Protection brand triggers on allies

[mibe420]

Attacking a monster that you have summoned causes protection brand to trigger causing you to gain +7 ac for several turns.

I personally tested this with summon small mammal. My octopode in lair had no problem casting summon small mammal, or killing a rat. In return for this behavior I can have +7 AC whenever I go downstairs, open a door, or while I wait for a monster to come close to me.

This seems pretty obviously degenerate to me, its sort of like casting a buff but several more keypresses, and it hardly seems like the intention of the new protection brand.

So my proposal, dont let protection brand trigger on summoned monsters created by the player. Or just dont let it trigger on any summoned monsters. Either one will solve this problem.

[watertreatmentRL]

I think you'll find variants of this secret tech involving skeletons, zombies, or snakes will also work. Then there's the issue of "pets." The truth is that weapons having defensive qualities of any kind are bad, this is just a particularly silly consequence of trying to get around that reality.

[Sprucery]

Preventing +AC when hitting anything the player created would go a long way. Sure, you could still bring a weak monster with you to the stairs etc. This could be handled by not giving +AC if the monster HD is lower than some number based on your XL.

Personally I still think that the protection brand should just be removed, because it is boring.

[MainiacJoe]

Preventing +AC when hitting anything the player created would go a long way. Sure, you could still bring a weak monster with you to the stairs etc. This could be handled by not giving +AC if the monster HD is lower than some number based on your XL.

Personally I still think that the protection brand should just be removed, because it is boring.

Well maybe I'm just a bad player, but I've found it an interesting choice at times when I get an early protection brand on a squishy character, whether using that weapon for its AC is worth the opportunity cost of using a different weapon that is strictly better at dealing damage.

[Croases]

I still think that protection giving AC based on your weapon skill is the best way to go about it. It will still be optimal to swap it, but on a more limited number of characters and in a more limited number of situations.

[KoboldLord]

Slow attunement on gaining xp from +0AC to a maximum that is dependent on weapon skill.

Or remove, either way.