So I was playing around with my new Briarvex summons last night, and they have an ability that concerns me slightly.
They like to open fights with "Briarvex Throws Spikes" which may or may not be linked to their entangle ability (in every case so far the area of effect of both effects has overlapped perfectly, but that could easily be coincidence). The spikes seem to do 1d4 dmg/rd each rd within the area of effect, and seem to be intended to mimic the Briarvex' Thorn Burrow ability. All fine and dandy.
My problem is that they seem to last between 5 and 10 real life minutes, well past the duration of the summon itself. Since the ability they seem intended to mimic is one that only works in the Briarvex's presence, (100' range and LoS required) I think it should be either changed to disappear with the summon (a pain in the ass probably) or just shorted to the length of time that a fight with a Briarvex would reasonably take, maybe a turn or two considering their good damage and relatively low durability.
My concern is accidental PvP dmg, and in extreme cases, death. Last night my Briarvex put one RIGHT at the passage into the mines. Given that I can summon two of these critters and the effect can potentially nab you twice before you clear the area of effect, that's a potential 4d4 damage that someone could experience just for running through (or perhaps even transitioning into) an area even after my Briarvex is unsummoned and I've moved on. If they were, say, fleeing from something and near death, that might put them straight in the fugue plane. They might even choose to run straight through it, as the effect appears just like a normal entangle (I think, either that or there's no graphical depiction).
My main proposed solution: Shorten spike duration to 2 turns.
The Brairvex is actually casting Spike Growth (http://nwn.wikia.com/wiki/Spike_growth), I believe.
Spiked growth is severely bugged and if you fail the save the slow can't be dispelled and remains until rested. It might be better to change this to entangle with a similar save DC.
The slow is emulating sore cuts, that part should stay.
The spikes throwing is manticore spikes. There are multiple types of manticore spikes. The briarvex uses a buggy form of manticore spikes so it doesn't actually shoot them like other spike throwing summons and monsters would, because they use the shifter version of manticore spikes ability.
It's not really a slow though from Spike Growth. It's more a stacking -10% movespeed or something iirc.
Edit: Wiki says -30% that doesn't stack, but since I've seen NPCs literally crippled into moving like slugs thanks to it I'd assume it does actually stack.
It is not bugged. That slow is intentionally as it is, by mechanical design.
Spiked growth is a fourth circle spell that only does a tiny bit of damage, and it even has a reflex save vs the slowing part. It's not bugged in any way and can be completely avoided. It's an inconvenience at most, and can be troubling if you use a briarvex in a quest, but wild tangled overgrowth does not discriminate friend from foe. When there is a field of writhing barbed thorny vines everyone who walks through it might be cut! Briarvexes are very strong though and make up for the possible annoyance easily.
Yep, the effect I was speaking of is spike growth, for certain. And it seems like it's already set to last as short a duration as it can.
~sigh
Thanks tho! :)
As a druid player, I wouldn't actually mind seeing the duration of this spell actually nerfed, perhaps from 1 turn/level, to 2 rounds/level?
I adjusted the Briarvex. The animal domain/plant domain combination granting +1 plant summons is something we may look at changing, though.
Understandable. I think it's just the animal domain that grants the +1 though. At the very least, though, I can see that they should probably take up an amount of pts out of your summon pool equal to the level of the creature summoned as opposed to the level of spell that brought him.
Yea if animal domain is giving +1 to anything other than default theme that's a bug. It used to give +1 celestials with animal/good but that was fixed in efu:a. It shouldn't be giving +1 plants. Didn't when I played with it recently at least.
It doesn't give +1 to plant theme...