Shaman's Spirit Companion - What is it?

[Holy Bovine]

So we've been discussing the Spirit Companion of the Shaman at our game recently. Although its keywords are Conjuration it acts more as a Summoned creature than a Conjured one (taking up a space, having hit points of a sort etc) and the player of the Shaman seems to remember seeing errata about needing a short rest after it is killed to summon it again. I think this is actually the rule for familiars but I could be wrong. Anyone have any links for errata clarifying the SC's status a little bit? For example - do benefits/penalties that effect the SC affect the Shaman? Can a SC even be affected by conditions like blindness/weakness etc.? Thanks!

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Nope, the Spirit Companion can be reconjured immediately, there is no wait time required. The penalty for having it destroyed is the hit point loss to the shaman. As long as the character can withstand the damage you can keep bringing the SC back again as often as you want.

SCs are conjurations, and as such are not affected by ANYTHING. The specific rules for Spirit Companions do allow melee and ranged attacks (but not area or close attacks) to do damage to the SC, but no other effects or conditions will apply and since they don't have actual hit points an attack is relatively harmless to them unless it does enough damage to dispel the SC.

There are admittedly a few minor areas where the rules are hard to interpret on the subject, but PHB2 p219-220 (conjurations), PHB2 p119 (shaman class features), and PHB2 p120 (Call Spirit Companion power) do cover everything.

The main thing to remember is that a conjuration is not a creature. It is a magical effect. Unless a specific rule says otherwise it is not considered a creature (and thus is not an enemy or an ally) and doesn't follow any of the rules for creatures etc.

I don't know of any errata for the Shaman class or for conjurations (beyond the rehash in PHB2). The 4e FAQ I believe has something to say about conjurations and may have a clarification on spirit companions as well, you can check there but IIRC all it talks about is that conjurations can move horizontally without needing to have anything under them for support (like over a pit), but cannot move vertically at all. How exactly to interpret THAT is up to the DM (IE can it go up a set of stairs).

 

[Gunpowder]

the call spirit companion has the conjuration keyword, meaning that it is treated as a conjuration detailed on page 59 of the phb except the exceptions included in the power.

So for the first question, no he does not need a short rest. the call spirit companion is an at will power, so you can resummon it every round.

The power says it can be targeted by melee and ranged attacks although it lacks hit points. If a single melee or ranged attack deals damage to the spirit equal to the threshold or higher the spirit poofs and the shaman takes damage. Otherwise the spirit is unaffected by the attack.

So to address this "do benefits/penalties that effect the SC affect the Shaman? Can a SC even be affected by conditions like blindness/weakness etc.?"
No there is no feedback from spirit to shaman except for the damage if the spirit pops. the spirit is immune to blindness/weakness ongoing damage etc. If you want the spirit's effectiveness to go down you need to target the shaman, who is vulnerable to such status effects and will effect the spirit's attack powers.

 

[Mort_Q]

So for the first question, no he does not need a short rest. the call spirit companion is an at will power, so you can resummon conjure it every round.

In fact, there are times when it is beneficial to dismiss the spirit and conjure it again at a different location, rather than moving it.

 

[Holy Bovine]

Thanks for the replies guys. A through re-reading of the relevant rules does help but it is great to get some confirmation. Looks like the original way we were playing it as far as summon/unsummon works was correct but we were definately doing conditions wrong.