Beast Master Trait

[Thoukydides]

In the interest of preserving this information, which is also included in Death Knight's FAQ on Gamefaqs, here is a message I wrote to Death Knight on the old forums. Sadly my messages did not transfer over to the new forum. Death Knight asked me what I knew about the Beast Master trait and if it got better with level, so I used the High Level Party Maker to run a few tests. Here is what I found:

 

I have to say that I was very surprised at some of the creatures I got using the summon beast ability. The lack of a level cap certainly helps it because in the first trilogy Summon Beast is outclassed by the mage spell Call Beast. In Blades of Avernum though, at around level 70 I was able to summon ogre mages, shamblers, centaurs, vampires, and flame hydras. This is equal to a mid- or high level summon aid spell, except the spell summons 4 monsters. Also, my level 118 character can summon a fetid zombie, a skeletal warrior, an efreet, or a rakshasa with the ability, so it does in fact increase with level. I don't know if it will go higher than that, but I assume it can depending on the types of monsters available. I suspect that a 120+ character may be able to summon a drake lord or a dark wyrm.

 

So, yes the summon beast ability does increase with level. Every ~15 levels will give a new tier of creatures. So at 1-14 you summon monsters from group 1, and at 15-29 you summon monsters from group 2 and so on. At 60-74, or group 5, you get the same creatures I listed above, and at 105-120, or group 8, you would get the efreeti, rakshasa, and high level undead. The monsters you get do appear to be affected by the monster level, but I'm not completely sure how it works. I don't know if anyone has created a list of the monsters you get when summoning, so if you decide to do this, you might want to try recording what you get at different levels. I also noticed while testing that the monster groups are also used by the summon spells, but I don't know how they are related. For example, spell level 2 of Summon Aid may or may not use the same monsters as group 2 from the Summon Beast ability.

 

After seeing that it does in fact increase with level, now the only problem I have with Beastmaster is that you can only use the ability to summon one creature once per day. Summon spells on the other hand can give you four monsters as long as you have spell points.

 

Good luck on your faq and I hope you found this useful. Also, if you would like to do more testing on your own, you could try downloading the High Level Party Maker scenario. That way you can increase your party's level and skills at will and play around with the different abilities.

 

If anyone would be willing to identify the monsters in each summon group, or has already done so, please feel free to post your findings here.