Suggestion: Don't have summons, animal companions and familiars count towards party size for XP calc
FletcherBrown
Member Posts: 8
First, a huge thank you to all who are restoring NWN to the modern era. I'm very excited.
In the original version of this game, if one summoned an animal companion, familiar, or used a summon spell, these summons counted towards the party size and would effect the amount of XP that the player received. It was possible to build a characters of several classes that relied heavily on summons and if they consistently used their summons throughout an extended campaign, they would be noticeably behind where a non-summoner class would be on XP accumulation. This problem was further compounded in a multiplayer environment with several summoners in a party together.
Please consider changing this so that only "main" characters like PCs and full NPC henchmen with PC power level count in this XP distribution calculation.
Thanks again. I can't wait to be playing this great game again.
In the original version of this game, if one summoned an animal companion, familiar, or used a summon spell, these summons counted towards the party size and would effect the amount of XP that the player received. It was possible to build a characters of several classes that relied heavily on summons and if they consistently used their summons throughout an extended campaign, they would be noticeably behind where a non-summoner class would be on XP accumulation. This problem was further compounded in a multiplayer environment with several summoners in a party together.
Please consider changing this so that only "main" characters like PCs and full NPC henchmen with PC power level count in this XP distribution calculation.
Thanks again. I can't wait to be playing this great game again.
11
Comments
1. In PnP (such as 3.5 or Pathfinder) Animal Companions do not detract from XP and are quite capable in combat. It is expected that a Ranger or Druid use their Animal Companion during fights and the classes are balanced around this aspect (or the Ranger/Druid can give up their companion for another significant combat bonus).
2. Familiars do not detract from XP...but they are not combat capable. Generally the familiars hide or maybe deliver touch spells on rare occasions. As Pathfinder puts it: "Small-sized familiars threaten the areas around them like Small creatures, and can be used to flank enemies, though both familiars and their masters are often loath to use such tactics, as the result is often a dead familiar." Familiars do often grant small bonuses to something like a skill to their master.
3. Summoned creatures do not detract from XP and are combat capable...but they also last one round per level. You know how you summon a creature and then buff it up with Mage Armor, Bull's Strength, Improved Invisibility, etc? Your summon is halfway expired by then. This statement is true, full stop. Animal companions shouldn't reduce XP. This question...isn't so straightforward. If summons had the normal duration of one round per level and the normal stats, you'd be correct. But summons have been made significantly more impactful-- a summon can potentially do damage all day and can be easily buffed to be massively more powerful.
So if you want Animal Companions, Familiars, and Summoned Creatures to not cost XP...
A. Animal Companions are fine as is
B. Familiars shouldn't be nearly as combat capable and should give minor bonuses
C. Summoned creatures should last one round per level and things like the Planar Binding/Ally spells should be far more involved (and cost money to summon in some cases, plus you have to trap and bargain with the creature to server) or not be so much significantly stronger.
That said, giving any spell a duration of 1 round / level is ridiculous as well. What is a level 1 summon supposed to achieve in one round? Or a status effect that lasts one round? It's too punishing for low level casters who suck already.
Durations should generally start at 5 rounds + 1round/level but that's more of a D&D issue than NWN issue.
You could say it's silly but that's just how D&D is and that's how it was meant to be played. You could see the exp penalty as an adjustment for letting you cast at a couple of levels higher in advance of other characters, even excluding the duration.
-Dave
I mean, we are comparing it to, say, 1d4+1 damage from one Magic Missile or 1d4 AoE damage (with a reflex save) from Burning Hands.
Or let's look at another class -- a Cleric casting Cure Light Wounds will heal 1d8+1 damage (5.5 average). That summoned creature might very well absorb more damage in one round than the Cleric would heal with a level 1 spell at level 1.
And that's technically how you'd use it in PnP. Is that ideal in NWN? Not really.
At level 1, Sleep or Color Spray can disable multiple enemies while Magic Missile and Summon Creature I are just useless in comparison.
Cure Light Wounds is just necessary if you don't have other means of healing abundantly available.
But it's more of a D&D problem than NWN problem. 5e fixes a lot this e.g. Sleep having a fixed 1min duration and Magic Missile being a fixed 3d4+3.
If the summons themselves are more powerful than they should be, then perhaps this needs to be nerffed as well.
I just want to be able to play a druid that focuses on animal companions and summons without feeling like I am hurting my XP gain.
Please allow me to add my two cents to the discussion. Agree wholeheartedly. I suggested the same thing in my original thread. Absolutely. I kind of like the idea of having summons that can be a more permanent investment.
Lets see... how about spicing up the Planar Binding and Gate spells. We spend some EXP to bind a powerful extra-planar creature to our bidding, who can help us by
- fighting alongside us
- we can use its skills and spells
- it can give us items or information
in return for gold or completing quests - depending on the creatures alignment we would get tasks to either do great evil, good ... etc thus earning us favor and advancing the outsiders agenda on our plane.
We could have some pact feats to represent our progress / favor with the creature. I would like to challenge this by mentioning the encounter design of the official campaigns. The encounters in the OC are insane when using a wizard. Its so bad that the devs had to create a cheesy resting mechanic to keep the casters going.
Combat classes on the other hand - if well equipped - can go all day without rest.
So I think because of the spammy encounter design some changes had to be made to the spells.
This might have been the main reason for increasing the duration of the summons and improving the familiars.
On the other hand I agree that the familiars are to powerful. I think this can be solved by toning them down a little and adding the improved familiar feats to unlock better familiars and familiar powers... so that you only benefit if you focus on the familiar feats.
To the statement that summons can potentially do damage all day, i will say that yeah sure, if they have the proper support and they are facing easy enemies... but bosses destroy them really fast.
Also fighters can do the same, and they are so much better at it, especially against bosses. If we had a full party i would take a fighter over a summon every time (and would probably prepare buffing and control spells, since they can kill mobs way faster than a caster).
If you gimp the summons back to PnP levels, then you should also gimp the encounters in the OC as well and prepare some aggro management that engages the enemies with the summons... or wizards will ignore summons even more than before.
By the way - the original reason i posted the improve summons suggestion is that i always found the summoners trash in this game compared to other wizard archetypes but in PnP they kick some serious ass. I am all for finding the right balance.
The only thing i ask for is, if you specialize into summoning and taking mostly summoning related feats - you remain competitive with an evocation build or a different class. Its ok if it takes the summoner longer to complete the encounter, but i would like the summoning play-style to work. Please allow me to respond to both your posts here:
First i would like to say, in PnP summons can be used as blockers which represents good strategic value. This is less so in NWN.
Low level summons will do almost nothing when you are facing higher level foes. They are a wasted spell slot, and in the old game they also made the game more difficult by spawning more enemies and giving you less EXP.
Please do not underestimate magic missile. When used at the right time it can be amazing. It's a spell that stays relevant even at higher levels - but only if it is implemented properly, and if you have a great DM that does not auto scale everything to your level, instead gives you interesting encounters. Its amazing because it
- never misses
- deals magic damage (sometimes this is the only damage that works)
- each missile can be used to target a specific enemy (that's up to 5 different enemies)
- sometimes it can interrupt the enemy
- Tucker's Kobolds have low HP, but can kick your ass if not careful, but usually die from one missile
Sadly it's mostly garbage in NWN.
In NWN why would you ever memorize cure light wounds? Bandages are always more useful. They are also cheap. But i would argue that at high levels the cure light wounds is still more useful, since your equipment will mostly protect you - so you suffer less damage, that can be healed by the CLW, while the summon still dies in one hit.
I think balance is secondary, but will still going to argue that the spells you listed are well balanced.
Sleep - amazingly potent control spell, that allows a save but is useless on mobs that are 5HD or higher.
Color Spray - cone aoe, allows save, usefulness depends on the enemy HD.
Magic missile - in NWN its bad, but if properly implemented its amazing - scales well, damage is good for a lvl1 spell.
Summon Creature - i have to agree, its bad -- that's why we should improve summons
Cure light wounds - better than Summon Creature, if you are well equipped it can be a useful mitigation spell, or if you encounter strange enemies - like undead immune to normal damage with low HP/or the hate demon from Baldurs Gate 2 -- then its an all right damage spell.
So if the spell is strong than it usually allows a save and/or does not work on higher level mobs, or if it does work well at every level than it will be weaker if the spell level is low.
AD&D 2ed > DnD > DnD3.5 > DnD3 >>>> DnD5 >>>>>>>>>>>>> DnD4
For reference, here's a creature you can summon for 1 round in Pathfinder. Of course, it does instantly act (and hence attack) and can soak up hits more efficiently.
I'm not saying 1 round at level 1 works well in NWN specifically. But I think people are spoiled by how long lasting and powerful NWN summons are and if you're going to remove the XP penalty then the summons should be toned down. I mean, D&D assumes four encounters per day. Ergo resting every four encounters would follow the D&D paradigm.
More to the point -- so what you're suggesting is to A, allow casters to constantly recharge and B, make them even STRONGER than they already are? Um, how is that even a question? The Fighter is supposed to be MASSIVELY better than a summon. In fact, according to the game's math, a summon is supposed to be 1/4 to 1/3 as good as the Fighter -- and that's with 1 round per level summons you can't really buff in most cases and which disappear quickly.
A level 9 Wizard is the same CR as a level 9 Fighter (namely 9) and you'd be summoning creatures of CR6ish power range with your level 5 spell slots. A CR6 creature is about 1/3 as strong as a CR9. Excuse me, WHAT? Have you SEEN Finger of Death/Wail of the Banshee/Isaac's Greater Missile Storm? Or spells like Firebrand/Horrid Wilting against a group of enemies?
I mean, try doing this fight as a fighter and obliterating it as thoroughly as I just did. People have often complained about how hard that fight is (end boss fight for the module). Here's the problem: how do you arrange it so that the evoker doesn't just get a buff because he summons the improved summon and then still has a ton of other spells? Things like IGMS don't care about feats (except Spell Penetration if you don't Spell Breach).
I'm not against your general idea here -- I'm questioning how it can be done in the current framework of NWN. Normally a summoner would be spending multiple spell slots to summon multiple creatures onto the field...but those creatures only last 1-2 fights. So if you made summons something like 3 rounds + 1 round per level in duration and then allowed multiple summons that might be fine. The summon takes the hit you would have potentially taken (by wasting the opponent's attack or delaying his advance toward you). It could even get the opponent to waste a potent spell on it at the cost of a level 1 slot for you.
I do not get your point on the constant recharge, since we already have that in the form of resting. Just go to a safe place, hit the rest button, wait a couple of seconds and you are recharged.
I am not saying that the summons should get stronger without any reason, but i would welcome some summoning related feats, that make them stronger if you invest into summoning. And if most of your feats are summoning related, then they should be really good (not player character good, but better than they are now). Yes, the fighter will always be better. I think i even talked about it in my original post that i would always choose the fighter instead of the summon. My argument was referring to the statement that since summons remain for hours they deal more damage than your average spell, and in theory they can keep dealing damage while they are around. Same as a fighter.
But i would argue that in case of summons you only get the possibility of dealing the damage. In order to do so, the summon must hit and endure the enemy attacks. So considering the situation it might be that you deal a ton of damage with the summon or no damage at all, since a strong mob killed it in the first round.
So, its fine that the summon is weaker. But i would welcome some feats to improve them.
Example: improved summoning - improves the CR of the summon or something. And if you heavily focus on summoning (spending a lot of feats), your summons should be better than the average. On the other hand i still think that even with all these feats spent, a regular summon should always be weaker than the fighter, and the only summons that should have equal ability are some special summons, called forth using gate, greater planar binding, epic summons... but only if you have the feats to make them better. These special summons already have a much shorter duration. Yes, absolutely. These spells are amazing. But most of them allow a save, so the player must invest heavily into spell focus feats for necromancy and evocation to keep the DC high.
On the other hand the fighter relies mainly on feats and equipment. The official campaigns have a lot of immunity items that invalidate most death spells, fear based spells, grant perma-haste... etc.
Maybe they should buff the Disjunction spell to work more like in PnP, since it should also disenchant magical items not just serve as a high powered dispel.
About the video: i did never played this module, nor do it intend to play it. But depending on the level range there are fighter builds that are competitive, if they have access to the necessary equipment. At epic levels fighters have devastating critical which is pretty good.
Also please do not take this the wrong way, but i do not care about multiplayer and non-official content. I mostly play the official modules, so when i discuss the rules i focus on the experience and design of those modules. A very good point, where i do not have the right answer.
All i can say is, if you have lets say 5 feats you need to become a good summoner, then you would not have the feats to spare to buy the DC (greater focus) for your evocation / necromancy ... etc spells, or you might be bad at penetrating the enemy spell resistance, since it takes 3 feats to do that.
Giving more choices and build options is all i am for.
About IGMS - i really hate that spell. Its too good. I wouldn't be against if it was removed from the game. I never use it.
Please allow me to ask you a question:: when was the last time you used summons instead of spells that actually killed the enemy? If you use summons as heavily as i do - mostly for challenge - and still are in favor of nerfing the duration, than i will concede this point. Yes, that is one outcome.
But I would argue that its mostly situational.
Lets say you try casting the level 1 summon spell in combat. If not doing it while hasted the enemy will close in and hit you. If you are hasted, then there is a good chance the summon might not grab the aggro and you might get hit and you have a useless summon that cannot hit the enemy.
Or if you were clever and cast the spell before combat, the best you will get out of your summon if you buff it up with defenses, is a couple of turns to do damage or other things.
In the OC i used the buffed up hellhound to keep the bloated spider at bay in the docks... but had to redo the fight about 30 times trying out different spell combinations (sometimes i failed, because a critical spell like blind got resisted)... to finally beat it since the familiar dies too quickly even if i successfully blind the spider. Then it kills my mage in 1 turn. Trying to use a summon here is a waste of spell slot, a henchmen would be so much better.
(playing on the hardest difficulty, with no henchmen, summoning play-style, trying it at level 6)
The healing spell is garbage, but can be used to heal up after combat.
If you use Summon Monster I to summon for example a celestial badger it has 6 hp and 15 ac.
If you use Summon Monster II to summon a celestial giant bombardier beetle it has 13 hp and 14 ac.
If you use Summon Monster III to summon a celestial bison it has 37 hp and 13 ac and 5/magic dr.
Summon Nature's Ally II can get a dire badger for 28 hp and 16 ac, +4 attack, d4+2 claw damage, rage.
In NWN Summon Creature I gets a dire badger with 25 hp, 17 ac, +6 attack, damage is d4/d4/d6 claw/claw/bite, rage twice.
In NWN Summon Creature III gets a dire wolf with 54 hp, 20 ac, 9 attack, 2d6+7 damage, 19-20/x2 critical.
Summon Nature Ally III gets a dire wolf with 45 hp, 14 ac, +11 attack bite, 1d8+10 damage bite.
There isn't much effective difference between 3.0 and 3.5 in, a few details are different but most of it is copied verbatim from one book to the next. In NWN summoning is already improved without taking feats, though it would be good to be able to unhardcode the total summon cap of 1 without needing workarounds.
Besides playing a Psion I don't think summoner is a built in play style of D&D 3.0/3.5 classes, you would need a prestige class such as Malconvoker, and you would need to make a feat investment and probably some obscure items. In your table top game you would probably also ask to use the "summon the same creature every time" variant so that you can travel to their home plane, give them gear and otherwise improve them.
You were the one complaining about "Its so bad that the devs had to create a cheesy resting mechanic to keep the casters going" -- but what determines whether its cheesy? Being able to recharge your spells after being out of combat for a bit is a very common mechanics. The main reason to think it's cheesy is that it's not how D&D handles it...but you LITERALLY just said
"I would argue that it doesn't really matter what D&D assumes"
so surely that's not your objection. And what feats would these be? We're also now talking about adding new content to the game, not adjusting how summons effect HP or summon duration. If a strong mob is able to kill the summon in one round...how much stronger are these feats going to make it so that it doesn't just get killed in two rounds instead? See the problem? Even if you qualrupled the summon's power (double its defenses, double its offenses) it'll still die in two rounds instead of one if the enemy is strong enough. Did you seriously make these two statements virtually right next to each other? If you don't care about multiplayer and non-official content, then who cares if the campaigns have immunity items available? The enemies in the campaigns aren't using them so it's completely moot. I'm level 9 at that point. I've played the module with a Fighter and you can have +1/+2 gear at that point which is quite standard (per the official campaigns, which you want to use as the guideline) -- you still won't obliterate the combat like that.
Also, if you're never intending to play The Aielund Saga (or Swordflight, or several other campaigns that are BETTER than the official conent) then you're really missing out on the whole point of NWN. No, it doesn't, that's why you use Greater Spell Breach or Mord's Disjunction to reduce enemy SR by 6 or 10 respectively. And at level 31+, only a monk's SR can stand against you -- you'll either auto-defeat creature CR or you can breach the spell "Spell Resistance." In the official campaigns? Not since like 2003, I don't need them to win and I don't want to lose the XP.
Man, I remember my first playthrough ever -- I played an Elven Sorcerer using the pseudodragon familiar, summons, and Daelan. I literally took Weapon Finesse and stabbed things with a rapier a lot. I was so clueless.
This was also before HotU so spells like Greater Magic Weapon didn't exist. Or...drop the summon on a trap to trigger it. Or...drop the summon between you and the enemy who then sees the summon first and wastes a much higher spell slot on it. Summon Creature I is still useful at high levels -- even though most level 1 spells aren't so useful by then. I'm sorry, but 30 different times? How? Can you describe your tactics, take some screenshots, or post a video? You should be, what, a level 8-10 Sorcerer/Wizard by then?
Hell, send me your save gave and I'll make a video showing how to do it. If you mean "Very Hard" then that's stupid, it literally does not work correctly. If you give a giant with 50 strength (so +25 modifier) a +5 dagger, he'll normally do 1d4 + 30 damage, or 32.5 average. On "Very Hard" he'll do 2d4 + 30 damage, or 35 average. It only doubles the base weapon damage. That mode shouldn't exist.
If i had made my position clear at the beginning we wouldn't have this argument over trivial matters.
When i am talking about the game and the mechanics what i mean is how they were implemented in the official campaigns.
I would love to get rid of the cheesy resting mechanic and other design choices that deviate from PnP, but that would cost money, and to my understanding the current direction of the develompent is multiplayer anyway, so it would not be worth doing. The ticket is called Improve summoning. There are a lot of ways this could be done, for example:
- adjusting the summon stats
- introducing new feats, that influence the summons
- more summons, where you can choose the right creature (tank, support, assassin, skill monkey..)
- working on the encounter design (this is very unlikely)
... etc
What i would like to see, is to tweak the summon stats and add a couple of new feats. This way the summons could be toned down - which will put them closer to PnP - and with the feats people who want to invest into summoning still get better summons - thus you only get the benefits if you heavily invest into conjuration feats. What i meant is to have the option to improve them.
I am ok if they start out weaker, but if you spend feats on conjuration to improve the summons they should get better.
Also getting a simple +1 AC means a +5% chance to avoid an enemy attack. Or the extra HP from the augment summoning could also get us an extra turn. Any little adjustment helps.
I am not saying that the summons should always survive the first round in every situation, all i am asking for is to have some ways to invest into summoning to improve them. Yes, i did.
We have been talking about those spells you listed, first I agreed that indeed they are very strong in the hands of the player.
Then I addressed fighters and mention that most of their power comes from feats and equipment.
I did not explicitly stated it, but to me the next step was to compare the options fighters have against these spells, which is valid even in single-player since some enemy mobs also have them.
So I just wanted to make the point that, when the spells are used against the player the campaign got you covered with those nice immunity items.
Sorry that i was not clearer... it was late, when i wrote that post.
Note: hmm.. now that i think about it, its also late... so... damn it Agreed.
About the Aielund Saga - I believe you, it might be the best NWN campaign ever. Its just that I am not a story person. I only play the game to get through the content using different builds. Knowing the campaign helps to do it faster.
Also i have yet to see a game that can offer the minimum interactivity and player choice to qualify as a real role-playing experience. Fair enough. Interesting. I did the same with the only difference choosing the pixie familiar.
Back to my question - if you want to understand my position just try playing a summoner using the following rules:
- play as a human/half-elf conjurer wizard
- do not select a combat familiar
- do not hire a hireling
- rely on your summon monster and planar binding spells to deal with the enemy
- support the summon with buffs, control spells, and the occasional damage spell
- do not exploit game bugs and glitches
bonus - if you really want to challenge yourself - do not rest in dungeons/while doing quests, you are only allowed to rest in the safe place (inn/temple)
Note: If the summon duration's would be gimped to rounds.. then the bonus objective would be impossible. Yeah good point.
Unfortunately i rarely get the opportunity to use them like this when i play the conjurer play-style, mainly because of the summon cap. If i use a level 1 summon, i cannot buff up the higher level one and get killed. Unfortunately i do not have a save, since i am already in Act2, but i can describe the situation.
I am playing by the rules described above, the only difference is that i wanted to mess around with the hell hound at level 6 so i have used it in the beginning... then i switched to the dire wolf summon.
Here are the spells i had - at least the ones i remember using (i had different combination of spells memorized based on how the attempts went):
Cantrips: all
Level1 - 5slot
- ironguts (+4 vs poison)
- ice dagger (if hits - 5d4 damage)
- ray of enfeeblement (if successful - lower the strength of the spider by 3d6)
- mage armor (AC +4)
- summon monster 1 (not that useful)
Level2 - 5slot
- blindness/deafness (if successful 50% miss chance)
- flame weapon (summon gains +d4+6 damage)
- melfs acid arrow (5d6 damage no save)
- summon monster 2 (if my 3rd level summons die, i can cast this)
Level3 - 4slot
- displacement (6 round 50% miss on the spider)
- summon monster 3 (dire wolf has about 54 HP)
- fireball (used to start the fight 6d6 damage)
- stinking cloud (its a poison effect, so should work on mind-immune)
The spider:
- is immune to mind-spells
- has multiple attacks and good damage
- tend to kill me when i tried using touch spells or am too close
- has a nasty poison (DC 26?) reducing the Str on a failed save
- Has over 120 HP
My strategy:
- buff up my summon with mage armor, flame weapon, ironguts and resistance
- command it to hold position before the door
- then open the door and chug in a fireball to damage the spider and get its attention
- run back and set my summon to attack -> this will grab the aggro when the spider is at the door
- cast a displacement on the summon to try and keep it alive
- then use ray of enfeeblement to try and weaken the spider
- before the displacement expires use blind
- in any free turn cast offensive spell to help reduce its HP
- use bandage if needed
Note: not having access to transmutation really hurts this build (no magic weapon, haste, stat buffs, slow..) Wow, i never knew the difficulty setting worked like this.
I appreciate the information.
And it isn't just casters that want to rest -- at low levels martials are doing it too in order to regain hit points (and class powers like Barbarian Rage). Don't have the funds yet to chain chug healing potions. Augment Summoning gives +4 Str and +4 Con. That'd take the Dire Badger from 25 HP to 31 HP. In some rare cases that might help it survive one round instead of two, but we're only talking like 20% more HP at times. Even a Dire Bear would only have 126 HP rather than 102. So the boss would have to do more than 102 damage in a round (ouch) but not 126 damage in a round -- pretty narrow range there. But that's very different from the thread's title, no? And requires things like adding new feats rather than flipping an XP adjustment switch. Are they? Are you going to give up +5 Strength from a Belt of Fire Giant Strength to get Death Magic Immunity? Sometimes, but not always.
And there's not a defense along those lines to IGMS/Horrid Wilting/Firebrand/Ice Storm. Except the OC is ridiculously easy, has poor combat design, and has bad balancing overall. If you want to play a game for combat, you're better off playing quite a few custom modules. Hell, if you want to play around with some level 40 builds, you could check out my level 40 "boss combat" module.
But I'd seriously recommend The Aielund Saga, Swordflight, and Sanctum of the Archmage if you want more interesting and difficult combat, even if you don't care about the story. If you want to play a summoner, why in the world would you gimp yourself by picking Conjuration as your school (and thus losing Transmutation)? All it's giving you is a spell slot per day in exchange for losing Haste, Bull's Strength, Cat's Grace, and some other stuff. And if your goal is to buff up a summon, you don't need the extra spell slot. Hell, a universalist wizard is a better summoner than your character.
I think part of the problem is that you're equating conjuration specialization as summoning specialization. A conjurer is very different from a summoner -- conjuration also includes Melf's Acid Arrow, Flame Arrow, Black Tentacles, Mestil's Acid Sheath, Web, Grease, etc. Its goal is to lock down enemies and cripple them for other people (your minions, sometimes known as your party members if you're feeling generous) to then clean up. Why are you only level 6 in the docks? IIRC I was level 6 halfway through the prison last time I played a Sorcerer...
That said...here you go.
The wailing death creates a lot of urgency, everyone is talking about the need to find the reagents as quickly as possible. Nasher - the ruler of the city - also got infected. I had the impression that we have no time to waste.
If i had to create a module based on the peninsula district (lets say we are using real 8 hour resting) this is how i would do it.
When the players arrive the captain of the guard (a grim middle aged man) will greet them and explain the situation. The briefing is interrupted by an angry noble who demands that his son - the wardens squire - is immediately evacuated from the district.
Here are a couple of option what the players could do:
- If you can bypass the gangs, then get down to the lowest level and defeat the intellect devourer in the first day, you will have the opportunity to save a lot of guards who would otherwise die, including the son of the noble. If successful the noble will offer you a special reward. But not helping the guardsman restore order in the district will cause a lot of civilian death and property damage, so the reward from the city is reduced.
- If you help the guard restore order you will get delayed one day - civilian deaths and property damage will be kept to a minimum, but many prison guards will die including the son of the important noble. The city will offer a larger reward.
The guard will secure the district and you can attack the prison the next day. Resistance will be higher to compensate for a full rest - and the gangs in the prison will expect the attack.
- Delaying too long (wasting days) and the situation will get worse and the reward from the city will be reduced for each wasted day.
- After 10 days the intellect devourer escapes and must be tracked down by other parties. Eventually it will get captured and delivered to Aribeth, but you will get no reward.
To make things more interesting i would give each district a timer and no matter what you do you could not clear them all.
Why? Because as mentioned above:
- the devourer would escape after 10 days.
- the cocatrice feather would be traded away in an unspecified day (you must find out the day of the trade.
- the wizard would get mad and burn the dryad to ash after 10 days. Luckily there some hair left to use for the ritual, but loosing the dryad will get you no reward.
- and finally the Yuan-ti would be keep raising her army of undead until it poses a large enough threat that the higher ups take notice and a group of high level characters fix the problem. I am perfectly fine with the small bonuses.
Similarly the Dodge feat gives you only +1AC, which in average gives you about +5% chance to evade an enemy attack.
So the +20% Hp for the Bear is a lot. Also i like to think about the Augment Summoning feat as 2 spells that you no longer need to cast on the summon. Yes, you are right it derailed the topic a bit.
The only reason i felt a little justified talking about it is that the ticket has all 3 topics linked and this was the most alive at the time. Yes. That is a good point. I too would use the Strength item most of the time, but would still have the immunity item in my backpack.. since you might never know when it might save you.
About the spells, yes. Your warrior would need to invest into evasion and a good reflex save to avoid the firebrand, but the rest of the spells mean trouble. Thanks for the link and the other recommendation. I will consider it after i finish the Official Campaigns. Well that's simple - thematically conjurer fits the role best by summoning being a sub-school of conjuration. Also i am a huge 2nd edition fan, where one of the defining trait of a specialist mage was that he/she preferred spells from his/her chosen school.
But don't get me wrong, i also equally enjoy using the spells from the other sub-schools like calling, teleportation (unfortunately not so much in NWN) and creation.
So, why i am gimping myself? Who knows? Maybe its nostalgia, maybe madness but i like playing conjurer. Nice fight
I wish i had half your luck with the random generator and the dice.
I pretty much tried the same thing (minus the touch spells), but for me it usually went bad:
- the spider rolling high on both attack and damage - critting the summon a lot
- the summon rolling low on attack and damage and failing the save vs poison
- also the concealment from the displacement was usually ignored, because when it comes to me 50% is not a good chance
Yeah, i have really bad luck...
Also i noticed that the spider was attacking you when you went close to hit it with the combust spell. This happened to me too... i think i mentioned it in the description of the spider.
Your character was well optimized. With good CON and toughness he had a lot of HP for a caster.
In contrast my character is way squishier, he only has 13 CON (i rolled my stats with dice) and i think he had 29 hp (no toughness).
Why no toughness? Because i could not find a good reason to include it.
My character is a neutral evil narcissistic, lazy, fat bastard. He is the 5th son of a noble. His only redeeming quality is his intellect, which would have been squandered if he didn't go to the academy. He applied because after his father died the eldest brother kicked him out of the house...
I believe changing the xp penalty for summons and familiars is a bit more hardcoded/involved though and i haven't seen it fixed except in modules which have a completely custom xp system.
Personally, if a module offers a henchman i will never use summons with my casters(especially sorcerers) as i dont feel they are worth a spell slot over another spell which can disable or damage, i might consider them though if they didnt soak the XP.
Also, 1 AC is typically a 10-15% decrease in damage taken and could easily be more. Don't underestimate Dodge (or other sources of 1 AB/1 AC). Except in PnP you wouldn't waste time buffing your summons with Bull's/Haste -- you'd just summon another creature because these summons would only last rounds per level. In other words -- this ain't remotely PnP. It wasn't luck. I did the fight two additional times before filming it with basically the same result. Wanted to make sure I didn't record a fluke. Er...
I'm sorry, but I literally just spammed the "Recommend" button (which is about the worst thing you can do) for his stats, skills, and feats. I did not even care what they were. That character isn't remotely optimized.