If they are so bothersome, don't allow them in your games.
They are summoners of course they are going to have summoning, as they should.
I don't think it was a problem then or is it a problem now. Maybe for some players that can not handle it.
To many of us summoning monsters is not an issue.
Joe, that's not very helpful. It's very negative, and I feel that you telling me not to playtest a class during the time period set aside specifically to playtest a class is very helpful. You're essentially telling me to not participate in the open playtest and to keep my mouth shut because you don't want to hear any criticisms.
I don't think that discouraging playtesting is a positive way to support Paizo and the PRPG, do you?
That is not what he said. He is saying some groups can deal with it, and some can't. Those that can't should not use the class.
Tom,Sean doesn't understand methodology or statistics or base-line comparisons, if he did he wouldn't have churned out Savage Species or base design decisions on biased feedback. Unfortunately most posters are as clueless or more to these concepts as Sean is. So that certainly doesn't help the issue.
The truth is that the summoner compared to the Wizard, Cleric, or Druid is probably ok but compared to the Fighter its overpowered. Knowing exactly what standard of comparison the Summoner is compared to is critical in deciding its power-level.
Best not to get worried about it. Waste of anguish. Also funny from other posters is that tagline of "It's not broken because I can houserule it." Well first, what's your standard of comparison and second, if it wasn't broken you wouldn't have to fix it. That's the Oberoni fallacy.
Also funny is "It's not broken because I'll ban munchkins from using it." I'll make up a new fallacy to call that one (if it isn't already taken) called the Bisco fallacy.
I think the bisco fallacy has more to do with overvaluing ones opinions to the point of treating them as fact.
Some of us think that the standard of every class should not be 'oh god a munchkin might use that to his advantage, BURN IT'. If reasonable players can use the class in a reasonable way, then to me it isnt a problem. If that is not possible then I call it broken. But I resent the knee jerk "oh my god its totally broken OMFG!!1" reaction anything seems exploitable when it could be quite fun if you DONT exploit it. Munchkinism should be dealt with at the table, not by a gamesystem. No matter what you do the munchkins will exploit it, unless you chop out all interesting or complicated options.
I do however agree with your point on what are we comparing it to. That the wizard, cleric and slightly less so (then in 3.5 i mean) druid are superior to the barbarian, and fighter is a problem that has not been resolved by pathfinder. The question becomes, do we accept this as a fact of life and move on, or do we want to compare all new classes to the lowest common denominator of existing ones. Should we keep the same ratio? For instance. The summoner is a 'top tier' class to go with the cleric wizard and druid, i would definately agree with that. The witch and cavalier are probably a middle tier class, sitting around with the paladin, ranger, etc. And the oracle as it stands is a lower tier class to sit with the fighter barbarian and perhaps bard.
The question becomes are we willing to accept that not everything can be balanced with everything if the existing system is not perfectly balanced. If we choose say the druid as the point of comparison for the summoner. Some of the druids casting power has been shifted to the pet, maybe a little too much, but its not WAAAY off base from the druid. At that point the class needs tweaking. If you compare it to the fighter, well it makes the fighter look pretty crummy, but the fighter already was crummy, so what are we really saying here?
I do however agree with your point on what are we comparing it to. That the wizard, cleric and slightly less so (then in 3.5 i mean) druid are superior to the barbarian, and fighter is a problem that has not been resolved by pathfinder. The question becomes, do we accept this as a fact of life and move on, or do we want to compare all new classes to the lowest common denominator of existing ones. Should we keep the same ratio? For instance. The summoner is a 'top tier' class to go with the cleric wizard and druid, i would definately agree with that. The witch and cavalier are probably a middle tier class, sitting around with the paladin, ranger, etc. And the oracle as it stands is a lower tier class to sit with the fighter barbarian and perhaps bard.
Agreed. This seems to be the issue. We need to compare oranges to oranges, not kumquats or plums. A summoner is a magic user, and a rather powerful one, and should be compared to wizards and clerics and sorcerers, not fighters or monks. If you compare a 5th level sorcerer to a 5th level fighter, on paper, the sorcerer is way more powerful. In actuality that sorcerer needs that fighter around as protection. And not everyone enjoys playing a magic user, others prefer playing a down and dirty fighter. So that's fine.
The question becomes are we willing to accept that not everything can be balanced with everything if the existing system is not perfectly balanced. If we choose say the druid as the point of comparison for the summoner. Some of the druids casting power has been shifted to the pet, maybe a little too much, but its not WAAAY off base from the druid. At that point the class needs tweaking. If you compare it to the fighter, well it makes the fighter look pretty crummy, but the fighter already was crummy, so what are we really saying here?
I think if we are here, we are not only willing to accept that not everything can be perfectly balanced, but we prefer that. 4E tried to make all the classes balanced against each other at all times, and most of the people who are switching to Pathfinder are doing so because they don't like that evolution (pun intended). ;)
Sean doesn't understand methodology or statistics or base-line comparisons, if he did he wouldn't have churned out Savage Species or base design decisions on biased feedback. Unfortunately most posters are as clueless or more to these concepts as Sean is. So that certainly doesn't help the issue.
The truth is that the summoner compared to the Wizard, Cleric, or Druid is probably ok but compared to the Fighter its overpowered. Knowing exactly what standard of comparison the Summoner is compared to is critical in deciding its power-level.
Best not to get worried about it. Waste of anguish. Also funny from other posters is that tagline of "It's not broken because I can houserule it." Well first, what's your standard of comparison and second, if it wasn't broken you wouldn't have to fix it. That's the Oberoni fallacy.
Also funny is "It's not broken because I'll ban munchkins from using it." I'll make up a new fallacy to call that one (if it isn't already taken) called the Bisco fallacy.
Deadly Boss Mods: Corpse Explosion Soon! RUN!
"AIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!" /runs
[T]he solution is have players that can handle the class efficently or don't let them play the class.Since this class is going to be PFS legal, I just checked the PFS rules. I didn't see anything authorizing GMs running scenarios at cons to ban PFS-legal classes from their tables. Any problem that can only be fixed by limiting the summoner class to specific, experienced players becomes a huge problem for PFS.
PFS can make its own rule limiting sumoning. They already have one for animal companions and pets.
Animals and Companions
Animals and companions are a sticky subject in organized
play and can be one of the most annoying ways to min-max
the rules and slow down play. Since Pathfinder Society
operates on a 4-hour time limit for scenarios, the rules
for animals and companions need a few clarifications.
How many animals can I have at any given time? During
the course of a scenario, you may have one combat animal
and as many non-combat animals as you like. You make
this choice at the beginning of the scenario. This means
if you’re a Ranger 5/Druid 5, you’ll need to pick which
animal companion is your combat animal. Non-combat
animals (ponies, horses, pet dogs, etc.) cannot participate
in combat at all. This clarification is meant to reinforce
the same line of logic that prohibits the Leadership feat
from Pathfinder Society—you only have 4 hours to play
and allowing multiple additional combatants only slows
down that play. Finally, if you have so many non-combat
animals that their presence is slowing a session down,
the GM has the right to ask you to select one non-combat
animal and leave the rest behind. Our advice for the
campaign: you can have a mount and a pet and your classgranted
animals with you during the scenario, but try to
avoid going any further beyond that. It can be disruptive
and disruptions are fun for no one.
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I'd hate to see the SLAs go away, since that's really the big appeal of the class for me, and without the SLAs the summoner doesn't really have the endurance to go through 3-5 encounters a day without pulling out the old crossbow by the 2nd encounter. I like the concept of somebody who can summon a ton of creatures each day, but has very limited slots for anything else, for the same reason that I like focused specialist conjurers. The pet, on the other hand, is a cool idea, but not really as compelling for me as the Summon Monster spells.
I kind of like both...
Personally, I see the minutes-long SLAs accomplishing two things:
1. Making you an effective summoner at low levels when your summons would otherwise not get to stick around
2. Making you able to effectively use summons for utility uses -- summoning mounts, scouts, whatever other utility you can get. I see the summoner having to watch his SLA use the same way a wizard has to watch his combat and utility spells each day.
But there is a bit of an issue here in how you prevent someone from going overboard. That example about the wizard with a horde of spells and ally-generating magic items is one thing, but that player would have had to go out of his way to get all that, while the Summoner gets his SLAs as an innate class ability. It _would_ be easier for the summoner to get carried away. Maybe this warrants a brief note in a sidebar about resource management, maybe it's something you just have to let them do once and then see it's a bad idea. Maybe some clever game mechanical solution can be found, but I'm not a game designer so I dunno what.
There may be times when using all your summons for utility _is_ appropriate -- maybe you need to create mounts for everyone in a small village to flee the oncoming enemy horde that is too powerful for the party to fight, or you really urgently need to scout a large area quickly. Or a cinematic usage, like sending them out to fight the BBEG's army while the party goes after the BBEG himself. But you can't count on people having a perfect sense of this.
There may be an issue here, but I don't want to see the SLAs go away -- they're too useful!
The eidolon is also cool, but I can see the class focusing on one or the other as a possible alternative to doing both.
It must be nice to have a DM who only ever gives you one encounter a day >.> cause you know that's how it always happens...At level five, assuming four fights a day, you can summon-nova one fight, then still have all your spells, your eidolon, and one summon per fight for the rest of the day.
This is assuming a summoner with a starting 15 charisma and a +2 hat at level 5. Many will have another summon on top of this.
And then a good GM will set you up in a huge way in the morning.
Dungeons, monsters, etc are not meant to be completely bereft of brains. It's not a video game, the GM is supposed to have the threats around you respond to your actions. This tactic should work just fine once then when they wake up the next day the creatures will either 1 - have moved on because they can't hold you off. Or 2 - set up traps or obstacles which dogs can't get through, and gotten reinforcements.
You are essentially pulling a hypothetical situation out of nowhere and saying it's the norm.
Will Novaing work? Sometimes.
Can other classes Nova? Yes any casting class can spam all their highest level spells in a day then camp in a rope trick.
Does novaing work? Depends on the situation. If there is a single large encounter then sure. In the typical dungeon? Not so much.
This has been a great exercise in hypothetical thought but the whole point of this is to see how it works in actual play and your scenario is situational. I would be much more interested in reading things from modules or peoples home grown campaigns than contrived scenarios.
Omitted
Everything interesting you say is obscured when you insist on posting crude snipes at the developers in your posts. Perhaps you have something to contribute but it's unlikely anyone reads past your bitter childish insults.
I'm curious when you are done here do you rush over to gamers den and giggle with your friends about it?
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Not at all, simply demonstrating why balance issues are still extremely prevalent.OmittedEverything interesting you say is obscured when you insist on posting crude snipes at the developers in your posts. Perhaps you have something to contribute but it's unlikely anyone reads past your bitter childish insults.
I'm curious when you are done here do you rush over to gamers den and giggle with your friends about it?
Honestly, it seems like you are taking every chance you can to find fault with Sean. Sorry if that wasn't your intention, but from your recent posts it seems that way.
Not at all, simply demonstrating why balance issues are still extremely prevalent.OmittedEverything interesting you say is obscured when you insist on posting crude snipes at the developers in your posts. Perhaps you have something to contribute but it's unlikely anyone reads past your bitter childish insults.
I'm curious when you are done here do you rush over to gamers den and giggle with your friends about it?
I wouldn't know because almost every post you make starts with a snipe about someone. What I gather is that you are bitter over the way the previous playtest went and your reaction to this is to make crass snipes at the developers and the playtest process every chance you can get.
If you are intending to communicate anything other than that you are failing miserably because you poison your own posts.
I removed some edition-wars trolling, but I'd also like to issue a blanket warning to the posters in this thread to cool off and think before posting. It's getting really heated in here.
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Eh, I've DM'd for summoning characters and I've played as a summoning-based conjurer several times. How long your turn takes is relative to the rest of the team and how easily they can add up bonuses and calculate attacks or their own confusing spell effects.
I've played a summoning conjurer in a game and taken half the time that the monk or fighter took, because the monk didn't know the CMB rules well and the fighter insisted on arguing constantly. Old-school PA caused the same sorts of slow-downs. I've also had my guilty moments when I calculated 5 attacks, then the monk moved + attacked, the rogue moved and attacked, and then it was back to me and my 5 attacks again.
Summoning also goes by much more quickly once you've played a few sessions also, and you get familiar with what your pets do, etc.
By the way, none of these responses have mentioned the situations where the summoner will have monsters from planar binding out as well. Once you've gotten your must-have spells of the level, planar binding is effectively week-long summons added on to everything else - yet as powerful as this is in theory, it rarely ever comes up in actual play, even though wizards have had the ability to abuse this for years.
As far as balance goes, I'm more worried about the witch than the summoner, since the witch has all of the wizard's best crowd control spells in addition to the standard healing and utility spells. But the witch is such a boring class compared to the summoner that it's getting almost no attention :P
As far as balance goes, I'm more worried about the witch than the summoner, since the witch has all of the wizard's best crowd control spells in addition to the standard healing and utility spells. But the witch is such a boring class compared to the summoner that it's getting almost no attention :P
The witch is getting no attention because its being compared to the wizard. Wizard is already 4 barrels of awesome. No one is concerned. There are issues about the hexes and the whole 'no touchy' thing, but its a simple class because most of what it can do has been done before, and it compares very well to what everyone is actually comparing it to.
The summoner on the other hand, has something no one has seen before. Customizable pet of doom, extra summoner 'for free' and a longer duration. These things are newish. And people are comparing it to either A the wizard, or worse B the fighter. It doesnt compare well here at all. It does however compare pretty well to the druid, which I think is a fairer comparison in all its aspects. But people are skipping over that part. So it gets more attention that way.
Seconded!(Quoted quotes snipped!)
You are right, what I would instead ask that some advice on how to handle the summons at the table be given in a sidebar in the APG. It could help groups keep things smooth.
Thirded!
Correction:
The socially clueless/munchkin/jerkwad summoner will want to do it a significant portion of the time.
I'm confused, Zurai. Why is a summoner who is using his class features a "jerkward" and a "munchkin"? Would you call a druid who wild shapes "socially clueless"? That sort of attitude isn't helpful at all--you're blaming the victim, and that's not fair. I don't understand why you would blame the player for poor design choices. It's pretty dishonest, in my opinion.
The sane summoners don't want to have to deal with 16 monsters any more than the DM does.
But, Zurai, I've already demonstrated how summoned monsters bring a plethora of additional rolls to the table, even if there are only a few of them. It seems that you're working off of an emotional, knee-jerk response (hence your name-calling) and not considering the facts properly. I think you should take a break from the thread and think before making another post.
Correction:
The socially clueless/munchkin/jerkwad summoner will want to do it a significant portion of the time.
I'm confused, Zurai. Why is a summoner who is using his class features a "jerkward" and a "munchkin"? Would you call a druid who wild shapes "socially clueless"? That sort of attitude isn't helpful at all--you're blaming the victim, and that's not fair. I don't understand why you would blame the player for poor design choices. It's pretty dishonest, in my opinion.
But, Zurai, I've already demonstrated how summoned monsters bring a plethora of additional rolls to the table, even if there are only a few of them. It seems that you're working off of an emotional, knee-jerk response (hence your name-calling) and not considering the facts properly. I think you should take a break from the thread and think before making another post.
The sane summoners don't want to have to deal with 16 monsters any more than the DM does.
I agree that the 'social contract' is not a complete solution to the summoner problem. But it can mitigate it. I once played a 3.5 Druid that had augment summoning. He stole the show and took a long time to manage. I had my own wildshaped self, my bear animal companion, and a summoned natures ally every combat. At first my turn took far too long and I was outclassing the combat characters in just about every way. I didnt like this. So I first of all had straight stat sheets written out for all of my crittors, and also summoned animals with simpler abilities (easier to just take a few shots with class then to try to grapple or trip). In the end my turn was no longer then a spell caster having difficulty deciding on a spell, and I started using my beasties to help the other classes instead of replace them. Providing flanks, or triping something for the Party barbarian to smush. I am confident something similar can be done with the summoner without tossing out the SLAs. Sometimes players being reasonable and looking out for eachothers fun is a good solution.
My biggest concern with the SLA is it is currently written is the amount of power given compared to the amount of resources used by the summoner. I would much rather see some kind of reasonable limit on the SLA, while giving the summoner the summon monster spells as bonus spells. It removes what can be a very real potential problem in a lot of groups, while not penalizing the class. Ideally, it would be nice to see the whole summoning school erratad to provide limits to everyone, but I can something needs to be done with the summoner as it is pretty much gauranteed to come up at some point, whereas with other classes, even the druid (which by the way is the one I've been using to compare the summoner with) have other options. The fix of one SLA at a time + bonus spells, while not absolutely necessary, is a quick easy fix that works with the theme of the class and would eliminate a lot of problems before they become problems. I'm glad a lot of people have never had problem groups or inexperienced players, but saying that only experienced players should be allowed to play this class is foolish because then no one gets an opportunity to become an expert. Simple fixes that fit and deal with an obvious potential problem is not designing the class to the lowest common demoninator, as some people seem to be suggesting; it is recognizing that problems that can be easily avoided are far better than letting them come to fruition and making the dm and party deal with it after its already been disruptive.
Like many others have noted, I fear a summoner focused on mass of lower CR critters will slow down the game.
I would much prefer a one-at-the-time summon, powerful creature, to be called. Maybe 3-4 choices of different summon, for different situations. Something like an hybrid functionality of a animal companion and polymorph line of spells.
Jelly
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You know, at least in the Summoner's case, I think just putting a cap on the number of 'Summon Monster' spell-likes he can have active is a nice solution. Leave it at 3+x per day, leave it the current SMX progression, leave it at a minute/caster level, just stick in a bit about how they can only have a single one of these active at a time. Seems like that'd still be very useful and not as 'crazy' as people are making it out to be.
For what it's worth, this is no longer an issue. Check the sticky at the top of the forum.
The SLA is pretty Nova-proof now.
Given your track record of mechanical gaffes in the past, I think that you can give me the benefit of the doubt.
I'm not sure what your point is with that second link. I am not Bruce Cordell (who wrote the original article linked there), nor am I Andy Collins (who wrote the comment about the revision to the original article by Bruce Cordell), nor have I ever written anything for 4th edition (which is the ruleset for that article), and it's not even a 4e update of something I wrote for 3e.
But I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that you meant to link to that specific article as an example of my gaffes. :)
Director of Games
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Due to the change in the class and the amount of pointless vitriol thrown around here... I am going to go ahead and lock this thread down...
So that I can go back to ignoring well phrased, meaningful, and methodologically sound playtest feedback.. its hard work you know. ;-)
Sheesh...
Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Paizo Publishing