AI summoning limit

[toxin]

Is the AI subject to the 5 creature summon limit the PC party is?

If not, will the SR AI ever summon more than 5?

 

What if I remove the summoning cap using BG2 Tweaks?

I would really love to, but I was worries that would create an unfair advantage over the AI.

[Jarno Mikkola]

Is the AI subject to the 5 creature summon limit the PC party is?

No. It was not in the original game, nor is it here. That can't be programmed within this engine.

 

If not, will the SR AI ever summon more than 5?

There's no SR AI, but the vanilla AI can surely do it all on it's own, if it just has the spells and high enough levels. Of course Liches etc prefer demons etc so there's no real large issues with 20+ summons in the original games.

The BG2 Tweakpack uses a different creatures in the spells, so you can get a miscalious results all depending what versions of mods etc you use.

[toxin]

Of course Liches etc prefer demons etc so there's no real large issues with 20+ summons in the original games

 

Could you please explain what you mean by this? Do they summon 20+ demons in a single fight??

 

The BG2 Tweakpack uses a different creatures in the spells

 

You mean the way the tweak pack removes the summonning cap is by replacing all the summoning spells? How does that reconcile with new spells added in SR?

 

so you can get a miscalious results all depending what versions of mods etc you use

 

I'm not sure what miscalious means? Did you mean miscellaneous?

My mod setup is fairly standard:

• SR V4 latest beta
• BG2Tweakpack (latest)
• SCS 30
• aTweaks (latest)

Would it be safe to assume that allowing myself to summon more than 5 will be fair in that the AI may just as well do the same?

[Jarno Mikkola]

 

Of course Liches etc prefer demons etc so there's no real large issues with 20+ summons in the original games

Could you please explain what you mean by this? Do they summon 20+ demons in a single fight??

 

Well, the SCS AI was programmed at one point to continiusly cast Time Spot spells and Demon spells as long as it had the required spells. And yes, there's a way that can actually happen. That's infinite amount of demons as the time stop would never and the demons would be summoned while the turns the Time Stops were not needed to be casted to pause the endless pause in time ... and game over.

It was later made to take this scennario into an action and just cast a few iterations of Time Stop, and then cast other spells instead.

The vanilla AI's tools are pretty poor, there's not a real danger other than the infinite Time Stop itself(which usually isn't an issue).

 

1) You mean the way the tweak pack removes the summonning cap is by replacing all the summoning spells?

2) How does that reconcile with new spells added in SR?

1. That and it makes a changes to the summoned creatures .cre files, and the spell files. So there's already partial incompatibility there.

2. The SRv4 is a beta, how would I know ? Being a beta tester... well, I am not.

 

Would it be safe to assume that allowing myself to summon more than 5 will be fair in that the AI may just as well do the same?

Well the vanilla AI can do it so I would say yeah, of course you have to understand that this is 'my opinion'.

Of course I would not use the SR's summons, as they are not anything near the vanilla summons in stat line. There's a little bit difference between the 80 HP's Pit Fiend with Thac0 at 7 melee attacks with 5 attacks per round vs 230 HP with Thac0 -8 with 5 attacks per round and with all the rest of this:

Pit Fiend (24 Hit Dice):

STR 24, DEX 18, CON 18, INT 19, WIS 16, CHA 25; AL Lawful Evil

HP 230, AC -10, THAC0 -8, Saving Throws 3/3/3/8/3

5 Attacks Per Round, 2d6+16 Piercing Damage (Claws, Bite & Tail +4)

 

Combat Abilities (20% chance each):

Disease: creatures struck by a pit fiend's bite attack must save vs. death at -6 or be infected with a vile disease known as devil chills, losing 2 points of strength after an incubation period of 12 hours

Poison: a pit fiend's bite injects a lethal poison which inflicts 20 points of damage on hit, and further 150 points after 1 turn unless a save vs. poison at -6 is made

Constrict: creatures struck by the pit fiend's tail must save vs. death at -6 to avoid being stunned for 1 round

 

Special Qualities:

Immune to weapons lower than +3 enchantment

Immune to confusion, fear, poison & stun effects

Regeneration: 2hp/round

Fire Resistance 100%; Acid & Cold Resistance 50%; Magic Resistance 65%

 

Special Abilities:

Improved Invisibility (at will)

Fireball (at will/once each 5 rounds)

Power Word: Stun (at will/once each 5 rounds)

Unholy Word (once per day)

Meteor Swarm (once per day)

Teleport Without Error (at will)

 

[cipher]

I swear the forums will never be the same if ever Jarno decides to leave. Helpful and absurd in equal measure. Don't ever change dude

 

On topic, the AI does not have any summoning limit, only the player does. It's not uncommon in certain fights to get swamped by low level summons, if you leave things unchecked. On the other hand you will not see things like 10 Pit Fiends or Planetars. Usually ogres, shadows and spiders.

 

I used to be against the limit myself, but given the AI limitations and how unlimited summoning trivialises the game I think of it now as a mild annoyance. There are cases though that the 5 summon cap is plain silly. You can cast MSII as a high level caster and then won't be able to summon elementals for example.

[Jarno Mikkola]

I swear the forums will never be the same if ever Jarno decides to leave. Helpful and absurd in equal measure. Don't ever change dude

...

There are cases though that the 5 summon cap is plain silly. You can cast MSII as a high level caster and then won't be able to summon elementals for example.

Well, I have ~20 000 posts in here and in SHSForums so, that's not likely to change in any time soon, yes, as I am the biggest responce spammer there is. Mostly try to help... sometimes I fail horribly, but I do have my good days, as everyone would in this position.

 

In my mind, the summon cap of 5 would really have it's use if it was done properly, aka the elemental summons, genies(efreet, djinn's, aerial servant's), and a caster summon(nymph and ~undead damage mage or something).

All the while those and the even lesser smmons which are unlimited, keep their original stat lines.

The distinction of the lesser summons with mostly (rats 2-) 6-12 (-30 ogres) hit points would be the situation of their summon, their immunities etc things that make them good at a task, or vs area of effect spells etc simular stuff.

The demons and devils etc are evil, so having a blood war with each others and unlimited amount of is just fine, as you can only portionally influence them anyways. Familiars and Celestials being the limit of 1 is good too.

[Fiann of the Silver Hand]

Summons limit is (almost) entirely determined by the relevant CRE's GENDER.IDS. Several mods get around this by adding or altering that entry.

[toxin]

Well, the SCS AI was programmed at one point to continiusly cast Time Spot spells and Demon spells as long as it had the required spells. And yes, there's a way that can actually happen. That's infinite amount of demons as the time stop would never and the demons would be summoned while the turns the Time Stops were not needed to be casted to pause the endless pause in time ... and game over.

 

I'm confused, wouldn't the caster quickly run out of Time Stop and Gate spells (how many could he possibly have memorized)?

 

Of course I would not use the SR's summons, as they are not anything near the vanilla summons in stat line. There's a little bit difference between the 80 HP's Pit Fiend with Thac0 at 7 melee attacks with 5 attacks per round vs 230 HP with Thac0 -8 with 5 attacks per round and with all the rest of this:

 

I was under the impression that SR is closer to PnP is it not? And the AI can summon the same anyway (only better, because their demons won't attack them even without PfE).

 

1. That and it makes a changes to the summoned creatures .cre files, and the spell files. So there's already partial incompatibility there.

2. The SRv4 is a beta, how would I know ? Being a beta tester... well, I am not.

 

 

Interesting, I'll ask in the SR forum, thanks!

 

So I take it the prevailing opinion is that a summoning limit would have made sense, had it been implemented per summon type.

As it is now, I guess it may make sense to disable it and simply not take advantage of it during gameplay (assuming it plays nice with SR summons).

[Jarno Mikkola]

I was under the impression that SR is closer to PnP is it not? And the AI can summon the same anyway (only better, because their demons won't attack them even without PfE).

Yeah, and how close is this game to the PnP version you play with ? Or you have understood it to be one ?

See you forget that the PnP game is completelly balanced by the game maker(dungeon keeper), there's no general hit dice caps, spell level caps, rounds/turns (yeah the PnP game is a turn based game, but unlike the cRPGame with a pause function, it's not 60 seconds real time per 10 rounds of actions) etc.

So the PnP balance is malformed for any computer game. Or this games rule system is no where near the PnP game. Take it as you like.

 

I'm confused, wouldn't the caster quickly run out of Time Stop and Gate spells (how many could he possibly have memorized)?

Well, there are advanced forms of magic that bypass the rules of requiring to memorize spells... endlessly. So what if I programmed that , with lots of help.

The game also has the Spell Trap spell, don't forget that the AI could also do what the player can do, aka cast spells that give spells back. Nice ? Ha.

But generally there's no reason to do so, so the AI usually is not programmed to use them. Cause, really, that's pure cheese.

Ouh yeah, does the PnP games you play have any of this ? Cause, really, that's pure cheese. And the smelly kind.

[toxin]

A little confession here, I never have and probably never will play PnP

I'm just using PnP as a reference seeing as it is supposed to be a generally accepted well thought-out, balanced system. However I definitely agree that sometimes adjustments have to be made for cRPGs.

 

I'm just choosing to assume PnP summons are balanced because I really like summoning strong monsters

(in my defense, the AI gets the same summons)