TOPIC: Spirit Pets and Ralson’s

If only games made sense when compared to the real world.

Some rules have to exist for balance reasons. Otherwise I'd just command an army of spirit pets.

Wade Schwendemann (Dr. Uid) wrote: Otherwise I'd just command an army of spirit pets.

I vote for this.

They need a special Pet Puck for the combat rooms.
Just love the concept

Just FYI:
An equipped Spirit Pet token represents a bond the character has made with that singular creature. A character may only bond with a single Spirit Pet at a time. Thus, a player may only equip one Spirit Pet token on their adventure--even if the tokens have different names. When the character chooses to call their Spirit Pet, the character summons the creature from the spirit realm as their Standard Action. Once the Spirit Pet has attacked, it returns to the spirit realm and cannot be summoned again until the owner's next adventure.

Per Jeff, Spirit Pets may not be used as a source for Ralson's Pendant of the Elder Yew's Animal Friend ability. The TDb description for Ralson's now states that explicitly.

Druegar wrote: Just FYI:
An equipped Spirit Pet token represents a bond the character has made with that singular creature. A character may only bond with a single Spirit Pet at a time. Thus, a player may only equip one Spirit Pet token on their adventure--even if the tokens have different names. When the character chooses to call their Spirit Pet, the character summons the creature from the spirit realm as their Standard Action. Once the Spirit Pet has attacked, it returns to the spirit realm and cannot be summoned again until the owner's next adventure.

Since we are starting to discuss it here anyway, and the original question was answered. I would like to see if there was a way it could be treated as a Free Action, like shouting for my pet to attack with me. This would only increase the use of each Spirit Pet, from typically 0 times per adventurer. To ensure this was not overpowered and keep things working logistically (spare sliders), it would have the same restriction as the Ghost Accelerator.

1 Spirt Pet per Adventurer (currently only one slot)
1 Use of the Spirit Pet per Adventure
1 Use of ANY Spirit Pet per Combat round

I think this would be a good compromise so that Spirit Pets add fun and tactical elements, and actually get used (similar to FOP), but without creating an imbalance with 10 pets hitting in the last round of combat.

Phil

Druegar wrote: Per Jeff, Spirit Pets may not be used as a source for Ralson's Pendant of the Elder Yew's Animal Friend ability. The TDb description for Ralson's now states that explicitly.

Thanks for looking into this and adding the clarification. We will continue to use trinkets going forward and look forward to the new trinkets in the future.

Phil Norton wrote:

Druegar wrote: Just FYI:
An equipped Spirit Pet token represents a bond the character has made with that singular creature. A character may only bond with a single Spirit Pet at a time. Thus, a player may only equip one Spirit Pet token on their adventure--even if the tokens have different names. When the character chooses to call their Spirit Pet, the character summons the creature from the spirit realm as their Standard Action. Once the Spirit Pet has attacked, it returns to the spirit realm and cannot be summoned again until the owner's next adventure.

Since we are starting to discuss it here anyway, and the original question was answered. I would like to see if there was a way it could be treated as a Free Action, like shouting for my pet to attack with me. This would only increase the use of each Spirit Pet, from typically 0 times per adventurer. To ensure this was not overpowered and keep things working logistically (spare sliders), it would have the same restriction as the Ghost Accelerator.

1 Spirt Pet per Adventurer (currently only one slot)
1 Use of the Spirit Pet per Adventure
1 Use of ANY Spirit Pet per Combat round

I think this would be a good compromise so that Spirit Pets add fun and tactical elements, and actually get used (similar to FOP), but without creating an imbalance with 10 pets hitting in the last round of combat.

Phil

+1 to this idea. With things like fop reaver, fop horror, and orb of annhilation about, this doesnt feel as overpowered as it might have a few years ago.

At the end of the day, Spirit pets are completely and totally useless. I would love to see them changed to be used as the ranger pet because then they would have some sort of use but TD seems firm on keeping these tokens from ever seeing a dungeon. I think that's what also hurt the value of the dragon orb. Poorly thought out, and poorly instituted.

The benefit of the dragon orb was always described as “dorky fun” and “not Uber powerful.”

Spirit pets were how this design was implemented.

The reward you get from the spirit pet occurs in imagination, not on the party card.

They seem to be for people who would enjoy the role play of summoning a spectral dragon, or lightning bug, or what have you to swoop in and aid them.

They pretty clearly are not for the Damage Per Round maximizer crowd.

Not all tokens need to be for the DPR maximizers, and token that don’t contribute to increased DPR are not automatically design failures; nor does a failure to increase DPR make a token unusable.

Matthew Hayward wrote: The benefit of the dragon orb was always described as “dorky fun” and “not Uber powerful.”

Spirit pets were how this design was implemented.

The reward you get from the spirit pet occurs in imagination, not on the party card.

They seem to be for people who would enjoy the role play of summoning a spectral dragon, or lightning bug, or what have you to swoop in and aid them.

They pretty clearly are not for the Damage Per Round maximizer crowd.

Not all tokens need to be for the DPR maximizers, and token that don’t contribute to increased DPR are not automatically design failures; nor does a failure to increase DPR make a token unusable.

+1

Rob F wrote:

Matthew Hayward wrote: The benefit of the dragon orb was always described as “dorky fun” and “not Uber powerful.”

Spirit pets were how this design was implemented.

The reward you get from the spirit pet occurs in imagination, not on the party card.

They seem to be for people who would enjoy the role play of summoning a spectral dragon, or lightning bug, or what have you to swoop in and aid them.

They pretty clearly are not for the Damage Per Round maximizer crowd.

Not all tokens need to be for the DPR maximizers, and token that don’t contribute to increased DPR are not automatically design failures; nor does a failure to increase DPR make a token unusable.

+1

+2 Our Elf Wizard in particular would adore a Red Dragon Spirit Pet (or really any spirit pet) even if it had absolutely zero impact on the Dungeon. To be honest, she'd love it even if it had a negative impact.