ToME WikiCarciofus: I am playing a lostsoul symbiant, and man, it is far cheesier than alchemists!
I know that different classes are not supposed to be equally difficult, but it seems to me that the "pet issue" is a real one. Instead of deleting the whole "pet that summon pets" thing, I suggest to make having powerful allies more dangerous. After all, if a wimpy lev 1 symbiant manages somehow to have a pit fiend at his service, expectations are that the fiend will soon betray him and squash him into pulp or something similar. So, what about this? If a character has a pet more powerful than he can handle (Monster Lore check, I suppose) *and* the pet could instakill him, Charisma is checked against a die roll: if the roll fails, this pet will turn against the character. Companions should have a lower chance of betrayal, but it should still be possible for foolish enough adventurers.
In this way, while summoners and symbiants should still be fairly powerful classes, using hydra totems or summoning high dragons at low levels would be a most dangerous activity.
I don't know how difficult it should be to code, though...
ShadUs Im all for it... soon as they make my pets breath unable to kill me >:) I can't count the number of summoners/symbs/possesors i've lost due to breath attacks. Probally in the hundreds now.
NeilStevens: No, if you take away the ability to use powerful monsters, those classes will not be powerful anymore, I think.
RavenRed: As for my 2cworth, I think a check on summoned monsters using both level and Monster Lore is a good idea... the check could maybe be something like a percentage chance of Monsterlevel - (Playerlevel * (MonsterLore @3)). This would enable skilled summoners to control powerful beings whilst resricting those who don't make the skill-point investment very wary of summoning the GWoP...