So is anyone else finding the 1st-lvl "Summon Berserkers" (from the ACKS Player's Companion) quite overpowered in play?
In my campaign, they've run roughshod over enemies on several occasions - way more effective than "Sleep", even.
I'm thinking of nerfing it to summon 1d4 Berserkers, instead of 4. (Even a single Berserker is quite an addition for a low-level party.)
I'm looking at "Summon Hero" as well; the hero is more powerful than similarly-leveled PCs! I might create a d6 table with different heroes - the one from the Player's Companion will be the most powerful.
Sleep can consistently and effectively disable a 4+1HD monster, but a 4+1HD monster could potentially cleave through all of the berserkers before they even get to act, losing only a round worth of attacks. Berserkers also has a limited duration and doesn't afford as many side uses of sleep (such as taking prisoners). I'd wager Sleep is still the most powerful 1st level spell by far, but that's not surprising. Summon Berserkers is definitely up there, but I can't see needing to nerf it unless sleep needs to be nerfed.
You could always use a tried and true tactic: if it seems overpowered, have enemy mages cast it against the party and see how they overcome it. Along the way you may discover situations where it's not effective.
I agree that Sleep is awesome but I think Summon Berserkers has even more utility.
Don't underestimate the 3-turn duration of Summon Berserkers - they can make excellent trap-finders and ambush-detectors (and incidental door-openers). And (from experience) they can slow down a non-humanoid 6HD foe for long enough for the PCs to escape with their lives!
I allow Save vs. Spells for Sleep; not sure if this is a house rule nerf or a by-the-book interpretation.
It’s a house-rule nerf, though not one that I would argue strongly against.
Sleep, rules as written, does not offer a saving throw. Although admittedly, nerfing Sleep and leaving Summon Berserkers alone might explain why you’re having problems with Summon Berserkers being stronger than Sleep
Previous play reports, such as clearing a lair by standing outside and spamming summons, or stopping a hydra charge cold, convinced me to do without it. But I have no direct experience with it.
Yeah, not realizing that Sleep was house ruled to allow a saving throw, I could understand Summon Berserkers being the new top dog.
Here's the tricky thing: Mages only get ONE thing they get to do at level 1. On the one hand, the best level 1 spells can win an entire encounter in one go. On the other hand, they have to cast it without being disrupted, and then they're done. Unlike later editions where a magic user can fall back on a crossbow when they run out of spells, Mage's only ranged option are darts. There's a delicate balancing act to keeping mages from completely stealing the show and not letting them have any of it, and unfortunately that's kind of baked into old school rules.
Yeah; I didn’t actually realise that I house-ruled this until I looked at the spell description last night. In previous 1e campaigns I had always allowed a save.
My players laid siege to a ruined castle full of orcs using berserkers. Between the PC mage and nobiran, and the two hench mages, they had the power to throw thirty berserkers as a wave, plus a couple Summoned Heroes. It wiped out a consderiable chunk of the orcs, particularly as they were caught off guard, and I had no idea how they were supposed to defend against something like that. Even if they weren't in a ruin, just having the berserkers run up to the walls and throw axes would kill them at some point, gradually whittling the tribe down.
I've seen summon berserkers used a couple times in my play by post campaign before it petered out. In it, the berserkers absolutely turned the tide of battle, and their losses weren't especially devastating compared to a beloved henchmen, but they did eventually get taken down. The few times they didn't, it was usually not possible to bring them to bear in the 3 turns before they disappeared. Perhaps my players are overly cautious, or maybe I'm a bit strict about exploration movement, but it seems like the odds of getting to use the beserkers in repeated combats should be low unless the players are storming through the castle with little regard for traps or noise. This is not to say summon berserkers isn't powerful, it absolutely is, but some of the other play reports seem to be conspicuously lacking a time limit, which is a big balancing element of that spell.
Perhaps it's more convenient to nerf the spell in your home campaigns (for indeed, each campaign is a law unto itself), but you might also consider more closely tracking time and being more strict about how far away the berserkers can get without direction.
Indeed. I haven't had it used in my own campaign (although one of my players positively salivates every time the spell is mentioned), but I would rule very harshly on the ability of the berserkers to make any tactical decisions on their own. They're a pack of blood-frenzied ravagers summoned forth from the fields of Valhalla. They'll follow any direct orders given, but they can't do much on their own other than charge heedlessly forward, hoping to die in glorious battle (I imagine them screaming lyrics to Norwegian metal songs, which are of course already known on the timeless plane of Valhalla). Unless the party wishes to rush headlong into the dungeon alongside them (abandoning exploration movement rates and the ability to search or map), there's a limit to how much utility you're going to get out of them in three turns.
It is definitely true that Summoning spells are powerful. This was purposeful. I think summoning monsters (which can participate in fights with the other characters, and be dispelled by enemy casters) is a more interesting gameplay than just rocket-tag with sleep and fireball.
It's certainly less powerful than Sleep (RAW). A party of 1st level adventurers that encounters an enemy wizard with Sleep will be wiped out if it loses the initiative. A party of 1st level adventurers that encounters an enemy mage with Summon Berserkers will have a fun fight. Vice versa: A party of adventurers with a mage who knows Sleep will win one encounter with virtual certainty. A party of adventurers with a mage who knows Summon Berserkers will be able to confront 1-3 encounters, depending on speed, and/or have some other utility, but not a guaranteed win.
Is the spell *too* powerful? I do think it can be abused or exploited.
The main area where we saw it abused was in using the berserkers as scouts and as a means to reveal traps by triggering them. ("Bjorn, walk forward 50' ahead and report back what you see... oh, Bjorn set off the pit trap... Fnjork, advance...."). As scouts, I handled it by simply remembering that they are *berserkers* - noisy, blunt, and aggressive. As trap-finders, anything that berserkers can do in terms of setting off traps, sheep or charmed animals can do the same, so this is just a general "loophole" in dungeon design. I just occasionally place traps that are triggered at Point X but do damage at Point Y (e.g. a tripwire at the end of a hallway that causes stone blacks to fall at the entrance to the hallway) and that handles the find-by-triggering trap method.
It sounds like your PCs deployed this spell very effectively but fairly. A similar number of sleep and stinking cloud spells (equivalent level) would have likely had a similar outcome.
Would it have been possible for the beastmen to barricade themselves in for 30 minutes or so, then charge out when the enemy has vanished? I guess since they were caught off guard, the answer is no.
[quote="Alex"]
I just occasionally place traps that are triggered at Point X but do damage at Point Y (e.g. a tripwire at the end of a hallway that causes stone blacks to fall at the entrance to the hallway) and that handles the find-by-triggering trap method.
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ACKS has a rule (on page 240) that traps are only triggered on one-in-three each time they might reasonably be triggered. This has led to some spectacular mid-party traps going off in my games after the scouts missed them (in one case, “pit trap with gelatinous cube at the bottom and grease sprayers along the hallway abutting”).
I'd rank Summon Berserkers as #3 on the 1st level spell list, with Sleep and Charm Person as the top two. I had overlooked Charm Person until reading a long campaign summary from either B/X or BECMI where a 1st level mage got lucky and had two Charmed ogre bodyguards (and was Chaotic, allowing use of alignment language to give commands). At first level, a pair of 4+1 HD beatsticks is a huge asset.
It sounds like your PCs deployed this spell very effectively but fairly. A similar number of sleep and stinking cloud spells (equivalent level) would have likely had a similar outcome.
Would it have been possible for the beastmen to barricade themselves in for 30 minutes or so, then charge out when the enemy has vanished? I guess since they were caught off guard, the answer is no.
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In that particular case, no; the castle had too many ways in and out. A nicer one with higher walls maybe, but they would've had to have known that these were summoned creatures with a duration. And charging out after the duration wouldn't achieve anything because a half hour later the PCs have a half-hour's head start and they'd spent the whole time choosing a point to lay an ambush. Which reminds me, that battle lead to a conversation about the effectiveness of alchemists' fire in mass combat. It turns out that when 50 people throw bottles of fire at 200, you can't miss, because the scatter rules will just place the attack somewhere ELSE in their army, and orcs only have a handful of hitpoints means they can't really afford to take 1 point of splash damage more than a few times.
Now that I think about it though, a scouting force probably should've been more widely spread out than I had them on the table though. That bit was my bad.
