Improvements to Summon Spells

[TheBlankStare]

As a clarification, the duration on those summon monster spells is 3 rounds + 1 round per level. I'm surprised that no one has noted that you can easily double the duration of those spells with the extend spell feat. Summoning a dire badger at level six would normally give you nine rounds of effectiveness. Extending the spell lets it last 18 rounds. That's nearly two minutes for it to do it's work. If you're in a party that's a heck of a helper to everyone.

As black_hand said you just need to have a plan for using them for things other than being a tank. A properly placed summoned critter is great for granting flanking bonuses to your front line fighters and it might just get in a couple of hits itself. Summons can also be put in hard to reach places giving those front liners the time they need to reach enemies on, say, switchbacking trails.

[Verrath]

If summoned out of combat, they seem to fade away even before you can emote whistling for them.

[Cornuto]

I thought extending was 1.5 x the duration, not 2 x the duration?

10 rounds to 15
20 rounds to 30
etc...

[Kaeldorn]

Nope. Extend Spell doubles the duration. Though Empower Spell gives a 50% stronger effect.

I've spoken with GBX about this and we do agree that some increase in duration to at least the regular summon spells may be desirable.

[Delzoun]

Something to keep in mind is the potency of these creatures. As a one time owner of a summoner I can say augmented summons is plenty strong. Think of how much more damage a dire wolf does in its existance than many direct damage spells, and there are no resists to summon them against, etc. If anything I would implement a feat that would allow you to extend summon spells for no increase in spell circle, like extend spell but only for summon spells.

Make the feat require augment summoning, so then if you want to play a summoner with long duration pets, etc then invest the 3 feats, otherwise the summons are as powerful and last as long as they need to naturally.

[Zoberraz]

The Frontier Reborn, another server I occasionally play on, implemented this modification that made summon monster spell last something like a minute per level instead of rounds, along with something else that allowed a PC to tweak what kind of monster he could summon with a specific summon monster spell.

I've found it quite cool for my 12th-level wood elf ranger (with Practiced Spellcaster) to be able to summon a Dire Wolf and have it last around enough to run around a few zones, and even be able to stop and roleplay a bit and have it not immediately vanish. It's like I have my own dire animal buddy along with my animal companion!

Not to mention he lasts long enough for me to be prone to heal him and buff him. Odds are better that the summon will die before the duration comes to an end, than the reverse.

[vexxen]

Just a query here, would it be hard to "pick" which elemental you want to summon? also, would scripting for something like this be hard? Just curious as i like the elemental summons, but sometimes you really do get the wrong one.

[Vicissitudes]

The Frontier Reborn, another server I occasionally play on, implemented this modification that made summon monster spell last something like a minute per level instead of rounds, along with something else that allowed a PC to tweak what kind of monster he could summon with a specific summon monster spell.

I've found it quite cool for my 12th-level wood elf ranger (with Practiced Spellcaster) to be able to summon a Dire Wolf and have it last around enough to run around a few zones, and even be able to stop and roleplay a bit and have it not immediately vanish. It's like I have my own dire animal buddy along with my animal companion!

Not to mention he lasts long enough for me to be prone to heal him and buff him. Odds are better that the summon will die before the duration comes to an end, than the reverse.

To be honest, if at all possible I wouldn't wish for SUCH a long duration. A summon spell shouldn't take the place of an animal companion, etc, and it should be more temporary. But still long enough to be useful, and at the moment it's not, at least with the "Summon Monster ##" spells. 30secs/level would be perfectly adequate, or even 60/90secs + 6secs/level. A longer base time and slow advancement so that the summon is always useful even at lower levels, but never TOO long duration so as to be overpowered...

[TheBlankStare]

To be honest, if at all possible I wouldn't wish for SUCH a long duration. A summon spell shouldn't take the place of an animal companion, etc, and it should be more temporary. But still long enough to be useful, and at the moment it's not, at least with the "Summon Monster ##" spells. 30secs/level would be perfectly adequate, or even 60/90secs + 6secs/level. A longer base time and slow advancement so that the summon is always useful even at lower levels, but never TOO long duration so as to be overpowered...

Allright! Things are getting interesting in this discussion now but it's time for a little reality check on what these changes actually mean.

First I agree. Summon Monster spells shouldn't take the place of an animal companion. 30 seconds per level does just that. Let's look at how that works out. If a caster uses the Extend Spell feat he's suddenly got a powerful workhorse around for ten minutes at tenth level. That's a dire boar that can be buffed to the nines and be made virtually unkillable.

A druid's animal companion is meant to stick around for long periods of time. It's just that. A companion. Increasing the duration of the summon monster spells by a factor of five (30 seconds per level) essentially gives animal companions to Spirit Shamans, Sorcerers, Clerics and Wizards all at the same time. Wizards and Sorcerers already get familiars and Clerics with the animal domain get an animal companion.

Druids are even more scary with an increase in the Summon Monster durations.

Imagine a druid summoning a dire bear that's going to last for thirteen minutes. It's going to be an augmented summon, of course. It'll have Stoneskin, Greater Magic Fang, Bull's Strength, Cat's Grace and Barkskin. Oh. The druid's animal companion has all of those buffs too. . . and it's Awakened. The druid has also taken on the form of a dire bear and buffed herself in much the same way. Scary scary scary.

Do you really want to walk around in a world where druids have that much power at their fingertips? (I don't want druids answering that question.) Really, the best way to handle summon monster spells is to leave them alone.

[Saulus]

Hahaha.

Good job TheBlankStare.

And that folks is pretty much my stance on changing the timer.. even a little.

[Vicissitudes]

The answer is, no, I do not. But this does not mean that there is not, currently, a problem. And though I understand that the safest option is to do nothing, that doesn't mean that we should give up on solutions entirely.

The problem I'm seeing at the moment, is for low-level wizards and sorcerers and the like, at levels, 1-8 or so, for whom summon spells are an absolute waste and thus makes it very un-fun RPing a summoner. I also appreciate the need to not make summon spells too powerful and thus throw things out of balance, at higher levels.


So, let's drop the talk of 30sec/level summons for a moment, and consider the second option suggested? A healthy base summon duration... 60 seconds, maybe a bit more like 90... with the usual slow 6/sec level increase. So, summon duration for that family of spells would be: 60/90secs+6secs/level.

At low levels, that is actually useful, though not ages, and would allow a summon to actually be in a fight rather than struggle with pathfinding for 12 seconds and then disappear. And at higher levels, the summons would only last maybe 40 or 50 seconds more than they would have before, thus adressing the concerns expressed above.


So basically for lowlevels, your summon would be around for a nice happy minute or a little more, allowing it to be useful without anything close to persistant.

For level 10s or so, it'd last two minutes. Unless extended. A nice, happy duration without it being overpowered.

For level 20s, if we have any, 3 minutes.

[TheBlankStare]

Saulus: And here I thought I was going to be able to make an uber druid.

Vic: Let's examine 60 seconds +6 seconds per level for a moment. A tenth level caster gets an 11 minute (60 seconds x 10 + 6 seconds x 10) summon with that. That's an even worse abuse than the 30 seconds per level that I analyzed. If he extends that it jumps up to 22 minutes. It still gives all the full casters an animal companion and makes druids even scarier.

[The Almight Red]

Uh, no. The 60 seconds doesn't get multiplied, TBS.

Just the round/level.

So, a tenth level would have 60 seconds + 10 rounds. So, essentially 2 minutes. I hardly see how 2 minutes is broken on a 10th level caster, to be frank.

Even 4 minutes at extended isn't exactly mind boggling or uberpowerful.

Even a pure 20th level caster who extends their summon would have (60 seconds + 6 seconds/level)x2 = 6 minutes. Once again, for a 20th level caster focusing on summoning, it's not something that's absolutely and entirely overpowered.

The main thing this solves, however, is the feasibility of the spell at low levels. This way, a level one character isn't summoning something for four rounds. Where, let's be honest, 2 to 3 of those rounds are wasted in just positioning.

[TheBlankStare]

The Extend Spell feat doubles the spells entire duration. The feat doesn't care how the duration is calculated it just doubles whatever the duration is.

60 seconds + 6 seconds per level is 66 seconds per level. 66 seconds turns into 132 seconds when you extend it. At tenth level that's 1320 seconds. Divide that by 60 and you get 22 minutes.

[The Almight Red]

Just did some testing, it does not appear that is so. Of course, I tested with Vanilla NWN2, and not the custom content of this server. So, perhaps this server has changed the Extend Spell Feat? Anyway, as to how I tested it.

I quickly rolled a level 3 Druid with the Extend Feat. I also used a handheld stopwatch, starting the timer soon as the creature appeared, not at the start of casting. I'd end the timer soon as it creature vanished.

Summon Creature I spell's duration is:
18 seconds + 6 seconds/level. So, without Extend, it should come to 36 seconds. 18 + (6 x 3)

The result was on the dot.

Next, I tried the same spell, except extended. If it was as you say, TBS, the duration should have been 168 seconds. [(18+6)x2]x3

The result was 72 seconds. This is from what I mentioned before. The way it is calculated is [18 + (6 x 3)]x2

So, I refer back to my last post. I do not believe that 10 rounds (60 seconds) + 1 round/level would be overpowered in anyway, including when one uses the Extend Spell feat.