I Freakin Hate Summoners, Undead Armies, Sidekicks, & Whatever (DM's Rant)

[Necrosnoop110]

Man one of the most annoying things for me in 3.5, besides the martial vs caster problem, is the legal ability of PCs to have soooo many freakin summons, sidekicks, and whatever at the table. It's not even about the power issue, although that can be a problem at times, its about the laborious tracking and all the extra time required to manage such things. These are so many ways PCs can legally do this kind of thing you'd have a hard time banning enough things to put a stop to it; it's hardwired into D&D 3.5 from spells, class abilities, to feats, to even items. No real point here just wanting to vent.

Peace,
Necro

[ariasderros]

Summoners, at least those using Summon-Y-X spells, usually aren't much of a problem. As long as they know what they're doing.

Ever played with someone who's third character, and first caster, was Malconvoker? PITA.

[phaedrusxy]

I completely agree, which is why in the last couple of games I've started DMing, I've asked the PCs to keep the "on screen" minions to no more than one at all times. They can have more, but they need to be in the background somewhere, not clogging up our battles.

This is partly a shortcoming of the system, though. It just can't easily handle even medium scale battles  without being a burden on the DM, and forget about actual large scale battles (without using alternate rulesystems, which I'm quite unfamiliar with).

[Kasz]

It really depends on your players / group. I played a Malconvoker and my turn (including creeps) took about a minute.
DM: Kasz, you're up
Me: Okay, Spider 1 vs Orc 4, AC 13, 16 and 4.
DM: Miss, Hit, Miss
Me: right 20 damage, Fort Save DC 17
DM: Pass.
Me: Okay, Spider 2 vs Warg, AC 18, 9 and vs Goblin Rider 14.
DM: Hit, Miss, Miss
Me: right 22 damage, Fort Save DC 17
DM: Fail
Me: He takes 4 Con. With my turn I move here and cast Solid Fog. *Scribble on map.*

Next game rolls around and a friend decided summons were cool... cue
Frnd: Right, well I summon... oh... hmmm... Can I summon a shark on land?
DM: Nope
Frnd: hmmmmmm, I summon.... ummmm.... a Gorilla
Gorilla's turn: I move it to hit Orc 1
DM: Hitting what AC?
Frnd: Well I rolled a 16
DM: Modifier?
Frnd: dunno
Table: Facepalm.

Leaving us with a houserule of, if you don't know, you don't get. That friend is particularily annoying though... given 2 months to prep he turns up and writes the character sheet during the session... so when prompted to make saves etc... he just didn't know what his mods were... highlight being
DM: "Okay so you're all in the corridor."
Frnd: "Wait, I took 36 damage in the room ten minutes ago right?"
DM: "Yeah, I think so"
Frnd: "Right, I've just rolled my health and I'm unconscious and bleeding out"
Table: 

I've got no problem with you wheeling round a small army... but if you can't take your turn quickly you're always going to cause upsets... The Cleric that takes 2 minutes to take his turn controlling 4 zombies, a undead leadership and his character is always going to be more welcome than the Wizard who forgot to write down his familiars stats.

[RobbyPants]

I completely agree, which is why in the last couple of games I've started DMing, I've asked the PCs to keep the "on screen" minions to no more than one at all times. They can have more, but they need to be in the background somewhere, not clogging up our battles.

This is partly a shortcoming of the system, though. It just can't easily handle even medium scale battles  without being a burden on the DM, and forget about actual large scale battles (without using alternate rulesystems, which I'm quite unfamiliar with).

A while ago, I ran a dread necromancer. I had a few minions that I kept back at home to tend to things, but I basically would animated the most powerful things available to me at the time, and adventure with my two most powerful monsters. I told the DM ahead that I was doing this just to keep things sane. I frequently was only utilizing about 25% - 50% of the total HD available for me to animate at any given time.

[TC X0 Lt 0X]

I remember my Shaper/Contructor that had a PP Loop.
Constucts lasted 1min/ML with Extended Construction, and I could throw out new ones almost every round.
I could reasonably produce 10 powerful constructs a minute, or even 40 lesser ones with Enhanced Construction. I could potentially have 150-600 constructs roaming the battle field at any one time. Luckily the game was heavily centered around large scale naval combat, so it really was not much of a problem.

But Yes, abilies to have access to minions in large or small quantities can get quite ridiculous.

[InnaBinder]

It really depends on your players / group. I played a Malconvoker and my turn (including creeps) took about a minute.
DM: Kasz, you're up
Me: Okay, Spider 1 vs Orc 4, AC 13, 16 and 4.
DM: Miss, Hit, Miss
Me: right 20 damage, Fort Save DC 17
DM: Pass.
Me: Okay, Spider 2 vs Warg, AC 18, 9 and vs Goblin Rider 14.
DM: Hit, Miss, Miss
Me: right 22 damage, Fort Save DC 17
DM: Fail
Me: He takes 4 Con. With my turn I move here and cast Solid Fog. *Scribble on map.*

My take on necroscoop's point is that you still had three actions, compared to another (non-minion-based) character's one action, and your number of critters and actions can (and often will) have surprising impacts on both spotlight time and (as an aside) the expected difficulty of a given encounter.  If your turn with three creatures to control took "about a minute," then I would expect a similarly prepared non-minionmancy character's turn to take about 20 seconds, which still leaves you a majority of spotlight time AND relies on you to do substantially more prep work to keep that time from creeping up further.

[Nanshork]

Anyone who's playing a minionmancer should be doing lots of prep work anyway, that's part of playing a minionmancer.

[Necrosnoop110]

It really depends on your players / group. I played a Malconvoker and my turn (including creeps) took about a minute.
DM: Kasz, you're up
Me: Okay, Spider 1 vs Orc 4, AC 13, 16 and 4.
DM: Miss, Hit, Miss
Me: right 20 damage, Fort Save DC 17
DM: Pass.
Me: Okay, Spider 2 vs Warg, AC 18, 9 and vs Goblin Rider 14.
DM: Hit, Miss, Miss
Me: right 22 damage, Fort Save DC 17
DM: Fail
Me: He takes 4 Con. With my turn I move here and cast Solid Fog. *Scribble on map.*

My take on necroscoop's point is that you still had three actions, compared to another (non-minion-based) character's one action, and your number of critters and actions can (and often will) have surprising impacts on both spotlight time and (as an aside) the expected difficulty of a given encounter.  If your turn with three creatures to control took "about a minute," then I would expect a similarly prepared non-minionmancy character's turn to take about 20 seconds, which still leaves you a majority of spotlight time AND relies on you to do substantially more prep work to keep that time from creeping up further.

That is my position in general. There are exceptions, however, there are PCs who are uber prepared and can run their turn at lightening pace ... few and far between are these players though, very few and far between.

[awaken_D_M_golem]

CPsi has the Astral Construct nerf, of one at a time.
4e has generally a one at a time base, but C.O. went around that.
It is a good idea.

It would be easier to rate the overall effectiveness of
Summoning, if they were 4e style minions with 1 hp. 
The maths are much easier, and adding back in
balancing abilities is somewhat easy.


A 2e style Magic Universe rating of (-1) level, really
should have a no summoning clause, and instead
the caster gets a ~firmament ability.  Something
like a self buff, of a specific monster's abilities,
and absolutely not all of their abilities.  Maybe it
would work like Mind Switch but much less powerful.

Along the same lines, Leadership could work like
a mini-gestalt and be obviously weaker.  What would
happen if you had to tell the rest of yourself what to do ?!   
A PC might be stuck "trying" to behave like my kitty avatar.

[sirpercival]

A good way to curb Leadership and its ilk is to insist that the player write up each and every follower, including detailed backstories for each one.  And then they must track the followers' ammunition and spell components separately.

[linklord231]

A good way to curb Leadership and its ilk is to insist that the player write up each and every follower, including detailed backstories for each one.  And then they must track the followers' ammunition and spell components separately.

The Thrallherd in my group is doing precisely this.  She just took her first Thrallherd level so it hasn't quite sunk in what all she's signed up to do though, so we'll see how it goes. 

[Arturick]

A good way to curb Leadership and its ilk is to insist that the player write up each and every follower, including detailed backstories for each one.  And then they must track the followers' ammunition and spell components separately.

I would have fun doing that.

[Bloody Initiate]

I definitely agree with the negative sentiment toward builds that just slow the game down. Each system has a rhythm, and each system has builds that completely destroy that rhythm. I tend to dislike these builds no matter how powerful they are, because I'm always thinking of the other people at the table.

I was horrified recently to find myself being the amateur summoner who halted the game every time it was my turn because I had to flip through the book find out whether I could do something (I'm playing a summoner with the possession tradition in Shadowrun). My solution was to borrow the books for a week as well as hitting up forums and such to learn my damn business, now when the GM asks me a question about my character's capabilities I've got an answer for him or I can tell him that it's up to him because it turns out the developers did a lousy job of fleshing out my concept. None of us knew that until I did my research, but now that we do my character's turns are the simplest.

It is for this reason that I have always despised D&D's magic system. It's too much about preparation, which sounds fantastic and intellectual in theory, but when everyone else can just pass 8-hours in-game by saying "We rest 8 hours" and you've gotta crack your damn tome to figure out whether you'll need a flashlight today, I lose interest. It doesn't take that much longer, but it shakes you out of the flow of the adventure, and I've always hated it for that.

[LordBlades]

My take on necroscoop's point is that you still had three actions, compared to another (non-minion-based) character's one action, and your number of critters and actions can (and often will) have surprising impacts on both spotlight time and (as an aside) the expected difficulty of a given encounter.  If your turn with three creatures to control took "about a minute," then I would expect a similarly prepared non-minionmancy character's turn to take about 20 seconds, which still leaves you a majority of spotlight time AND relies on you to do substantially more prep work to keep that time from creeping up further.

As somebody who plays minonmancers regularly (malconvokers, druids, necromancers etc.), I tend to disagree.

Regarding round time: until very high level, minionmancy mainly adds a couple of melee brutes to the table. As such, their options are limited to choosing between 'hit this guy' and 'hit that guy'. As such, it takes me less than 10 sec per monster to solve it's action for the round (using muiltiple dice and rolling attack&damage at the same time helps a lot). I still find most of my round time being used by the spells the minionmancer himself casts (deciding which one, placing it on map, rolling saving throws, applying effects etc.).  Yes, leaving the minionmancy part out would shorten my turn, but I've never found taking 30-40 extra sec per turn troublesome, doubly so when we have newer players in the group that can take even more to solve a plain fighter's turn.

Regarding spotlight allocation: This depends on the type of minionmancer in cause. Animal companions, constructs, most undead and summoned monsters don't really come up much here, but something like a Thrallherd or such (especially if the player likes to flesh out followers and give them unique skillsets) probably would.

Regarding encounter difficulty: I also find that a non-issue. Most minions are quite limited in options, and as such aren't that hard to predict what effect they would have on a given combat. Honestly, I find a proper caster that (ab)uses open ended spells much more of an 'wild card' in that regard than a minionmancer (who, until pretty high level, tend to be quite predictable).

A good way to curb Leadership and its ilk is to insist that the player write up each and every follower, including detailed backstories for each one.  And then they must track the followers' ammunition and spell components separately.

This can also backfire horribly. What if the player builds personal sidequests and goals in the backstories and insists on pursuing each one of them? Or builds several interesting personalities &conflicts among the followers? It could lead to a ton of spotlight going to that player.

[wotmaniac]

Here's how I've started handling the party's tagalongs:
- bonded pets as class features are gone completely.  if you want one, start setting feats on fire.
- Leadership (and similar stuff) -- (iff I even allow it, and don't reflexively say "GTFO") the player gets to select race, alignment, and class type (i.e., "beatstick", "sneak", "blaster caster", etc.) of his cohort.  I build it as I see fit, and the cohort gets run (in genuine good faith; albeit a bit lazily) as a party NPC that can/will take orders from the PC.  Followers are relegated to mundane off-screen stuff, and the class distribution is adjudicated as per an appropriately-sized town.
- undead army -- controlled undead that happen to create spawn don't get added to your roster by proxy.  any spawn created by a controlled undead are free-willed, despite what the MM entry (or any other text, for that matter) might say.

If any of it starts to be a problem, that shit gets tossed immediately upon request.  retraining will be allowed as necessary.


I once had a player that came to me (completely straight-faced, I might add) with a fully fleshed-out character (with 20 levels all planned) that would have allowed him all of the following:
- familiar
- animal companion
- cohort
- undead cohort
- item familiar
and all of them were properly supported.  And then he went on to describe the vision that he had where he would frequently have a 6-way conversation with himself ..... in game.
I simply said "go fuck yourself with that thing.  I'm sure that it could be quite compelling in a novel; but I'll be goddamned if I subject a group of players to that bullshit at an actual game table."  And then he actually had the audacity to try to argue about it.

[linklord231]

Here's how I've started handling the party's tagalongs:
- bonded pets as class features are gone completely.  if you want one, start setting feats on fire.
- Leadership (and similar stuff) -- (iff I even allow it, and don't reflexively say "GTFO") the player gets to select race, alignment, and class type (i.e., "beatstick", "sneak", "blaster caster", etc.) of his cohort.  I build it as I see fit, and the cohort gets run (in genuine good faith; albeit a bit lazily) as a party NPC that can/will take orders from the PC.  Followers are relegated to mundane off-screen stuff, and the class distribution is adjudicated as per an appropriately-sized town.
- undead army -- controlled undead that happen to create spawn don't get added to your roster by proxy.  any spawn created by a controlled undead are free-willed, despite what the MM entry (or any other text, for that matter) might say.

If any of it starts to be a problem, that shit gets tossed immediately upon request.  retraining will be allowed as necessary.


I once had a player that came to me (completely straight-faced, I might add) with a fully fleshed-out character (with 20 levels all planned) that would have allowed him all of the following:
- familiar
- animal companion
- cohort
- undead cohort
- item familiar
and all of them were properly supported.  And then he went on to describe the vision that he had where he would frequently have a 6-way conversation with himself ..... in game.
I simply said "go fuck yourself with that thing.  I'm sure that it could be quite compelling in a novel; but I'll be goddamned if I subject a group of players to that bullshit at an actual game table."  And then he actually had the audacity to try to argue about it.

Do you at least give the option to trade Animal Companions or other cohorts-as-class-feature away for something else? 

[wotmaniac]

Do you at least give the option to trade Animal Companions or other cohorts-as-class-feature away for something else? 

AC classes like druid and ranger get ACFs (specifically, I use Shapeshifter variant druid; and ranger is my games' wild shape class - which, instead of losing their combat forms they lose their AC).  PrCs that specialize in pets are basically unchanged.
Familiars are exchanged for the ACF of their choice.
cohorts-as-class-feature classes are only allowed if I happen to be allowing Leadership that game.
I'm still on the fence in regards to paladin .... I haven't really bothered, because it's never come up in any of my games -- and the 1-and-only-ever paladin that was proposed for 1 of my games started with trading out his mount.

[linklord231]

Do you at least give the option to trade Animal Companions or other cohorts-as-class-feature away for something else? 

AC classes like druid and ranger get ACFs (specifically, I use Shapeshifter variant druid; and ranger is my games' wild shape class - which, instead of losing their combat forms they lose their AC).  PrCs that specialize in pets are basically unchanged.
Familiars are exchanged for the ACF of their choice.
cohorts-as-class-feature classes are only allowed if I happen to be allowing Leadership that game.
I'm still on the fence in regards to paladin .... I haven't really bothered, because it's never come up in any of my games -- and the 1-and-only-ever paladin that was proposed for 1 of my games started with trading out his mount.

That's fair enough.  I'm not a huge fan of the Shapeshift druid (no aquatic form?  WTF), but the rest is reasonable.  I was just a little concerned because almost half of the classes in the PHB get some form of pet, be it animal companion, familiar, or special mount. 
I like the way you're handling Leadership and the like. 

[veekie]

@Leadership hijinks
Yeah, that 'solution' is liable to blow up in your face by giving a player way too much screen time.

As for minionmancers, it depends on nature and homogeneity in minions.
Summon Monster provides outsiders, which tend to have SLAs and other specials. Even their basic summons will have Smite.

Planar Binding/Ally/ and Gate are even worse, they give practically unrestricted access to help, with an enormous menu of options. Even one of these is likely as complex as a full character.

Number of attacks each. It's simple to resolve if each minion gets one or two identical attacks. It's quite different if it has an array of 5 attacks, with different damage and accuracy values each.

Variety of minions. You'd see this problem most often with undead, because you generally don't get to pick and choose your preferred minion type, you get an eclectic selection, with different stats, attacks and capabilities.