AMIA ARCHIVE • View topic - The Big Fat Summon and Dominate/Control Nerf

In PvM, you never really need GS.

Invisibility is fine, just stay back form fighting.

You can still stay invisible.

Yeah but GS is just so much cooler. And everyone knows that practicality must give way to needless fancyness.

I think it's hideously cheesy, but it's so amazingly good I can't bring myself to not use it.

Mr Mago wrote:

All this change did (even though, the nerf probably isn't as great as people 'fear' it might be), was that it no longer permitted the sorcerer/wizard to be the best class (solo) in -both- PvM and PvP, pretty much.

All this change did (hopefully), was to rid wizards/sorcerers of the 0% risk of dying while solo'ing in PvM.

Siding with Mago again.

People are overeacting here. All 'Uce said was that he's made the stronger and more popular dominated spawns and summons less buffable. That's a good thing, it brings the majority of summons down to the neutral aligned level where you can't actually buff them properly (Something about several creature weapons and the first being the only one buffed).

As I said in a previous topic, I feel sorry for the enchantment focused mages and necromancy focused clerics but that's it. You have an EDK or a Planetar handy, you don't need to have a Coven leader or Kazhort on top of that.

Dev Disco wrote:

Is there any mage who used his summons as a PvP weapon? I guess the answer is 'no'. Which also limits the reasons why this change will be implemented.

About time, in my opinion. Summons that are as strong as a party member combined with a class like cleric or mage was ridiculous, is ridiculous, and will be ridiculous.

OK, if a Harper Scout got a pet of that power... now THAT I'd understand.

I vote yes on this early!

Harper Scouts deserve to have Elminister's secret Golem weapon in a suitcase...hehe....

As for the changes, I guess Mages are now resigned to being a party buffbot or a disabler and just won't be able to go out alone anymore. Don't forget that these changes hurts clerics just as much and will make clerics much more inclined to shy away from pure caster route and go militant war cleric in style (by adding in a warrior class to their build).

I kind of knew this was on the cards anyway, one of the reasons my latest PC is a militant cleric and not a mage.

One point of the change which people have mentioned was to reduce the "risk free" image of the mage. These changes slightly (in fact these changes are extremely minor honestly) disadvantage clerics and druids too but the divine casters have an advantage here.

Druids have -lots- of summons. Sheer Quantity over quality.

Clerics have that extra BAB and their buff selection allows them to get in and dirty. Though not as effective as fighters, a fighter of some degree is better then not having a fighter at all.

But there is still a chance of a cleric and druid being smushed to pieces. That's the difference. Seriously, mages will adapt to it. 1.69 was a sheer kick in the balls of any melee focused cleric but we adapted. You just have to find other avenues to focus on (which as a mage or cleric or druid there are plenty of)

soundofastream wrote:

As for the changes, I guess Mages are now resigned to being a party buffbot or a disabler and just won't be able to go out alone anymore. Don't forget that these changes hurts clerics just as much and will make clerics much more inclined to shy away from pure caster route and go militant war cleric in style (by adding in a warrior class to their build).

Not at all. Prior to the beefed up current versions of the summons, while casters still 'only' had the NWN original ones, there were plenty of wizards/sorcerers who actually made use of offensive spells in PvM.

I do however suppose, that wizards/sorcerers at level 15+, will be more inclined to find an actual party to hunt with (oh, the horror!), than before.

Drannok wrote:

Yurell wrote:

... atm I'm looking at only Conj and Necro being useful schools for ESF, maybe Enchantment for those that feel like running around with balors.

Confusion is also one heckuva disabling spell, and another huge plus for Enchanting. Enchanting has the fun RP spells too, even though it requires you to be reasonable and make sure other players are cool with it.

Basically I was comparing number of useful necromancy spells * power of said spells to number of useful enchant spells * power of said spells.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't confusion relatively low level?

But at any rate, I'm no bagging enchantment (I have a char with ESF(Enchantment) after all).
I think lessening the effectiveness of summons and increasing the power of buff/disabling spells is a good way to go.

Uberuce wrote:

What I haven't decided is what to do about the Ranger/Druid pets. I've not played a Druid so I don't feel comfortable trashing their Summon I-IX and the Elemental Swarms, and I personally can't nerf the Animal Companions anyway - that's a Disco task. The fuzzybutts are monsters, but the price you need to obtain them is to be a near-pure Ranger or Druid, which is, compared to the price a mage or Cleric pays to get their summons, pretty hefty.

Agreed. All I hope is that Rangers don't take one in the chops when this is finally decided. My experience leveling a pure one (which I thought was a decently built one though I may be mistaken) is that it's more challenging than I'd expected and soloing is a hair-raising and risky undertaking. Much riskier than the mages or clerics I've played.

Of course if the staff decided to uncap BladeThirst.............

My experience with my wizard would indicate that just the opposite needs doing: summons need to be beefed up, big time. My wizard is the weakest of my PCs.

This change is incomprehensible to me.

Maybe you just haven't got the practice you need to put mages' abilities to good use.

I know I haven't!

*shrugs* Cant remember the last time i saw a wizard solo-ing anywhere. You really have to weaken fighters somehow. With the availabilty of potions the roles have been reversed. They dont really need mages whereas a mage is desperate for any sort of companion.

Some spells suck tho and could do with beefing up. A lot of spells on a wizzies spell list are utter trash, the worst offenders being:

Energy drain,
Enervation,
Meteor swarm,
Weird (there's a new page but that just makes the spell usuable, as opposed to a nice alternative),
Shapechange is lame unless you go dragon for the breath.
Incendiary cloud sucks,
Create undead is lame,
Blackstaff is just a fighter buff,
Circle of death,
ethereal visage is pointless,
Tenser's,
animate dead,
ball lightning really sucks,
bestow curse,
contagion is lame,
Wall of Fire is lame.
Displacement is totally pointless

What astounds me is that some individuals think dominate monster is broken. What about the rings of animal friendship? From about level 6 or whenever the rings become available, rangers/druids are animal puppetmasters. You can do that all the way through the game AND you dont have to sacrifice anything. You can animal empathy with impunity.

Feel free to consider beefing the current "less effecient" arcane spells when you've fixed the following:

Time Stop
Bigby's Forceful
Ice Storm
Horrid Wilting

Mr Mago wrote:

Perhaps you should learn to build a mage before you put any more of your pearls of wisdom onto the table.

I've been playing/building on NWN since it was released, I know how to build a mage.

Yurell wrote:

Talon wrote:

If we're nerfing mages we should completely remove Dev Crit.

I don't think they can do much about dev crit - they really want to change it, and the fact that they haven't is pretty good sign that altering it is difficult without haks.

Dev Crit is alterable/removable without haks, it's done on a few arenas.

Blackdragon12121 wrote:

From about level 6 or whenever the rings become available, rangers/druids are animal puppetmasters. You can do that all the way through the game AND you dont have to sacrifice anything. You can animal empathy with impunity.

I haven't really played around with Animal Empathy much, but is there anything actually worth taming in Epic levels?

We can remove Dev Crit without haks, but we can't alter/adjust it.

As far as we are concerned for the most part; Dev Crit isn't bad enough to warrant removal. We all would -love- to adjust it, but we can't.

Half me goes "welp, I'm glad I stopped playing Reinard. Sucks to be epic Palemaster."

Half goes "Thank god, suck it up, Torin is useful again, ditch that fucking EDK and get a REAL tank."

And then I remember mages are stupidly good and Reinard's half nods and agrees and goes to read a book.

Wyjyn: Loving all of you (and above all Disco) since 11 Jan 2007.

All I have to say is that this mechanics argument is next to pointless on a roleplay server. How, if the summon is significantly and noticeably weaker, am I to explain this strange phenomenon with anything but the most disjointed, clumsy piece of expositionary roleplay? Spell plague did it, I guess.

Furthermore, changes like this are bad from an IC perspective because they deny the choices our characters would have made. For instance, let's say Mage A saw Mage B summon EDK, saw its power and thought "yeah, I will try to learn that ability". So, the character begins to learn these abilities for that reason, yet suddenly and inexplicably a change occurs which denies that. I suppose what I am saying is that as a 'change' I sort of oppose this, whereas if it was like it from the start I would have cared less.

As a side note, my character's roleplay did go along those lines. In fact, I didn't even know you could extend the EDK until I got to about level 17 and I learnt it in character.

Wyjyn wrote:

All I have to say is that this mechanics argument is next to pointless on a roleplay server.

So stop arguing. Bye.

Wyjyn: Loving all of you (and above all Disco) since 11 Jan 2007.

Quote:

I dought the team will even read these posts.. not sure why they bothered to make this post in the first place.. kinda feels like a taunt like "Haha i (censored) your sister!" letting all the other kids lol along with it.

I'm not going to pass judgement until its been playtested for real for a few weeks. If there's a serious upsurge in mage deaths from PvM, we know we've got a problem.

I play a mage. This change isn't a big deal.

Wyjyn wrote:

Quote:

I dought the team will even read these posts.. not sure why they bothered to make this post in the first place.. kinda feels like a taunt like "Haha i (censored) your sister!" letting all the other kids lol along with it.

That's why DMs have been replying, right?

Stop making waves to make waves, wyjyn. I know this is a nice little hot button topic for you to come in and do it in, but don't. Please.

Quote:

soundofastream wrote:

I'm not going to pass judgement until its been playtested for real for a few weeks. If there's a serious upsurge in mage deaths from PvM, we know we've got a problem.

Dunno about you, but I'd call a serious upsurge in solo PvM mage deaths "Problem Solved."

Wyjyn wrote:

Quote:

I dought the team will even read these posts.. not sure why they bothered to make this post in the first place.. kinda feels like a taunt like "Haha i (censored) your sister!" letting all the other kids lol along with it.

Fine, fine, I'll answer properly. Amia has a hefty action element, and I go so far as to believe that Amia's popularity stems from the fact that so much effort is put into balancing the action game. The argument that it's a purely roleplay server and we shouldn't be concerned about action balance is one I can most charitably call 'fallacious'.

I find your sincerity in the use of that argument questionable on the grounds that you've never used it against the likes of the Gate duration doubling or the inception of the Books of Transmutation, nor on behalf of Clerics and Paladins after 1.69 ganked Undeath's Foe and Holy Sword, nor indeed in any other balance change.

soundofastream wrote:

I'm not going to pass judgement until its been playtested for real for a few weeks. If there's a serious upsurge in mage deaths from PvM, we know we've got a problem.

I don't see that as a problem, I'd say "it's about time mages learnt what it was like to be mortal again. It's dangerous."

Seriously... the best way to drill into people's heads here how spoilt they are with the custom summons is to remove them all for a week and use default bioware ones. Then they'll realise "hmm... these changes they're proposing aren't that bad afterall."

A part of me is laughing... if this wasn't posted on the forum, I don't think people would have noticed any change at all. They are afterall, -minor- changes, nothing drastic that will cause the end of the world.

TormakSaber wrote:

Half me goes "welp, I'm glad I stopped playing Reinard. Sucks to be epic Palemaster."

I left Pierre alone, as well as all the undeads apart from top two Death Domain blokes. I screwed up when I made the Paragon quite so much of a cannon(although he does remain the most critilicious of all summons), and the Vampire chap didn't behave right either, so within the context of the general STR-dive, he's been buffed.

The way I see it is that Palemasters either forgo epic spells or have rubbish CL/duration to get the Winterwight, so it can be left alone. Also, I like the idea of undead summoning being a genuine temptation on the ground they're better than live things. At the minute they're even stevens, so it's something people generally do *after* they've already decided to be an evil corpse molester.

So summon greater undead for PMs has not been nerfed? If so good. If not that's really bad.

Wyjyn wrote:

Furthermore, changes like this are bad from an IC perspective because they deny the choices our characters would have made. For instance, let's say Mage A saw Mage B summon EDK, saw its power and thought "yeah, I will try to learn that ability". So, the character begins to learn these abilities for that reason, yet suddenly and inexplicably a change occurs which denies that. I suppose what I am saying is that as a 'change' I sort of oppose this, whereas if it was like it from the start I would have cared less.

This is one of my biggest problems with this. An argument against changing/removing Dev Crit has been made (by DMs, Tormak if I remember correctly) that it can't be done because it would require you give half the server a rebuild. Why aren't mages offered a rebuild when the rug is pulled out from under them?

Talon, can you tell me the maximum AB/damage that is going to be snipped from the summons?

EDIT: NM. Ruce has this topic by the balls.

Wyjyn: Loving all of you (and above all Disco) since 11 Jan 2007.

Book of transmutation makes IC sense, didn't really even notice Gate duration changes. Don't play a paladin or whatever, so not really sure what those changes mean relative to amia however I will assume that a character who played a paladin wouldnt change much because of those changes. Whereas four feats to get a powerful summon, which ICly represent a lot of time spent, is a lot to pay for something that suddenly and inexplicably got weaker.

However, if you are asking whether I support my idea in general I do. I don't want HiPS or dev crit removed, overpowered or not. Imagine if I had a mentor, my sword master guy or whatever who is teaching me to use the same blade as him. The final lesson is the secret move, the culmination of the art, termed by the mechanics as 'dev crit'. How, if that is removed, will people who have taken it explain away that roleplay?

Galenson, will we get default bioware spells as well as summons? Seriously, you dont want that. If you have ever spent more than 5 minutes on a PvP server you will know that you dont want that.

Galenson wrote:

Seriously... the best way to drill into people's heads here how spoilt they are with the custom summons is to remove them all for a week and use default bioware ones.

Dunno about you... but I think that's only bioware summons I was refering to.

Wyjyn: Loving all of you (and above all Disco) since 11 Jan 2007.

I thought you were trying to compare edited vs unedited mages. Don't really understand the point of your argument when you compare edited against edited.

I'm stating the fact that mages are complaining about tiny, minor, minscule, unnoticeable, microscopic, single hair on the head alterations to their summons and usual dominate candidates. To point out that their summons will still be good, a comparison could be made with the standard bioware summons to show them how spoilt they really are.

A Cleric/fighter with Dev Crit, +3 Vamp Regen, and +16 Regeneration can solo better then a Mage with a summon, and yes there are players who have characters with that set up

Halecta wrote:

A Cleric/fighter with Dev Crit, +3 Vamp Regen, and +16 Regeneration can solo better then a Mage with a summon, and yes there are players who have characters with that set up

Any cleric can spam Extended Regeneration to stack with itself. That's not hard.

But the dev critting cleric/fighter with +3 vampiric regen and 16 regen needs to put his arse on the line in order to do the damage. The whole aim of this thread is that the "risk free" soloing for mages is going down the drain.

Wyjyn wrote:

Whereas four feats to get a powerful summon, which ICly represent a lot of time spent, is a lot to pay for something that suddenly and inexplicably got weaker.

This is an aside, but that argument has always made me giggle. Four feats(three of which make Mass Heal a brute of an undead killer, and Greater Planar Binding a better PvP bet against the bajillion Outsider PCs than Forceful Hand) and you get a tank that's about as good as a poorly made level 30 Barbarian. And you get them by level 23. Can you please direct me to the four feats a poorly built Barbarian can take by 23 that summons a level 30 mage, Druid or Cleric to his side?

Anyway, handle it the same way tweaks have always been handled: pretend it was always like that. Or make something up. It's only a problem because you're making it one.

When Talon re-reads my original post, he'll be able to tell you the magnitude of the STR-gank. You look a little silly comparing that to Devcrit or HiPS being removed. Not as silly as when you said Paladins didn't lose much when Holy Sword was nerfed, but silly nonetheless.

Galenson wrote:

But the dev critting cleric/fighter with +3 vampiric regen and 16 regen needs to put his arse on the line in order to do the damage. The whole aim of this thread is that the "risk free" soloing for mages is going down the drain.

No, this isn't going to make any difference except in XP/hour to soloing mages.

That's kinda the point. Mages are the best at solo and group PvP, trade places with Bards for best party assistant and can bossrun better than anyone. I'm yet to see a convincing argument that it's fair that they should also solo mobs for as rapid XP/hour as anyone else, and in many cases be a lot quicker. Dropping the hitrate and damage/hit on the summons slows that up without significant effect to the other roles of the class.

And it's nothing like a big a nerf as it should be, in my Humbledore. The excellence of the class at PvP/bosses/partybuffing is such that by rights their ability to solo PvM should be on a par with an archer or twohanderer.

Uberuce wrote:

And it's nothing like a big a nerf as it should be, in my Humbledore. The excellence of the class at PvP/bosses/partybuffing is such that by rights their ability to solo PvM should be on a par with an archer or twohanderer.

I grudgingly agree with this and would love to see a way to make it so without dropping Mages down to purely buff bots.

The WotC solution was actually, mechanically, pretty sweet. I still feel like a Mage as a 4th Edition wizard, and I don't make everyone else utterly pointless when played to it's full potential.

Making 3.0 Mages come down a few pegs to the level of the other classes, though, is a nightmare. It really is. The mechanics of 3.0 and3.5 are so stacked in Mages favor it's daunting to balance them without making them worthless when compared to what Clerics and Bards can bring.

I just wanted to say that as much as I absolutely loathe dev-crit, comparing this to that is naive at best.

Tweaking summons a little bit isn't going to be the end of the world, and I speak as someone who absolutely relies on summons for all (bar one) characters.

I'm of the opinion make summons weaker and make disabling spells (not damage) stronger as my main stance - and all my characters (bar said one) have ESF(Conj) so I'm not being biased from that angle.

Talon wrote:

Blackdragon12121 wrote:

From about level 6 or whenever the rings become available, rangers/druids are animal puppetmasters. You can do that all the way through the game AND you dont have to sacrifice anything. You can animal empathy with impunity.

I haven't really played around with Animal Empathy much, but is there anything actually worth taming in Epic levels?

Plenty of stuff to AE. Otherwise there wouldnt be this culture of take one level if AE on ranger level in the build thread. AE is ridiculously broken and makes certain spells completely redundant. Amia seems to be in a culture of nerfing. All i hope to see is that overpoweredness in all the other classes is recognised as well.

I dont understand why so many of other classes traits are available elsewhere. The cardinal offenders being the overly generous potions available in shops, the barb battle drum for example. These just make fighter classes need mages even less than they already do.

I don't see why their AB needs to be reduced, just their damage output really...you still want to be able to hit boss monsters with your summons right?

Wyjyn wrote:

Whereas four feats to get a powerful summon, which ICly represent a lot of time spent, is a lot to pay for something that suddenly and inexplicably got weaker.

Uh.. what "a lot of time"?

You mean... "RP Quality Time"?

Remember, a lot of players get to level 30 within a week (some even less) and then explain their uber skills by saying that, for them, that one week RL time was a century for them IC.

Hey, woah! Nothing wrong with choosing to count time that way.

But using "a lot of time spent learning" to argue against this kind of thing when people usually get max level within a very short time and with little to no RP mingled with it....

Seriously.

Wyjyn's point is ok. We acknowledge that when we change the mechanics, we change the premise of RP, and so we risk creating paradoxes. However, Amia/DnD is already saturated with paradoxes. In fact, it's a crucial for DMs and players to possess the ability to smoothly RP within the boundries of our fragile illusion and not purposefully tearing it apart.

Pretty much, we are like goldfish swimming in circles pretending it's the ocean. Nobody likes the fish who's butting against the glass going "Look guys, we are not in the ocean! This is glass, we are really just in a small bowl. Look guys, look!"

Same thing, we are not impressed when someone purposefully aims to bring the paradoxes into their RP, i.e. "I wonder why there is no seasons on his island."

Don't contest the fantasy, augment it. Sometimes this requires compromise.

Mr Mago wrote:

I do however suppose, that wizards/sorcerers at level 15+, will be more inclined to find an actual party to hunt with (oh, the horror!), than before.

Maybe they will say 'yes, come along' to the few extra PCs that want to join a party and RP instead of going with the 'bugger it, I'll keep all the loot' road. I think it's a good idea.

Wyjyn: Loving all of you (and above all Disco) since 11 Jan 2007.

I am also taking into account the trend of nerfing mages. It seems like it is moving a little bit each couple of months. So don't feed me a line of bull about how its only 'this much' because honestly, if you added it all up its beginning to get relevent. Honestly, EDK to my mind wasnt that great anyway. I know of quite a few mages who opted out of taking it for other things (not Mummy dust, either). Depending on how nerfed it is, my character may have taken a completely different feat set. I am already on the line between whether EDK or getting some nice epic spells is the go. That said, I dont want a rebuild...my characters skill points/HP/feats all add up as part of his history, if circumstances had of been different he might have taken a different route.

I know this is going ahead anyway, I guess I am wasting my time which really is a trend that repeats itself on the forums. I don't really understand why this thread was made if you have no real interest in listening to responses. I'm on Lokyar's side.

PS: Nothing would change who and how I party, because its my characters choice not mine. If anything, I would be less likely to party because my character wouldnt want to show off his new improved weakness.

Well, I disagree with Wyjyn from the start. This is a circular argument.

Wyjyn wrote:

All I have to say is that this mechanics argument is next to pointless on a roleplay server. How, if the summon is significantly and noticeably weaker, am I to explain this strange phenomenon with anything but the most disjointed, clumsy piece of expositionary roleplay? Spell plague did it, I guess.

How do you explain that other people SEE it is weaker? Because you can't solo that boss within 30 seconds any more? Because you tell them the stats before and after? Because they last 10 minutes instead of 12? I don't think we actually change the name, the size, or the looks, so tell me: how do other people know that your pet has changed?
In short: I think you use a game mechanic to make your point here, which makes it in your own words "next to pointless". Besides, you assume "significantly and noticeably weaker", which is a strawman to start with.

Wyjyn wrote:

Furthermore, changes like this are bad from an IC perspective because they deny the choices our characters would have made. For instance, let's say Mage A saw Mage B summon EDK, saw its power and thought "yeah, I will try to learn that ability". So, the character begins to learn these abilities for that reason, yet suddenly and inexplicably a change occurs which denies that. I suppose what I am saying is that as a 'change' I sort of oppose this, whereas if it was like it from the start I would have cared less.

See above. You still see a mage summon a huge dragon. Didn't think mages major in Draconic Physiology, so I doubt they'd spot the difference between a 45 ab and a 40 ab dragon (mind that I do not know the numbers myself).

Wyjyn wrote:

As a side note, my character's roleplay did go along those lines. In fact, I didn't even know you could extend the EDK until I got to about level 17 and I learnt it in character.

Good on you. I fail to see why it's relevant to the topic, though.

Wyjyn wrote:

I am also taking into account the trend of nerfing mages. It seems like it is moving a little bit each couple of months. So don't feed me a line of bull about how its only 'this much' because honestly, if you added it all up its beginning to get relevent. Honestly, EDK to my mind wasnt that great anyway. I know of quite a few mages who opted out of taking it for other things (not Mummy dust, either). Depending on how nerfed it is, my character may have taken a completely different feat set. I am already on the line between whether EDK or getting some nice epic spells is the go. That said, I dont want a rebuild...my characters skill points/HP/feats all add up as part of his history, if circumstances had of been different he might have taken a different route.

I know this is going ahead anyway, I guess I am wasting my time which really is a trend that repeats itself on the forums. I don't really understand why this thread was made if you have no real interest in listening to responses. I'm on Lokyar's side.

PS: Nothing would change who and how I party, because its my characters choice not mine. If anything, I would be less likely to party because my character wouldnt want to show off his new improved weakness.

Book of Transmutation.

Adding an acid sheathe page to the BoT is, if anything, a huge boost to the arcane casters. The BoT in general has increased the powerlevel of all casters, but mostly the arcane ones.

The summons were beefed up extensively a long time ago. In fact, before you likely came to Amia. The increases were out of proportion to the ways of which you could exploit them, which weren't taken into account at the time, nor how it would shift the game balance between casters and meleers.

Again, arcane casters on Amia have gotten so damn comfortable knowing that they're the masters of everything, with little to none effort, that they've become spoiled and blind to perceiving what actually needs to be in form of game balance adjustments.

The Big Fat Summon and Dominate/Control Nerf

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