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As far as I know ...
Summoned creatures ... no.
Animate dead ... yes. Only one.
Summoned creatures only last a short time. An undead "companion" could hang around for the whole adventure.
The intent is to prevent one player from dominating the game and taking far more time to resolve their turn than other players.
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As far as I know ...
Summoned creatures ... no.
Animate dead ... yes. Only one.
Summoned creatures only last a short time. An undead "companion" could hang around for the whole adventure.
The intent is to prevent one player from dominating the game and taking far more time to resolve their turn than other players.
I would agree with this, with one caveat.
Just like summoned creatures only last a few rounds, if all you do is animate dead once some of your enemies are dead, I would say you could have more than one animated dead creature, for THAT encounter.
You could only take ONE animated dead creature from encounter to encounter, however. And if you choose to do this, you could not then animate dead in the next encounter.
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And even then, the GM has the right to ask you to limit your "pets" if your turn is being too long/disruptive. If you cast 1d4+2 lantern archons 3 turns in a row, there might be a problem.
Nothing that you shouldn't be able to solve with a bucket o' dice. Just color coordindate the d20's to the D6's
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And even then, the GM has the right to ask you to limit your "pets" if your turn is being too long/disruptive. If you cast 1d4+2 lantern archons 3 turns in a row, there might be a problem.Nothing that you shouldn't be able to solve with a bucket o' dice. Just color coordindate the d20's to the D6's
Depends on the player. I have a regular player who is a 6th level Barbarian that takes a horrendous amount of time figuring (read: re-figuring) out what his to-hit and damage are. It's a player experience issue, but doesn't mean I wouldn't do everything short within the rules to dissuade him from creating such a character just yet. Luckily he knows he's worse at math and organization than I am, so this won't be an issue.
RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 8
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I believe it is 10 plus Con Bonus.
I think it's 9. You take the average of each hit die (d8 = 4.5) and total to get 9. Whenever you have odd hit die, you round down (3d8 = 13.5 -> 13).
Animal companions receive average hit points per hit die. For d8, the average is 4.5. Multiply 4.5 times the number of hit dice your animal companion has and round down. Recalculate hit points for your companion each time it gains additional hit dice. After its hit points are calculated, add in appropriate bonuses from its Constitution modifier, feats, and so on.
No animal companion would ever have one hit die.
To figure out an AComp's stats you multiply 4.5 x HD and round down then add CON modifiers and other modifiers on top.
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As far as I know ...
Summoned creatures ... no.
Animate dead ... yes. Only one.
Summoned creatures only last a short time. An undead "companion" could hang around for the whole adventure.
The intent is to prevent one player from dominating the game and taking far more time to resolve their turn than other players.
Sorry for the necro but this came up this weekend and it was really annoying.
I don't think the short time span really changes much. A medium-high level character could summon all day.
I think we had a level 8 or so sorcerer that flooding the battlefield was his MO. When there was a hint of possible combat he started flooding and didn't stop until everything was dead. I gave him a bit (possibly a lot) of hell and cited the animal limit rule and its reason for existence to help make the point that it sucks waiting for one person to take longer than the rest of the party combined. Luckily he backed off for the next two fights and only started flooding again on the last. We got out an hour late. Normally I don't mind running long if it is because we are having fun and don't have anywhere else to be; neither was the case here.
While I admit that as written it doesn't seem like it applies to summons, is there any good reason it shouldn't?
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Get a timer (like one of those plastic hourglasses in a lot of games). If you can, set it to a desired time limit. Warn the player that if they can't keep their turn in line with the rest of the table, you're going to set a hard limit. If you must use the timer tell them if they can't finish all of their actions before the time is up, they delay (or lose any actions remaining depending on what they've actually done).
It sucks, but some people simply can't grasp when they're taking up too much of the table's time. The strict focus only on themselves treads close to the "Don't be a jerk" rule.
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Depends on the player. I have a regular player who is a 6th level Barbarian that takes a horrendous amount of time figuring (read: re-figuring) out what his to-hit and damage are. It's a player experience issue, but doesn't mean I wouldn't do everything short within the rules to dissuade him from creating such a character just yet. Luckily he knows he's worse at math and organization than I am, so this won't be an issue.
May I suggest sitting down with him prior to the next game and helping him make a quick combat cheat sheet on a note card? They are very simple, and could read something like this:
(Standard) Melee +2 greatsword +11/+6 (2d6+7/19-20 x2)
(Standard + Power Attack) Melee +2 greatsword +9/+4 (2d6+13/19-20 x2)
(While Raging) Melee +2 greatsword +13/+8 (2d6+10/19-20 x2)
(Rage + Power Attack) Melee +2 greatsword +11/+6 (2d6+16/19-20 x2)
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Depends on the player. I have a regular player who is a 6th level Barbarian that takes a horrendous amount of time figuring (read: re-figuring) out what his to-hit and damage are. It's a player experience issue, but doesn't mean I wouldn't do everything short within the rules to dissuade him from creating such a character just yet. Luckily he knows he's worse at math and organization than I am, so this won't be an issue.May I suggest sitting down with him prior to the next game and helping him make a quick combat cheat sheet on a note card? They are very simple, and could read something like this:
(Standard) Melee +2 greatsword +11/+6 (2d6+7/19-20 x2)
(Standard + Power Attack) Melee +2 greatsword +9/+4 (2d6+13/19-20 x2)(While Raging) Melee +2 greatsword +13/+8 (2d6+10/19-20 x2)
(Rage + Power Attack) Melee +2 greatsword +11/+6 (2d6+16/19-20 x2)
Even many months ago (when I posted that), this was already on his sheet in all his weapon attacks. It didn't help, and only resulted in "Okay, so how much does XX add? What about XX," with XX being Power Attack, Rage, and Furious Focus being asked on the weekly when he'd either lose the card every week, or play some other rendition of the same character. Wasn't really conducive to the learning process, and still really hasn't figured much of anything out.
Was my first solution, since that's precisely what I actually do for myself.
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Even many months ago (when I posted that), this was already on his sheet in all his weapon attacks. It didn't help, and only resulted in "Okay, so how much does XX add? What about XX," with XX being Power Attack, Rage, and Furious Focus being asked on the weekly when he'd either lose the card every week, or play some other rendition of the same character. Wasn't really conducive to the learning process, and still really hasn't figured much of anything out.
Was my first solution, since that's precisely what I actually do for myself.
Woops, I utterly failed at noticing the age of your post. And that is highly unfortunate it worked out that way. I wish I could understand how using a card as such could be botched.
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Get a timer (like one of those plastic hourglasses in a lot of games). If you can, set it to a desired time limit. Warn the player that if they can't keep their turn in line with the rest of the table, you're going to set a hard limit. If you must use the timer tell them if they can't finish all of their actions before the time is up, they delay (or lose any actions remaining depending on what they've actually done).
It sucks, but some people simply can't grasp when they're taking up too much of the table's time. The strict focus only on themselves treads close to the "Don't be a jerk" rule.
This seems a little odd to do as a player, this seems more like something for a GM to do. As a player I don't really think it is my job to dictate actions, but I do feel it in my purview to try and persuade.
I am thinking of printing the single animal FAQ, giving it to him to read, asking him why there is this rule, and then asking if what he is doing has the same effect as what the FAQ is trying to avoid.
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As far as I know ...
Summoned creatures ... no.
Animate dead ... yes. Only one.
Summoned creatures only last a short time. An undead "companion" could hang around for the whole adventure.
The intent is to prevent one player from dominating the game and taking far more time to resolve their turn than other players.
Sorry for the necro but this came up this weekend and it was really annoying.
I don't think the short time span really changes much. A medium-high level character could summon all day.
I think we had a level 8 or so sorcerer that flooding the battlefield was his MO. When there was a hint of possible combat he started flooding and didn't stop until everything was dead. I gave him a bit (possibly a lot) of hell and cited the animal limit rule and its reason for existence to help make the point that it sucks waiting for one person to take longer than the rest of the party combined. Luckily he backed off for the next two fights and only started flooding again on the last. We got out an hour late. Normally I don't mind running long if it is because we are having fun and don't have anywhere else to be; neither was the case here.
While I admit that as written it doesn't seem like it applies to summons, is there any good reason it shouldn't?
How about because that's the entire point of the summoner class? Their entire reason for being is to summon monsters to pummel the bad guys. Usually they do it with their eidolon, but if the eidolon goes down then they can fall back on their summons.
For other spell casters, Summon Monster is a legal spell. It shouldn't be made illegal just because a few PCs can't manage their time. What if we said no more than 3 attacks per round for fighters, because any more attacks just take too long? That wouldn't be fair to fighting types. Let's not be unfair to spellcasters.
I agree with Kyle's suggestion to use a timer, but it needs to be applied to the entire table. I have seen several examples of PCs without pets or summoned monsters taking way too long to get their turn in. I try to think of what I'm going to do while everyone else is taking their turn, so that I know exactly what my PC will do when it is my turn.
The whole point of the game is to have fun. If playing with this guy is no fun, don't play with him anymore. Or if he floods the field again with SMs, say something like "Hey, that looks like a lot of dice you need to roll, need any help?" That way everyone can be engaged, and people aren't made to feel like either they don't get to contribute, or that no one appreciates their contribution.
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The one time I had a summoner at the table who spammed summon creatures, I gave every player control of some of them. The summoner can say, "attack!" and they will, but the details are left to the individual creature (and thus player). It helps that I have summon cards to hand out, though... since that guy never brought any stats for summoned monsters.
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A couple of points:
Summoners, other than the banned Master Summoner, can only use their Summon Monster SLA once, so they can only have one batch of SLA summons out at a time.
If you are going to be using extra creatures at the table, whether it is a summoned Celestial Dire Rat or a purchased light warhorse, you should have a copy of the creatures stats readily available. Even if the GM has his Bestiary there, he probably is going to need to use it himself, rather than let you borrow it to run your summoned creature.
Now, in most cases, in order to spam summoned creatures, the caster is either going ot be burning a full round (and spell slot) for each summon spell, or have burned one or more feats to be able to summon quicker. Especially in the second case, the player should know what he is getting into before the game starts...
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Rather than quote everyone after my last post, I will just address the ideas.
I have a summoner, I can be quite effective with never having more than a single companion on the board. I would 100% disagree with you that the whole point of the summoner class is to flood the field, if it were, I suspect it would be banned like all the other ways of flooding the field.
With this guy, not only is the time an issue from lots of dice, he has one book that he keeps flipping around in and closing while running multiple monster (overall the guy is possibly the most disorganized player I have encountered, that same game when he lost his faction mission he found that one and one from another game mixed in the middle of an inch of chronicles), blocking the board for other melee (not me), repeat calculations about how he changes the normal creature, and doing this all unnecessarily. I am not talking about us getting into a bind and he needs to pull out the dirty tricks, I am talking about this being a first course of action.
If the rights of the individual trump the rights of the many to this degree, I have to say this is BS. Perhaps not playing at his table is an option, but since I don't muster the tables and my available scenarios are getting harder to pick, it will also likely mean not playing at all. That is kind of a shame when the rest of my table, people that all signed up online ahead of time are people I like.
EDIT: I don't think the normal melee character using three attacks is a fair comparison to 6-9 summons all using 2-3 attacks.....and for inferior damage with each.