it can be unfun to be 'playing against yourself'. That is having the DM control monsters to attack and then control a different set of creatures to fight back. While this is something most DMs will have to manage on occasion, it's not satisfying (IMO) to have to constantly double-think yourself.

Giving control of them to the player drops right back into the, "You're playing two characters," problem as well as not solving the action economy. I don't have a solution.

3. The third category is Summons. I think we're on the right track in making these powerful per-day type abilities. I think both approaches discussed are rreasonable. Either you have to devote all your actions to puppeting the creature (certainly something we've seen from many characters in fiction) or it's basically a special effect which continues to do do damage each round until your opponent makes his saving throw (in this case represented in-game by finally managing to land a solid hit sufficient to make the creature go poof).

For 'all actions are spent puppeting creature' I think it could result in some very interesting effects where by varying your choice of creatures, you can fill different combat roles on an as-needed basis. However, I would expect most of this sort of summoning to be reserved for a dedicated summoning class, with a wizard only maybe getting a taste as an optional per-day ability.

Furthermore, even if I can summon a creature that is as effective in combat as I am, the mere thought that a single arrow from an orc might distract me so my summoned monster eats my paladin rather than simply doing nothing, means I wouldn't risk summoning.

I don't see why being 'distracted' should make you/your summons lose your actions, unless it's already some effect that would make you lose your actions.