Summons shouldn't reduce xp gain !

DJKajuru

Hi there
One thing that upsets me about NWN is the fact that summons count as henchmen when it comes to XP gain from kills. I believe that it's unfair because mages and other spellcasters rely on spells just like a fighter relies on weapons, that is, if my mage summons a tiger it's because he can't fight and that's part of the game balance.
Whatcha think?

Jimbobslimbob

I am personally a bit 50/50 on the idea. I can see where you are coming from - but at the same time I can see why it is the way it is. A Wizard having a Tiger (as per your example) should (and would) generally be considered a more difficult opponent than 1 Fighter on his own. As such, the XP penalty in that instance does actually make sense.

Basically:
(Fighter vs Orc) < (Wizard & Tiger vs orc)
...so XP penalty is somewhat justified.

ProphetSword

Personally, I think the more allies you add to the battle, summoned or not, should reduce the amount of xp you gain for the encounter. Each ally decreases the difficulty in some way, so it makes sense.

IndiraLightfoot

I reckon, the line needs to be drawn somewhere, so no, summons shouldn't reduce your xp - they are part and parcel of your specific character combat functionality, so to speak.

BelleSorciere

IndiraLightfoot said:

I reckon, the line needs to be drawn somewhere, so no, summons shouldn't reduce your xp - they are part and parcel of your specific character combat functionality, so to speak.

And this is how the 3e rules are written. Admittedly, later game design has been about moving away from features that Grant additional actions or attacks.

Adul

As with anything else that's contentious, this should be an option (at least in single player). Allies reduce XP gained on/off. Maybe even a separate setting for summons and hirelings/players.

DJKajuru

Jimbobslimbob said:

I am personally a bit 50/50 on the idea. I can see where you are coming from - but at the same time I can see why it is the way it is. A Wizard having a Tiger (as per your example) should (and would) generally be considered a more difficult opponent than 1 Fighter on his own. As such, the XP penalty in that instance does actually make sense.

Basically:
(Fighter vs Orc) < (Wizard & Tiger vs orc)
...so XP penalty is somewhat justified.

What about a 1st level wizard who uses monster summoning I or a familiar, or both?

Jimbobslimbob

DJKajuru said:

Jimbobslimbob said:

I am personally a bit 50/50 on the idea. I can see where you are coming from - but at the same time I can see why it is the way it is. A Wizard having a Tiger (as per your example) should (and would) generally be considered a more difficult opponent than 1 Fighter on his own. As such, the XP penalty in that instance does actually make sense.

Basically:
(Fighter vs Orc) < (Wizard & Tiger vs orc)
...so XP penalty is somewhat justified.

What about a 1st level wizard who uses monster summoning I or a familiar, or both?

Hence my "50/50" comment. There are cases when summons are strong - and the class that summons them are strong. There are also cases, like the one you mentioned, where both are weak.

Familiar's on the other-hand, I agree - they shouldn't reduce XP no matter what.

SethDavis

oooooooooooooh.... that explains why I was super under leveled at the end of my first playthrough

Shaiden

Armies of cats have their downside Seth, I keep trying to warn you!

jww

I actually submitted this on the bug tracker a couple days ago. I don't know if they'll fix it or not, but I feel that it should be. A fighter doesn't get penalized for using their class feature of weapon specialization, so why should a druid be penalized for using their class feature animal companion (which serves the same purpose of increasing the total amount of melee damage done per round to your enemies)? A wizard doesn't get penalized for casting Meteor Swarm (a lot of damage at once), so why should they be penalized for casting Summon Creature IX (less damage done at once, but possibly more spread out over enough time)? You don't earn xp for defeating an enemy's summons, and you shouldn't lose xp for using your own summons.

Anyway, it's on the list, so at least they'll be aware of it and can choose whether to make the change or not.

britishj

I agree, as a wizard it feels like i'm punished for having my familiar summoned. Punishing players for using abilities you give them doesn't seem like a good fun design. You wouldn't punish fighters for wearing heavy armour as that is a feature of their class.

(Fighter & Heavy Armour & Specialized Weapons vs Orc) > (Wizard & Tiger vs orc)

Jarrakul

I say add this as an option, with different flags for henchmen vs. summons. Personally, I would turn it off for summons but not henchmen. But that's me. Different people like different things. I just want this to be less hard-coded.

Malclave

I agree that familiars and animal companions shouldn't decrease xp earned.

Summoned creatures are kind of iffy to me right now. If the xp penalty is removed, then duration should be lowered.

Jarrakul

It is possibly worth noting that both the power and duration of summoned creatures have been increased compared to the pen-and-paper game (where they do not decrease xp earned). I believe this was done because mages (and clerics, in theory, but not really in practice) are made to have meatshields, and especially at low levels, they don't function well without one. In a largely-solo game like NWN, it was important to give them some way to not immediately die. That said, the spammability of resting in many NWN modules makes this point less relevant than it could be. 6 hit points go a lot farther when you can cast Sleep in every fight.

aarionn

Hmm maybe I will not use Panther familiar for my Wizard anymore... On the other hand... there is plenty exp and I once beat OC with solo wiz... and that was when I had no idea what I was doing...

Mordaedil

I reckon this is kind of a problem with the game engine just simply rewarding experience based on who you are partied with. Everything counts in that respect.

There are ways around it, in fact, it is really trivial to script around it, but goodness, you'd have to do it on a per-module basis.

It believe it is fine to restore XP gained to the entire party, right? Since they are all getting drained because you summoned a familiar?

HousePet

I'd always thought this was semi balanced out by making encounters slightly more difficult.
I've never actually confirmed this though.

jww

This wiki link:

http://nwn.wikia.com/wiki/Party_size_penalty

... suggests that party size does increase encounter size, but not enough to completely compensate, with a character with companions ending up about one level lower in the OC than they otherwise would. Which is fine if your companion is a henchman, but I'd still prefer if class features didn't trigger the penalty. But this may mean that it's harder to make the change than I hoped.

Manveru

Agree, when playing NWN I was always conscious about this so I always took as little people as possible with me. And especially as a wizard I always stayed away from any summon. I really like how Pathfinder compared to DnD (3.0/3.5) moved away from penalizing to rewarding certain behavours (like multiclassing).

DJKajuru

Jarrakul said:

It is possibly worth noting that both the power and duration of summoned creatures have been increased compared to the pen-and-paper game (where they do not decrease xp earned). I believe this was done because mages (and clerics, in theory, but not really in practice) are made to have meatshields, and especially at low levels, they don't function well without one. In a largely-solo game like NWN, it was important to give them some way to not immediately die. That said, the spammability of resting in many NWN modules makes this point less relevant than it could be. 6 hit points go a lot farther when you can cast Sleep in every fight.

But for those, like me, who try to get as close to PnP as possible, spammability of resting isn't really an option I make use of.

Jarrakul

I'm deeply sympathetic to wanting to avoid rest spam. I suspect the devs were too, and that's why they gave mages strong, long-duration summons. See, in PnP, a low-level mage would have a party. Yeah, the mage wouldn't do much in most fights, but that'd be fine. They'd do enough in the important fights, and for the minor stuff, they could sit back with a crossbow and occasionally score a kill while the fighters did the heavy lifting. But since you don't have much of a party in many (most?) NWN games, the devs gave mages some fighters-lite in the form of summons and familiars. Which seems like a pretty reasonable solution to me.

The problem is that, by having summons affect experience gain (and, in some cases, monster spawns), they also punished mages for taking advantage of that solution. Which just seems weird to me. Which is why I want an option to turn that off.

Lothar135

Do you know any mod that would change the way the XP penalty works? I believe its against common sense when your character is penalized for the class abilities.

When you have a druid, one of your class ability is to summon a companion. You are penalized for that.
When you are a paladin, one of your class abilities is to being imune to disease. You are NOT penalized for that!

You certainly should not be penalized for using the spell "summon creature". Are you penalized for casting a fireball? A cone of cold? A bulls strenght? No, you certainly are not. Yet, those spells help you to win an encounter. As the summon creature spell do. There is no reason to penalize a character for using the summon spell.

I do agree with the XP penalty for bringing a henchman. He is a strait up buff for your character, regardless of class or any abilities.

Jidokwon

Don't some classes, such as wizards, get an experience bonus? I remember being able to take a wizard up an extra level during the OC Prelude, compared to most of the other classes anyhow. Also, I don't know if the entire game's experience system is designed to "catch up" lower levels, but I thought that the OC(s?) did reasonably well in this regard. I know that my wizard, always using a henchman, her bat familiar, and a summoned creature was able to reach ninth level by the time she fought Desther in the OC. I don't recall ever being much higher than that.

Adul

@Jidokwon I think what you're talking about is Effective Character Level, which only affects some classes, on certain (typically lower) levels, and only in the original campaign and pre-expansion modules.

Lothar135

Jidokwon
If you play a wizard without henchman and familier and summoned creature, you will reach level 9 much sooner than with Desther...

Lothar135

However, this is not about how fast a player can level up. The game is very easy and can be beaten even with 30% xp penalty from thin air.
Its about penalties without reason, which both familier xp penalty and summon creature xp penalty are.

SweetMagooMagoodle

Agree, Lothar135. It is like penalizing a wizard for casting magic missile or a shifter for shifting. Frustrating.

dTd

If summons lasted rounds/lvl like nwn2 I'd agree, otherwise they might as well be henchmen.

Balkoth

SweetMagooMagoodle said:

Agree, Lothar135. It is like penalizing a wizard for casting magic missile or a shifter for shifting. Frustrating.

You do realize a Wizard loses XP for scribing a scoll, brewing a potion, and crafting a wand?

And in PnP there's a lot of spells which have costly material components when cast to balance out the power of the spell...including some summoning spells.

Not to mention (as dTd pointed out) summons don't last 1 round per level (per PnP) and are also significantly stronger than their PnP counterparts.

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