Overall Summons Rework [Outdated!]

[lordsterling]

Or Dragonshapers
Or fighter/clerics
Or Monk/clerics
Or Bard/Pally's in booty shorts
Or Blackarchers

In fact, everyone is OP. We should nerfbat everyone who can develop the right build and tactics.

[Mithradates]

No one is opposing the pixie being able to do what it does? At least I can't read that anywhere in the thoughts posted on the topic.

There have been numerous posts by players saying that familiars make rogues irrelevant. If I'm not being clear, I apologize, but this is what I have a problem with because I think it's just entirely false. Rogues are bad Snuggybear and aren't irrelevant just because they share features with something else in the game. My previous post was meant to point to the fact that this exists with many classes/features in the game and on the server.

As far as soloing, I've never had a character high enough level to even dream of doing Kholingen alone. But in most of the pre-epic levels I've attained I have seen fighters builds able to solo areas that would prove challenging to a mage.

[Scurvy Cur]

Now that I'm not the first one in the thread to say the emperor has no clothes…

-STUFF-

I largely agree with this comment, with a couple points of disagreement.

In general, I think the concept behind familiars is 100% fine. The notion that they're an auxiliary utility summon that you can keep around without worrying about them dying opens up tons of options, and helps shore up some of the spell slot limitations of spells/day arcane classes. I also don't think giving them skills that overlap with the rogue is too terrible; using locks and traps to justify the existence of your rogue probably means you're under-utilizing the class, and I think most parties are going to want a rogue along for more than 1-3 take 20 skill checks in a dungeon.

The problem with familiars is that somewhere along the line, in addition to the "support and survival" abilities, they started to pick up offensive powerhouse bolt attacks. These are a ridiculously good offensive ability, utterly saveless, hit most things, and the familiars that get them can use them precisely one and a half hojillion times per day. It's disgustingly good.

Furthermore, the animal companions as-is feel decidedly way too strong. Kregor is spot on here: it's brilliant that companions are now a valuable class feature, but I think in the effort to make them useful, they were given a little too much oomph. He's not the first player I've heard remarking that it feels like a class feature is outperforming the main character.

[Plonkers]

Really i don't care that the pixies is a rogue type of familiar, it makes sense that it is i'm fine with it, but it is how fast they grow in skill points that might need a overlook.
and it was not pixies that made me post, it was however the snake familiar i do not see how it could do this, i have a pet snake i dare you to try and teach it something anything (sure we are in a fantasy setting but really do it have to be this imaginary?)

what gets me the most though is that this thread is only answered by none devs so this is my last post here since there wont come any answers from the devs or the person that did these familiars so it is completely waste of time even voicing your thoughts here..

[Foxybeerd]

If all you want is an answer from the devs/DM team I'd try the suggestions forum

[DestroyerOTN]

I-it is... right?

How's the status on that any who? Is balancing work still being done? Had been my guess, given the mention of banshee wail as a spec ability of one.

Not to be *Coughs* impatient

[Cihparg]

I-it is... right?

How's the status on that any who? Is balancing work still being done? Had been my guess, given the mention of banshee wail as a spec ability of one.

Not to be *Coughs* impatient

I have a feeling the undead update is actually a ruse to turn all players into undeads.
But, in all seriousness; and this probably already reads here somewhere: Will Mummy Dust also be overhauled to work like the other spells/feats?

[Yellena]

How things will work will be all up to Mith, so what I say below may or may not happen. From what I remember:

Mummy Dust and Epic PM's Class Ability will able to summon Tier 4 Undeads.
The other spells will all summon an Undead based on Caster Level (possible full PM levels taken into account for that). Each spell used will summon an extra Undead, up to one per Spell Focus in Necromancy (up to 3 at same time).

With the above, as you may notice, PMs will be the only able to have two Tier 4 Undeads at once (one with Mummy Dust and one with it's own ability). Something to make up for the huge spell casting sacrifice they make.
It's important to remember that PM's summons a Dracolich with Dragon Knight Spell!

Arise followers of the Dark Arts With Creepy Hands! Arise and conquer the...
*Pure CHA Cleric uses Turn Undead*
Well... would you like to buy Bone Knuckles?

[DM_Ironfist]

Does this mean a PM will have to have at least 18 levels to summon as many undead (two plus 1 other summon) as they can currently at level eight?
This sounds like a downgrade. Not an upgrade.

[NauNatha]

Quality over quantity.

[Scurvy Cur]

If the new undead are even a little bit better than useless, it'll be an upgrade.

[frightnight]

hahahahahahahaha

[The Kriv]

I think the Idea that a Ranger's companion is really beefy was an awesome addition. It also adds a little more umph to the survivability of wilderness-character builds that are centered more around RP design than pure class power optimization.

I really love seeing wilderness PC's out and about with their companions, and taking them into battle. I hope nerfing it doesn't put a damper on that.

[KregorRanger]

The tone down on ranger/druid companions was, as I've noted, not drastic, but it is toned down from ludicrous. They're survivable, but no longer something you can sic on everything while you stand back.

I only know this for the cat, so YMMV.

[GreatGospel]

Yeah, my experience with the Wolf is much the same its no longer something that can soak up lots of attacks.. Id be happy if they took a little less damage however, but they have by no means been ruined, you just have to take much greater care of them in battle..

All you need to do is add the ability for Rangers to control thier companions for RP and theyll be perfect..

[Dinosaur Space Program]

As someone who plays a druid currently.. I felt the upgraded companions were thoroughly OP to an extent that actually made me a little sick. I am vastly relieved that they have been nerfed. In fact, they could probably have some of their still crazy assortment of feats pruned some.

But I will leave that sort of analysis to people who know the numbers better than I.

As someone who also plays a mage currently, I actually quite like the familiar nerf. The upgrades were, again, way too much. Being able to summon (unless they die) whenever you wish is a huge improvement and easily recoups the loss of being able to open all the locks in the game and/or fire bolts out their faces. I felt the bolts on familiars were utterly unneeded and also thoroughly cruel to other classes in pvp.

But then, I am of the opinion that if your spellcasting class (I am focusing on mages/sorcs/druids here) does not need to actively Engage in the pvp to win or disable, then something is Very Wrong.

[msterswrdsmn]

The familiars can use some tweaking. Some of them still have multiple feat combos that even the most hardcore build would be hard pressed to get (ex: the golem has self concealment 5/epic dodge).

I'd gladly swap out some of those feats in exchange for level progression. Give the skill growth a cutoff point, making it so that the growth is more for small bits of HP and 3/4 AB progression. Its nice we can summon/resummon them whenever until they die, but when you only have like, 8 hp, even rp situations pose a very real risk of killing it.

[Dinosaur Space Program]

Admittedly, I was going to edit onto my other post, but this will do..

Can we have water elementals looked at again? The regeneration on them plus the elemental DR makes them an unstoppable juggernaut of slow destruction and the ancient version can solo Kohlingen and the duegar fairly effortlessly.

I suggest taking the regeneration off of them as I spoke with this to someone who is far better at the mechanics than I, and he felt that either nerfing their DR or taking the regeneration off would balance them better.

Also, I feel that getting the ancient elemental at 17 (on a wizard with greater conjuration) is a little early and would prefer seeing it on epic conjuration myself. The water elemental in general is front loaded a little bit too heavy compared to the other elementals, but the ancients in general could wait until epic without issue I think.

[Yellena]

Indeed, the regen makes Water a top choice over the others.
I think I already worked them out on the path I sent Mith. If I didn't it will come on next.

[Scurvy Cur]

I'll add a little detail here:

Essentially, between the DR, the regen, and the sneak/crit immunities, the water elemental can tank anything in the aforementioned dungeons, and take maybe 20-30 points of damage per round, of which all or most is regenerated at the end of the round. Reckless use of the elemental can sometimes threaten it, but that seems to be about it.

I think the DR is probably okay (all the other elementals have it, and they fare alright, but not without support to keep them up and swinging), but the regen on top of it is too much. Since regen is what sets the water elemental apart, my suggestion would be to drop the regen rate to something like 20-40% of what it currently is, allowing it to very slowly heal back between fights, but not to handily keep pace with the damage sustained.

[Yellena]

Yes. The water was designed to be the durable one on the long run. I think I cut the regen by half so it will help more between fights than in battle.

The earth one was designed to be the battle tank, with tons of HP and DR, and Imp Knockdown, but downsite is it's VERY slow (isn't happening). He was dealing same damage as water too, while it shoul dbe dealing more, so I fixed it too.

The Air is the AC and "dodgy" tank, but it don't tank because... well.. it deals no damage to keep aggro. So I added Called Shot to see if it helps with keeping aggro.

[msterswrdsmn]

^ I think called shot has to do be able to deal damage in order to do anything. If it doesn't do any damange, it says "called shot: failed" and does nothing. If air elementals have low damage, called shot won't help hold aggro any.

If you're looking for a way for them to hold aggro, give them higher DR penetration; they'll still deal damage, which lets them hold aggro, but it won't be anything substantial in terms of damage output.

[Yellena]

The elders already have DR/+3 Skin and the Ancient have DR/+5. That should be enough to pen a lot of mobs. Now, if it have Damage Resistance to physical...

Hmmm I may do tests with taunt

[WaffleCone]

Any update on the Undead rework?

[Tyrantos]

Howdy. Figured I'd drop in and ask a question, which we are all curious about. Any updates on the undead rework? (I know it might sound like a broken record, but would be awesome to hear something!)