Monster Summon Caps

[Yunor]

Since player summoning caps have been adopted, can we address rampant monster summoning?

Massive swarms of summoned monsters only encourage the player to stairdance or use other annoying tactics. For example, I had an extremely unpleasant experience fighting an elemental wellspring, a forest monster that summons water elementals. As a mainly melee GrHe, it took a ridiculously long time to wade through the elementals to kill the wellspring. The closer I got, the more it summoned. Even worse was clearing out the elementals after the wellspring died -- there was about 11 surrounding me. The elementals were never a threat, only tedium.

The best fix would be to cap monster summons at some number, say 3 per summoner. Another good reform would to have summons expire when the summoner dies. Summoned monsters don't give any xp, which is a good thing, but I find myself running around a safe area until they time out.

[Mankeli]

Even better: let's completely remove many of the summoning monsters.

Edit: to explain my rationale: players summoning at will is/was stupid especially because of the tactics it caused (hiding behind a wall of dragon flesh etc.). Monsters summoning completely non-threatening popcorn is even more stupid. It's really unfun, for example, to try to reach that (usually) completely harmless ynoxinul behind a wall of even more harmless ufetubi. The same goes for the recent changes in some (or one) of the elf casters behaviour. For a melee character it can take a lot of time and doesn't even yield exp, items or excitement because of the harmlessness of the summons.

[khalil]

Here's a few ideas I had to address monster summoning:
1: Same caps as players.
2: If a monster dies, it's summons disappear.
3: Summons can't summon or reanimate things, so boggarts can't summon boggarts.

[Amnesiac]

I always thought that summons sould disappear with death of the summoner.

[Sandman25]

Another solution would be to summon dangerous monsters instead of popcorn.

[crate]

Another solution would be to summon dangerous monsters instead of popcorn.

This isn't really a good solution either, because then basically you just keep retrying the fight until the summoner decides to not summon things (because why would you ever choose to fight the summoner + dangerous things when with enough tries you get to fight just the summoner + nothing)

[Sandman25]

Another solution would be to summon dangerous monsters instead of popcorn.

This isn't really a good solution either, because then basically you just keep retrying the fight until the summoner decides to not summon things (because why would you ever choose to fight the summoner + dangerous things when with enough tries you get to fight just the summoner + nothing)

Yes, summoning does not work well with random behaviour. The same problem applies to other monsters including uniques though. Mara is the most obvious example, it is much easier when he just moves forward instead of making clones.
Damn, I can't play DCSS after trying Tome4

[absolutego]

how about just removing both player and monster summoning (god abilities are probably fine)
it's less "unthinkable" than you might expect

[Amnesiac]

I don't mind. They are annoying. In fact in my long time of playing I almost never used summons and now I don't use them at all. But it's just my preference.

[dck]

I think something should be done about forest because water zones are infested by elemental wellsprings that never stop summoning elementals, there's a walking tree that summons killer god damn bees by the time you're doing vaults (berserk by a queen or not they're still killer bees and the rare wasp) which is unacceptable and spirit wolves have howl which is horrifyingly bad. Thorn hunters I don't know about, at least briar patches crumble a little after you kill them.
Thing is, at least you can just not touch forest and ignore howl and the rare ent, but wellsprings are all over the place in late D and it gets annoying to circumvent them.
Howl is really bad stuff though.

[rebthor]

Another solution would be to summon dangerous monsters instead of popcorn.

This isn't really a good solution either, because then basically you just keep retrying the fight until the summoner decides to not summon things (because why would you ever choose to fight the summoner + dangerous things when with enough tries you get to fight just the summoner + nothing)

This is pretty clear from fighting lichs and ancient lichs. Summoned a 1? Come back later and hopefully not have to fight or just fight the lich.

[rebthor]

I think something should be done about forest because water zones are infested by elemental wellsprings that never stop summoning elementals, there's a walking tree that summons killer god damn bees by the time you're doing vaults (berserk by a queen or not they're still killer bees and the rare wasp) which is unacceptable and spirit wolves have howl which is horrifyingly bad. Thorn hunters I don't know about, at least briar patches crumble a little after you kill them.
Thing is, at least you can just not touch forest and ignore howl and the rare ent, but wellsprings are all over the place in late D and it gets annoying to circumvent them.
Howl is really bad stuff though.

Forest unreasons.

[Sporkman]

1: Same caps as players.

This seems sensible enough. It feels a bit odd right now that the player can't summon hoards of monsters for very long, yet monsters can. Particularly annoying when it's a lot of summoners, which is where you REALLY start to wish you had Mass Abjuration. Most noticeable in Elf, what with Demonologists having the lovely tendency to summon hoards of demons (usually cheap ones, but I've been on the receiving end of multiple ice fiends before).

3: Summons can't summon or reanimate things, so boggarts can't summon boggarts.

I didn't realize this could happen. That's actually quite terrifying, and brings to mind the term 'explosive summoner' - boggarts summoning boggarts ad infinitum. Though permanent allies should probably be excluded from this.

[1010011010]

Here's a few ideas I had to address monster summoning:
1: Same caps as players.
2: If a monster dies, it's summons disappear.
3: Summons can't summon or reanimate things, so boggarts can't summon boggarts.

I agree with most of this as long as the summon disappear isn't instantaneous just much faster, and I don't see the problem with summons reanimating.

[jejorda2]

I like it when my minor demons from Makhleb summon stuff. It often helps me get out of danger. I wouldn't like to see that go.

I don't think I've used Makhleb since the summon cap went in, though, and I don't know how those mesh.

[rosstin]

Here's a few ideas I had to address monster summoning:
2: If a monster dies, it's summons disappear.

I like that option.

[khalil]

@rosstin
Thanks. I figured it would bring about interesting choices: Do you run away from the 1, or do you fire dispel undead at the ancient lich in the hopes you kill it before his minions kill you?

[Galefury]

It would be very convenient.