Summoning Spells for V4

[kreso]

 

What I'd do for Mordy is lower their damage resistance to 95. So at least fighters have a chance.

Sorry, but what does a sword do with so high damage resistance ? 50% is plenty against a blunt damage type, 95% against the others. Yeah, and 10 HP's is plenty for it.

 

If you give it 10 HP it will die to a single magic missile casting.

Aerial Servant in PnP is even more powerful in PnP. But only priests of Cyric can get one, no other kit has this spell.

[Jarno Mikkola]

If you give it 10 HP it will die to a single magic missile casting.

And ? You still have to hit it 10 times with a dagger, or sword... it's a glass cannon. If you want more fleshy shields, you summon different stuff, not flying magical swords.

 

Aerial Servant in PnP is even more powerful in PnP. But only priests of Cyric can get one, no other kit has this spell.

And as this game doesn't need a kit like that, we should just make the use of it's lesser version of the monster. Also there's the whole hocus pocus thing about PnP being very bad source to search references.

[kreso]

, we should just make the use of it's lesser version of the monster.

There isn't a "lesser Aerial servant".

[Demivrgvs]

Mordy

If you give it 10 HP it will die to a single magic missile casting.

And ? You still have to hit it 10 times with a dagger, or sword... it's a glass cannon. If you want more fleshy shields, you summon different stuff, not flying magical swords.

A glass cannon? LOL Mordy has thac0 2, 1apr and average damage at best considering its spell level. It's THE tank par excellence, remove its toughness and all that remains isn't a glass cannon but a very expensive toothpick.

 

Regarding the eventual tweak to allow non-mages to have at least a small chance to do something against it, the current description says the sword is made of "force", not magic energy, thus I may be persuaded to think it can be physically damaged as long as it's implemented in a way that preserves its intended role (e.g. 95% damage resistance or something similar). I'll think about it.

Aerial Servant

Aerial Servant is even more powerful in PnP.

And as this game doesn't need a kit like that, we should just make the use of it's lesser version of the monster. Also there's the whole hocus pocus thing about PnP being very bad source to search references.

PnP is a bad source now? Wow... I admit PnP isn't always the most balanced source ever, but let's not err on the other side. What's a good source then, Jarno's mind?

[Jarno Mikkola]

PnP is a bad source now? Wow... I admit PnP isn't always the most balanced source ever, but let's not err on the other side. What's a good source then, Jarno's mind?

Well, the original game, with tweaks.

Yeah, things like summons HPs being near to the original games. Tweaks, that remove overpowered things such as giants dying because they can't actually damage the sword at all because it's immunity to all sources of damage they have, except the few with the x -source. The original sword has a very good AC, the immunity damage just allows things to skip damaging it with anything else than the right stuff... to what the AI is concerned with, they could be invisible and they would be just as good of with it, and players will suffers a lot due to it.

 

Any of the PnP material can be used to test features, but they have to be used with the knowledge that this is a game based on totally different ruleset, and the amounts can be very much off. Especially with the in game 9th-11th level HP cap and 10th-20th spell level cap BG2 -ruleset. The AC too is capped at -20 (... except the special rules that allow it go beyond cause of the to hit types, outside topics point).

 

HPs will be off on any creature taken from PnP source that goes over the 10th level, this can be seen in the Summons table CLEARLY. That's unfortunately all the summons except a very few, due to them being summoned on levels beyond the 10th.

Same thing happens when you expand the spell rule system to be capped on the 50th level instead of the current 10th-to-20th. There's no creature in the game that can take fireballs that do 50d6 damage on them. Well, except the immune ones, all of which is besides the point. This was not a huge concern on the 2ed rule sets, as they usually had no high level adventures. But the 3ed's rule changes make the material highly unusable as a direct allocation.

 

There isn't a "lesser Aerial servant".

And you can't make one up ?

[kreso]

 

There isn't a "lesser Aerial servant".

And you can't make one up ?

 

I can, but I doubt Demi would iclude it.

[Jarno Mikkola]

I can, but I doubt Demi would iclude it.

Currently the only thing I see wrong with it, is a little too much attack damage, and way too many hit points(as my fighter can't even get that many, because of the cap in the ruleset), but it's not the worst offender in a BG2 game.

 

Now, if this was against a fighter with uncapped hit point pool(~15*(10+Con bonus)), it might just be good as a 6th level divine summon, but it's not in BG2 game, where the rules are what they are. Even the original character had too many HPs.

[spanyam]

From what I gather, there are two issues:

1. Too easy to spam summons to overwhelm enemy mages (especially solitary ones, no matter how strong they are supposed to be)
2. Some summons are far too effective with no drawbacks (Mordy, Aerial Servant, Celestials)

Here are some ideas on mitigating the over effectiveness of summons, other than weakening summons themselves:

 

Make Banishment a field effect

What if we strengthen banishment be sort of a "Banishment field" that lasts a few rounds? Any summoned creature entering the area will be banished. I assume this can be coded using code similar to teleport field. This can work as a sort of double edged sword (since your own summons would disappear too), useful especially for the solitary wizards that are supposed to be masters of their craft. The only worry is that this has to be balanced properly to prevent Conjurors from getting totally neutered. Maybe make it a higher level spell / HLA. The other issue is that this would depend on an SCS update to make it work right, otherwise nobody would make use of it this way.

 

Introduce drawbacks to having summons out on the field

Summoning legendary creatures should take a fair amount of focus, concentration, and effort from the summoner. Maybe introducing a decent chance of spell failure or a big penalty to spell casting speed when a powerful summon is on the field would help. That way, while they are on the field, you are noticeably gimped but not incapacitated. The failure rate or casting speed penalty can be zero for the lesser summons, gradually becoming much more painful for the higher summons (Celestials/Elemental Princes/Gated beings). We can tweak this on a spell by spell level.

 

Also, Pit Fiends and other evil summons are supposed to be absolutely terrifying juggernauts from another plane. They could come with an aura that negatively affects your own party, e.g. forcing everyone in range to save vs death each round or run around in panic or reducing everyone's AC because they are unable to fully concentrate on their own enemy.

 

Not sure what to do with Mordy's, though...

[kreso]

From what I gather, there are two issues:

1. Too easy to spam summons to overwhelm enemy mages (especially solitary ones, no matter how strong they are supposed to be)
2. Some summons are far too effective with no drawbacks (Mordy, Aerial Servant, Celestials)

There's a bit more than that imo, I only pointed out Celestials as really powerful.

Even little skeletons you can get in BG1 are top-notch summons against specific enemies, namely basilisks and sirens.

 

 

Make Banishment a field effect

I tought about it as well. I think it could be made work. Demi? Especially if it could kill a certain number of summons before it dissipates. I'm not sure about killing own summons tough....

Refinements has Death Field HLA, but I don't really think it's HLA worthy. I do know SCS uses Death Field if Refinements is installed, I'll check, but it may be it kills of Celestials as well.

 

Introduce drawbacks to having summons out on the field

My idea was to have caster "paused" for having such allies, for as long as they "live". Breaks AI, ofc. I don't think this can be done without substantially droping down AI effectiveness.

[spanyam]

There's a bit more than that imo, I only pointed out Celestials as really powerful.

Even little skeletons you can get in BG1 are top-notch summons against specific enemies, namely basilisks and sirens.

Hmm, in the case of countering basilisks and sirines, wouldn't that be considered a good strategic move within the bounds of the game? Animate dead isn't available till level 5 anyway, and by then isn't it expected that you should be able to take on Basiliks and Sirines?

 

My idea was to have caster "paused" for having such allies, for as long as they "live". Breaks AI, ofc. I don't think this can be done without substantially droping down AI effectiveness.

In that case, instead of pausing the caster, we could simply impose appropriate penalties to movement speed, casting speed, saving throws, AC, etc on the summoner. Later on, enemy AI can also be tweaked (presumably) in SCS to get sufficiently intelligent ranged attackers and enemy mages to try and focus their attention on the extremely gimped caster instead of the giant summon in front of them.

[Jarno Mikkola]

Hmm, in the case of countering basilisks and sirines, wouldn't that be considered a good strategic move within the bounds of the game? Animate dead isn't available till level 5 anyway...

Wel, the old spell was on clerics 3rd level too, so...

 

In that case, instead of pausing the caster, we could simply impose appropriate penalties to movement speed, casting speed, saving throws, AC, etc on the summoner. Later on, enemy AI can also be tweaked (presumably) in SCS to get sufficiently intelligent ranged attackers and enemy mages to try and focus their attention on the extremely gimped caster instead of the giant summon in front of them.

Neither of these will ever make it to the table, the magic doesn't just work this way in the Forgotten Realms...

[kreso]

 

Hmm, in the case of countering basilisks and sirines, wouldn't that be considered a good strategic move within the bounds of the game? Animate dead isn't available till level 5 anyway...

Wel, the old spell was on clerics 3rd level too, so...

It still is on level 3.

[kreso]

enemy AI can also be tweaked (presumably) in SCS to get sufficiently intelligent ranged attackers and enemy mages to try and focus their attention on the extremely gimped caster instead of the giant summon in front of them.

They already try to do that, to an extent. Most of SCS oponnents are smart enough to switch attention to "real" targets. It's not like you can simply ignore a Planetar/Hakeashar etc., tough.

[spanyam]

Wel, the old spell was on clerics 3rd level too, so...

Oh sorry I meant that to get a level 3 spell as a cleric, you need to be at char level 5, which is quite decent to be able to take on things like Basilisks.

 

Neither of these will ever make it to the table, the magic doesn't just work this way in the Forgotten Realms...

Hmm I see. Yes, upon further reading, it seems that concentration is only required to open the planar connection or gate, which in this case is taken care of by casting time. Once the creature enters this plane, it is either simply commanded and must obey or does whatever it pleases. I suppose imposing penalties on the caster would go against the system. But then again, summons in PnP seem to expire based on caster level, which BG doesn't do.

[Dakk]

Just to mention this, the newest version of BG2 Tweak Pack has a component - Remove Summoning Cap - that totally removes the summoning cap (for EE). I suppose that would throw balance out the window, regarding summons?