Make summons meaningful

[gravisrs]

Problems to address:
1. Summons start to be meaningless on heroic elite quests, and they drop to totally zero on epic/legendary quests. Some summons from magister ED tree can stand one fight for lower epics on norm/hard, but nothing more.
2. Making summons good could be a thin ice to make them OP in terms of efficiency, especially considering their low mana cost.
3. Current summon boosts are static: augment summoning, gear, buffs, enhancements - all gives static amount of bonuses, nothing scalable.
4. Caster's abilities (eg. conjuration DC) don't affect summoned creatures, there is no way to invest making them better other than static bonuses above.
5. Any proposed change should be very easy to implement (by common sense), if possible - keep current boosts as they are.


Solution that emerged from a longer discussion within my guild and some folks on Argo quite time ago:

Empower summon metamagic feat:
Increases HD (CR) of summoned creatures up to [100% / 75% / 66% / 50%]* of caster's conjuration DC, but increases the spell point cost of casting the spell by [2/3]* for each HD (CR) increased [and makes summon lasts half the time]*
[requires Augment Summoning]*

*Values in [] brackets to be adjusted after testing. Druid may have option to increase that percentage of conjuration DC relativity somewhere in it's enhancement tree.

- HD (CR) of summon should be determined at the moment of summoning (no dynamic HD (CR) changes, this might be a hell) so wouldn't affect charmed creatures (HoX dogs etc.).
- Should not affect hirelings (contract is not a spell)
- could affect summoned arti/druid pet (if there are no other plans to revamp them)

This solution would make summons cost a tremendous amount of mana, but makes them worth something. Looking at CR of some mobs in endgame quests (60+) it should fit pretty well. If someone invests hard into conjuration DC those CR 120 summons might even last one fight on reaper difficulty, at the cost of ~300 spell points thou... but hey, 300 sp is same cost as 7 meteor swarms.

[Enoach]

I've often felt that the summons would be best "fixed" by

1. Adding the Hireling UI bar
2. Using the progression of #'s based on the Spell Level, The Higher level versions being able to summon creatures from the lower level but it increases the possible number that would be summoned.

I agree that the summon CR for the Epic Summons seems wrong. Especially when the highest CR summon appears to be the Epic Wolf Whistle.

However, I would tie the CR improvements to feats like Augment Summoning and Epic Augment Summoning.

[NemesisAlien]

I always wanted to roll a scorpion king, pity the summon is useless.

[SirValentine]

Summons/pets/hirelings do not stand up in Reaper, absolutely. If the devs think they should have some utility in Reaper, then they need to have additional buffs given to them some how, in Reaper. Some benefit from the player's Reaper points, maybe?

But I really don't think they need a big buff outside of Reaper. If you actually have the various ways to improve them, summons/pets/hirelings do OK in non-Reaper. If you buff them up too much they'll be OP.

Current summon boosts are static: augment summoning, gear, buffs, enhancements - all gives static amount of bonuses, nothing scalable.

That's not true.

Anything that, for example, increases Constitution by a "static" amount is automatically giving a scaling bonus to hit points. And Augment Summoning additionally gives the Toughness feat, which is also scaling with hit dice. Some buffs, like Pack Presence, give a percentage increase(/decrease), which automatically scales, too, with damage.

Some of the Epic Destiny abilities are static (e.g., Natural Shielding), but it's already at Epic power levels, no different that player-affecting static ED abilities. And summons already get auto-scaling from the player's Epic level.

As for gear, I'm guessing you mean for pets, not summons? The scaling comes from wearing higher ML gear.

[Gljosh]

Summons at best are heal bots or meat shields.

I have made full arti (Pre Ravenloft so no Filigrees), with Augment Summons Feat Line, 3 Druid Past lives, Harper bonuses, and focused Character AP on the Defender enhancements.

The best that is can do is tank a little and that is with some serious investment.

As for regular "summons"; the Epic Gargoyle summons is a decent low level (EN/EH) rock shield and the Epic Meteor Swarm is a decent low level glass cannon.

The limitation on amount of direct summons is probably lag related.

If you want a more summon focused character, build some Sundering Ooze weapons, seriously TONS of fun, unless you are near a Beholder.

[DaviMOC]

Thats something I always asked for but I bet it is something intetionally left by side. Pet/summon are recurrent related to 2 things in MMORPGs. Lag and bug exploit. Wold be nice to have a way to keep summons and petlike creatures in multichass characters such as skeletons and the dogs from druid and artificers like a feat that they keep progressing over multiclass level. ES warlocks and PM wizards got some cool underused enhancments for pets that would renew a bit their usefulness.

[salmag]

Maybe they should do a Universal Summoners tree (probably should have done this before Horizon Walker), since everyone can benefit from hirelings, pets/summons, etc...

But only after the Universal "Lumberjack" Axe tree, and the Universal "Miner" Pick tree...

[Alrik_Fassbauer]

Problems to address:
1. Summons start to be meaningless on heroic elite quests, and they drop to totally zero on epic/legendary quests. Some summons from magister ED tree can stand one fight for lower epics on norm/hard, but nothing more.

I basically use summoned monsters to draw attention away from me. Meanwhile they beat the summoned monsters, I fight them from a distance.
I can only tell about heroic, though.

[apocaladle]

I basically use summoned monsters to draw attention away from me. Meanwhile they beat the summoned monsters, I fight them from a distance.
I can only tell about heroic, though.

In legendary elite and higher a single stray arrow will insta kill any summon in 1 shot even with all the buffs you can possibly put on it.

In the year end interview with sev he said that summons are a core part of dnd and they plan on overhauling the summon system as a whole but its not currently being worked on.

[voxson5]

While making summons better (even if just scalable + UI as pet class companions), please disburse deepwood stalker into tempest and AA trees, and add in beast master / swarm keeper.

Even send us back to Droaam to negotiate with Sora Kell (investigate the 'beast magic' or whatever) as the pack to make this all work out.

If nothing else, please send us to Droaam. Those packs are two of my favorites.

[Ultinoob]

I think the main problem of summonings and hirelings, pets, etc is the AI and not the bonuses. Sure some of the suggestions here are very good with conjuration adding to the summoned creature and all.

What i would like is the possibilty to customise the ai. If i summon a dryad i can somehow "program" it to heal me first, then itself, then party members. also the heals should affect how much health you have lost. a cure light wounds cast when you are missing 200 hp is just stupid. some hirelings do this.

In baldurs gate 2 you had this option with your characters. I loved it.

If my pet wolf as druid did not run halfway ahead through the dungeon but stayed with me it might be much more useful.

Also on a side note. on low heroic, having 3 druid past lives and a pet, a hireling, a gold seal hireling and a summoning can actually be pretty helpfull on R1.