PWMangband strategy: how to play a Summoner

Issues, news, and discussion specific to the PWMangband variant.
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PowerWyrm
Balrog
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PWMangband strategy: how to play a Summoner

Post by PowerWyrm » Tue 10.07.2012, 15:44

Summoners are priests of nature (with some nature/survival support spells) who can summon friendly monsters to help them against hostile monsters. They have the worst stats of all classes: they fight as badly as Sorcerors (1bpr max, huge penalties to melee and shooting) and share their low hps (base dice 0, -5 starting CON). In fact, they are probably the class counterpart to the Yeek race and should be played as a challenge class. For an almost impossible challenge, try a Yeek Summoner (-10 starting STR/INT/DEX/CON).

What is the best race for Summoner? I've tried many, and clearly couldn't get any race going except Dunadan. Thunderlords also make decent summoners, but you will have to deal with the insane xp penalty. Dragons will have the same drawback, but the innate breath weapon can make the early levels much easier. Ent could also be a decent choice, but you will start with -9 DEX (and lower CHR, which is one important stat for summoners). Another choice would be Hobbit which starts with decent stat boosts and a bonus to shooting, but you will start with -7 STR and get really low hps the whole game. Avoid Dwarf, which has a starting WIS boost, but won't be able to survive the early levels due to pathetic skills at shooting. And avoid any race that doesn't start with decent WIS/CHR, or you won't be able to summon useful monsters.

Summoners rely on their summons. Once they get decent WIS/CHR, they will have a better chance of summoning friendly monsters, and more important, monsters that will be able to attack other monsters.

So how to play a Summoner? At low level, you will struggle a lot to stay alive. Your best bet is getting an enchanted weapon with the biggest possible dice (Farmer Maggot, quests...), an enchanted shooter and a "magic" ammo (shot, bolt, arrow). Shoot everything you can with your launcher (this is why choosing a race with shooting bonus is important). Try to get extra WIS/INT before summoning (low level summons are usually crap anyway -- jellies, worms -- and tend to be generated hostile/static). Look for Rings of Polymorphing if you can. At high level, summon and watch your summons kill monsters and soften uniques for you. I'm still looking at trying Morgy with a summoner. It should be fun...

Emulord
King Vampire
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Re: PWMangband strategy: how to play a Summoner

Post by Emulord » Sat 14.07.2012, 00:25

Sounds like you may have made them too weak. Yeeks can do any class, but its super difficult. Having only 1-3 viable races for summoners feels a bit.. bad. :/

Maybe static/hostile summons need to go?
Maybe better than 1bpr?
Maybe higher hit die?

Theres no reason they should be as fragile and bad at melee as a sorcerer. Probably should still be a little worse than a mage.

PowerWyrm
Balrog
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Re: PWMangband strategy: how to play a Summoner

Post by PowerWyrm » Sat 14.07.2012, 17:27

Well as I said, summoners are the class counterpart to yeeks. They are weak, the weakest of them all, and should be used in a party or as a challenge. Note that at high level, a summoner is a party of his own. With a couple great wyrms, balrogs and reavers, nothing will be able to reach you except high uniques, and they will probably be softened a lot. Think that you are the Emperor Q, but with the ability of moving...

Static/hostile summons are not really a problem, since at level 16 you get the Charm spell which will turn those into useful summons. Before that level, I don't recommend summoning since you're gonna get jellies or such crap. Or use summoning to get something static to block corridors, so that you can fight 1x1, shoot from a safe spot or simply flee...

Of course, I'm still in the process of testing the class. At the moment, I can't really tell since I'm testing alone and can't really start a summoner without dying horribly at low level. In one of my test runs, I found an early Ring of Polymorphing of Ancient Red Dragon and was able to polymorph (level 41 = 41% chance of failing to use the ring). So this made the early game a piece of cake.

PowerWyrm
Balrog
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Re: PWMangband strategy: how to play a Summoner

Post by PowerWyrm » Mon 16.07.2012, 09:10

From now on, "useful" summons (the ones that will attack other monsters) cannot have the NEVER_BLOW, NEVER_MOVE, RAND_25, RAND_50 or MULTIPLY flags. You can still get jellies or worms at low level, but they will be neutral. This should improve the gameplay with Summoners at low level. The chance of getting useful summons is 50% with 18 CHR and increases up to 100% with max CHR. Get a race with high CHR or boost your CHR at character creation, and it should be much easier to play a Summoner as it was intended (that is summon over an over and get xp from your summons' kills). This change will be added for next beta update.

PowerWyrm
Balrog
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Re: PWMangband strategy: how to play a Summoner

Post by PowerWyrm » Fri 20.07.2012, 18:59

Another change to improve the quality of summons: I've banned breeders completely. It was silly to have a friendly breeder generate more vermin.
And I've fixed two bugs: controlled monsters were not able to attack stronger monsters due to the check for MOVE_BODY and KILL_BODY, and they were able to hurt their master via spells (especially ball spells). With these changes, I've been able to actually play summoners at low level.
Beta will be updated early next week.

PowerWyrm
Balrog
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Re: PWMangband strategy: how to play a Summoner

Post by PowerWyrm » Thu 20.09.2012, 12:17

I've been playing a Summoner for a while now, and this has been a long game...

I chose Hobbit for the extra stats and shooting abilities. But the character is now level 33 and still only has 144 hps...

Clearly, you don't play a Summoner like a Warrior by just powerdiving, killing stuff like mad and getting awesome equipment fast. No, you need to play carefully and shallow, exploring levels until you get a feeling and hoping you get a lot of those "good" levels. Take all the quests you can, with early Detect Monsters you should be able to complete some and get some good rewards. For me, I spent all my starting money getting a magic ammo and enchanted shooter, as well as a Ring of Accuracy to pump archery to "Superb". Until now, it has been my only way to kill stuff since the summons were weak and unreliable. At level 33, I now have Summon Vortex and Summon Hydra (from the third book -- found it in the dungeon but it's quite common in the BM for 30k) which should help dispatching enemies more quickly (CHR is now 18/150 which gives almost guaranteed useful summons).

Next step is to improve CON to be able to dive deeper. It will max naturally at 18/70, but it's currently only 8. My max depth is 1500ft, so stat pots should start to appear more often. WIS is not really a problem (most summons don't cost a lot of mana), but getting more than 18/90 should help lowering fail rates sensibly (summon hydra is still at 50% fail).

I really want to play this char through, so I have an idea of what needs to be balanced. The early game is hard, but playable. The mid game is easy once you get decent hps, shooting skills and use summons. The late game is what to consider now...

PowerWyrm
Balrog
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Re: PWMangband strategy: how to play a Summoner

Post by PowerWyrm » Wed 23.04.2014, 11:21

With the new 1.1.10 version, the charisma stat is gone, so the only stat that really matters for Summoners is WIS. This should make the class a little easier to play, since you now only have to pump your WIS to get useful summons.

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