some thoughts on class summons/familiars

[dottim]

my thoughts on familiars or class summons:

So far I've only played with an amazon, and while I don't dislike the valkyrie I don't believe it can be a familiar, a familiar in my opinion is something that passively or actively boosts one of your skills or attributes.

Why don't I want the valk to be my amazons familiar? Well firstly the valk is a powerfull tank, that's basically what it is, nothing else, and at lvl 18 having a powerfull tank makes the game easy, a whole lot easier, also at lvl 18 you'll be in act 2, where you can buy a similar tank, the act2 merc.

Now if the amazon familiar was some kind of spirit or animal thingy or even a small monster, I'm just thinking out loud here, and instead of fighting it boosted the passive skills dodge, evade and avoid, you know the skills you can no longer invest points in, then yeah baby that would rock, and it would be a true familiar in every sense of the word. Maybe even give it a weak ranged attack but not make it overpowering in that it can tank for you, making you nearly, NEARLY invulnerable.

Don't remove the valk skill though, it's an excellent summons, just not for use as a familiar and maybe even make it a lvl 24/30 normal skill.

As for the other characters, well the druid is easy, the raven would make an excellent familiar (maybe change the color palette to make it white/greyish), leave it's pecking attack, it's not that powerfull, as for a passive boost I'm not sure what the druid actually needs ... maybe some defensive/life boost, speed increase, needs some thinking.

The sorceress familiar is easy, make it give a boost to mana regen and resistances, and only give the familiar a constantly active chilling armor, no real attack, but when ranged enemies attack it, it shoots back! The familiar could easily just look like a frozen orb, or something similar, you know, something small, nimble and spirit like.

Necro, well either some sort of ghoul/undead creature (non skeleton) that has a poisonous aura, or a small demon that strengthens other summons (damage hitpoints etc.) ...

Barbarian, a wolf could make sense, something that has an active warcry aura type thingy, adding defense or damage, regeneration or something similar.

Assasin, I'm not totally sure about her familiar, a raven would look kinda cool, leave the color black. It could add to running speed and IAS.

The Paladins familiar, something like a healer, active prayer aura, only attack is holy bolt, but of a decent level, that can heal you and your allies and damage the undead. Make it look angelic, maybe a cherub type of creature.

Of course some familiars will need new graphics, but not all of them (maybe have existing monster types be familiars for the characters?), again, these are just some of my ideas, things I wish I could add or change ...

------------

Something else about summons, could it be possible for the necro to randomly summon skeleton types? By this I mean, have a chance to summon either a melee type skeleton or a ranged type skeleton, like a throwing axe skelly or a bow skelly? That would be very cool, maybe change it to summon undead, and allow it raise zombies, being a bit tougher but slower. Just some ideas.

[Seaular]

Hey man, those are some great ideas. I agree with you completely, that the class summons need a complete overhaul. It's pretty much my next big priority (after the little additions that I'm currently incorporating).

I had the same thing in mind as you, that I don't want each summon to be merely a boring old tank. I plan on having each summon completely unique and helping out each class in a completely different way. In fact, before I released the beta the Sorceress familiar was a bat that had a weaker meditation aura. The reason that I made them all generic for the beta is because I'm kinda waiting for some people to say, "My assassin sucks at this!" or "No matter how I build my Paladin I can't do this!" I want to build the summons from the ground up in a way that they complement the character. What I don't want is for it to be absolutely necessary for each character to have their summon in order to make the cookie-cutter uber build. I'm hoping the summons help make each character better all-around, not into specialists.

I also like the way that you're giving me ideas for summons that make sense. What I'm trying to do in the mod is keep a theme and mood that stay constant within the game. I mean, would it be fitting if the Paladin summoned a walking mushroom that shot ice shards? Instead, the Paladin can summon a Holy Spirit with huge bonuses against the undead.

As for the Necro summons I don't think I can make a random summon like that, but I am adding item-only skills that give the Necro the ability to summon mages and archers.

Keep the good ideas coming!

[dottim]

I'm glad we have similar ideas, can't wait to see how your mod developes

(I'm currently doing pokey runs I want to complete the set
I find at least 1 pokey key after 20 minutes in every newly started game;
do they drop to much? I don't know, I play at players 6 so maybe that ups my chances to find them ...)

me goes bug hunting

[Seaular]

Pokey only guarantees one part of the set (although it may be possible for him to drop other parts - I'm trying to fix that) but the other 3 pieces of the set are found through keys dropped by other monster types in act 1.

[dottim]

ah, ok, I see, well I found 4 different set pieces so far from pokey, a shield (forgot it's name), arctic furs and then 2 pieces from the key set, so I figured, "hey that pokey must me wearing a lot more than he's letting on!" haha
I found another key set piece from another key monster

me goes hunting for the other keys, I only need to find 1 more piece and it's complete

[Keeshi]

I LOVE the idea for the new familiars!!!!