Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 d4m0cles Feb 13, 2009 9:40:30	From what i saw so far, summoning is just way too much underpowered. I dont even see why someone would like to take one of these other than rp-wise. From Secrets of City Entombed for example: Bard gets a lvl 29 summon (yes 29) who does 2d10 damage + stats to all adjacent ennemis and mark them... for one of your Standard Action. It can also hit on opportunity attack 1 target for the same damage. Why can't summon have at least 1 simple, less-damaging attack they can use with one of your Minor Action... kinda like a sustain. And a bigger/better attack when you use a standard. Currently in my game, thats how we ruled summoning (creating some specific named monster summon tought) and it works perfect. If i take a look at Animate Dead... your summoned undead does exactly the same damage as Mordenkainen's Sword (both lvl 9 spells) but with a STANDARD ACTION. Not even an extra effect useful for controller. Thats ridiculous. I know this undead can take damage and do opportunity attack... but just lower the damage of opportunity and minor to 1d8 and gives the standard action a little higher damage/effect. If it works perfectly in my game so far and is really balanced... why makes it sooo bad. Plz, rework that concept before its too late if its not already.
#2 serphet Feb 13, 2009 9:56:35	If these things could do damage on a minor action and a standard action, they would be the defacto choice, right now they are only pretty good.
#3 d4m0cles Feb 13, 2009 10:13:58	Ya lol your right on that point and forgot to mention it. All summon should be limited to 1 action every turn. Standard or Minor... never both in the same turn, All standard action mostly only offer an extra option when deciding which one to use. And the minor one make sure your summon still keep fighting while being less powerful damage-wise as a pure conjuration spell (Flaming Sphere, Mordenkainen's Sword). This way it work perfectly.
#4 The_Jester Feb 13, 2009 10:39:16	They're also handy for insta-flanking and they act as control by blocking movement and being positioned to take OAs.
#5 nihzlet Feb 13, 2009 11:02:13	I think summoning is pretty well done, but Animate Dead in specific seems really weak. Compare to Summon Arrowhawk from this month's Ampersand--the Arrowhawk does the same damage, but it's untyped and thus harder to resist, the Arrowhawk targets a lower defense, the Arrowhawk gets to shift 3 squares before its Standard Action attack, the Arrowhawk flies, the Arrowhawk marks the target... the only thing Animate Dead has going for it is if you happen to animate something with reach. Seems pretty weak in comparison to the mighty Arrowhawk.
#6 serphet Feb 13, 2009 11:04:31	for a body that can occupy a spot, animating something large (or huge) is (no pun inteneded) quite a big deal.
#7 Cyber-Dave Feb 13, 2009 11:05:27	I think the summoning spells look fine as is... seems to me that Mordenkainen's Sword and Animate Dead are fairly balanced against each other. The Animate Dead takes a standard action to do damage, but unlike the sword it can flank and make opportunity attacks, as well as block squares against enemies entering into the square. I think your suggestions would make summoning overpowered. It wouldn't be equal to other powers of the same level, it would be better...
#8 cadfan Feb 13, 2009 11:14:21	Summoning is fine. It really isn't for damage. Its for area control and damage absorbtion. Because it can do those things and conjurations generally can't, it has to deal less damage than a conjuration of equivalent level.
#9 oneiros Feb 13, 2009 11:55:25	I think Summoning is fine, as well. I like the fact that causing the summoned creature to move uses only a minor action, so the summoner isn't stuck on the battlefield using up all his own move actions. Animate Dead vs. Summon Arrowhawk... I also think the key here is that you can animate something really big, which can help the wizard be more controller-y than he can with an arrowhawk, with the creature's reach, larger threatened area and ability to block larger areas. Of course, this aspect is dependent on if a DM adds a bigger than Medium creature to an encounter, and if that creature can be killed early enough in the battle for its corpse to be useful.
#10 nihzlet Feb 13, 2009 16:17:14	Eh, I know that Animating something with reach is good... it just seems too circumstantial to me. Oh well. It's not going to stop me from taking Animate Dead for the awesome factor alone. :P Another note on Animate Dead--the attacks it makes are Int vs. AC. Same with the Bard and Cleric summons. Wizard/Bard/Cleric implement attacks generally do not go against AC, and have a lower attack bonus than attacks that usually DO go against AC. Problem, or no?
#11 Bolongo Feb 13, 2009 16:34:21	Another note on Animate Dead--the attacks it makes are Int vs. AC. Same with the Bard and Cleric summons. Wizard/Bard/Cleric implement attacks generally do not go against AC, and have a lower attack bonus than attacks that usually DO go against AC. Problem, or no? It's certainly not as good as an attack vs. Ref or Will. Whether it's balanced or not depends on what other advantages it gives.
#12 Caeric Feb 13, 2009 16:54:39	I think that the betterment comes from summoning a creature that can actually take hits and be in the fight for you. Sure, Flaming Sphere is a level 1 Daily that you can make attack, can't take damage, and still does damage with creatures starting adjacent to it, but it doesn't attract attention from enemies except as an object to avoid. How about we use some numbers to explain? A hypothetical orc, with every swing, does 3 - 8 damage. There are five such orcs on the battlefield. Now, with a group of 5 PCs (let's say there's a defender, two strikers [ranged and melee], a leader, and a controller), that is a good encounter and all that. But if there's a boss and he has two lackies that are able to help set up some attacks... well suddenly you've got a problem. Let's say the boss does something between 6 - 14 damage and that's without using his recharge-able powers or encounters or other gimmicks. If you summon a creature and get his attention and he decides to attack it, what he essentially does is nothing. True -- he might damage your summons (and he'll have done something if he ends up destroying it --, but he didn't harm the party while he focused his attention on your summon. That's why summoned creatures do less damage, hit AC, and so on. They're a method of diverting damage from yourself and your allies, while dishing it out in sometimes rather-decent strikes. 2d10 damage is more than any sword in the Adventurer's Vault, that's for sure.
#13 vebrandsson Feb 13, 2009 17:50:34	Well you (the OP) are comparing the Bard, a Leader class, to a Wizard, a Controler class. The bard is not going to be a heavy damage class for starters and the wizard though not great on damage does decently.
#14 kingjosh Feb 13, 2009 20:35:17	Would an animated dead-guy still have any swords or armor he was wearing when he died? He wouldn't have powers or be able to activate magic items, but even a simple +1 or +2 could help. Just wondering, I honestly don't know.
#15 serphet Feb 13, 2009 20:36:46	no, the summoned being's abilities and statistics are very specific.
#16 alitain Feb 15, 2009 14:02:56	Okay, so I'm partially in agreement that the summoning kinda blows. I mean a summoned creature should have at least a standard and move action of it's own. Kinda the same problem with the Ranger's beast companion. It should move on it's own, it's an independant creature not a part of the player. But beast companion aside, and back to summoning, it did remind me of something. For those who've played Diablo 2 you probably know of the Druid and it's summoning abilities. Well I played one, and enjoyed summoning a mini animal army to fight for me. But that made me realize something. With my summoning druid I didn't really fight. I stayed back and moved around but otherwise let my summoned creatures fight for me. So a summoning wizard is meant as a specific build I think with that idea in mind. You're REALLY going to want to stay back out of the way and use your actions to command the creature to fight for you. But while it works well for Diablo 2, I'm not sure it's exactly perfect in D&D. But Arcane Power ain't out yet so I'll wait and see. But I like the idea of a summon build for the wizard, could make it fun to play. The only problem I have is that summoning takes an action that you need for a previous summoned creature to attack. A problem in my eyes, but we'll see when the book comes out.
#17 wizardmon Feb 15, 2009 14:33:13	I think you guys are forgetting some very important, powerful things about summoning: - Free Hit-points: A summoned creature has higher defenses than the character who summoned it, and has HP equal to that character's bloodied value. Even if the creature does die, and the summoner loses a healing surge, in most scenarios, that is still a free healing-surge worth of hits that the character does not need to take-- at least! - Sustain nothing: Summoned creatures last until the end of the encounter! This means that even if one does not use a standard action to attack with the summoned creature, it does not go away, AND one can still command it to move with a minor action. - Opportunity Actions: Most classes that summon creatures, at least wizards, do not get much use of their opportunity actions, and in putting this resource to use, significantly ups the, if I may, DPT of a summoning class.
#18 tehsquirrely Feb 15, 2009 15:11:12	The standard action attacks seem comparatively weak to other daily spells. Over the course of an encounter, if you're only using a summon, I suppose it would out damage some other daily spells, but then you're doing damage to 1 target, you aren't imposing any real penalties, and all your encounters are going to waste. I think having a summon attack as a move action would easily remedy this, but if summons stay how they are now, I'll likely never use them.
#19 KoboldAvenger Feb 15, 2009 16:04:20	From Secrets of City Entombed for example: Bard gets a lvl 29 summon (yes 29) who does 2d10 damage + stats to all adjacent ennemis and mark them... for one of your Standard Action. The ability to mark all adjacent enemies and do 2d10 damage, is something that a fighter can't do at will. I'd say the marking part from a summon is pretty significant, and certainly helps a leader class. All the enemies attacked get -2 to hit your allies.
#20 zarquon_higardi Feb 15, 2009 16:35:37	Summoning is mostly fine as is. You get a flanker you can move around as a minor action, a target for enemies to focus attacks on, and it acts a damage buffer, being able to absorb 2 healing surges worth of damage for the price of one. And that's not counting the fact that you can dismiss the summon before it goes down and not lose a surge at all. The biggest problem with summons, however, is the disparity of Summons vs. some other summons. Angel of Fire vs. Fire Warriors, for instance. The Fire Warrior has a better AC/Fort, but the Angel of Fire's attack is a close burst 1 compared to a single target (and still does the same damage). Animate Dead is the worst of the lot, though. Attacks vs. AC, need a corpse to actually use it, damage comparable to a level 5 summon (and it's resistable!). The only advantage (being able to get reach with it) is pretty much nullified by the fact that you actually have to kill said creature before the other creatures in the battle in order to actually take advantage of the reach... The attacks of all summons should be vs. Reflex instead of AC, imho. They are implement powers, after all.
#21 CK.356 Feb 15, 2009 17:40:09	I think it is kind of weak for us to judge summons just by reading a keyword and a few powers anyway. First, one would need to playtest at least some of these powers in different kinds of combat seems summoning powers vary in strength according to terrain and number of enemies (as well as enemy roles and combat style); in truth they may vary a bit too much for them to be dependable since they can scale from awesome to weak according to circumstances. Also we do not know what kind of feats and magic items can augment summons.
#22 tastygreenapple Feb 15, 2009 20:28:27	My guess is that the reason it uses yourStandard Actions is that the game designers don't want anyone to get what is essentially extra actions without using an Action Point, or something similar.
#23 Dragoloth Feb 15, 2009 22:37:39	I personally love animate undead. I know it's situational, but large and huge animates get threatening reach. A large creature with threatening reach controls 36 squares and a huge 81 squares. Thats a control wizard.
#24 tehsquirrely Feb 15, 2009 23:55:15	I personally love animate undead. I know it's situational, but large and huge animates get threatening reach. A large creature with threatening reach controls 36 squares and a huge 81 squares. Thats a control wizard. It's a shame the majority of creatures with threatening reach are solos or elites. I somehow think your DM might not let you carry that rotting hydra around with you.:P On a good note the latest primal power preview featuring the summons for druid is looking very nice. The addition of an "instinctive action" is something that I think the other summons could use to add some more uumph.
#25 Dragoloth Feb 16, 2009 0:05:59	To clarify, anything with reach that you animate gains threatening reach. Under opportunity attack it reads "targets one enemy in reach" not adjacent. and there are alot of large creatures in the MM and a few huge that are not elites or solos. And I totally agree the new druid summons are a vast improvement.
#26 tehsquirrely Feb 16, 2009 0:44:57	To clarify, anything with reach that you animate gains threatening reach. Under opportunity attack it reads "targets one enemy in reach" not adjacent. and there are alot of large creatures in the MM and a few huge that are not elites or solos. And I totally agree the new druid summons are a vast improvement. Oh, my mistake, I didn't notice that part.
#27 cid309 Feb 16, 2009 3:33:00	The more I think of it, the more I seem to think summoning is balanced mechanically....it's just that most summmoning powers are lacking in coolness factor...it's almost like playing a martial class with only basic attacks. Animate dead is a step in the right direction, as are the Druid's summoning powers from the preview, which all have effects when you don't take the standard action.