5E: Summons still suck

[Harshax]

One would assume that a system capable of letting players control NPCs would make a distinction between mundane mercenaries you buy at an inn versus summoning demons from the hell versus conjuring 50 sentient flying daggers.

As far as I can tell, 5E doesn't have detailed rules for hirelings and I still don't understand why you think it needs consideration alongside with magic.

[JonSetanta]

One would assume that a system capable of letting players control NPCs would make a distinction between mundane mercenaries you buy at an inn versus summoning demons from the hell versus conjuring 50 sentient flying daggers.

Thematic difference, different abilities, but should use the same rules and interaction during combat.

[Omegonthesane]

What's the difference between summoning a human with a sword and shield via magick versus giving him like... 100 gold?

There are two important distinctions.

One, the spell gives a reason why your summon remains loyal unto death and follows your commands even when it loses all its hit points doing so; whereas a human who you hired for 100 gold might either flee when faced with the reality of mortal combat; prioritise their safety over good tactics for the "real" party members and disobey you on that basis; decide you've had your 100 gold's worth at an inconvenient moment; or just take the money and run at the first opportunity.

Two, the summoning spell means you didn't have to feed and clothe your extra person or explicitly inform any potential spies that you had a potential extra blob of action economy with you. It's the difference between having a bodyguard at your side VS having a Pokéball with a Machamp at your belt.

To me, that sounds like one just has a maxed out/infinite Morale score or something, PLUS you have to waste an action to actually bring your Machamp out. Once they're both on the field, are they handled differently?

Okay I thought I replied to this but it looks like I didn't.

Basically I'd expect that if an NPC would logically be on your side but is still not your direct pawn within the game world (such as, your hireling who you hired for 100 gold) then the MC would still control them according to their interpretation of the NPC's interests and any Morale rules in play; while if the NPC is instead directly bound to your PC by a Feat or a Class Feature, then you the player would control them directly, bypassing any Morale rules in play. In this instance, casting a summoning spell is a Class Feature of classes capable of casting summoning spells.

[merxa]

One would assume that a system capable of letting players control NPCs would make a distinction between mundane mercenaries you buy at an inn versus summoning demons from the hell versus conjuring 50 sentient flying daggers.

and 5e makes all of those distinctions both mechanically and narratively, so i'm not really sure what point you're driving towards?

[Neo Phonelobster Prime]

What happens when someone decides to go to an inn and rent out the services of their summoned demon who conjures sentient flying daggers?

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

You might as well ask what happens when Ash's Pikachu tries to throw a Master Ball at Mewtwo. The setting typically implodes.

[Neo Phonelobster Prime]

I feel like this is why the arguments about extra characters being a giant action economy power that needs to be heavily formally adjudicated and limited are a major problem and logical booby trap for rules design.

You can't do it. Sometimes extra characters are rented, befriended, or there for story reasons. Putting an extra ally on the field is simultaneously a significant power up... but also something that MUST be able to happen free and even by accident so very often that it is also arguably almost worthless to be able to do it as an ability, sometimes less so if it costs actions to replicate bringing a friend.

[JonSetanta]

Everything has to have a cost, be it magic energy, a pact with the summon or hireling, or gold.

But ultimately all in-combat uses should rely on the action economy.

[merxa]

What happens when someone decides to go to an inn and rent out the services of their summoned demon who conjures sentient flying daggers?

The GM roleplays the reaction of NPCs? What else should happen?
~

I've been thinking about how I would build a FF style summoner class, and decided to put together a little write up.

While the easier, lazier route is to create a warlock subclass, summoner should probably be its own class, even if that entails adding in some padding and acknowledging class support will be thin since its homebrew. But so what! If the subclass ends up being good enough, it can get spun out as a separate class, besides WotC will continue to provide support for a subclass since they will continue to release warlock options.


The Summoner
You have made a pact with a primordial spirit, an ancient essence inextricably tied to a particular type of creature. Such primordial spirits often take on the tropes expected of such creatures, but can sometimes exhibit surprising contradictions or beliefs far alien to mortal matters. They give free reign to mortals who form pacts with them, concerning themselves very little with their short, mundane lives, but have been known to take a keen interest or even directly intervene with summoners that find themselves in situations that specifically impact the concerns of the primordial spirit and the creatures under their domain.

Chose your partons kind or determine it randomly, using the Spirit Creature Type table.
Spirit Creature Type
d8 Type
1 Aberration
2 Beast
3 Celestial
4 Dragon
5 Fey
6 Fiend
7 Monstrosity
8 Undead

Expanded Spells

Aberration
1 Chaos Bolt, Longstrider
2 Alter Self, Spider Climb
3 Blink, Water Breathing
4 Evard’s Black Tentacles, Polymorph
5 Cloudkill, Telekinesis

Beast
1 Beast Bond, Speak with Animals
2 Beast Sense, Summon Beast
3 Conjure Animals, Haste
4 Dominate Beast, Locate Creature
5 Awaken, Commune with Nature

Celestial
1 Divine Favor, Heroism
2 Calm Emotions, Zone of Truth
3 Blinding Smite, Clairvoyance
4 Arcane Eye, Death Ward
5 Destructive Wave, Summon Celestial

Dragon
1 Absorb Elements, Mage Armor
2 Dragon’s Breath, Magic Weapon
3 Glyph of Warding, Protection from Energy
4 Mordenkainen’s Private Sanctum, Otiluke’s Resilient Sphere
5 Legend Lore, Summon Draconic Spirit

Fey
1 Disguise Self, Faerie Fire
2 Enlarge/Reduce, Nystul’s Magic Aura
3 Nondetection, Summon Fey
4 Conjure Woodland Beings, Freedom of Movement
5 Modify Memory, Treestride

Fiend
1 Dissonant Whispers, Ice Knife
2 Detect Thoughts, Scorching Ray
3 Fireball, Stinking Cloud
4 Confusion, Wall of Fire
5 Immolation, Cone of Cold

Monstrosity
1 Earth Tremor, Fog Cloud
2 Barkskin, Maximilian’s Earthern Grasp
3 Erupting Earth, Lightning Bolt
4 Stoneskin, Storm Sphere
5 Maelstrom, Wall of Stone

Undead
1 Inflict Wounds, Ray of Sickness
2 Blindness/Deafness, See Invisibility
3 Animate Dead, Bestow Curse
4 Death Ward, Leomund’s Secret Chest
5 Antilife Shell, Contagion



1st-Level
Invoke Soulbind

As an action, you can expend one of your Warlock Spell slots to summon an exemplar of your patron, Its CR must not exceed your maximum Summon CR from the Summons CR Table. You temporarily recede from existence and in your place, within 30 feet of your last location, your pact summons appears and acts immediately. The summons last a number of rounds equal to your proficiency bonus. After the summons ends its turn on its last round, it disperses leaving you in its place unable to act until the beginning of your next turn. Once a summons of a particular CR is determined it continues to be the same creature. A summons with legendary actions performs them as normal. Summons with lair actions do not get access to these powers when summoned.

If the summons is reduced to zero or less hitpoints, it vanishes and you reappear in its place, incapicated until the beginning of your turn. In addition, at the beginning of your turn, make a constitution saving throw, DC is equal to the summons CR + 5, or gain a level of exhaustion. You cannot summon the same creature again until after a long rest. Any effects that would outright kill, destroy, or permanently disable a summons (such as being petrified) instead is treated as if it was reduced to 0 hitpoints.

During your travels, you may form a summoner's pact with creatures of the appropriate type, summoning them when you invoke your soulbind, as long as you have not already reached your maximum pact size.

Start play with an appropriate summons of your choice. As long as you have an available pact slot, you can attempt to form a blind summoners pact. the GM will determine a suitable creature from the region to answer the call of you and your Patron, you may immediately reject the soulbind, in which case the creature vanishes and you lose your action, otherwise all summoners pacts are permanent and can only be undone with the power of a deity, your patron, or the lasting death of your summons.


6th-Level
Summoner’s Companion
Any summons equal to half or less of your Summon CR can instead be summoned for 1 hour.

10th-Level
Summoners Accord
You can communicate telepathically (60ft) with creatures that share the same type as your patron and they will not typically be hostile toward you. Mindless, insane, or similar creatures will tolerate your existence unless attacked.

14th-Level
Summoners Fate
You can communicate with any of your summons as if sending was cast without expending any spell slots. Summons can initiate the sending. Additionally, you can expend a warlock spellslot to teleport you and 8 others to the location of any of your summons. When before your summons, you cannot invoke another soulbind, and as you are in the presence of their true selves, they suffer the consequences of harm normally and can die. If such summons has lair actions they can perform them assuming they are in their lair. As long as you have not long rested, you can expend another warlock spellslot to return to you and 8 others to your original location.

20th-Level (alternative to Eldritch Master)
Master Summoner
You can select this ability as an alternative to the Eldritch Master class ability.
Once per long rest, you can call upon your patron to directly intercede. While a patron can refuse this request, it is exceedingly rare. Work with your GM on determining your patron, but the patron should be at least CR 25 or higher. Unlike invoking a soulbind, you do not recede when calling your Patron, nor do you directly control the actions of your Patron. The patron remains for 10 minutes and acts according to their desires, but is usually helpful. Summoning your patron often gains the attention of other power planar forces, especially the more often the Patron is called. If the Patron is reduced to 0 hit points or suffers an effect that permanently disables it, the Patron vanishes and you are impacted as you would be normally by a summons but on a failed constitution saving throw instead gain 3 levels of exhaustion, or 1 level of exhaustion on a successful save.


Summons CR Table
Level / Summon CR / Maximum Pact
1 1 1
2 3 2
3 4 2
4 6 3
5 7 3
6 9 4
7 10 4
8 12 5
9 13 5
10 15 5
11 16 6
12 18 6
13 19 6
14 21 7
15 22 7
16 24 7
17 25 7
18 27 8
19 28 8
20 30 8

Sample Table (Dragon)
# / Creature and CR / Level Obtained
1 Allowyn (Faerie Dragon (Red)) CR 1 / Level 1
2 Bvnurix (Gold Dragon Wyrmling) CR 3 / Level 2
3 Unibrix (Wyvern) CR 6 / Level 4
4 Vernon Esquire (Young Bronze Dragon) CR 8 / Level 6
5 Cavic Grace The Kingfisher (Adult Brass Dragon) CR 13 / Level 9
6 Emerik Elno Rivington (Adult Silver Dragon) CR 16 / Level 11
7 Father Gleam the Last Sultan Of Dracolyn (Ancient Gold Dragon) CR 24 / Level 16
8 Vincent, Scourge of the Bloody Depths (Brass Greatwyrm) CR 28 / Level 19

Eldritch Invocations

Hardened Heart
When your summons is reduced to 0 health, you are not considered incapacitated, and you make the constitution saving throw vs exhaustion with a +5 bonus.

Lasting Summons
When summoning a creature, double the length of time they are summoned.

Summoners Endurance
You can invoke a soulbind without expending a warlock spell slot. You can’t do so again until you finish a long rest.

Summoners Managerie
Increase your Maximum Pact size by 2. You cannot change out this invocation if you would end up with more summons than Pact slots.

Twinned Souled
Prerequisite: 5th Level
When invoking a soulbind, you may decide to not recede, but remain, performing actions normally. You still suffer any effects from the summons being reduced to 0 health. You cannot invoke more than one soulbind at a time.

True Companion
Prerequisite: 7th Level
Select any Summons that qualifies for your Summoner’s Companion Ability, they instead begin a permanent cohort. You no longer need to expend a spell slot to bring the creature forth as they are always nearby (unless sent on some extended errand). When not nearby you can expend an action and warlock spell slot to teleport them within 30 feet of you. Companions are not counted as active soulbinds, allowing you to have your companion with you and summon another creature. Companions are treated as separate creatures, roll initiative and act independently.
Companions expect to be well treated, and rewarded for their services. Companions who drop to 0 health or suffer other calamities are entitled death saving throws and the like. You do not suffer the usual consequences if your companion drops to 0 health, instead, if the companion dies you gain 2 levels of exhaustion (no save). If a dead companion cannot be revived or raised, you lose your pact with that particular creature and this ability may be applied to a new summons. Otherwise, once determined, your True Companion cannot be changed. You cannot have more than one True Companion at a time

Greater Companion
Prerequisite: 12th level
Any summons CR equal to less than your level can instead be summoned for 1 hour. This improves your Summoner’s Companion Ability.

[Neo Phonelobster Prime]

Everything has to have a cost, be it magic energy, a pact with the summon or hireling, or gold.

But ultimately all in-combat uses should rely on the action economy.

So then when the story of the game places an NPC ally on the field with no input by the players one of the PCs loses their actions... right?

EVERYTHING has it's iron clad "action economy" price... right?

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

Funny, one of the things I was playing with for my Pokemon RPG (may it rise from its grave) was that each player has 2 turns due to trainer/pokemon being separately controllable, and that's a big balance point. When a trainer gets totally punked and still has a Pokemon out, before they go unconscious or can't fight or whatever they're able to throw out another Pokemon (if any remain) and give it one last command. Kind of like a 'second chance' mechanic to keep the player in the game even if their trainer isn't. It's kind of the OPPOSITE of an action economy price. It's action economy welfare.

[Neo Phonelobster Prime]

You know what. Before I further rant about the fucking stupid idea that summoners should not have actions.

Can I confirm that I'm not crazy here. Since my familiarity with 4E/5E and with the dumb fuck little clique of designers who seem to use this term is far from complete.

So just to check.

"The Action Economy" isn't ACTUALLY a term that has meaning related to the words themselves. It isn't saying "Yes. Actions can be a currency.". It is actually more of a highly specific game design tradition that amounts to a FUCKING PITIFUL excuse to never write things like a functional summon monster spell, workable animal companions, any ability that grants anything resembling an extra action, and to a large extent almost any ability that ultimately is anything much more complex or interesting than a small change to some integers.

Because it sure as hell looks to me like "The Action Economy" is nothing but the lamest excuses for the most boring and lazy generation of game designers we have seen yet.

I mean monster allies, other allies, and extra actions have historically been very obviously functional and fine, and CONTINUE to be very functional and adequate without issue to this day. They haven't been perfect, not much is, especially when it is something so very heavily influenced by context, preperation and MTP. But the most glaring problems in various cases where they have had them have NOT been that they simply exist at all. Revolving instead more around relatively avoidable pitfalls like giving out monitor lizards better than the whole party combined.

I don't mind if you have complaints about someone summoning and individually resolving complex actions for 30 different summons a turn using a rules system that doesn't give a shit about streamlining and respecting a players time. But if you think you cannot have a single summon without the summoner trading out their own character actions indefinitely and punitively. YOU ARE STUPID.

So to be clear to anyone reading this. Yes, if you think that and think "The Action Economy" is an excuse for that, I'm calling you stupid, you idiot. But if you think some other thing that you can concisely explain and demonstrate to be meaningfully different, I'm not calling you stupid, you idiot.

[merxa]

oh no... am I... am I STUPID? whatever will i do, is this a condition I can cure or alleviate somehow? Please teach me nPLP!

Jokes aside, it is a little tough for me to take much offense from your rants, as my first, second, and often my third reaction to you is sympathy for being largely shunned by such a tiny community, especially since you are sometimes correct.

Of course, especially because of how STUPID I AM, I don't exactly understand what you are trying to say here, or what point you want to come to come across (summoning shouldn't have any rules, adding additional creatures should be all organic, emergent events from MTP play?)

I've been playing 5e for a few years now, i'm certainly no expert, but I have a general grasp of the rules in 5e and I already outlined how they handle additional creatures earlier in the thread. Generally, when talking about rules and designs, it is always helpful to know the rules you want to design around, and since we're talking about 5e (at least the title of this thread tells me that '5E: Summons still suck'), you should be at least a little familiar with how the system works if you want to propose fixes to that system.

Of course you may have your own system, and maybe that could inform fixes to 5e, but the less you know about 5e the harder that is to achieve, and if you know little or nothing about 5e, then it is hard to find your advice originating from a place of sincerity, but i digress.

But yeah, so if I do understand your view, it is stupid to both allow a creature on the field that is 'monitor lizards better than the whole party combined' and 'trading out their own character actions indefinitely and punitively'. I think you could argue there are particular monsters on that curve that achieve the 'better than the whole party combined' condition, although I suspect you think the list is much larger than it likely is. 5e CR isn't very accurate, and a decent party can take out monsters well over their CR. I haven't play tested this subclass i wrote up yesterday, but I don't think bringing in a wyvern for 2 rounds at level 4 is especially disruptive, since it is only there for 2 rounds it couldn't even defeat the whole party combined. Besides, this isn't a PVP game (typically), so the question is more, does summoning a wyvern for 2 rounds invalidate other party members? I think the answer is clearly no, but again, since I AM STUPID, you may need to reconsider.

As for the summoner vanishing -- there's a lot FF games and they all treat summoning differently here and there, so I tried to somewhat hedge this by making the default the more classic rendition of FF summons, and wrote in the 5th level invocation so summoners could stick around as desired, and that especially dovetails into the 6th level ability to bring out a weaker summons for longer. And maybe you want to complain that making warlocks spend invocations to shore up class features is dumb, and since I AM STUPID, it might very well be dumb, but have you played many 5e warlocks? 5e warlocks are.. very good, get tons of options, and very often are class dips, it is actually very hard to incentivize someone to take more than a few levels of warlock, warlocks drop off after level 5 or so, and this subclass is especially reliant on being a mono-warlock class, in fact as written, as soon as you get off the summoner class treadmill your primary shtick of summoning a powerful creature for a few rounds is going to rapidly degrade in a few levels. But invocations, there are some very, very good ones, some niche, a few 'fun' ones, but are otherwise mostly medicore, underpowered, or useless. I tried to provide enough invocations so someone could hyper specialize in being a summoner, or take one or two they think is key, but again the idea was to reward and sculpt a warlock subclass that takes more commitment than is typical of a warlock subclass, this feels like an especially good compromise to me as I did not want to write an entirely new class.

I actually thought my write up was fairly MTP friendly, it certainly encourages the player to go out and make pacts with creatures they find in the world, and if there's a particular dragon or aberation or monstrosity or what have you at a certain CR that feels especially broken on the power curve, then just don't use that monster in that campaign, don't offer it up as a blind summons, the class as written certainly doesn't strip away the GMs power, at least I don't see it but perhaps that is because of my lack of intelligence...

[Neo Phonelobster Prime]

So your entire defense is basically "Yes, this IS how 5E works, this is how my ideas work, and I for one refuse to fix it or play a less fucking stupid game."

Good to get that confirmation there.

[merxa]

no, i'm trying to ask you to clarify yourself -- so far my understanding is MTP extra adds, ignore any rules that interfere with the MTP narrative.

beyond that, if you want to be helpful, you should learn a little about how 5e is setup to work, especially when it comes to the explicitly defined mechanical options to add extra creatures to a combat. Besides, how could you even judge my off the cuff subclass without any context on how 5e plays?

I can at least explain my design decisions and those explanations attempt to engage with the 5e rule set a I understand it and have played and ran it. But yeah, if you rather try to alienate me as well, I guess that's a social strategy, but for what inexplicable aims a phonelobster could have in such a strategy is beyond my meager intellect.

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

How many times is it the case that getting extra actions isn't an extremely powerful option, though? Having more opportunities to exploit the situation is a very good generic ability. Extra attacks, multicasting, free reactions... it's all good shit in my experience. Maybe I'm missing the forest for the trees here, but that's been the case in most games I've seen, be they TTRPG, video game, or even board game.

[Kaelik]

PL is not arguing for "MTP summons."

While I can appreciate that it is not always easy to tell what he is saying, what I thought was clear is that he's arguing against a "one summon only, and it replaces all your actions" system.

The point being that there exist a bunch of concepts like "Wizard who rides a Wyrven" and "Necromancer who has a bunch of low level skeletons all over" and PL wants those balanced with other options like "not having that ability and casting a different spell" for the wyrven summoner, and also balanced with the Druids animal companion that is always around, and balanced with just hiring a bunch of commoners, and balanced with a bunch of other things.

And yeah, it's HARD to balance all those things in a rules heavy game, but personally I would prefer my games fudge on balance before they fudge on not letting me have a skeleton horde or ride a wyrven and shoot lightning bolts.

5e also prefers that, but PL is not really arguing against the 5e rules that exist, but instead against the people proposing changes to 5e rules that make them take up your actions and be one thing.

Now, 5e could definitely balance a skeleton horde a lot better if it didn't have it's very dumb bounded accuracy ideas, and the problem of extra minions taking additional time to resolve is actually part of a broader problem that it's actually very interesting conceptually to have a big battle, whether lots of PC team vs big dragon, or PCs versus lots of mooks, or army vs army, but pretty much all rules heavy table top games fail to actually make that work against the problem of it just being a chore to actually resolve.

Certainly it's a concern people should think about, but I don't think the Summon Rules are the place to address it.

[Neo Phonelobster Prime]

PL is not arguing for "MTP summons."

Basically all that stuff you said and add that it seems like whenever I see someone say "The Action Economy" it comes right before they declare something like "having pets" "summoning monsters" "bringing a friend" "getting an extra action/move/attack" to be in the too hard basket, "Because The Action Economy".

And it provably isn't too hard. Pets and summons and one extra guy and doing more stuff in a turn than you normally do in a turn are all things that exist and have existed in a broad swathe of games in the RPG genre since the dawn of time and as much as any broad category of mechanic has managed to be ok, have managed to work mostly fine. Generally doing so without saying "The Action Economy!" and demanding you effectively trade a PC per Ally with maybe a few extra turns of Action tax on top.

When I see someone saying "No, there is barely a single monster in the book that could possibly just be your ally without breaking the game... and maybe The Action Economy?" I see either a significant mistake or an unforgivably broken underlying game.

[merxa]

5e has mechanical support for riding wyverns and commanding a horde of undead (horde being an operative word there), so I am a little confused by your examples.

Surprisingly, 5e did an OK (at least not completely unusable) system for pets and summons. Yes the flat, 'bounded' RNG ensured that having too many, even weak creatures can be overwhelming, and there isn't enough higher tier support to help most classes in dealing with large groups of weak enemies, and yes pets are overall too weak and using a bonus action to make use of them is awkward at best, but I still find it, mechanically, a rather large improvement over 3e, where the game only functioned by gentlemen agreement to not break summoning -- there's an expectation among experienced players that the wizard isn't going to bind some angel to invalidate the rest of the party. Generally, mechanically, that just isn't possible in 5e unless they MTP their way into such a scenario and the GM abstains from doing anything about it.

As for the prevailing interpretation of what nPLP wants, well, it is important to clearly articulate your end goal (which I now understand to be: a mechnically well-balanced and satisfying system that can allow 'allies' either from class abilities, spells, items, in game 'narrative', in game resources such as gold, and for all those adds to balance themselves against large swaths of other options while not somehow gimping what those extra adds do or how they are handled per the (trigger warning) 'ACTION ECONOMY'

certainly laudable goals, but it does sound to me a bit like a child throwing a tantrum about how they should be allowed to eat whatever they want, whenever they want, and end up with a healthy, well-balanced diet. Without even a floated idea of how MECHANICALLY this wishlist could be implemented, its just screaming into the void as far as I am concerned.

To be clear, I disagree with just about all the suggestions from the OP (although treating all similar or same adds as one 'stat block' has some legs). But at least the OP has made mechanical suggestions, meanwhile the best mechanical option presented by nPLP is to play another system (no mention what system, just that it shouldn't be 5e).

Honestly, I am not even sure the wishlist is logically possible -- if I use a spell slot to summon a monster and that monster has spell slots, how can I ensure the other spells in the game are of equivalent power? Should I only be able to summon monsters with spell slots that are so weak as to be nearly useless? Is using a third level spell slot to summon a monster with a few level 1 spell slots truly fungible? Now if I can use a spell slot to effectively increase the number of lower level spell slots I have, how is that to be balanced against a class that isn't using spell slots? If I can bring out a creature with x hp and y to hit and damage, does the standard warrior get abilities that just elevate their health by x amounts, shouldn't they get super saiyan like abilities where they just suddenly power spike? Can I ensure that is balanced to stop warriors from one shotting or one rounding their wizard comrade? And how do I also prevent combat from becoming padded sumo if I avoid the first problem?

Now gold, can gold buy a +1 weapon? How do I make a +1 magical weapon mechanically equivalent to hiring soldiers for a day? This is already assuming the system has a relatively tight control on gold output but of course if that control is too tight then will this still feel like d&d or just a slow mmorpg or a multiplayer jrpg? What about just convincing someone to pick up a sword and help out? MTP? A skill check? A skill check and special ability? A class ability? A bard spell?

it is all too easy to say, 'oh its hard', and its also all to easy to say 'this is what the system should do, and do it within a reasonable power level balance', but its a rather useless waste of time if no one can even begin to put up a mechanical framework to answer these questions, not to mention we already working in the 5e framework, and yet precious few people seem all that interested in actually using 5e.

Anyway, going back to my FF style summoner subclass, again, I think, surprisingly, a FF style summoner is entirely possible within 5e because of bounded accuracy and the flat RNG, summoning a show case monster for a few rounds isn't nearly the terrible balance outcome that would be in a 3x system. But yeah if nPLP would rather howl at the moon and tell me how stupid I am, we can do that instead of discussing rules and mechanics.

[Kaelik]

5e has mechanical support for riding wyverns and commanding a horde of undead (horde being an operative word there), so I am a little confused by your examples.

I think you should read the rest of my post, and also the rest of this thread.

I specifically in the post said that PL is not arguing against 5e rules (and that 5e rules DO ALLOW THAT) and that he's arguing with the posts IN THIS THREAD arguing to change the rules so that those things become impossible.

Like literally read the very first post on page one by the person who created the thread! That's the thing PL is responding to!

[merxa]

I did reread the thread, I directly addressed my views on the OP in my last post. And nPLP responded in part to my writeup which had nothing to do with changing rules. So maybe you should reread the thread. But in the interest of clarity I'll repeat myself.

Overall, 5e does an OK job with adds, especially in comparison to 3e. Yes Pets could get a power boost, and the mechanic of forgoing your bonus action to use your pet feels bad, I don't have an immediate recommendation beyond just letting people use their pet without sacrificing a bonus action (and since 5e pets are generally underpowered, that should be just fine). All classes should, especially at higher levels, be given tools to deal with larger groups of weaker enemies.

This thread did make me realize that a FF summoner could work, and I gave it a quick write up. I never suggested this replace existing rules, just be another character concept along side the wyvern-riding lightningbolt-casting one or the necromancer with a horde of undead.

I think the largest complaint by OP is handling summons takes too long, but I already gave my opinion on that matter.

[Neo Phonelobster Prime]

Merxa, let me just quote myself again for you...

I don't mind if you have complaints about someone summoning and individually resolving complex actions for 30 different summons a turn using a rules system that doesn't give a shit about streamlining and respecting a players time. But if you think you cannot have a single summon without the summoner trading out their own character actions indefinitely and punitively. YOU ARE STUPID.

So to be clear to anyone reading this. Yes, if you think that and think "The Action Economy" is an excuse for that, I'm calling you stupid, you idiot. But if you think some other thing that you can concisely explain and demonstrate to be meaningfully different, I'm not calling you stupid, you idiot.

Was that not clear to you?

It seems pretty fucking clear.

You responded to that and explicitly self identified yourself as the person I was calling stupid and therefore holding that position. It was you who said you held with ideas I called stupid and that your stupid ideas were more familiar with, more compatible with, and necessitated by 5E.

I gave readers an opportunity to pick their stance on this idea and you said you picked the stupid one.

[merxa]

I feel like this is why the arguments about extra characters being a giant action economy power that needs to be heavily formally adjudicated and limited are a major problem and logical booby trap for rules design.

You can't do it. Sometimes extra characters are rented, befriended, or there for story reasons. Putting an extra ally on the field is simultaneously a significant power up... but also something that MUST be able to happen free and even by accident so very often that it is also arguably almost worthless to be able to do it as an ability, sometimes less so if it costs actions to replicate bringing a friend.

The second paragraph, to me, is an argument for MTP. But tell us how it isn't please.

It is one of those things, perhaps if we were in person we'd generally agree and understand one another, but over text, your views seem often like nonsense.

You're inability, or unwillingness, to assign even a hypothetical mechanic to ground our discussions doesn't help.

SO whatever I say, go on and have your rant or meta-discussion or whatever bullshit gets you hard, I find it very boring when I rather actually try and write rules and mechanics to make for a better play experience.

[Neo Phonelobster Prime]

I feel like this is why the arguments about extra characters being a giant action economy power that needs to be heavily formally adjudicated and limited are a major problem and logical booby trap for rules design.

You can't do it. Sometimes extra characters are rented, befriended, or there for story reasons. Putting an extra ally on the field is simultaneously a significant power up... but also something that MUST be able to happen free and even by accident so very often that it is also arguably almost worthless to be able to do it as an ability, sometimes less so if it costs actions to replicate bringing a friend.

The second paragraph, to me, is an argument for MTP. But tell us how it isn't please.

First. You are side tracking from the bit where you personally nominated yourself and your ideas as the specific bad idea I called stupid.

Second. Basic reading comprehension. See the "You can't do it." That refers to the first paragraph. The first paragraph refers to an attempt formally solve the "problem" of having an ally using strict and punitive pricing solutions.

The second paragraph says that cannot be done because SOME means of obtaining allies must be informal, and sometimes explicitly free in a formal sense. And these need to ALSO be supported, and to co-exist.

And context can extend beyond that I'd covered this a number of times already so you can see further details on it elsewhere in this very thread. But if you need it outlined again for you as to why MTP ever even got mentioned, once in passing as a single factor among three related to bringing an ally and not in the text you quoted as an argument for MTP. The big issue is that you cannot make formal pricing for these things overly punitive because the informal, un-priced and explicitly free alternatives MUST always exist. Having formal summon monsters, semi-formal hirlings and informal just bringing a friend co-exist can be done. It HAS BEEN DONE. It is in fact pretty much the default state of these sorts of games historically.

But if a designer panics, or just gives up because they realize that hey, an extra guy is actually pretty damn good. And their response is to make the formalized options wildly punitive and attempt to make a player pay the full value of having an ally it starts to fall apart rapidly because the semi-formal and informal sources of allies still exist.

It takes a player character befriending a barbarian in a bar and bringing them along on an adventure, once, to make a punitively punished summoner feel very very sad forever. You could have just... not been so harsh with the summoner knowing that one day someone else was also going to bring friends to a fight.

The "alternative mechanic" you keep demanding despite me mentioning it already, is just... pretty much the historic status quo of RPGs. D&D for instance historically has just had some spells that let you summon some monsters. They cost like, a spell slot and a casting action. They are pretty cheap. They put allies on the field. They mostly work fine. Familiars and animal companions have historically existed in D&D and other games, and not at the cost of any of your character actions, they've had issues of sometimes being too strong or too weak in their specific profiles, but just having a pet that does stuff on it's own has historically been fine. Buying a regular horse has been fine. STEALING a horse has been fine. If you have a new D&D or alternative that cannot do even that then someone somewhere made a huge design mistake for no good reason. YOU are proposing, or promoting, the "alternative mechanic". Demanding a character worth of actions be removed from the field in order to gain a character worth of actions actually IS the new and unproven alternative. And it looks like shit.

[Zaranthan]

Given the "tag out warlock for a powerful summoned monster" will be offered alongside the core options, not in place of them, I fail to see that it is impossible to be a reasonable option. I can think of a number of monsters I wouldn't mind trading my character for a couple of rounds, plus it's not my only class feature or even my biggest one.

It's a signature ability, by dint of being unique, but I've still got a full warlock package for when an extra set of claws and hit points isn't called for.