Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity Original Sin - Beta Summons mechanics

Is there any chance we could stop littering the landscape with dead wolves after every fight?

If you're trying to think of your summons as a recurring servant/companion/pet rather than as ammunition, it's a bit off-putting to be running past all the corpses an hour later.

The summons entries are great. Why such a lazy exit?

Yeah, i was hoping it could be made to "dissolve back to the Earth" in the same way he appears from it, rather then get turned into an actual corpse.

Going back to its element, as it were, right?


I just didnt see that as an actual animal but more like earth elemental type.

Speaking of which... it would be pretty great if it was the Earth Elemental. Not an animal.
But elemental of that specific element that just looks like a Wolf.

+1

I actually like that they stay on the battlefield when they die, instead of just vanishing. They should just be removed when you leave the area.

Yeah, dead bodies from regular entities are nice to see on the field. Summons probably make more sense to dissolve back into nothingness after getting killed. I don't think they can be resurrected (at least, they couldn't when Swen tried back at the Beta launch).

I can confirm that you can't resurrect any of the summons.

At least not these ones.
Spider, Wolf, Skeleton, Fire Elemental, Ice Elemental.



All that being said the elemental have their effect when they die leaving their respective elemental surface behind. The spider leaving a corpse makes sense as it doesn't seem to be so much an elemental as it is a creature that earth mages can command. Same thing with the wolf.

Sure it makes sense: you call it, it dies, it leaves a corpse.

But for the sake of immersion and role-playing and all that touchy-feely game satisfaction stuff, if you want to summon a wolf without feeling like a prick, it's hard to be all "Hey, come help me fight! If you win, you'll die a couple of minutes later than if you lose!"

If it's that close to death magic, it should be Witchcraft, not Earth magic/Ranger/some kind of Druidy nature thing. People get attached to dogs.

Hell, there's even an existing script for dogs to run into the woods and vanish; why can't they just have the summoned wolves do that?

I like spiders just fine, too, but I kind of get the feeling that that's less of an issue for most folks.

Addition for clarity:
Just so we know where I'll stand when the PETA revolution comes along, can I point out that I really *like* that Bertia is an actual farmer? Sure, she values her animals: they're her living, and they're all individuals. But they're also mighty fine eating with mint sauce. That dialog makes me smile every time.

For me ideally the mechanic would work like this.

Summon the wolf = Entry animation
Wolf dies = corpse left behind
Win the fight with the Wolf alive = Leaving animation
Wolf turn limit expires mid battle = Leaving animation


The next part I am on the fence about.

I think this might also work well for the elemental summons. I often feel punished for summoning the ice elemental and having him die after the battle. As I spend more time than needed to escape the icy surface he left behind.

At the same time the elementals generally have more power as a summon with the ability to cast an elemental spell so the extra caution needed could simply been seen as balance/ fitting of an elemental summon.