What do you folks think of summoning animals instead/or Dedra.

Unlike Morrowind where summoning was useless because of utterly [censored] AI and slow moving Dedra in Oblivion it was nice.
It was surprisingly cheap to cast and Dedra were fairly efficient at killing and distracting enemies , was one of my favorite skills.

But what i really wanted was an ability to summon an animal.
To start with a wolf , then a bear and end up with a lion ( lions were deadly , practically the only creature / npc which could seriously endanger me )

I couldn't even find a mod which allowed me to do that.... ( links are welcome here )

I know that summoning animals don't fit with the lore but i want it anyway , and it doesn't have to necessarily be connected to conjuration.

A permanent pet/summon would also be welcome as long as it cant be killed or is easy to retrieve.


( also , some advanced controls for the pet/summon wouldn't hurt )


so ... what do you folks think ?

Instead of "summoning" animals (like with a spell) maybe we'll be able to tame them and hunt with them.

I don't know what too think, but they added a summon bear spell in OB with the Spell Tomes dlc. In other words: I think it could happen.

I'm more here too. Spells are more for the undead or Daedras and such in my opinion. If animals should be in, they ought to work more like familiars or something. Not sure I'm a big fan of that though, it would have to be really well done. Not that I don't have faith in the devs, but no one wants what could seem like a last minute addition of something like that..

don't see a big problem there , the AI in oblivion seamed decent and with a few Warcraft type pet controls it would work nicely

If it's in, lets hope so.

Yes I want to summon a falcon that eats my enemies' eyeballs.

I was concerned that summoning animals wasn't lore firendly, but then I remember that the Spriggan could summon bears. And while NPCs mostly/always summon daedra, whats to say they couldn't summon others? That hypothetically could have been a choice. So, I guess i havn't helped out at all, but I'm just saying it could be a possability.

I really just want to recreate the feeling of playing a Warcraft hunter but in Oblivion / Skyrim

So , animals as pets , traps , skill which help you to keep your enemies at range and such...

---we already have pets ( summoned Dedra -- hopefully actual animals later)
---traps ( can cast spells on the ground that are activated when an enemy steps over them )
---skill which help you to keep your enemies at range ( bow bash and a whole mess of spells ...)
so its close , just needs a bit of a polish

I found it a bit lacking that you could just summon Dardra and undead in vanilla OB, it could be possible they include animal summons in Skyrim. Let's just hope.

The OB mod I know that adds animal summons is Caesar Ranger;
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=32308

There is this doomstone-like rock near that camp that you activate to get spells depending on your level. And the animal summons you get works flawlessly! Even the summoned Spriggan will summon it's own bear.

To Bethesda:
In either case (the above or the OP) I think it's highly relevant that you let us command animals, because it's a very simple thing to implement for the opportunity to roleplay a beastmaster (Druid and Ranger in D&D Forgotten Realms, for instance, or the Hunter in WoW).

I also want to suggest that you let all summons be leveling with the caster, so that they remain relevant throughout the game. Not everyone likes the Xivilai as a companion, after all. This is relevant to even more players because not all conjurers wanna be beastmasters or daedra Worshippers.

In OB, when they added spell tomes. One of the spells was a bear summon.

thank you , will go download it now