1: Summoning.
I used to play a LOT of summoners in 3.5... I miss the fun of having a Monster/Animal for any kind of encounter ready and at my finger tips...
Then later levels being able to make deals with all kind of higher powers.
A lot of fun and I miss it a lot.
2: Cones/Lines
I know they can muck things up a little but I still loved lines and cones ^_^
Plus with all the movement powers now it'd be so much more easy to set up a line power.
Any one feel the same way as me?
While I love 4e much more then 3.5 I find there are two things that I want to see come back into the game ASAP...
1: Summoning.
I used to play a LOT of summoners in 3.5... I miss the fun of having a Monster/Animal for any kind of encounter ready and at my finger tips...
Then later levels being able to make deals with all kind of higher powers.
A lot of fun and I miss it a lot.
2: Cones/Lines
I know they can muck things up a little but I still loved lines and cones ^_^
Plus with all the movement powers now it'd be so much more easy to set up a line power.
Any one feel the same way as me?
Summoning is a new keyword in PHB2, that the Invoker uses.
Wall is the new Line. Cones have been absorbed by Blast effects.
Summoning is a new keyword in PHB2, that the Invoker uses.
Wall is the new Line. Cones have been absorbed by Blast effects.
Have not seen the Invoker so I can't say on that.
Walls are not really a line... it is more of a wall...
Blasts are great and all but they are not the same as a cone
Depends on the formatting. "Target: all creatures within Wall X in a straight line away from you" could work.
I can agree to that one I guess.
Those it feels a little funny.
Summoning will be back, as mentioned, and I'm really excited to see how they will render it in the power-based 4e system.
1: Summoning.
I used to play a LOT of summoners in 3.5... I miss the fun of having a Monster/Animal for any kind of encounter ready and at my finger tips...
Then later levels being able to make deals with all kind of higher powers.
A lot of fun and I miss it a lot.
Here's a post I wrote on this same topic a few weeks ago:
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True old-skool summoning spells like "Summon Monster" and "Summon Nature's Ally" will probably never appear in 4th Edition. Although such spells represent fine fantasy archetypes, they are also extremely problematic in a game like D&D. They were removed very deliberately and, I fully expect, will never return (at least not in anything like the style you're accustomed to).
Although such spells might be fun for the player casting them, they were always a pretty terrible element during actual play for a few reasons:
1. They add entirely new combatants to a fight whenever they are cast. Sometimes adding multiple new combatants with a single spell. This tends to be an extremely powerful effect, often unbalancingly so.
2. They add entirely new combatants to a fight whenever they are cast. Sometimes adding multiple new combatants with a single spell. This tends to be a major pain in the ass. Every new creature is a new combatant with a full set of actions to perform and attacks to rolls. This slows combat to a crawl.
3. Traditionally, such spells summoned full versions of these creatures (i.e. straight out of the Monster Manual with all the statistics, powers, and options thereof) and most such spells could summon a whole list of different creatures chosen at the time of casting. This was another massive pain in the ass because no one ever knew what, exactly, the statistics for these new creatures were without looking them up and reading the creatures' descriptions. This also served to slow combat to a crawl, especially when several different types of creatures were summoned during the same fight and you had to keep referencing back and forth among their various Monster Manual entries.
4. If the caster was in control of the creatures he summoned (as he usually was), this resulted in the caster potentially becoming a whole army unto himself with a dozen actions to resolve each turn. In addition to slowing combat in general, this often made the other players feel bored and insignificant as they waited for the caster to resolve his own actions and those of his six summoned creatures before they could take their turns.
Those are the general reasons why summoning spells were always a pretty terrible part of the D&D game. And in 4th Edition, the issue has only gotten larger.
4th Edition is constructed in such a way that no player should receive more actions during combat than any other. Mounts and animal companions (such as those that appear in Martial Power) don't act independently of the PCs that control them and don't receive their own actions. A PC can, for instance, attack himself or let his mount attack, but not both. Summoned creatures are very difficult to incorporate into a system like this in anything close to the style you're used to.
4th Edition is also balanced in such a way that most effects are very brief (e.g. "until the end of your next turn") and only the most powerful abilities (i.e. daily powers) create effects that persist for multiple turns or, rarely, until the end of an encounter. This will also completely undermine summoning in the ways that players of past editions are accustomed to.
When summoning spells do appear in 4th Edition, here's the sort of things I believe we can expect:
At-Will Summoning Power
You summon a magical serpent that strikes at your enemy before vanishing back to the ether.
Standard action, Ranged 10
Attack: INT vs. AC
Hit: 1d8 + INT modifier damage.
Encounter Summoning Power
You summon a magical wolf that enters that fray and assists your allies for a brief time.
Standard action, Ranged 10
Effect: A conjured wolf appears in an empty space within range. It immediately makes an attack against an enemy of your choice adjacent to its position. This attack gains combat advantage against the target if an ally of yours flanks the target with the wolf. The wolf remains in place until the start of your next turn, continuing to provide flanking opportunities for your allies. The wolf then vanishes back to the ether.
Attack: INT vs. AC
Hit: 2d8 + INT modifier damage.
Daily Summoning Power
You summon a ferocious bear to fight in your stead.
Standard action, Ranged 10
Effect: A conjured bear appears in an empty space within range. It may make an immediate attack against an enemy of your choice adjacent to its position. The bear is treated as an ally for all effects to which this is pertinent, may flank with your allies, and so forth.
The bear has an AC equal to your AC+2. It has Fortitude, Reflex, and Will scores equal to your own. It has an attack modifier equal to your INT modifier plus one-half your level versus the target's AC. On a hit, it inflicts damage equal to 2d8 + your INT modifier. It has HP equal to your bloodied value.
The bear remains on the battlefield until the end of the encounter or until it is slain. On your turn, the bear may take a standard action, move action, and/or minor action in place of your own actions should you wish it. The bear may take no independent actions of its own.
As for lines and cones, I'm not a fan. Bursts are enough for me.
I think that Flaming Sphere provides a good model for summoning spells.
As for lines and cones, I'm not a fan. Bursts are enough for me.
This is exactly how I expect summoning will work. You use your actions to command whatever you've summoned. Also look at the Ranger Beast Companion rules. This is what I believe we can expect. You won't be able to both attack and have your summoned creature attack on the same turn.
That's an interesting situation for the party defender.
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or cone
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Pretty simple as long as you only shoot the cone in cardinal directions. Frankly, on the corners a blast already is kind of conish anyway so that should be fine.
Lines, well, too many angle to account for, so I think they should stay gone.
As for summoning spells, I agree that the wiz spells like flaming sphere, Mord's Sword, and Bigby's hands with their sustain minors have already laid the groundwork for summoning. In fact, I think you could already play a summoner. Refluff the sustain spells and voila.
Flaming Sphere becomes Summon Fire Imp.
You conjure a fire imp and control where it goes.
Daily, arcane, conjuration, fire, implement
Standard Action Range 10
Target one creature adjacent to the imp
Attack Int vs. Reflex
Effect You conjure a Medium fire imp in an unoccupied square within range, and the imp attacks an adjacent creature. Any creature that starts its turn next to the imp gets burned by the imp and takes 1d4+int mod fire damage. As a move action you can direct the impt to move up to 6 squares.
Sustain MinorYou can sustain this power until the end of the encounter. As a standard action, you can direct the imp to make another attack.
All I did was change a few descriptors and you have a summoning spell. Bigby's Icy Hand is an Ice demon, Mord's Sword is a warrior or something etc . . .hmm I may have to refluff my wiz a bit.
> line away from you" could work.
It won't. Something like that is fine as long as you're firing the line along one of the eight major compass points, but as soon as you try to use it at any other angle it becomes a mess.
And as for Lines... hm. If people are willing to change their perceptions of what a "line" does (as they have to do to accept "Blast" as the "Cone" replacement), a Close Wall X (each square must be further away from you than the last square) could work. It would allow for zig-zagging or curving "lines," but that would be fine for me.
As for the ability to summon--it's already here. Just about any summonable badguy from skeletons to golems are now created by ritual. Now there's a concensus out there that these rituals are to be had by NPCs only--but that's never made much sense to me. You want to raise a skeleton? Go get the ritual. Heck if you can afford the components and find a pre-prepared scroll you can do it no matter what class or even what level you are. Easy.
I can't wait for the class that sits in the middle of the field not moving and only gesturing and concentrating very intensely while an ink-black t-rex with 6 mouths tromps all over the field.
That's an interesting situation for the party defender.
It would rock and it is the epitome of "Controller".:D
@Grimweaver, totally agreed about the summoning for lasting duration or independent movement being a ritual. The RAW as written supports this view as such I support it fully because it opens up avenues for roleplay. (that Paladin seems to have an issue with that Wizard who sat back mumbling and drawing arcane symbols for a minute or 2...even though that Devil saved his righteous butt). Or whatever works for the story at hand.
You do know with a partner and the correct merit the time to perform a ritual lowers the by 75%? 10 minutes means that even a ritual can have combat effectiveness, if performed on the fly by two party members.
True old-skool summoning spells like "Summon Monster" and "Summon Nature's Ally" will probably never appear in 4th Edition.
And I very much believe they will come back.
They were removed very deliberately
Yes, but so were domination powers, necromancy, polymorphing, and 90% of illusions. But we don't have long rants on how PC domination will never return, we just accept that it's being moved to other classes.
So much was left out, why is summoning the only thing that was "deliberately removed"?
1. They add entirely new combatants to a fight whenever they are cast. Sometimes adding multiple new combatants with a single spell. This tends to be an extremely powerful effect, often unbalancingly so.
Unbalancing in 3e. There's no inherent reason the damage cannot be balanced in 4e with its toted "hard math".
2. They add entirely new combatants to a fight whenever they are cast. Sometimes adding multiple new combatants with a single spell. This tends to be a major pain in the ass. Every new creature is a new combatant with a full set of actions to perform and attacks to rolls. This slows combat to a crawl.
IF summoning still does multiple creatures and treats them as a single entity.
Other than that it's as slow as using an action point or a two-attack ranger. And most likely not even that.
I've heard the same "slows down combat" arguments for animal companions yet they've been brought back.
3. Traditionally, such spells summoned full versions of these creatures (i.e. straight out of the Monster Manual with all the statistics, powers, and options thereof) and most such spells could summon a whole list of different creatures chosen at the time of casting. This was another massive pain in the ass because no one ever knew what, exactly, the statistics for these new creatures were without looking them up and reading the creatures' descriptions. This also served to slow combat to a crawl, especially when several different types of creatures were summoned during the same fight and you had to keep referencing back and forth among their various Monster Manual entries.
Again, this is a problem with 3e (compounded as you needed to template the creatures and further problematic if you had Augment Summoning).
This is NOT a reason why they would not work in 4e and is just a reason to include full stats of the monsters in the PHB like the ranger's animal companion. Or the summoned critters from a Bag of Tricks.
4. If the caster was in control of the creatures he summoned (as he usually was), this resulted in the caster potentially becoming a whole army unto himself with a dozen actions to resolve each turn. In addition to slowing combat in general, this often made the other players feel bored and insignificant as they waited for the caster to resolve his own actions and those of his six summoned creatures before they could take their turns.
Right, which could be removed if commanding the creature takes a standard action, thus limiting its effect to once per round, or twice with an action point.
You summon the celestial badger. Its stats are in the book right by the power (or in the class features section). As a standard action you can command him to use the "Flurry" attack and strike with his claws. Or you can use your standard action to command him to use the "Latch On" attack. Or you can just use him as a road block and take your own action.
4th Edition is also balanced in such a way that most effects are very brief (e.g. "until the end of your next turn") and only the most powerful abilities (i.e. daily powers) create effects that persist for multiple turns or, rarely, until the end of an encounter. This will also completely undermine summoning in the ways that players of past editions are accustomed to.
UNLESS summoning is a daily power.
Since they're the big defining powers they almost certainly will be.
Lots of things did NOT work well in 3e but have the option of working fine in 4e. Any problems with any mechanics in an early edition is not a reason to not even consider something.
If I tried to argue that psionics were crazy broken in 2e and that's a good reason why they should never be in 4e people would laugh at me. Why is saying summoning in 3e was stupid a good reason to smite it from 4e?
I think that Flaming Sphere provides a good model for summoning spells.
As for lines and cones, I'm not a fan. Bursts are enough for me.
Same. I always had a problem with them and flying blue dragons. When a flying blue dragon breathed, you drawed a line from him to the last target, everything caught in the middle was hit. However, blue dragon was hovering at 50' of height, so why did the characters near them get hit? They arent 50' high. And using Pithagoras theorem in DD is more than I'm willign to.
Blasts, bursts, walls are enough for the most part, and the new lighting mechanics are good for the rest.
There will, of course, be the incessant baaawwwws of people who were hoping their summoning power would be like 3rd, spamming the battlefield with hordes of monsters more powerful than half the party and turnjacking the entire game, but you expect that.
Smithing (weaponsmith, blacksmith, etc. Why are ritual caster the only ones allowed ot make stuff? See my comment on summoning as well)
More basic monsters. (Forget the sharks with laser beams. Can I get a fricking guard dog?)
The 9 alignments + unaligned (unaligned is good, otherwise I thought the old alignment breakdown was perfectly conceived as a roleplaying aid, just don't beat players over the head with it in mechanics. The simplified alignments are too black-and-white. I'm DMing 10 character for 9 players right now and NONE OF THEM picked any of the given alignments not because they all wanted to be unaligned but because the alignments left didn't interest any of them. Everyone wanted to be CN or CG or LN or LE, and that is typical of my personal experience over a decade of DMing. The new alignments get mostly out of the way, but they don't add anything to the game or to character creation.)
More aligned gods for players. As-is, few of my divine players are worshiping anything other than neutral deities, and while I'm OK with neutral clerics, their choices have had more to do with limited selection of anything other than neutral.
Smithing (weaponsmith, blacksmith, etc. Why are ritual caster the only ones allowed ot make stuff? See my comment on summoning as well)
That's already covered, really. Using the Enchant Item ritual costs as much, for any given item, as it would be to buy it yourself. Apply the same rule to crafting. Buy a suit of armor? X gold. Make a suit of armor? X gold.
That's already covered, really. Using the Enchant Item ritual costs as much, for any given item, as it would be to buy it yourself. Apply the same rule to crafting. Buy a suit of armor? X gold. Make a suit of armor? X gold.
As a model I think that's good, but it's more of a houserule work around. I'd like to see something actually worked out with an eye to players making their own masterwork. (which right now, i don't think the enchant item feat allows)
As a model I think that's good, but it's more of a houserule work around. I'd like to see something actually worked out with an eye to players making their own masterwork. (which right now, i don't think the enchant item feat allows)
The +4-5-6 armors are *always* masterwork. It occurs as part of the enchantment process. If you make plate +6, it's automatically masterwork (godplate? Warplate? I'm AFB right now).
[Various]
The point-by-point manner in which you broke down my earlier post certainly makes it seem as if you read what I had said before you responded.
This, however, only makes your response all the more baffling. As politely as possible, I'm going to suggest that you seriously work on your reading comprehension skills, since you wasted a lot of time and effort writing an elaborate "counterargument" to me when, in fact, virtually everything you said was in complete agreement with me.
They *can* make summoning work, if they stick to their design principles. Monster layouts no more complicated than the ranger beast companions, requring the caster to use his actions to make the animal do its thing, and most of all, NO MORE THAN ONE SUMMONED CREATURE IN PLAY AT A TIME.
Exactly. I would confidently wager that this is, more or less, the very form that "summoning" will take in 4th Edition - as illustrated by the "sample" half-assed summoning powers I outlined above.
- Simple summoned creatures that are little more complicated than minions in their combat options.
- A single fixed summoned creature per summoning power. i.e. "Summon Irate Raccoon" will only summon irate raccoons, and never anything else.
- Normally only summoning persistent creatures that remain from round to round via Daily powers (likely often requiring Sustain actions to keep them around).
- The use of the creature's actions in place of, rather than in addition to, the summoner's own actions (similar to how animal companions now function).
There will, of course, be the incessant baaawwwws of people who were hoping their summoning power would be like 3rd, spamming the battlefield with hordes of monsters more powerful than half the party and turnjacking the entire game, but you expect that.
Yup. This was my major point - that while "summoning" will doubtlessly return in a way, it will be nothing like the summoning spells of previous editions and, similarly, playing a summoning-focused character in 4th Edition will be nothing like playing such a character in previous editions.
One of those, but that means +6 is really alway +10 or +12? that's the way the book describes it, that these armors only appear wearing these big enchanctments, but have addiitonal bonuses of their own making them better than non-masterowk armor fo the same level.
That's because there's no such thing as a non-masterwork armor of their level. There's no such thing as +6 (ordinary) plate mail. Think of it as regular metals not able to contain that much magic. You have to have God/Warplate armor to hold the +6 bonus.
Behind the curtain, without that boost (notice that masterwork heavy armors get bigger base bonuses than light), light armored Dex/Int sorts would out-AC heavy armor wearers at higher level, and they wanted to make heavy armor feasible at high levels in this edition.
Summoning (just work out a way it works, there's no problem here that can't be designed around)
Smithing (weaponsmith, blacksmith, etc. Why are ritual caster the only ones allowed ot make stuff? See my comment on summoning as well)
More basic monsters. (Forget the sharks with laser beams. Can I get a fricking guard dog?)
The 9 alignments + unaligned (unaligned is good, otherwise I thought the old alignment breakdown was perfectly conceived as a roleplaying aid, just don't beat players over the head with it in mechanics. The simplified alignments are too black-and-white. I'm DMing 10 character for 9 players right now and NONE OF THEM picked any of the given alignments not because they all wanted to be unaligned but because the alignments left didn't interest any of them. Everyone wanted to be CN or CG or LN or LE, and that is typical of my personal experience over a decade of DMing. The new alignments get mostly out of the way, but they don't add anything to the game or to character creation.)
More aligned gods for players. As-is, few of my divine players are worshiping anything other than neutral deities, and while I'm OK with neutral clerics, their choices have had more to do with limited selection of anything other than neutral.
-On smithing, there really isn't much of a point as far as I can see. Smithing would take a day for something like a longsword(and I think I'm being very generous there), and the result would be inferior to a longsword made through ritual magic. It would basically be something that loses any purpose after the first few levels.
-On alignments, pretty much all of the alignments are still present. The only one really missing is the balance obsessed version of True Neutral. CN is unaligned. CG is good. LN is unaligned. And LE is evil.
The +4-5-6 armors are *always* masterwork. It occurs as part of the enchantment process. If you make plate +6, it's automatically masterwork (godplate? Warplate? I'm AFB right now).
No they aren't. I just checked Adventure's Vault and it says:
For example, +4 crysteel mail armor costs 45,000 gp- the same as nonmasterwork +4 chain armor.
That quote pretty much spells out that there are indeed non masterwork armors.
That's because there's no such thing as a non-masterwork armor of their level. There's no such thing as +6 (ordinary) plate mail. Think of it as regular metals not able to contain that much magic. You have to have God/Warplate armor to hold the +6 bonus.
Behind the curtain, without that boost (notice that masterwork heavy armors get bigger base bonuses than light), light armored Dex/Int sorts would out-AC heavy armor wearers at higher level, and they wanted to make heavy armor feasible at high levels in this edition.
I understand exactly what you're saying, and I'll try to reread it when I get home, but I just read that section last night, and what I thought it said was the opposite of what you're saying: I don't remember anything about nonmasterwork +6 not existing, however, the enchantment minimums mean that godplate could only appear as armor with a +6 or better enchantment, and then that bonus was on top of godplate's already higher AC rating (so godplate only really appears as a total +18 to AC). At least, that's how I read it.
-On smithing, there really isn't much of a point as far as I can see. Smithing would take a day for something like a longsword(and I think I'm being very generous there), and the result would be inferior to a longsword made through ritual magic. It would basically be something that loses any purpose after the first few levels.
-On alignments, pretty much all of the alignments are still present. The only one really missing is the balance obsessed version of True Neutral. CN is unaligned. CG is good. LN is unaligned. And LE is evil.
These are both old arguments, and I simply disagree on both points (or to put it another way, I'm not satisfied with either of them as a trade off). If I didn't, I wouldn't have bothered to post.
Saying smithing would be useless is closing a door when an hour of creativity could make it something cool. The new alignment structure can be seen to hold the old ones, but that's not the point. It doesn't provide the same assistance for players to define their characters, the alignments are so bland and generic that there's nothing to work with. To me it fails miserably to actually add anything to the game.
Same with NE and CE, except they kept the Chaotic Evil name and LE became Evil.
And Smithing is weaker than most abilites, so it's now a bacround freebie. If a character is the son of a blacksmith, or grew up in a foundry, or is a dwarf, period, they should be able to do reasonable things with access to a smithy.
Really, what's the difference between Neutral Good and Chaotic good? You have a good heart, but don't feel like being forced into lawful stupid acts. So they merged them into the Good alignment.
Neutral good was people that was good per se, and looked over laws when he felt them restrictive or stupid. A chaotic good opposes laws, becouse those restrict freedom, regardless of the goodness of the law. A good example would be the equivalent of a fantasy Patriot Act that give the goverment powers to spy spellcasters and reading their minds to know if they do evil pacts with devils or whatever. The neutral good might be Ok with the law, unless it starts to be used for evil purposes or goes beyond certain point he feels "confortable with". A chaotic good player oposses the law by itself, becouse it is a restriction of liberty, regarless of how useful to fight evilness it is. Chaotic good is as much a freedom fighter as neutral good is a goodness fighter.
I wouldnt mind to leave the alignments as they were in 3.5, as long as they didnt mess with game mechanics (no "lawful spells" or the like)
(not a bash on 3.x- I'm referring to the RPG supplements based off the Munchkin card game)
Well, if there's no mechanics associated with them, you could houserule the 3.x alignments easilly. Or the Munchkin alignments- those work too.
(not a bash on 3.x- I'm referring to the RPG supplements based off the Munchkin card game)
Obviously, you can houserule anything. I think the game would be better with those and the smithing options back in.
Yup. This was my major point - that while "summoning" will doubtlessly return in a way, it will be nothing like the summoning spells of previous editions and, similarly, playing a summoning-focused character in 4th Edition will be nothing like playing such a character in previous editions.
You mean like playing a 4e fighter is nothing like playing a fighter of earlier editions yet still manages to be a fighter?
Summoning monster spells won't be as crazy as they were before but that could be said about alot of mechanics. And it doesn't mean there won't be lengthy summoning powers that still encapsulate the spirit of summoning (bringing in something to fight for you).
At-Wills would be just about a straight attack and vanish effects.
For an Encounter power, you either get a few bigger attack and vanish effects or possibly a power that summons a number of minions of appropriate level equal to your appropriate mechanic. For example, a Necromancer could, for a first level Encounter power, summon a number of decrepit Skeletons equal to his Con modifier (minimum 1).
As for a Daily, They can summon a normal creature of appropriate level from any accepted source. A first level you could get a Kobold Slinger, Goblin Warrior, Dire Rat, Storm Claw Scorpion or whatever...
Perhaps the Summon could instead be a spontaneous replacement for the appropriate power.
Also creature(s) would act in place of the caster, thus limiting the creature spam that paralyzed earlier editions...
Blasts are great and all but they are not the same as a cone
Actually, cones are blasts if you use 4th distance counting.
I do not think that they are going to have creature with hit points that you can summon again if thats is what everyone is thinking about.
And what is so wrong with the system they have now that EVERYONE seems to not count it as summoning?