Planar Conduit and ESF Conjuration on Conjuration Wizard

[Deswe]

Hey, I don´t know if this is intended behaviour but as a Conj Wizard the ESF says it applies Haste to all Summons. This does work fine for every Summon except the Planar Conduit ones. Since they are Summons they should be affected by the Haste aswell even though it´s an Epic Spell, right ?
It´s just odd for it to be singled out, hence me asking for clarification on the matter.

[-XXX-]

From what I know Planar Conduit was intended to be the non-evil counterpart for mummy dust.

ESF:necro doesn't apply haste to the mummy dust summons either.
Should ESF:conju apply haste to the conduit summons, ESF:necro should probably be doing the same for the dust summons.
Either that or haste for neither as it is now - for the sake of consistency.

[Skarain]

From what I know Planar Conduit was intended to be the non-evil counterpart for mummy dust.

ESF:necro doesn't apply haste to the mummy dust summons either.
Should ESF:conju apply haste to the conduit summons, ESF:necro should probably be doing the same for the dust summons.
Either that or haste for neither as it is now - for the sake of consistency.

Do remember that Conjuration Specialist Wizard have a banned school: Transmutation. They are unable to cast Haste as a spell, hence, all their summons are auto-hasted.

Now.... On the actual question I don't have answers. Technically Conjuration Specialist do get MONOLITHIC Elemental summons, which is a grand peak of its own. However....

Conjuration Specialist
• 5 + Wizard Level % chance to create two Tier 6 summons with epic spell: Planar Conduit instead of one

Considering that there is a line that explicitly "Buffs" the Planar Conduit, but nothing says "is excluded from Haste effect", I would guess that Haste not applying is not intended behavior.

[CNS]

There is also the fact that, if its intended to be a non-evil version of Mummy dust it unfortunately fails at that being significantly weaker, to the point of being almost a novelty.

[Duchess Says]

There is also the fact that, if its intended to be a non-evil version of Mummy dust it unfortunately fails at that being significantly weaker, to the point of being almost a novelty.

I haven't tried the rest but the slaad are perfect. If you're only speaking about the problem the good summons are having with archery then it would be more useful to specifically complain about that.

[cakewalk]

The fomians are weak too. This is an epic feat for an epic spell, it should always be stronger than your gsf buffed summon9 and it never is. CNS is right on the money.

[WarriorMage]

I'm going to leave some numbers here to explain why planar conduit is considered much worse than mummy dust even though it's supposed to be an alternative for those with non evil alignments.

Dread Mummy Attack Bonus with ESF Necro, negative energy burst, bull's strength and mass haste:
+38/+33/+28

Mummy Lord Attack Bonus with ESF Necro, negative energy burst, bull's strength and mass haste:
+35/+30+25

White Slaad Lord/Word Archon AB with ESF Conj, bull's strength and mass haste:
+35/+30/+25/+20/+15

Grey Slaad/ Warden Archon AB with ESF Conj, bull's strength and mass haste:
+30/+25/+20/+15

One may think Mummy Dust and Planar Conduit will perform similarly. Let's see how this will look like in the combat log. A reminder that MD summons 3 undeads while Planar Conduit summons 2 outsiders.

Mummies

First Flurry:
Dread Mummy attacks Someone: 1d20+38
Mummy Lord attacks Someone: 1d20+35
Mummy Lord attacks Someone: 1d20+35

Second Flurry:
Dread Mummy attacks Someone: 1d20+33
Mummy Lord attacks Someone: 1d20+30
Mummy Lord attacks Someone: 1d20+30

Third Flurry:
Dread Mummy attacks Someone: 1d20+28
Mummy Lord attacks Someone: 1d20+25
Mummy Lord attacks Someone: 1d20+25

Slaads/Celestials

First Flurry:
White Slaad/Word Archon attacks Someone: 1d20+35
White Slaad/Word Archon attacks Someone: 1d20+30
Gray Slaad/Warden Archon attacks Someone: 1d20+30
Gray Slaad/Warden Archon attacks Someone: 1d20+25

Second Flurry:
White Slaad/Word Archon attacks Someone: 1d20+25
White Slaad/Word Archon attacks Someone: 1d20+20
Gray Slaad/Warden Archon attacks Someone: 1d20+20

Third Flurry:
White Slaad/Word Archon attacks Someone: 1d20+15
Gray Slaad/Warden Archon attacks Someone: 1d20+15

The logic above and below applies when comparing Formians/Eladrin with the Vampire stream, which are supposed to be a more offensive and less tanky version of Slaads/Archons and Mummies, respectively. Vampires put a lot more pressure on the target due to their higher accuracy and base speed.

Comparing the flurries, we can notice that mummies hit with much more accuracy than the planar summons. 3 summons with 3 APR each, have just as much total number of APR compared to 2 summons with 5 and 4 APR each, but since consecutive attacks drop the attack bonus by 5, the higher amount of summons will hit more reliably over the course of a round of combat. As seen above, mummies already start the round with a higher attack bonus than the outsiders, and finish with a 10+ AB difference.

This and the fact that planar summons don't have immunity to critical hits like mummies do, makes Planar Conduit a much weaker version of Mummy Dust.

And it's not the end of it. Planar Conduit only has a 1 cast per rest while Mummy Dust also affects the create undead line of spells, allowing the caster to potentially summon a ton of mummy lords between rests.

I am of the opinion that Planar Conduit should have its attack bonus raised to at least make it competitive with mummy dust. Currently, it's a 1/day cast that costs an epic feat and is worse than mummy dust even without investing in ESF necromancy.

[Duchess Says]

I'm certainly not going to turn down a buff but speaking for the slaad, they're far more survivable than mummy dust summons in my experience (mummy +or+ vamp) and seem able to carry you through an epic dungeon where an ancient elemental wouldn't.

They could probably use a tweak and I can't say about other planar conduit summons besides that I know the good archer is broken and needs attention ASAP. But I maintain it's not a "novelty" and they aren't (all) broken. Seeing as the intent is to give evil characters a strong endgame summon that will let them operate on the surface (where mummy dust is a no no) I think the spell succeeds, at least with the slaad.

[WarriorMage]

It's interesting because my experience was exactly the opposite. Having gone through a lot of epic dungeons, it seems to me like the ancient air elemental can be better at carrying you until the boss fight, if you ward it properly. And even during the endgame boss fights, the air elemental can tank better with its epic dodge, crit immunity, high armor class, improved evasion and undispellable concealment. Almost every endgame boss will pierce slaad's damage reduction, leaving it with the 25% damage immunity as its only defense. And planar conduit is an epic spell, not a spellbook spell. It's supposed to be a direct upgrade to any other long lasting spellbook summon.

The air elemental, a 9th lvl spell which you can prepare multiple casts of between rests, unlike planar conduit's single cast, has a better time hitting its targets than the slaads. These guys only have a chance of hitting epic mobs in their first couple of attacks per round, due to their already poor AB of 30 and 35 fully warded, and finishing the round with an AB of 15 while hasted. These numbers are just so weak. Meanwhile, the elemental hits much more comfortably at 41 AB and down to 26 at the end of the round while hasted. Sure, air elemental's damage is not that great, but when it actually hits things that slaads fail to hit, it's going to kill faster. Just take both to deal with say, Aboleths, and see how much of a pain it is watching the slaads die while they struggle to hit. Mummies melt them. Air elemental is not an epic summon and has better chances than slaads.

As for survivability, slaads perform very well but I dunno how you claim they are more survivable than the mummies when they have no crit immunity and the 15 points of elemental resistance hardly make any difference in epic dungeons. Both mummies and slaads either tank really well or die very fast, so the difference between 5 and 10 regen is not so significant most of the time. The slaad's 15/+7 DR instead of mummy's 15/+5 and 15/+6 hardly makes any difference throughout any epic dungeon, as the mobs that pierce +5 and +6 damage reduction seem to also pierce +7. The endgame bosses don't care about the +7 damage reduction either, because they can pierce it and on top of that, crit on the slaads. Three summons at one time provide more durability than two summons. And the mummies have more HP than the slaads. So I don't know which epic dungeons you refer to. If you take them to beholders, slaads die just as easily as mummies, except you can adapt by summoning something else to deal with them or keep spamming mummies and not worry about the fact that you just wasted your 1 cast of planar conduit. In my experience, mummies are as durable as slaads in some scenarios and better in others when crit immunity matters, not less.

Also, you mentioned vampires, and I very much agree that they aren't nearly as good tanks as planar conduit slaads. In my previous post, I specifically stated that they are meant to serve a different role relatively to the mummies. Being more offensive with their higher damage and base speed, while less tanky, vampires are more suited for PvP. Same applies to formians, more offensive and less tanky than slaads. But if we're going as far as to compare vampires to formians, vampires fill their role much better. They move much faster, deal more damage and hit more reliably.

So yes, planar conduit is pretty good if you want an easy time levelling up in orclands or east ruins. I would argue that even when dealing with the spirits, you can notice a big difference between mummies and slaads. Mummies just run the place like they're in the olympics while slaads can struggle a bit to hit the tankier spirits, like those guys with hammer and shield. And in the actual endgame content, slaads just hit so unreliably many of the mobs mummies have an easy time against. The attack bonus numbers in my previous post explain it all.

[Scylon]

The air elemental, a 9th lvl spell which you can prepare multiple casts of between rests, unlike planar conduit's single cast,

You also can just hold a bunch of scrolls. Don't even need to slot it.

I put in a recommendation regarding EDK earlier that "might" be redundant now. It was something akin to epic summoning.

EDK is a meh version of gate. after the nerf it became kind of underwhelming. With clerics being able to extend gate, even more meh.
Needs a buff

Mummy Dust is damn good for what it does. I would like to see a skeleton stream just for flavor. Not sure where that would sit balance wise.

Planer Conduit is like greater Planer Binding Plus. I know it was added to try to add a good version of mummy dust, but they could have just made a new stream or 2, and renamed Mummy dust to something like "Other Worldly Summoning" or something. That said, with the new changes it will compete much better, and might even out perform mummies now. As evil I can have a couple of enslaved angles!

I still feel there is a "hole" where a new level 10 spell like Summon creature X could sit. The 3 above spells are evolutions of Gate, Summon undead and planer spells (only good though). There isn't a direct path for summon creature. The Issue I see is there are a couple of unique ways to get the "level 10 creature, the monolith". Adding this might water that down.

[-XXX-]

I second the EDK sentiment.

After the recent change the Slaadi each have a comparable HP to EDK all while sporting 15/+7 DR, 25% physical DI, 10 reg, as opposed to EDK's 10/+4 DR, 15% physical DI, no reg

As evil I can have a couple of enslaved angles!

Can you though? Last time I checked Planar Conduit was alignment locked. I really hope that this'll change and we'll get -streams for these in time...

ATM the celestials can be used to signal a good alignment.
Meanwhile, not summoning those leaves room to be interpreted as "suspicious" IC

[Scylon]

you sure? Thought I saw somewhere a comment about using it to hide the fact you are evil.

[Hazard]

It seems to be alignment locked for me.
Evil characters can summon slaad, but good characters unless NG don't seem able to, so I imagine evil characters cannot summon celestials.

For example, my CG priestess can summon Celestials (LG) Fey-lestials (CG), but not anything else.

[-XXX-]

Planar Conduit: Planar Conduit has requirements matching that of Mummy Dust, but intended for neutral and good summoners. It summons two creatures (One stronger than the other). For the purposes of this new spell, characters can only use streams on their own Good-Evil alignment axis. Evil characters can take this feat and use the neutral summons, but there is no support for demons and devils. This may be advantageous for surface evil characters to hide their alignment.

Classes: Sorcerer, Wizard, Cleric, Favored Soul
Requirements: 21st level, the ability to cast 9th level spells, spellcraft 15
Characters using this epic spell will default based on their alignment:
LG, NG: Celestial Archons (Existing stream)
CG: Celestial Eladrin (New stream)
LN, LE, TN: Mechanus (Existing stream - Constructs)
CN, NE, CE: Slaadi (Existing stream)
One Tier 5 Summon and one Tier 6 Summon will be summoned when this spell is cast.

It uses outsider streams, but is alignment locked on the Good-Evil axis (this seems to be deliberate). That pretty much means that even if a character knows all outsider streams, then still this applies:

Any good alignment - only gets celestials or celestial eldarin
Any non-good alignment - only gets fomorians or slaadi

[DangerDolphin]

You can think of it more like planar ally than planar binding.

Although you can argue summoning neutral creatures is suspicious as you might be evil, that's 66% of the server who fall into that category, so it's a pretty thin suspicion.

With regard to good summons to prove you're a good person - well, we already have this with paladins and their dips. I agree it can potentially be cheesy and I would cringe if it was being used as a faction admittance test or something, but it does make some level of sense that powerful and very judgemental celestials won't want to help you if you don't fall into their strict standards of 'good'.

On balance - I'm aware that the archers suck, it's just a tricky fix as it's mostly NWN AI causing the issues. Throwing in Epic Level Scaling and haste was a simple change. Once we know how well that works, I'll have a better idea on how I want to fix the archers and if we want SR on the PvP summons or not.

EDK - I was trying to avoid bumping up into it on the power scale in the original design, but was boxed in on both sides by powerful summon X and weakened EDK, hence the weaker planar conduit summons initially.

I did also want to say I do really appreciate posts like WarriorMage's one, as though we've had comments before like "conduit weak plz fix!!!11", it's not very convincing without the hard numbers.

[Scylon]

http://wiki.nwnarelith.com/Summons

Just taking a look at gate vs dragon is the biggest issue. Gate is spamable, scrollable and now extendable. Hells the Gear Golem is way stronger then a dragon. Warlock/BG pets are so close and don't expire.

EDK just doesn't feel like an epic spell when you stack the numbers on the wiki.