Avowed - Summoned Weapons Mechanics

[patronkus]

Does anyone know how the summoned weapons work in depth? I have been using the Parasitic Staff and while functionally it appears to be a Great Hammer, I can't tell specifically because you can't hover over it in your inventory to see the damage or quality or anything.

I believe the summoned weapons benefit from passives like Brawn or Stunning Blows but haven't thoroughly tested. Furthermore, how do they interact with Grimoire Quality and character level?

[thelee]

one thing i miss from deadfire is the auto-generated tooltips that help explain a lot of detailed mechanics. this is the kinda stuff i puzzle about.

i'm too focused on finishing the game with my limited time to do much testing (though i did do a few tests on frozen + explosive damage), but maybe someone will do this testing in the near future.

(it'd also be great if there was a way to figure this stuff out from the game files... the lack of a combat log really makes it hard to introspect some of this stuff - like i was able to show that shattering frozen enemies with explosion really does a massive boost, but there's no damage numbers or combat log to examine)

[patronkus]

7 hours ago, thelee said:

one thing i miss from deadfire is the auto-generated tooltips that help explain a lot of detailed mechanics. this is the kinda stuff i puzzle about.

i'm too focused on finishing the game with my limited time to do much testing (though i did do a few tests on frozen + explosive damage), but maybe someone will do this testing in the near future.

(it'd also be great if there was a way to figure this stuff out from the game files... the lack of a combat log really makes it hard to introspect some of this stuff - like i was able to show that shattering frozen enemies with explosion really does a massive boost, but there's no damage numbers or combat log to examine)

Honestly it would just be nice to have some more numbers or a toggle that shows the specifics for things. Stuff like Fireball, 1.5 m Area, 300 Fire Damage, 30% Fire Accumulation etc etc

[thelee]

On 2/19/2025 at 6:02 PM, patronkus said:

Does anyone know how the summoned weapons work in depth? I have been using the Parasitic Staff and while functionally it appears to be a Great Hammer, I can't tell specifically because you can't hover over it in your inventory to see the damage or quality or anything.

I believe the summoned weapons benefit from passives like Brawn or Stunning Blows but haven't thoroughly tested. Furthermore, how do they interact with Grimoire Quality and character level?

I can now at least give you an answer on that last part.

Someone did some testing, and it seems like your equipped gear feeds into a tier level that also determines your spell damage (including how summoned weapons scale). this video shows the testing, with blackbow in particular: 

 

so, grimoire quality does matter, as does the quality of whatever else you have equipped along with your grimoire.

edit: i followed up with the creator, and they showed that even armor matters (they posted an unlisted video in reply to me showing the test). it looks like the game computes some sort of score based on all your gear (either an average or a total count) and compares that against the enemy to determine damage bonuses and penalties. that's probably what's happening with the enemies, too. so don't skimp out on upgrading your stuff just cause you're a caster or you're good at dodging!

Edited Monday at 11:18 PM by thelee

[patronkus]

37 minutes ago, thelee said:

I can now at least give you an answer on that last part.

Someone did some testing, and it seems like your equipped gear feeds into a tier level that also determines your spell damage (including how summoned weapons scale). this video shows the testing, with blackbow in particular: 

 

so, grimoire quality does matter, as does the quality of whatever else you have equipped along with your grimoire.

edit: i followed up with the creator, and they showed that even armor matters (they posted an unlisted video in reply to me showing the test). it looks like the game computes some sort of score based on all your gear (either an average or a total count) and compares that against the enemy to determine damage bonuses and penalties. that's probably what's happening with the enemies, too. so don't skimp out on upgrading your stuff just cause you're a caster or you're good at dodging!

Yes I saw something similar in another video (

) where this guy tested Spirit Lance IIRC. In his video he shows the quality of the summoned weapon scales with your level and actually outscales normal gear.

[Boeroer]

8 hours ago, thelee said:

[...] so don't skimp out on upgrading your stuff just cause you're a caster or you're good at dodging!

I'm usually not one to rant, but this is not only unintuitive and obscure, it also seems stupid. I would love to hear the reasoning for this. Or maybe it's not intended?

Even if one designed it like this for whatever reason: why not communicate it to the player?

I'm baffled...

PS: having said that - so far the weird quality-tier- and scaling mechanics have not kept me from enjoying the game, it gives me a great time so far despite me being really bad with those controls. 

Edited Tuesday at 07:42 AM by Boeroer

[Silvaren]

10 hours ago, thelee said:

so, grimoire quality does matter, as does the quality of whatever else you have equipped along with your grimoire.

edit: i followed up with the creator, and they showed that even armor matters (they posted an unlisted video in reply to me showing the test). it looks like the game computes some sort of score based on all your gear (either an average or a total count) and compares that against the enemy to determine damage bonuses and penalties. that's probably what's happening with the enemies, too. so don't skimp out on upgrading your stuff just cause you're a caster or you're good at dodging!

Acounting grimoire for spell efficiency is weird since you can learn spells and casts it without any grimoire in hand. I used it mostly for lowering essence cost of spells, reducing cooldowns and to preserve some skill point because learned spells are treated as being 1 lvl higher while casted with grimoire. Since I focused mostly on cackling bolt, returning storm, blizzard, fireball and freezing pillar I used regular Grimoire of Greater Elements and at the end game I just bought superb version of it. Unique grimoires can be upgraded to legendary, but they didn't fit to my preferred spell list. I didn't feel underpowered in the endgame. I would say I felt that my spells are more powerful than wand while facing higher tier enemies in Dawnshore. I managed to kill most bounties before level 5 (first playthrough on normal, now I'm playing on PotD). In final push I dealt about 2800 damage with freezing pillar.

[thelee]

On 2/24/2025 at 9:13 PM, Boeroer said:

I'm usually not one to rant, but this is not only unintuitive and obscure, it also seems stupid. I would love to hear the reasoning for this. Or maybe it's not intended?

It is definitely unintuitive. In the abstract I get it in the sense that everyone themselves has a “quality level” (normal, fine, exceptional, etc) and it means that casters do not get to bypass having to invest in gear. It happens with weapons in D4 and D3 (maybe other ARPGs) after Diablo 2 had tons of gear that was irrelevant for casters, so it’s not totally foreign to me, but adding armor into the mix is definitely new.

[Boeroer]

6 hours ago, thelee said:

It is definitely unintuitive. In the abstract I get it in the sense that everyone themselves has a “quality level” (normal, fine, exceptional, etc) and it means that casters do not get to bypass having to invest in gear. It happens with weapons in D4 and D3 (maybe other ARPGs) after Diablo 2 had tons of gear that was irrelevant for casters, so it’s not totally foreign to me, but adding armor into the mix is definitely new.

I understand the motivation, but wouldn't a (far) better solution for players and the game itself be:
"Offer as much gear that benefits casters/rangers as gear that benefits martial characters"?

 

Edited Wednesday at 02:01 PM by Boeroer

[thelee]

Sure, but I mean in games that have done well with this (BG3 and Deadfire loot) for casters things like weapons are just stat sticks, even if good or useful stat sticks. The ARPG philosophy is that weapon damage and quality is also part of being the stat stick, even if it doesn’t really make “sense” that a better axe helps your fireball.

i don’t really express an opinion either way, I have enjoyed both approaches. It’s easier for item design to get lazy with the ARPG approach (BG3 itemization is probably the best itemization in a recent CRPG I’ve seen, D4 is very uninspiring despite everything being “relevant”), on the other side there is risk to have inadequate support for casters getting interesting gear (Solasta or core D&D/Pathfinder).

 

armor is definitely odd though.

Edited Wednesday at 04:17 PM by thelee