AMIA ARCHIVE • View topic - Badger + Hawk animal companions

Last edited by Sun Dog on Sat, Aug 13 2016, 17:59 PM, edited 2 times in total.

I've been able to cast Flame Weapon on every familiar and animal companion I've had, until I got a badger. So makes me think it's a bug. Cuz I don't think badgers are flameproof, lorewise.

edit: I've discovered that the hawk is the only other animal companion, besides the badger, that cannot benefit from Flame Weapon. The title has been modified to address both.

I'm pretty sure casting FW doesn't do anything to the familiars, at least. I've cast it on the panther and no Fire damage showed in the log. I haven't tested them all, of course, but there's a Druid/Ranger item that at least gives ele damage to companions.

Sun Dog wrote:

I've been able to cast Flame Weapon on every familiar and animal companion I've had, until I got a badger. So makes me think it's a bug. Cuz I don't think badgers are flameproof, lorewise.

Badger is good enough without it, frankly. Bug or not I don't want it changed.

Also you can feed it an ice berry or flame berry and give it more dmg that way.

Yeah, it doesn't work on companions and you don't want it to. Use the Branch of Giving. It's better than FW for more than one reason.

My guess is some of the companions probably ahve 1 creature weapon and others hae 2 or 3. For whatever reason the spell seems to act odd depending on how many creature weapons the monster has.

If they have more than one creature weapon then it will only cast it on one of the weapons. So if you have all 3 set up then only 1 out of 3 attacks will have the flame weapon.

Last edited by Sun Dog on Tue, Aug 09 2016, 4:05 AM, edited 1 time in total.

maglorine wrote:

Yeah, it doesn't work on companions and you don't want it to. Use the Branch of Giving. It's better than FW for more than one reason.

I appreciate your desire to help, but please check your facts before commenting. This is incorrect. It -does- work on some of the animal companions and I -do- want it to. I'm aware of the Branch of Giving and use it as well.

TormakSaber wrote:

My guess is some of the companions probably ahve 1 creature weapon and others hae 2 or 3. For whatever reason the spell seems to act odd depending on how many creature weapons the monster has.

I believe you're right here.

The boar lists "Attack 3" on its char sheet, however it doesn't list Attack 1 or 2. Maybe it's using just Attack 3 for all attacks? I can cast Flame Weapon on it and it adds elemental damage to attacks.

My point is that if Flame Weapon can be cast on some of the animal companions, why shouldn't it be castable on all of them? Make them consistent that way. Why can a boar do flame weapon damage but a badger can't?

edit:

Naivatkal wrote:

I'm pretty sure casting FW doesn't do anything to the familiars, at least. I've cast it on the panther and no Fire damage showed in the log. I haven't tested them all, of course, but there's a Druid/Ranger item that at least gives ele damage to companions.

This too is totally incorrect. Please please please check your facts before posting incorrect and misleading information. My mage casts Flame Weapon on his familiar all the time, and it works. I can't speak for -all- familiars, but it's worked on all I've used.

That honestly sounds more like a boar bug then a feature.

Sun Dog wrote:

This is incorrect.

I stand corrected. Never knew it worked on any of them.

It works on them because of the creature weapons as Tormak said. At least I believe this is true if I remember conversations with Chris while they were being made. Things like the bear does the most damage on its first attack but not on 2 and 3 and because the boar can get flameweaponed do to its one weapon its a melee hog but fragile like a piggy bank.

They were intended to be balanced around knowing about the fw and such.

GreatPigeon wrote:

They were intended to be balanced around knowing about the fw and such.

That makes sense. The badger is the tank of the bunch. The boar hits harder but it's glass compared to the badger defensively so it needs the punch. The bear is in need of help, it's terrible. Is this bunch being like looked over for tweaks by chance?

It is but iirc each level of animal companion is a separate creature so fixing the bear means balancing thirty levels of bear creatures.

I'm finding the badger to be cute but not terribly useful. Compared to the boar, it's a fluff toy, a cute one tho. I don't understand how allowing it to use flame weapon like most (if not all) other animal companions can do would be over powering or unbalanced. It hardly does any damage, why not let it do a bit more elemental damage like the rest.

Is this something that can be easily fixed? It seems like changing it to use attack 3 would do the trick, but I have no idea how difficult that is to change.

it has like epic dr 4, rage, and can't be snuck attack as long as it's in combat which makes it just immune to all kinds of shit.

it's fucking amazing at being alive and being a warm body that doesn't die.

mine, at least, when properly buffed, deals enough damage. I don't feel that it needs an additional 1d12 elemental. this is coming from someone that uses it exclusively.

Commie wrote:

it's fucking amazing

It's the best companion option available overall,IMO. I had the badger on my Ranger30 and it was unstoppable. Before we give it even more reason to be the most popular companion, how about we do something to help the bear which is a giant 4 legged turd. The badger goes out for lunch everyday and you know what's on the menu? BEAR.

It isn't the damage the badger gives but what it soaks up and in most cases it can keep a group of monsters tied down as I pick them off though I tend not to use him when out in a group so never used him in high level places I guess. I am a level 25 ranger so maybe that helps to?

Commie wrote:

It is but iirc each level of animal companion is a separate creature so fixing the bear means balancing thirty levels of bear creatures.

Which is why I haven't done it yet. Seriously it is a nightmare.

Familiars also need some love.

walnutboy wrote:

It isn't the damage the badger gives but what it soaks up and in most cases it can keep a group of monsters tied down as I pick them off though I tend not to use him when out in a group so never used him in high level places I guess. I am a level 25 ranger so maybe that helps to?

if you keep him warded properly, healing him from time to time, he can survive most shit. still he sometimes gets stuck in a shitty spot (sitting on 3/4 blade barriers, then the caster dies so your sr40 no longer applies, and he tries to move so he eats 90ish instances of blade barrier damage in 1 second because that's how nwn works) and dies but you can keep him up.

bear needs help. low ac and high hp doesn't matter because you get insta-gibbed. i feel like the bear should be the tankiest though, but right now it's actually useless. seriously, if you pick the bear you are essentially down a class feature.

it needs to naturally be at tumble tank ac with bonus DR and bonus high regen. it should be tankier then the current badger if its job is to be the tanky companion. with like a really low to-hit.

Each level of critter is an entirely different creature skin. This is a bitch to handle... Trust me.

Bear was shit. I disagreed with it years ago when a fix went in. The high hp means nothing in amia until you're breaking very high numbers as we see rogues and shit running with 200 buffed and no problem staying alive. AC and DR is king for these critters.

Each critter was supposed to have a role in the party. I'm far to drunk to taste the chicken now and I have no notes but if I run through my mental list you had some that were disablers (hawk, spider, rat) some that were damagers (pig, big wolf, panther), some middle ground type (rat, wolf), some who tanked (bear, badger).

These were all created on a spectrum of AB, AC, HP, Damage, Disabling, Skills, etc. And Chris did a fairly fantastic job of scoring each critter against each of its peers and trying to take that average value of their ranks and making it in line with their peers. As it seems things could be redone.

I personally take the pig with my druid/rangers. I love damage and I'm an impatient twat. I can usually drop healkits or heals for days, besides I can feed them after a fight if I must. I tend to tank and let the pig fly in. Yes I'm a druid that runs over 50 AC all day but still there are play styles that fit all needs.

Happy to open up stuff and look through stats and balancing or to at least build some visualisations to rank them at each level and hopefully call attention to issues if the staff want.

if we do change them i really hope we fix the 'bad' ones before anyone considers touching the 'good' ones.

then see where we stand.

also couldn't we just change the level 20+ companions as who runs around with a sub 20 companion? it would save a ton of work and you can level so easily here pre 20 it's not really needed.

I'm going post this again regarding the Bear. It DOES NOT have high HP. It could be a HP tank, but it's not. Brog Bears have 600hp. Mega Bison have 1300hp. They both have more DR. Those are HP tanks. A level 30 Bear companion has about 350hp and the same DR as the Level 21 Hawk and Panther.

Simple fix:
Give it +1 point of CON/Level from 1-30 and Epic Toughness on every level up from 21-30. No wrestling with the familiar/companion script, no complex balancing among 8 companions. Just make it an actual HP tank. Submerge it's other flaws under a pile of HP. It's still not going to flatten things in the Abyss but it might survive Sahaguin and have a reason to exist.

or copy paste the brog bear and give it some dr feats.

So I tested all the animal companions for ability to use Flame Weapon. All but two can use flame weapon, because they have Attack 3 included in their attack schedule, and that seems to be the one that Flame Weapon affects.

Flame Weapon-able:

Boar: Attack 3
Dire Wolf: Attack 3
Bear: Attack 1 Attack 2 Attack 3
Panther: Attack 3
Wolf: Attack 3
Dire Rat: Attack 3
Spider: Attack 3

Non-Flame Weapon-able :

Badger: Attack 1
Hawk: Attack 1

Commie wrote:

That honestly sounds more like a boar bug then a feature.

Your comment is entirely incorrect and as a matter of fact exactly the opposite is true. The badger not being able to take Flame Weapon is the bug. Does anyone seriously think the badger and hawk are doing so much damage already that they'd be over-powered to be brought equal to all the others?

I understand that all 30 levels of the badger and hawk would have to have their attack changed from 1 to 3. I have no idea how difficult that would be, but I'm still advocating for making them all uniform in this regard.

dude the badger is swinging at like a +50 buffed it does good damage

Branch of giving + Awaken turns the badger into a ball of furry death.

Source: Used it, and used it well to speed level a druid to 24.

Branch of Giving + Awaken can be used on ALL animal companions and benefits them all equally.

However, Flame Weapon came be used on all EXCEPT the badger and hawk. That's what this thread is trying to stay focused on and fix.

maglorine wrote:

Simple fix:
Give it +1 point of CON/Level from 1-30 and Epic Toughness on every level up from 21-30. No wrestling with the familiar/companion script, no complex balancing among 8 companions. Just make it an actual HP tank. Submerge it's other flaws under a pile of HP. It's still not going to flatten things in the Abyss but it might survive Sahaguin and have a reason to exist.

DR Will still be king over HP here. This gives it what 10x20 from epic toughness and FLOOR((30/2)/2))*7 hp from hp? Thats 200 + 210 and unless you're healing after every battle its just not the same. The bear could get about half this I'm actually for both when I think about it. I feel this way because 28 is the cut off for druids really and rangers is 25. You lose so much going more than a kick ass pet is fine. In fact I have long argued for an exponential growth in pets in this 'bad for you good for pet range'.

But I think the boar needs ab dropped and brought defenses up a tad. It runs with WM/AA + type of AB. Damage can stay the same but the AB is lovely. It needs defenses brought up. Badger can lose some AB like 5-7 by level 30, a few DR traits. I don't know them but I've seen them in effect but then it can use flame weapon and possibly drop a few damage points to cover. Hawk can grab more damage and a bit more HP. I think from what I've seen the the panther is legit at what it does. The bear needs hp, more damage, a slight boost in AB, etc.

But to be fair we argue these are insane difference but they would be 3-4 feat different choices on a PC and are very hard to balance. Amia being high magic server means its especially more difficult.

30 extra CON is = 15*Level more Hitpoints.

Together with the Epic Toughness that's over 600 HP added to the current Bear at high epic levels.

It's interesting that you almost never see some companions. Though they all have roles, apparently the DR role is the most valued by the players or the most well executed.

WARNING: Personal opinion ahead!

I guess part of the reason for that is just that the ranger will usually be a damage dealer, and a druid won't be likely to tank, at least from what I can think of. If I want to play a tank PC, and could use the damage familiars, I'd go PM, DwD, KC, Barb, stuff like that. Not ranger. But a ranger, who has some benefits line dual-weilding, or a druid that can cast damaging spells, I would really usually go for a tank animal companion. If the Bear had more hp, or the spider wasn't as fucking annoying, using up all the web at once, I'd take that. And in my opinion, most companions have problems like that.
For familiars, you can at least control it.

Druids can tank pretty well with imp invis and elemental form, hitting upper 50's AC or low 60's AC with all those wonderful immunities.

Sure you don't have epic dodge, but you got more ac then a heavy armor user and immunites they don't.

Oops, forgot elemental shape. Alright. Then I might consider takind a damage companion there. Provided it survives the damage it will take anyway.

Also, and this going very Off-Topic now, why would anyone take rat? Apart from the stigma people will get for it being a vermin (not neccessarily mechanically, but definetely in people's opinion) it's core ability, unless I have something remembered ong, is sneak attack, whic other companions get too, and disease. And honestly, am I the only person thinking disease is one of the worst things implemented? I mean, you know when you are diseased, by the yellowish health bar, it takes a full minute, or ten rounds to deal it's ability damage and can be resisted with fortitude. Meanwhile, after ten rounds, combat will almost always be over. At least poison deals damage once it gets applied as well. Or am I not getting the reason you would ever want to take the rat? If that is it, I don't think I'd even take disease if it was saveless, because it takes a round to activate. I personally feel like it would be great if the companions were balanced to be similar strength and the general roles were listed in the summons options. Basically like the phase spider and skeleton familiar are described.

robbi320 wrote:

why would anyone take rat?

Mechanically speaking the question is why would anyone NOT take the badger, really.

Because this is a role-play server, and mechanics should take a back seat to RP, and, not everyone likes badgers, they smell

exquisitelyme wrote:

robbi320 wrote:

why would anyone take rat?

Mechanically speaking the question is why would anyone NOT take the badger, really.

I mean, in one sense I agree, but massive imbalances and companions that cannot survive long enough to fulfill their designated role don't serve to further anyone's role-play. Being forced, due to these imbalances, to always leave Snookum's at home in bed or mourn his premature passing on a daily basis doesn't contribute to anyone's fun, which is why we only see a few types in general use.

I've been harping on the Bear (sorry!) and I don't even have a Bear, never had a Bear, no intent to have a Bear. I just saw a Bear in action and it was enough to begin this crusade for Bear justice.

If the standard is that it can survive in a party of 8 monkeystomping everything in sight they all pass. If it's the Companion, Druid/Ranger, Summon and a Buddy in even a moderately challenging CR area they don't.

If it were just a matter of flavor, or style, or role I'd be right there backing you up 100%. But it's not.

Also, either I am wrong and you can get the branch of giving outside of the grove, but if you can't, is it really fair to balance something for an item many people can get but not everyone? Or do I understand the shop wrong as grove member only? I might remember it very wrong.

Kudark wrote:

Because this is a role-play server, and mechanics should take a back seat to RP, and, not everyone likes badgers, they smell

Yes, they do! lol

Plus, what's a branch of giving?

A item that has a single use per day to give animal companions either ice or fire damage.

And no you don't have to be a Grove member to access that store to get a branch of giving, just a certain level of Ranger or Druid.

Sounds interesting, might have to look into it!

But to access the store you ask if he would sell things to "a servant of the grove". I checked that today.

It's an old response by the Grove merchant, so just ignore that. Naerth has two selling options, one is for druids/rangers and not specifically for Grove members, regardless of what he says.

Quote:

Drow, abberations, fiend-kin, goblinoid and chromatic dragonblooded or disciples are not welcome, unless they were granted permission by the Archdruids/GreatDruid.

And just asking, is this something that is balanced around? I mean, if my chaotic evil gobo ranger can be I'll stop arguing, but otherwise there is another reason not to play those races/classes. Because they are not taken into account when the server is balanced.

That is the consequences of playing a monsterous race/class. They shouldn't be accepted every where, and normally those things would be shot dead on sight.

robbi320 wrote:

But to access the store you ask if he would sell things to "a servant of the grove". I checked that today.

Also, please don't metagame the gate guards, for your own protection as a player, if you're playing a banned race. Get a DM, or convince a character to get what you need.

Ok. So why can't i use mindrape or true resurrection whenever my RP would cry for that? Because we want balance alongside RP. I'm not saying goblins should be accespted. But since they are a race you can play, they should be taken into account when balancing. Or am I misunderstanding that? If we just go off RP, people wouldn't be so accepting of Eilistraean Drow, because they are still one of the evillest races in the world. I mean, yeah, it's a monster. But should we change all other areas to reflect that too? Cordor, roadwardens, Bendir Dale, etc? All being a small ban zone? It would reflect RP. But it would also remove any way monster races that are supported by the subracesystem can survive at all. And, at least when played by PCs they are not even allowed to be monsters, since a kill-then-loot mentality gets you banned pretty quickly. All I'm saying is that things that are objectively out of balance, if overpowered or underpowered, should be fixed in my opinion. On the other hand, no one cares about tve goblins anyway.

Also, I didn't. When I last checked, having alts was allowed.

Kudark wrote:

It's an old response by the Grove merchant, so just ignore that. Naerth has two selling options, one is for druids/rangers and not specifically for Grove members, regardless of what he says.

And for that: How often am I allowed to just assume it is an old response, and not outright lying on my characters' part? Does that mean anything my character says is just assumed to not be accurate? Or should I assume what my character says by mechanics is also what he says IC?

As was stated above, playing a monster race has its drawbacks, which are supported IC, and should be understood by those playing them before they play that race. Read through some of the Requests from Players who have requested a monster race, and you will see the DMs consistent in their reminders that there will be IC consequences for playing that race. The reminders are also good for monster races that anyone can roll up and play, without a request. Many of the settlements have racial locks on the gates for that very reason, because the NPCs don't have supportive AI to differentiate races that are banned, from those permitted inside.

Also, I wasn't accusing you of metagaming, it was just a reminder to anyone reading this Thread.

As for the Grove merchant response, you may assume it's an old response as much as you like until/if the text is changed, and I would think that is very low on the priority list of things to do.
What your character says by mechanics is just that, mechanics. You are welcome to respond any way you like IC, but keep in mind that the merchant responses are mechanics as well. If you would like further interaction with NPCs, I suggest nabbing a DM and ask them to possess one.

Ok. Honestly, first, it was actually meant as a neutral question. Then I got my emotions in, and started being pretty... vehement, so sorry for that. It still seems a bit unbalanced to me, but yeah, it actually does make sense.

The merchant is really bugging me though there. I mean, iz just seems like something that would be fixed extremely easily. And, meant as neutrally as possible, I would like a DM saying something on that, but I guess that would just be luxury. I mean, yeah, you are as far as I know a member of the grove, but it's just one of those things where a player could say anything about it, even if he is wrong. Unless I can assume by the lack of correction that DMs agree.
Again, I trust you, but that's a thing where a DM can only say what NPCs say and think and do.

Yep, one of my characters is the second oldest active Grove member, next to Malandria, and to be honest, Naerth's text bugs me too lol, because it does make for confusion, as you have pointed out. And I would not try to put words in any NPC's mouth and try to tell anyone what they would, or should do/say, that is strictly for DMs to decide, but that text does go back even before my time on the Server, when Grove rules were different. Much has changed since then, and continues to do so.

Ok, thanks for the fix of the dialogue. Sadly, it seems like changing the dialogue also removed the Amia appraise system. So I don't the standard race bonuses, and the discount isn't said, and seem like the wrong number.
At least it tells me the base NWN warning. (Playing on German, so I can't say the normal response, considering how it probably won't help to write the German) But it's something along the lines of "the shopkeepers reaction is unfriendly"

Badger + Hawk animal companions - flameproof

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