summoned units returning experience to summoners?

[car'a'carn]

could you make a summoned unit give all its experience to its summoner, kinda like the spirit guide promotion?

 

[Zechnophobe]

I do recall having discussions like this before, but I am not sure it'd be balanced. Mainly because summons allow a unit to get kills without risking itself at all. Generally, arcane units are meant to be slower at getting XP, and that's why they get free xp just from existing.

 

[car'a'carn]

but once u get to a certain level of xp your arcane units almost entirely stop gaining xp

 

[Valkrionn]

This already happens in Fall Further and Rise from Erebus. Summons return a % of their xp to their master when they are killed. It's NOT a 1:1 ratio, but you do get something.

 

[Emptiness]

I usually find 100 free xp to be all I need for my (non-hero) Arcane units, but if you need to get more then you can use your casters to finish off enemy units that are near-death as a result of damage from AoE spells and attacks by your summoned creatures. Another helpful factor is when you can make your Arcane units stronger:

• Convert to Order so that your Confessors can give your Arcane units +1 Holy with Bless.
• Research Necromancy and get a source of Sheut Stone so that new Arcane units you produce will have +1 Death .
• Promote your Arcane units with Earth II so that they can cast Stoneskin, for +3 first strikes and 50% resistance to all non-physical damage.

 

[Azhral]

This functionality was present in Wraiths (Death 3 summon) a while ago, but was removed due to the fact that Death spam was already overpowered.

I reckon adding it back in to Pit Beasts or Hosts of the Einhijar(sic) would make them useful. Or add it in for Pit Beasts and make all Hosts start with spirit guide...

 

[scutarii]

This functionality was present in Wraiths (Death 3 summon) a while ago, but was removed due to the fact that Death spam was already overpowered.

I reckon adding it back in to Pit Beasts or Hosts of the Einhijar(sic) would make them useful. Or add it in for Pit Beasts and make all Hosts start with spirit guide...

IMO pitbeast and its counterpart need either marksman promo or fully healing after combat mechanic - there is no use for injured pitbeast who can prolong his life only via winning battles.

 

[car'a'carn]

i agree with scutarii that temporary summons that can prolong their life need to be able to heal, i also agree that it would be very easy to make the xp returning overpowered and unbalanced but its easily avoided, make it so that there is an arcane unit promotion for higher level arcane units that makes summoned temporary units start with a modified form of spirit guide, so that it will return a small portion of the earned experience to the mage and 100 xp is barely enough to get 3 summoning spells and have ur summons start with empower 1-5 and mobility 1-2 unless u don't use death, in which case u could only get one summon spell, unless ur charismatic then u might be able to get 2 or 3

 

[Morkonan]

I think a mechanic that allows xp gains to casters through Summoned Units would be fitting. But, it has to be very limited and also needs to be a weak summoned unit. So, a spectre might return a small measure of exp to the caster, but a Wraith would not as Wraiths are already an extremely powerful mechanic in their own right. Put it up to stronger willed creatures not being so generous with their exp points or something...

It would also be excellent if this mechanic only came into play after 100exp. It would give the caster a bit of a little bonus for surviving that long as they would then be able to somewhat avoid placing themselves in too much danger.

But, you know.... If that creature was killed.. having a small exp loss would be nice too. There could be a risk for very high level casters trying to spam low level creatures and rocket their exp points off the charts. Sure, they could attempt do exploit that mechanic. But, there's a price to be paid for failure if they lose exp when such a unit fails a combat.

But, as Feature Lock has already gone into effect, it's just a rambling bit of interesting intellectualizing..

 

[Folket]

I like Azhrals suggestion. Those two spells are just so much worse then spectre.

 

[Zongo]

I like Azhrals suggestion. Those two spells are just so much worse then spectre.

They can be handy against death-immune targets, like undeads.

Hosts in particular are angels inflicting holy damage, which hurt demons or undead more. Coupled with bless, disrupt undead or sanctify they can really bring the pain to wannabe armies of darkness.

If they survive, they become excellent decoys against marksman units.

For the Luchuirp a Host wave before a golem punch is very effective. You leverage that life and law mana coming from your palace.

 

[Zechnophobe]

Hosts and Pit Fiends are both decent. You talk about healing, but if they get a kill they will often be able to heal simply by promoting after combat.

I still don't get the idea of wanting to make casters gain XP from summons though. You don't get XP for casting Maelstrom, or using Rust, or Enchanted Blade. Why summons?

 

[DaveGold]

Given that mages have all the advantages of being a separate unit from their summoned troops there seems little reason to give them the advantages of being a combined unit too.