At the moment, I'm playing a GSF Conjuration priest whom I imagined using a specific theme for his summons.

However, there's a few problems. First of all, I'm more or less stuck with the current themes until I can find the specific and only one he'd use, which would more than likely require an impossibly high lore skill most character but wizards do not posess. Which more than likely means my Cleric of Stone/Earth is stuck summoning dire rats and beetles.

The second part, these summons are sort of crappy. Even at level 4-5 they hardly last long enough to make a difference, which means we're more or less expected to get up to level 7-9 to actually have a summon that lasts more than a minute or two, even with GSF. As it is right now, I have GSF Conjuration, but I rarely if ever use it in favor of spells of other schools which are about 5x better, even if I've no focus in them.

So I'm making a suggestion. Make Summoning better, a lot of ideas have been made, and a lot of them are decent. I'd like to see themes handled in a different way. I enjoy the research/exploration aspect, but I don't feel it's right for characters of a certain patron summoning creatures that make absolutely no sense, and are unable to help it unless they've got a lore skill of 30 or want to go around gathering obscure and unexpected reagents when the most obvious ones don't even work.

I think GSF should allow a second or third summon and the duration should be kept. I further think that the themes/race of the character should have some bearing on what they can summon.

The obvious regeant for earth themes works though.

Inquisitor First of all, I'm more or less stuck with the current themes until I can find the specific and only one he'd use, which would more than likely require an impossibly high lore skill most character but wizards do not posess. Which more than likely means my Cleric of Stone/Earth is stuck summoning dire rats and beetles.

Inquisitor Make Summoning better, a lot of ideas have been made, and a lot of them are decent.

Inquisitor I'd like to see themes handled in a different way. I enjoy the research/exploration aspect, but I don't feel it's right for characters of a certain patron summoning creatures that make absolutely no sense, and are unable to help it unless they've got a lore skill of 30 or want to go around gathering obscure and unexpected reagents when the most obvious ones don't even work.

Inquisitor I think GSF should allow a second or third summon and the duration should be kept.

Summoning is allready pretty damn powerful. I agree that it should last longer at lower levels, but I would be highly suspicious of multiple summonings at one time. On the sister server that cannot be named, most wizards/sorcerers/clerics took GSF: conj, simply because it was over-powerful. Walking around with three minions is just too uber to be passed over. It lends itself to soloing instances, PvP shenanigans, and generally just unbalancing the server. Like player generated True Strike potions, it is something better avoided outright.

My opinion is the best and fairest duration for summons is.

X+ Y per Caster Level.

Lets say thats in rounds. (or half rounds or some measurement) You have a RETAINER value of X which is like a minimum usable summon duration. Then it increases Slightly with each level.

So X is greater than Y by quite a bit. So instead of lasting a MINIMUM of 6 rounds as it does at the moment (which penalises level 6 conjurers because they're no better than a level 1-5 one).

Make X =5 and Y =1..

Then you have it lasting for 6 rounds at level 1. By the time you get to a level 6 conjurer they're lasting for 11 rounds. When they hit the 'soft' limit on the server of 9 .. it's lasting 14 rounds which still isnt that long but long enough for it to be obvious that you are a conjurer of some skill. Spell focus and Greater focus conjuration could add another 3 and 6 rounds respectively and it would still be balanced compared to the 24 hours summons used to last for in nwn

p.s. As a character levels they get access to more summons which more than balances out that the duration isnt increasing that much.

I've had a summoner in the past, and I will say that the duration is fine. They last long enough for a fight, even at lower levels.

I couldn't agree more. Conjurers aren't meant to be able to solo just because Summon Creature is Conjuration (and if you want to be able to solo with summons, make a sorcerer or a cleric with the Animal domain).

The "Summon Creature #s" aren't supposed to be a long lasting spells. There are different spells for bringing a creature to your side for a long period of time. They are higher level for mainly that reason.

GSF is a feat for increasing DCs. There are other feats for increasing durations, so I don't feel like GSF should be expected to improve a summon's duration.

Yeah it's only an option given what other spell focus - X have been changed on here. Theres still plenty of other conjurations (melf's arrow, flame arrow) that use normal dc's.

The current minimum on here for a level 1 character is 6..

That means you get this:

Level,. Duration 1 ,....6 2 ,....6 3 ,....6 4 ,....6 5 ,....6 6 ,....6 7 ,....7 8 ,....8 9 ,....9 10 ,....10 etc

X+Y/lev is like this where X=4, Y=1

1 ,....5 2 ,....6 3 ,....7 4 ,....8 5 ,....9 6 ,....10 7 ,....11 8 ,....12 9 ,....13 10 ,....14 You just have to ask yourself is 14 rounds too long for a level 10 wiz? It's 3 times longer than a level 1 can make one last. Which is far more balanced than 10 times longer.

And if thats a too fast an increase you could have X=5, Y=0.5

1 ,....5 2 ,....6 3 ,....6 4 ,....7 5 ,....7 6 ,....8 7 ,....8 8 ,....9 9 ,....9 10 ,....10

Efu under spell changes Summons changed to 3 rounds/level, minimum six rounds. Default summons reflect an underdark type of theme. A number of additional themes are available through reagents, items, and other means in game.

I'm referring to "Summons changed to 3 rounds/level". I don't ever use the spell, so I have no idea how it works. However, if the game and the site are not cohesive, one of them needs to be changed to be accurate.

If you want to connect with the Earth summoning theme, my advice is to stop by the most obvious place to do so. It's the easiest theme on the server to get in touch with.

Inquisitor ...but I don't feel it's right for characters of a certain patron summoning creatures that make absolutely no sense, and are unable to help it unless they've got a lore skill of 30 or want to go around gathering obscure and unexpected reagents when the most obvious ones don't even work ... I further think that the themes/race of the character should have some bearing on what they can summon.

Inquisitor I think GSF should allow a second or third summon and the duration should be kept.

Yep making spell focus: conjuration give you a second simultaneous summon and greater give you two.. is a great idea.

Since summons are currently 3 per level..

how about

X=4, Y=2 (duration = x+ y * level)

Level,. Duration 1 ,....6 2 ,....8 3 ,....10 4 ,....12 5 ,....14 6 ,....16 7 ,....18 8 ,....20 9 ,....22 10 ,....24

Compared to the current one of:

Level,. Duration 1 ,....6 2 ,....6 3 ,....9 4 ,....12 5 ,....15 6 ,....18 7 ,....21 8 ,....24 9 ,....27 10 ,....30 With the current formulae theres no difference between level 1 +2, this really is only noticable to a multiclass.. A mono-summoner starts at level 2 anyway. The other option for x , y : X=3, Y=3 (duration = X + Y * level)

Level,. Duration 1 ,....6 2 ,....9 3 ,....12 4 ,....15 5 ,....18 6 ,....21 7 ,....24 8 ,....27 9 ,....30 10 ,....33

Which really just shifts the current table up one line at level 2.

With my conjurer wizard, I was unimpressed with summons and how well they took and dealt damage. I've tried rat, ooze, undead, a little earth, and regular summons but I do know there's a few more that I haven't tried. Also spells like stinking cloud and evard's don't go off as much as they should (as well as choking powder), which led me to feel that conjurers are underpowered. =/ In the end, give me a bull's strengthed, hasted, improved invised frontliner any day.

Yeah balance is one of those things that can be hard to do, do you favour empowering another player to be a super tank, or do you allow conjurers to make their own tanks?

Given duration times, I dont think even with stronger summons conjurers are ever going to be soloing (like any mage) any time soon.

It's the polymorph spell that needs the toning down really, it's not really supposed to be like a lesser shapechange spell that it is.

It's hard to make all the "styles" viable but EFU has done a great job so far. I'd favour increasing the DEFENCE abilities of the summons over their attack abilities if at all possible.

Like any mage? I've seens a mage soloing already ;) And he was awesome in that, actually.

Conjurers don't need to be more powerful than they currently are.

Elaborate?

If you plan to focus on only one specific school, expect to have some weaknesses, each school has its own strength.

Furthermore, conjuration has already a vast repertoire of spells; from defensive (mage armor) to offensive (melf acid arrow, acid breath), with ample summons, and those have already a vast variety (from spellcasters to warriors, each theme with various strength and weaknesses to suit a well informed caster), and yes, they are strong enough, and I speak from experience.

Remember than 1 summon cannot = 1 character of the same level, otherwise they'd be damn well overpowered.

I never said conjuration should give you the equivalent of another character, or that focusing in a school shouldn't give weaknesses. Not having haste and bull's strength is a glaring weakness. Acid breath I used plenty and it's far more situational than fireball/scintillating sphere. As for strengths, grease, web, stinking cloud are broken in multiplayer, leaving summons which are really weak in EfU. I speak from experience too, played a conjurer to 7, and my experience is that GSF conjuration is a lot weaker than GSF enchantment, evocation, and even illusion and transmutation. Granted in CoA and the original campaign summons were really powerful but here I think they are too weak.

What about priests with GSF Conjuration? All they really have IS summons.

You get healing spells, useful against undead. Prayer. Those are the main cleric spells with DCs.

If you wish to take feats only to power up your character, then don't take it. If you wish to take feats that represent his skills and you wish to represent him as a conjurer, then take it.

The main difference between clerics and wizards/sorcerers is that they are not limited in their spell selection (sorcerers have less spells, and conjurer wizards can't take transmutation (although neither have to take the GSF feat))

Dagam, I played a summoner myself, and trust me, an elemental oxen is powerful enough, mephits are plenty useful, outsiders that can daze, or dogs that can breath fire, oozes with acid damage, rats with ghostly visages... endless possibilities, if you know when to use them.

Furthermore, a hit your summon take is a hit none of your party takes. Unless you really want to heal your summon.

As for grease, web, tentacles, although bugged, they are useful nonetheless. It never stopped me from casting them and make a run afterwards -they serve well their purpose, they slow down.