Awesome Things We Would Like Thread

[TheTurboNerd]

AKA, Awesome Things We Would Like But Understand the DM Team Works Hard and This Stuff Takes a Lot of Work and We Are Thankful For What We Have and These Are Just Suggestions thread.

Underdark specific Animal Companions:

Suggestions -

Cave Bear (Grizzly Bear shift/Unchanged)

Grubber (Boar shift/Unchanged)

Cave Howler (Wolf shift)

Giant Stag Beetle (Jaguar shift)

Giant Bat (Giant Eagle shift)

Cave Badger (Badger Shift/Unchanged)

Deep Rat (Dire Rat shift/Unchanged)

Dire Spider (Unchanged)

Stone Lizard (Panther Shift)

[TheTurboNerd]

Underdark Specific Familiars

Bat (Unchanged)

Snake (Unchanged)

Imp (Unchanged)

Skull (Unchanged)

Ooze (Unchanged)

Beetle (Chicken shift)

Stirge (Parrot Shift)

Gull (?)

Raven (?)

[gravekeeper]

I'd prefer grove/ eyeless or underdark dire spider (maybe racing spider) honestly.

I like that you remember the deep gray grubber, it would be nice as well.

Instead of Ooze... Living Mold maybe?

Rock/ Blue Worms would be suitable exchange towards the chicken.

[Knight Of Pentacles]

Pretty sure these have already been worked on and are set in stone.

[wundyweiss]

A quest similar to EFU:M's rock beetle quest, where you were subtly informed how to skin and harvest for certain materials off of rock beetles. When I first started, and did this quest, I thought this was the neatest thing ever. I could go out and skin stuff for reagents? Awesome!

But currently there is no quest like this; I doubt most, if any, new players know you can harvest things off of certain dead animals, and it's become a bit of an underused gathering thing by most. I even forgot about the mechanics for harvesting glands and the like until just recently.

I feel like a quest like above would help introduce new players to the server, informing them a bit about what they can and can't do. Maybe there should be some quest for alchemy or cooking, informing those inclined to pursue those interests a simple small effective recipe, and show them the ropes of how to do these things.

Just my two cents. And I like SC's idea very much; familiars are underused as it is except for simple buffs, so remove the ability to do so unless they give certain boons while around. Makes people show off their wonderful animal friends!

[Siren]

- Familiars should not have buff spells.  The way in which they are used to buff and then immediately unsummoned  is cringey and ridiculous. Instead, DMs/implementers willing, familiars  should automatically grant a minor buff to their master when they are  actually summoned and thus vulnerable. But after they are  unsummoned, these buffs should disappear. This incentivizes some degree  of risk taking via PCs actually having familiars summoned, but also  eliminates the "need" for familiars to be overly strong in order to  balance the risk of the XP penalty. We mustn't give Wizards a free  strongo bongo henchman.

Oh no... I'm totally guilty of this. I had never realised that it was frowned upon or considered bad roleplay. Apologies if someone was ever bothered by it.

The way I do it is I possess my snake and then emote it slithering up along someone's leg, then it starts to glow and is converted into arcane matter to be absorbed by the target's flesh... And then I cast cat's grace. Is this still considered bad RP? I never do it without emoting, unless I'm on my own. If it's bad practice I'll cease the behaviour, it had never even occurred to me that it might be rather cheaty, I just always saw the ability and figured it could be used.

[Knight Of Pentacles]

There's probably room for suggestion and discussion in this department,  but obviously the DMs will take TurboNerd's esteemed advice on familiar  and companion creature choices with a grain of salt.

The thing with familiars and companions is that creating them is simply a really big job that involves (amongst other things) microing the design of 13-20 separate creatures per familiar or companion. It will happen when it happens.

Personally I  think it would be considerably more useful, and a better point of  conversation, to talk about what kinds of things/mechanics/practicalities familiars and  companions could or should have. What you like about the way they were,  what you think they should be like, etc. The creatures are, without any  doubt, going to be appropriately themed.

My general views are:

- Players should want to summon their familiars and companions in the appropriate contexts.

-  An XP penalty for familiar and companion death is desirable. They need  to be treated with the appropriate gravity and value. They are not "just  another summon".

- Familiars should not have buff spells.  The way in which they are used to buff and then immediately unsummoned  is cringey and ridiculous. Instead, DMs/implementers willing, familiars  should automatically grant a minor buff to their master when they are  actually summoned and thus vulnerable. But after they are  unsummoned, these buffs should disappear. This incentivizes some degree  of risk taking via PCs actually having familiars summoned, but also  eliminates the "need" for familiars to be overly strong in order to  balance the risk of the XP penalty. We mustn't give Wizards a free  strongo bongo henchman.

- Since they can't be possessed, and  since they make up a somewhat valuable part of the strength of classes  of druids and rangers, companions should moreso go for a sweet spot of  mechanical strength that is a bit higher than familiars. ie. Which is more practical and can be used in the course of questing/exploring/etc. with a certain degree of impunity.

Extras that would be cool but not necessary:

-  "Custom familiars". It's feasible to apply familiar/henchman scripts to  basically any creature dynamically IG. Altering the scripting around  the "Summon Familiar" ability, and having a variable that can be set on  PCs which contains the resref of a creature, could lead to a system  (albeit without the familiar conversation on custom familiars, but who  cares) whereby a PC could have almost any creature as a familiar.  (Advancement depending on the master's level is also a possibility, but  not wholly necessary and would probably ideally want to do some checks  on the mechanical strength of the base creature.)

- Custom companions along the same lines.

-  Places IG where some particular custom companions/familiars can be  permanently acquired by PCs. (Substance guzzling pixies... PURST PIG  with a taste for man flesh... ROACH COACH... etc)

Yes pz.  I'd rather wait for something like this to come along than another set of generic (at least in contrast) of assorted creatures.   Not sure about balancing it, but it would definitely be very cool to be able to take on familiars/companions almost fluidly without relying on DM intervention/applications.

[gravekeeper]

Familiars need a way to climb when you're possessing them... kinda like the useportal command.