Spell Change Request - Greater Planar Binding

[JaeEleutheria]

I do not believe wanting to change the spell to last a little bit longer warrants him to wanting to be a god. He is just asking about one spell. It's not like he's asking to change Wail of the Banshee to be accurate to pen and paper (which would make it NON-party friendly) .

All he's asking is for consistancy. If Lesser and the normal Planar Binding/Ally last 1 hr/level, Greater should either last the same or just slightly shorter in my opinion. It should be consistent, and from what I notice right now it isn't.

My two cents, take it or leave it.

[jhr4n]

Please don't fight.

What Crimson is trying to say is, you are summoning a planar being. This is "harder" than summoning a animal or elemental.

And that is why the duration is shorter. And that in order to have a longer duration, you would need to have power rivaling the gods, which you do not have. Hence "You are not a god"

There is no right or wrong answer, of course. But I have always seen it as Animal/Monster is weaker and lasts longer. Planer is stronger and does not last as long. So changing the duration seems ill-advised.

[Crimson Knightmare]

Lol thank you so much! J4 you summed it up for me much much better lol

[Peregrinus]

I'd agree, except that elementals are planer beings by definition. A Fire elemental is an extraplaner outsider with the fire subtype, a water is an extraplaner outsider with the water subtype, etc. A Hound Archon is a extraplaner outsider with the lawful and good subtypes.

Like I said, the books, whether fiction based on DnD or even PnP Dnd rules has no bearing on this discussion, because if it does, then by definition the Planer spells would last long as the premise of those spell is you summon a creature from -any- of the planes (including elementals) and convince them to do a single job for you, this job can be as complex or as complicated as you like, and take as long as nessisary, and if the outsider agrees to the deal, it is held on the material plane until it accomplishes the goal, or dies. Upon which time if it dies is dead, and if it accomplishes its goal it -can- choose to remain on the plane or return to its home. Now on the flipside, it does cost you something to get their services, outside of a XP casting cost, you have to bargain with the outsider and agree to a deal.

In other words, I argue that your entire premise is wrong, that summoning an "planer" creature is no more difficult than summoning a elemental and therefor should last longer.

Edit - took the liberty of tidying up your accidental guest post, Falson - Wyv.

[Stormknife]

I had the CA stats typed out. Unfortunately, the boards ate it.

Anyway, assuming that the Celestial Avenger that's listed in the toolset is the same one that's summoned, you can open up the toolset and take a look at its stats in there to see what you're getting. The only problem is that it doesn't show what spells that the summoned Celestial Avenger can cast.

Anyway...I remember when I was playing around with a celestial avenger as Trace, I was horribly disappointed with it, and not because it didn't last long. IIRC, the sucker has spell-like abilities and the AI that controls it is, at best, idiotic.

Similarly, the Death Slaad's greatest benefit aside from whatever spells it brings to the table seems to be relatively high damage and +26 hide and move silent. Except you can't really order the slaad to go stealthy, and if you're a mage it's bloody useless anyway (why use two easily-broken skills when I can just use a level 2 slot to accomplish the same thing almost infalliably?).

Greater Planar Binding just ain't that great on a lot of levels. For a summon that last 1 round/level, I gotta recommend using Mordenkainen's Sword over Greater Binding. Same duration, but you get a construct that hits like a mack truck, does what the AI does best (swings a sword until something dies), has true seeing, and has knockdown. Oh, and you can also extend it by using that slot you were going to use to cast Greater Planar Binding.

I suspect that GPB would be a better summon if the AI controlling the critter was better...but maybe I just had bad luck with that aspect of it. *shrug*

[Kell]

In other words, I argue that your entire premise is wrong, that summoning an "planer" creature is no more difficult than summoning a elemental and therefor should last longer.

Therefore, summoning a dire badger would be just as easy as summoning a tiny fire elemental from another plane?

If you're saying that the books have nothing to do with this discussion, then you might as well alter a lot more spells, just because you think it should be so.

NWN is based on 3rd ED. D&D. Dasaria doesn't have its own corebooks, but as far as I am aware of it, Dasaria -does- use the 3rd ed rules as much as it can. The NWN engine is not as complicated as the D&D 3rd ed engine would be in pen and paper. It just isn't and it never will be. You can begin coding it, I saw it on other servers, but is it really worth the efforts, I dunno. I don't think it is.

To say that the D&D corebooks have nothing to do with this discussion because Bioware hasn't implemented the total spell in whole and therefore it becomes a totally different spell, well yeah.. in a way, you're correct.

But then I say again: Therefore, summoning a dire badger would be just as easy as summoning a (for instance) tiny fire elemental from another plane?

And I might be wrong, but aren't elementals summoned also from another plane, but -also- from the elements surrounding us? I mean, it would be easier to summon a water elemental when there's actual water present on the plane you're summoning it to?

I might be talking pure bs here, but when people are basicly going to base things on the lacking of the NWN machines, I'll go to the storytelling side. If D&D has nothing to do with it, I'm gonna think of storywise logics.

And well.. I suppose that's a good thing too, since most of us here are claiming to be roleplayers.

[jhr4n]

Falson, sometimes I just have to laugh at your word choice. I don't know if you mean to sound that way or if it is accidental.... anyway... I am going to write the remainder of my post "In the Style of Falson" *Ahem*


-----BEGIN ROLEPLAYING FALSON-----

I think Falson is just ignorant about the difference between outsiders and elementals. It's an easy mistake to make. I will now read aloud the section of the PHB which you failed to comprehend.

The outsiders are from the outter planes. The elementals are from the elemental planes. Both are extra-planar. Planar binding spells are used for summoning outsiders, traditional summoning spells are good enough to reach the elemental planes.

Do not be embarassed by you lack of understanding; This sort of ignorance is common amongst players of.... your caliber. It is not the first mistake you have made and if the past is any guide, it will not be your last.

-------END ROLEPLAYING FALSON-----

hehehe. Sorry Falson I couldn't resist. ; ) I'm just playing with you. hehehe Oh man. Ok you can have some fun at my expense now.

[JaeEleutheria]

My personal opinion, that was not really necessary to make a point.

[jhr4n]

I mean no harm, Jae. Please do not take it that way. Falson is unique and wonderful and of course I enjoy him greatly. It is just sometimes his word choice is over the top and I laugh to myself.

Personally I did not think "I argue that your entire premise is wrong" was necessary, but I am not going to get bent out of shape about it. It's funny. And it's pure Falson. Not meant in a mean-spirited way, as I am sure Falson also did not mean it in a mean spirited way.

Personally I am not dead set against the idea of raising the duration either, I was just trying saying that Crimson does have a point, that there is a reason for the shorter duration. You can disagree with the reason without being wrong. It is fantasy, afterall.

[Stormknife]

A Fire elemental is an extraplaner outsider with the fire subtype, a water is an extraplaner outsider with the water subtype, etc. A Hound Archon is a extraplaner outsider with the lawful and good subtypes.

No. A fire elemental is an elemental, which has the extraplanar subtype when it's not on the plane of fire. A hound archon is an outsider with the Lawful and Good subtypes, and it will have the extraplanar subtype when it's on a plane other than Celestia. Even in 3.0, Elemental was a completely seperate creature type from Outsider and entails a completely different set of innate qualities and motivations (NWN may have mucked that up too and just done away with the elemental creature type, I don't feel like looking).

http://www.gameforums.ru/uploads/720259-Planes.jpg

That's a diagram of how the planes are laid out. The inner planes (air, water, fire, earth, positive energy, and negative energy) are called the inner planes for that reason...they're closer than the outer planes. Assuming we're running with 3.0 D&D planar canon here, sometimes there's actually a portal between the material plane and an elemental plane that opens in a particularly "elemental" area (like a portal to the plane of fire down in the depths of a volcano). So...generally speaking it's easier to reach an elemental plane than one of the outer ones.

[JaeEleutheria]

You can disagree with the reason without being wrong. It is fantasy, afterall.

This is a very agreeable statement.

I realize you did not mean harm. I just don't think that is the best way to go about getting a point across.

On the subject at hand, I think that if elementals are summoned from another plane just like outsiders are that the elementals should not be treated the same as the summon animal (monster) spells. It appears on the outside looking in that the elementals are treated the same (please correct me if i'm wrong, because i have yet to use the summon elemental spells). If they are from a different plane, shouldn't they be treated differently... or are the animals from a different plane too?

I don't profess to be an expert in either NWN or D&D PnP (being my experience is less than a year ), so perhaps clearing that up would be nice.

[Peregrinus]

Ok, concede the point, I misread the SRD (http://www.d20srd.org) I was using as a reference to creatures.

However, I really didn't want to be arguing summoning semantics and PnP rules vs NWN rules. I was arguing from a purely a gamepoint/use point of view.

Think about it, because of the duration length on GPB it is very rarely used at most, never at best. Gate, because of what it summons, is used frequently (if only for the "oh $#!%" factor), and the lesser ones I've seen used, though frankly the lantern archon is weaker than the summon monster of the same level. It is my opinion that no spell should be a dead weight spell, because that discorages variety in casters and usually forces people into certain molds if they want to do things. The strength of DnD is that you have widely variant characters of the exact same class, which is directly opposed to the way most MMPORPGs function, and is the greatest strength of NWN and Dasaria.

Hense why I think the duration should be extended, if only up to 1 trn/lvl, it has nothing to do with "RP" arguments, which frankly seem to be leading into a flame war. It has everything to do making different options availible to players to do things, and buff up an underused spell to make it more useable.

[Depheant]

What the hell is this?

I see perfectly good verbal jabs going in and then people apologise - what, everyone thinks they're British now?

That's like Mike Tyson scoring a knockout punch and then going "oh, jee I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to knock your teeth out and munch on your ear".

Commit. If you're going say something, get behind it. I mean, you said, you obviously believe it – but no, then you said you're "sorry". That makes it all better. "I'm drunk officer, but I'm sorry". Well crap, that doesn't work (I tried it).


By the way, I am being funny – I don't particularly care about the issue, but I did find the topic funny. I love people.

I'll go take a shower now, I'm oozing sarcasm again.

P.S. Don't change the spell, it'll just give rise to yet more opportunity for people to exploit it; going against the spirit of the server (whatever the hell that means, but I used it a lot as a DM).

[Stormknife]

To Jae's question...

It's complicated. In PnP, Summon Monster/Nature's Ally don't summon "real" animals per se. They summon a generic dire wolf, fire elemental, etc. when cast. At least, that's the impression I've gotten over the years. So the small earth elemental you summon with Nature's Ally won't remember anything from the last time because it's functionally a new elemental each time you cast it. They are kept in existence by the spell itsef (so if a summoned wolf trundles into an anti-magic field, it'll poof).

Planar binding/ally is another thing entirely. It calls a real, specific creature which you bargain with. If you summon a hound archon to wander off and kill some chaotic evil orcs, it's going to ask for a lot less than a formian.

Functionally, elementals are treated as extraplanar creatures by NWN. The summoned animals are blown away by banishment and such because the spell specifically says it gets rid of familiars, outsiders, and summoned creatures (I think). I'm 99% certain that abilities like elemental/outsider turning don't work on summoned animals (feel free to have Phil bug me to log Tagnus in so we can check, since his turn undead affects outsiders, elementals, AND undead due to the domains he took).

But, yeah, GPB...my main concern with upping the duration would be how powerful the Avenger would be relative to other summons that level. I know the hound archon is damn near invincible when you first get it, just because of its innate DR and the DR it gets from ethereal visage is way too much for anything near that level to overcome...and the last thing the game would need is a 40 turn summon that the NPCs can't kill (remember it's a level 8 spell so it can be extended).

[Mon-Da-Oth]

Well darn. I find Depheant's post funny.