Am I doing it wrong? (summoning is overrated)


Advice

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So I'm playing a level 8 conjuration specialist with augment summoning. Summons should be good, but they kinda suck.

Because I have so few opportunieis to act in a battle, it boils down to chosing between first casting haste and first casting summon. Haste always wins.

On turn 2 then if the fight is over or close to over then I just wait. Otherwise if the fight is looking tough, maybe then I can consider summoning, but if I do, then I have to pass this round doing nothing (1 round casting time sucks).

Round 3, I have my summon out and can take actions with, but the fight is over.

This is systematic behavior. The few opportunities where the fight is not over, the summon fails to do anything constructive. They never hit anything. They are too slow to appear.

The last time one of my summons was effective was at level 1 when I summoned a riding dog. (which was later nerfed as apparently riding dogs are no longer summonable by summon monster 1)

In some cases the battle isn't over by round 3, but then other things call for attention. I might need to scorching ray something, or glitterdust something, or spiked pit someone.


Some decent 3P stuff where you can buff your summon list to monsters that don't suck. Feats that allow you to buff the creatures you do get out, and get bigger numbers of them beasties. Also, you caste Haste after your summons. Then your summoned creatures get the buff too.


Take Improved Initiative, go first. Or find a way to summon faster than a full round.


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Acadamae Graduate

Dark Archive

Conjuration has more then summon critter spells. Summon a pit instead, preferably one with teeth or saliva instead. (spiked pit and acid pit respectively)

Scarab Sages

Craig Bonham 141 wrote:
Some decent 3P stuff where you can buff your summon list to monsters that don't suck. Feats that allow you to buff the creatures you do get out, and get bigger numbers of them beasties. Also, you caste Haste after your summons. Then your summoned creatures get the buff too.

Could you point me in the direction of these please? Would be really helpful!


I play with a gm who does not allow non-core material. CRB and APG are ok. Nothing else.

Azten: I already do have improved initiative and yes it helps a lot.

Mathwei ap Niall: I actually do use a lot of conjuration spells, just not summoning.


Some of the more powerful aspects of summoning becomes more obvious later when you can summon bigger and better outsiders with access to larger spell list. A summon spell is a very versatile spell, and you have access to a large pool of resources with a single casting. In combat and out of combat, that's pretty golden.


Well , you decide to buff and control over summoning that is all. (Do note that , you giving haste helps the fight end even faster)

Also it deppends on your party , some groups take longer to win fights , be it because of their party composition or the GM fight creation, so this would go better there.

Sczarni

Snag a rod of quicken spell :) pricy, but swift action summon followed by haste is pretty good :)

Sovereign Court

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Your fights only last 3 rounds? What kind of game of rocket tag are you playing?

I would say your best bet is to convince the party not to split up immediately so that you can start summoning on round 1 and then on round 2 summon the creature near your party and immediately hit it and everyone else with Haste. That way your summons is getting in a full attack +1 on round 2, which is probably going to be on par with everyone else except mr. RAGELANCEPOUNCE barbarian.

If you absolutely can't start summoning until round 2, and your fights consistently only last 3 or 4 rounds, then I would just cast something else that fight. Seriously though, if all your fights are that short, then either your enemies are too weak or your party is somehow skewed WAY towards offense. Consider talking to your GM.


Reynard_the_fox wrote:

Your fights only last 3 rounds? What kind of game of rocket tag are you playing?

I would say your best bet is to convince the party not to split up immediately so that you can start summoning on round 1 and then on round 2 summon the creature near your party and immediately hit it and everyone else with Haste. That way your summons is getting in a full attack +1 on round 2, which is probably going to be on par with everyone else except mr. RAGELANCEPOUNCE barbarian.

If you absolutely can't start summoning until round 2, and your fights consistently only last 3 or 4 rounds, then I would just cast something else that fight. Seriously though, if all your fights are that short, then either your enemies are too weak or your party is somehow skewed WAY towards offense. Consider talking to your GM.

Your suggestion about not splitting the group is pretty good, though. I will consider discussion some group strategy next session.

I'm playing Kingmaker and the group is very melee heavy:

Melee inquisitor build
Paladin
Two-handed fighter
Bomber alchemist
Wizard (me)

Most encounters are us vs one single enemy and typically we have only one fight per day at most.

Dark Archive

I'm not sure of your level (you're pulling riding dogs at level 8???)

Feats:

Feats
SF Cong
Aug Summon
Superior Summoning
Then how to get to a standard action summon
** if you're a wizard - see above Academe Grad**
** if you're a cleric - Sacred Summons **
** if you're a druid - you're out of luck?**
** if you're a summoner - you do it as a standard action when the eidolon isn't there.**

What to summon:

Level 1 - don't bother, it probably won't help much.

Level 2+
at the early ones Stirges can be interesting as a summoned animal. Darkvision, scent, and flight. +7 touch attack, -1 con then +11 maintain grapple and another -1 con as long as they're on. Stirges really don't work well past 5th level. Stick a few stirges on someone and ask "ready to quit?" If I was losing 2 to 5 con a round, I'd be throwing up my hands.

The spider is decent (if you need to get someone off a wall)
The dolphin is interesting (if you're in the water)

Then you get to level 5.
Lantern Archon - 2 rays +3 ranged touch (d6 - overcomes any DR), aid at will

Then you get to level 7
The bread and butter of several summoners I've witnessed is the medium earth elemental. Slam +9 (unaugmented, +11 aug.) and d8+7 (9 aug) damage. Feats - PA, cleave, and imp bull rush. Movement earth glide.

After that its really your type of summoner
EG - my Chelaxian lawyer - prefers Erinyes (LE)
EG - my standard summoner - prefers Lilends (CG)
ONe of my colleagues perfers large earth elementals.

I say to each his own. But the real power here is you tailor what you need to bring in based on what you need. The summon list is very interesting (animal or monster.)

...and lets face it I agree with the poster above the conjuration list is impressive (pits, grease, etc.) And then you bring in your mobile army.


I play a Sorcerer9, Celestial bloodline, Conjurer (and Fire spells). Conjuring animals/elementals get two priorities: 1.) flank with a current fighter and 2.) Smite Evil.

Due to the full-round casting time, you can't strike first. So be it. Concentrate on helping those fighters get the +2 flank bonus and help to hit the BBEG every round. This is why SMIII with the aforementioned Lantern Archon is key with that 1D6/anything touch attack. SMI is dogs & horses, SMII is elementals, elementals, elementals. Enough that you should probably pick up Terran as a Linguistics skill point at Level 4, followed by Auran, Igan, etc. Nothing tells the BBEG "you're toast" like 3 Small Fire Elementals bearing down on him by the fourth round at Level 4, or the second round at Level 6.

With Augment Summoning and the Celestial Template, your summoned Celestial animals should be Smiting Evil with every attack.

Don't forget while your summoned creatures are doing the heavy lifting your character can do other things. Like using a wand via your Use Magic Item skill, casting Magic Missile, pulling a fallen comrade behind cover, etc.


If you are a druid you go saurian shaman.

Summon monster lvl I and II can be good with Superior Summoning, but the real deal begins from Summon Monster III. At 5 lvl you can summon a crocodile with +13 grapple check. What more could you want at this lvl? And it gets better.


Reynard_the_fox wrote:
Your fights only last 3 rounds? What kind of game of rocket tag are you playing?

Er, huh? That's normal Pathfinder. It is extremely rare that fights last more than 4 rounds in my experience--and most are only 2 or 3.

Anyway, the real answer is that the best plan is to summon on round -1. I am currently playing a Druid with Augment Summoning and my Nature's Allies have proven invaluable. However, I have never summoned after Initiative; I only summon when I can see the fight coming (which is most of the time) on the round immediately before combat would begin. Well, and of course only when the situation calls for it, since my slots are precious.


Kingmaker us all about extremes, cakewalks or epic danger, 15 minute workdays or long dungeon crawling..
nothing is better for a caster, especially with summons, than quicken rods, totally take craft rod to crank them out cheap during downtime..

save the summons for when there's more enemy than they can handle, or they can use the flanking bonuses.. they're a tool in your toolbox, no need to use it exclusively when there's other stuff to do.. the rest of the time with this party just haste then relax and have fun..


Thanks for your replies, people!

Ogre And Bob Dolon: I'm not using riding dog. That was at level 1, as I said. In IRL time, that was about one and a half year ago. Some interesting suggestions there, breaking down though, because the GM only approves of core material. Nothing outside of CRB or APG.

jhpace1: I will try next battle to see how it works if I start off summoning from the get go.

XMorsX: Superior summoning is great, but it's not core :(

mplindustries: I think this might be one of the issues here. In our game, it is EXTREMELY rare that we have any time to prepare for an encounter. Typically we turn a corner and get a helping of random encounter in our face.

Cult of Vorg: I will probably end up investing in a rod of quicken. They are expensive as heck, though!


Ganryu wrote:
mplindustries: I think this might be one of the issues here. In our game, it is EXTREMELY rare that we have any time to prepare for an encounter. Typically we turn a corner and get a helping of random encounter in our face.

Are you being careful? Do you make perception checks before turning corners? Scout/scry ahead?

Or is this just the GM basically making you play an old school JRPG where you're walking around on the world map and suddenly everything pixelates and turns into the battle screen?


The problem with Summons is they are really only good if you can cast them ahead of time, or in a long engagement.

Most of the encounters in Pathfinder end after only a handful of rounds (5 at the most). That's fine, as heroes are supposed to heroes. It's no fun if every fight with common thugs ends up being a 2-3 hour epic fight.

However, if you summon a monster in a 3 round fight, you've essentially wasted the spell, unless it was of dire need. The creature, at this point, lasts 8 rounds, and you spent 1 round summoning it. So it really is only going to get 1 or 2 rounds of actions, and then fade away after not doing anything.

The exception is a summon that can heal. You could summon a creature with a cure spell, and save the party on some resources to go longer. However, you are playing Kingmaker and that AP is notorious for having 30 second workdays.

The trend with that AP seems to be that you spend most of each book having 1 or 2 encounters in a day, and then at the end, you get a pro-longed fight. I'm playing a Wizard in it as well and we just finished the 3rd book, so I'm basing this off my experience and the words of my GM.

So I would suggest only preparing 1 or 2 summons of the most versatile kind, and then only using them if you need them. Don't try and rely on them as a main-combat option, as it just won't work out. Save them for the big-fights at the end of the APs where they will actually be of some use.

Also, it helps to read Professor Q's Guide to Wizards as he has a great break down of what to summon out of the summon monster lists. It's a fairly long guide, but the Summon Monster part is worth giving it a read in-and-of itself.

Dark Archive

With that party and given how KM has mostly outdoor encounters, summoning might not be the best tactic most of the time.but it should still be good in a few KM combats that I can think of, especially in the 3rd module.


It is Ultimate Magic, which is tecnically Pathfinder core (no accessory). I see what you mean though. Consider talking with your GM about this, there are only so many ways to buff your summoning.

That being said, superior summoning is not mandatory. Every lvl has a creature really useful for summoning.

SM I: Eagle
SM II: Giant Frog
SM III: Crocodile, Cheetah, Leopard, Lantern Archon* (only for superior summoning)
SM IV: Bison, Lion, Hound Archon (magic circle against evil)
SM V: Large Elemental (earth is probably the best), Babau (for flanking), Ankylosaurus, Dire Lion
SM VI: Dire Tiger (tons of damage), Huge Elemental (earth again), Succubus (enchantment spells), Lillend Azata (if no bard)
SM VII: Tyrannosaurus (just awesome), Brachiosaurus, Bebilith
SM VII: probably better to summon Dire Tigers (or T-Rexes with Superior Summoning), but there you have Elder Earth Elemental if you want to bullrush someone around
SM IX: better to summon T-Rexes, though Ghaele has interesting spellcasting and abilities (Heal, Holy Aura etc)


mplindustries: Our problem is that we either get ambushed during the day, or we get attacked when resting at night.

There's almost no dungeoncrawling so there's almost nothing to scout directly. We're typically out in the wilderness and every battle these last 3 sessions have been:

1: Bear (at night)
2: 3 worgs (at night)
3: Some huge cyclops thing (while exploring, admittedly this one we should've been able to prepare for in advance)
4: Some plant creature (we did not know it was a monster)
5: Some spider (came out of the ground to attack us)
6: Some kin of hag creature (attacked us at night)
7: A dangerous as heck dragon creature (attacked us at night)
8: Some kind of demon (attacked us at night)

So essentially there's no way for me to prebuff or summon.

Occasionally it's possible to predict when an encounter will occur, but the margin of error is too great. Assume that I predict that a particular statue will turn out to be in fact a monster, there's no way to pre-summon a creature that will only remain for another 9 rounds when I can't be sure it will appear in that time.


So, look, first, know that I'm not trying to accuse you of not being careful or anything like that--rather my goal here is one of the following:

1) Suggest ways you could see these things coming and make summoning more worthwhile
or
2) Reveal a bias your GM has for surprise encounters, which means summoning really isn't going to be that great.

Ganryu wrote:

1: Bear (at night)

2: 3 worgs (at night)
3: Some huge cyclops thing (while exploring, admittedly this one we should've been able to prepare for in advance)
4: Some plant creature (we did not know it was a monster)
5: Some spider (came out of the ground to attack us)
6: Some kin of hag creature (attacked us at night)
7: A dangerous as heck dragon creature (attacked us at night)
8: Some kind of demon (attacked us at night)

So essentially there's no way for me to prebuff or summon.

For 1, 2, 6, 7, and 8, don't you guys have night guards? Don't you sleep in shifts? And don't you protect your camp at all? Do your guards not patrol? Survival should be able to tell that you're camping in the territory of a predator like a bear or worg, and it also should be able to find a well-hidden campsite (in a cave, etc.). Does nobody have an animal companion/is nobody a half-orc with scent?

What level are you? Can't you cast Alarm, Rope Trick, Campfire Wall, Grove of Respite, Tiny Hut, or something similar? I don't think my party has ever camped without some kind of protective spell up to warn against this sort of thing.

For 3, yeah, you said you should have seen that coming.

4 should have been identifiable with Knowledge Nature. Did you guys not split up the monster knowledges among you?

5 is a tough one--there are things that could spot it (tremorsense, scent, survival checks to detect that trap door spiders hunt in this territory), but none are guaranteed, and if you guys blow your Perception or the spider rolled really well on Stealth, there's not much you can do about this one. But then, yeah, every once in a while, you can't know what's coming ahead of time.

But yeah, I guess I'm just trying to figure out whether or not you guys are actually trying to take precautions to see if there's more you can do or if the GM is just shutting your attempts down and you should just give up.


Ganryu wrote:
I play with a gm who does not allow non-core material. CRB and APG are ok. Nothing else.

Bold is mine. Why not add a level of Summoner? Or many levels of Summoner? If, you know, you want to summon things. Even a 1 level dip gets you an eidolon and Summon I as a Standard Action/SLA.

They are in no way as powerful as a wizard, of course, but they do specialize in That One Thing.

Owner - October Country Comics, LLC.

Start sleeping during the day and overland travel at night. This way all those sneaky night stalkers can't get the jump on ya.


mplindustries wrote:

So, look, first, know that I'm not trying to accuse you of not being careful or anything like that--rather my goal here is one of the following:

1) Suggest ways you could see these things common and make summoning more worthwhile
or
2) Reveal a bias your GM has for surprise encounters, which means summoning really isn't going to be that great.

Ganryu wrote:

1: Bear (at night)

2: 3 worgs (at night)
3: Some huge cyclops thing (while exploring, admittedly this one we should've been able to prepare for in advance)
4: Some plant creature (we did not know it was a monster)
5: Some spider (came out of the ground to attack us)
6: Some kin of hag creature (attacked us at night)
7: A dangerous as heck dragon creature (attacked us at night)
8: Some kind of demon (attacked us at night)

So essentially there's no way for me to prebuff or summon.

For 1, 2, 6, 7, and 8, don't you guys have night guards? Don't you sleep in shifts? And don't you protect your camp at all? Do your guards not patrol? Survival should be able to tell that you're camping in the territory of a predator like a bear or worg, and it also should be able to find a well-hidden campsite (in a cave, etc.). Does nobody have an animal companion/is nobody a half-orc with scent?

What level are you? Can't you cast Alarm, Rope Trick, Campfire Wall, Grove of Respite, Tiny Hut, or something similar? I don't think my party has ever camped without some kind of protective spell up to warn against this sort of thing.

For 3, yeah, you said you should have seen that coming.

4 should have been identifiable with Knowledge Nature. Did you guys not split up the monster knowledges among you?

5 is a tough one--there are things that could spot it (tremorsense, scent, survival checks to detect that trap door spiders hunt in this territory), but none are guaranteed, and if you guys blow your Perception or the spider rolled really well on Stealth, there's not much you can do about this one. But then, yeah, every once in a while,...

Thanks for the reply. I'm not taking it as an attack :P

We do have night guards, but no patrolling. We don't have anyone with good wilderness skills. (paladin, inquisitor, fighter, alchemist, wizard).

We are level 8 and yes I can cast Tiny Hut. I've been doing it occasionally, but it expends a level 3 slot.

Regarding #4: It was a particularily unfortunate encounter for other reasons. My character has the best knowledge skills but because I was unable to find my character sheet before that session, I played as a replacement character who was a fighter with no knowledge skills (so it was an encounter featuring 2x fighters, one paladin, one inquisitor and one alchemist on a small and narrow ISLAND against a huge grappling monster... characters died). The inquisitor player should have really rolled for knowledge there, but he keeps forgetting he has it, and I'm not going to be able to keep track of everything going on AND remind people about which skills they have.

My lowest knowledge skill is 9 (in nobility and history). I keep forgetting to roll, because I never succeed. I always roll natural 5 at BEST on knowledge check.


mplindustries, the questions you're asking are kind of coming off as accusing, at least that's the way I'm reading them. Kind of, "Why didn't you guys do this? Are you stupid or something?"

You have to keep in mind different games and different GMs. For instance, not every half-orc is going to have scent. Just because an option is available, doesn't mean they're going to take it. I have, in my own experience, never seen a half-orc that had scent and half-orc is quite possibly the most commonly selected race in my area.

The encounters he mentioned also depend on the level of the party. The worgs, for example, were probably a low-level encounter (I recall something similar in my own Kingmaker game). With a movement speed of 50 ft. they can be well outside of normal perception ranges and still get a charge off in the surprise round. Especially if it's dark outside and the person on guard doesn't have low-light or darkvision.

The GM obviously seems to enjoy surprise encounters. A party can take all the precautions they want, but if the GM wants them surprised, they will be.

Out of the 8 encounters mentioned, 5 of them attacked at night, and only 1 of them (the bear) would have a hard time sneaking up on the party if the other 4 are what I think they are (from my own experience in Kingmaker). Even then, if the rest of the party is asleep, it's going to take time for the guard to wake them up, and then for them to get out of bed, get up and defend themselves.

The Spider, I know, has a ludicrously high stealth check in his hole, for the level you are intended to encounter it at. He mentioned that they didn't know about the plant creature, and that is entirely possible. Just because you have knowledge nature, doesn't mean you automatically identify everything related to nature. You can miss your rolls you know.

Not only that, Knowledge checks can be handled differently by GMs. The two GMs I have (1 for Legacy of Fire, 1 for Kingmaker) both handle them differently than myself. My Kingmaker GM tells you what the creature is, but doesn't give me any info about what it can do, even if I blow past it's DC (made a DC 37 check on a creature that had a DC 15 and I only learned what it was called). The Legacy GM, will at least allude to some thing, like 'this creature is extremely resilient against magic (implying SR), is not easily wounded (either high AC or DR), and quickly recovers from it's wounds (regeneration, fast healing, or healing spells)'. Myself, in Curse of the Crimson Throne, I'll let characters know what I feel they should or, what they may be trying to remember. For instance, if someone tries to recall how to kill a creature, they may just remember how, or a clue as to how to do so. If they just take a generic check, and succeed, they'll learn some of it's abilities, and what it is, including things like it's type or sub-type and typical alignment.

3 different GMs, 3 different methods of handling Knowledge checks. I know the rules say one way, but the rules are more guidelines when it comes to a GM. It's his world to do as he pleases (as long as the players are willing to put up with it).

As for that huge Cyclops, if you read the bit in the parenthesis, he says they 'should've been able to prepare for in advance' which implies they were unable to prepare, possibly because of the GM denying them the ability to do so.

The gist is the GM is intent on surprising the party so they can't prepare, and the battles are usually really short. In this case, Summoning is barely of any use as battles are usually over, or wasted, by the time the creature gets out into play.


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Rope Trick is pretty hard to defeat without arbitrarily setting up circumstances to defeat it.


Scavion wrote:
Rope Trick is pretty hard to defeat without arbitrarily setting up circumstances to defeat it.

I agree, to defeat Rope Trick, you basically need a Caster to come along and cast Dispel Magic on it.


Tels wrote:
Scavion wrote:
Rope Trick is pretty hard to defeat without arbitrarily setting up circumstances to defeat it.
I agree, to defeat Rope Trick, you basically need a Caster to come along and cast Dispel Magic on it.

Which after the DM brings out the 6th time in a row to defeat, you need to sit down and have a chat with him.

Owner - October Country Comics, LLC.

If everyone needs a good nights rest, or not, Rope Trick is the boss. Saved my groups collective 3.0-3.5 bacon for about a 3 year period. My friend always had it prepped for the down time. Late night rambling baddies messing up the beauty sleep, nobody likes that non-sense. Come on in, we'll leave the light on.


Adventure Path Charter Subscriber; Pathfinder Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber
Shfish wrote:
Snag a rod of quicken spell :) pricy, but swift action summon followed by haste is pretty good :)

A lesser quicken metamagic rod (35,000 gp) is definitely worth it as soon as you can afford it. I'd probably go with a summon monster followed by a swift action haste, though; limiting yourself to summon monster III usually means the creatures you summon are too weak to contribute effectively against CR 9+ foes.


I will discuss rope trick with the group. I've avoided it because the GM classified it as something prone to enable dungeoncrawling abuse, but if we use it when not in a dungeon it should be ok.


Summons really need to happen on round 1. By hasting first and then summoning you are hurting your personal effectiveness twice. First, obviously your melee heavy party will do alot more damage with haste up shortening the encounter, second when the summons come out on round 3, they dont have haste when they could, making them less effective.

If you want to be a summoning wizard, thats what you need to do, then you buff your summons as well as the party when able. If buffing the party is more important (and thats fine) then summon spells arent going to work very well for you. You are better off prepping spells other then summon monster and retraining augment summoning.


Ganryu wrote:


Most encounters are us vs one single enemy and typically we have only one fight per day at most.

Summoning is not the problem, the above is the problem.


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Ganryu wrote:

So I'm playing a level 8 conjuration specialist with augment summoning. Summons should be good, but they kinda suck.

No character is effective in all situations.

Most build characters that will shine in certain situations and not so much so in others. This makes sense when your GM varies his types of encounters. However, when you GM only has one strategy it makes sense to build a character that strives in that.

So your GM has surprise attacks that you can't anticipate, makes short lasting fights and takes away the feats that make you summon quicker. He hates rope trick. He has created an environment where summoners do not thrive.

Further, you have a group of melee attackers on your team that outshine summoned creatures all day everyday. So your group is not of a composition that requires a summoner. Further, they don't scout or have effective perception so they can't help you with your summoning.

Sounds like summoning does kinda suck for you not because summoning sucks but because the deck has been stacked against the summoner in your particular case.

Summoning will be relegated to a secondary spell for you. Get the utility out of it you can from the spells the summoned creatures can cast. Keep one big summon spell for that one time that you might need it. Otherwise focus on other spells.

I will say it again, focus on other spells. Don't fight an uphill battle against a GM. You will lose. The beauty of a wizard is that he can adapt to the GM through the spells he chooses to prepare.


Oh, and that said, incredible advice above for a person playing a summoner in an environment where the deck is not stacked against him.

Liberty's Edge

Haste is less important turn 1 because your allies are less likely to be full attacking. Summon on Turn 1. On turn 2 you have an extra ally to target with your haste.

That said, summons are not meant to be monstrous creatures which just rip the enemy to shreds, they're multi-purpose, they draw attacks off your allies, they do some damage, and they give flanking bonuses.

Silver Crusade

Ganryu wrote:

So I'm playing a level 8 conjuration specialist with augment summoning. Summons should be good, but they kinda suck.

Because I have so few opportunieis to act in a battle, it boils down to chosing between first casting haste and first casting summon. Haste always wins.

On turn 2 then if the fight is over or close to over then I just wait. Otherwise if the fight is looking tough, maybe then I can consider summoning, but if I do, then I have to pass this round doing nothing (1 round casting time sucks).

Round 3, I have my summon out and can take actions with, but the fight is over.

This is systematic behavior. The few opportunities where the fight is not over, the summon fails to do anything constructive. They never hit anything. They are too slow to appear.

The last time one of my summons was effective was at level 1 when I summoned a riding dog. (which was later nerfed as apparently riding dogs are no longer summonable by summon monster 1)

In some cases the battle isn't over by round 3, but then other things call for attention. I might need to scorching ray something, or glitterdust something, or spiked pit someone.

Yes you are doing it wrong. You took a string of feats that make you a better summoner but think like a blaster. If you are summoning to purely do damage you will always be disappointed.

Summons can have abilities that help debuff or hinder enemies, they can provide flanking bonuses, some can trip or bull rush or a number of other useful combat maneuvers. Also summons are good for drawing attacks of opportunity from enemies so that your allies can move around the battle field more without taking damage in doing so.


Ganryu wrote:

I play with a gm who does not allow non-core material. CRB and APG are ok. Nothing else.

Okay, that sucks. And reading some of your other bits of information I'm going to agree with some others here; you're boned. Your DM has set up a game-style and limitations that make summoning a poor tactical choice. You didn't realize that, so not your fault.

One of the best toolks in creating a character you can have fun with is recognizing the quirks and style of your DM. In my own games under our regular DM it's pretty much accepted you don't do mounts. Lots of inside action and tight quarter fights reduce their effectiveness enough so that a mounted character is a non-ideal choice to play well within those situations. We don't tend to go with cleave style melee either as groups fight very tactically, never bunching up and thus reducing the opportunities to cleave.

Now, neither mounts or cleave-style fighters suck, but they just don't mesh well with the DM we have. Your DM has limited your options so much, and loves suprise so much that yeah, summoning is gonna kinda suck.


Maybe talk to your GM about the process he uses for random encounters. I use perception checks opposed by stealth where applicable to determine which side is aware of the other first, and from what distance. Without doing this random encounters can become slogs.


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Reynard_the_fox wrote:
Your fights only last 3 rounds? What kind of game of rocket tag are you playing?

I guess it's called "High level combat". 1-2 round fights are par de course after level 10 and 2-4 round fights are pretty normal at level 8.


mswbear wrote:
Ganryu wrote:

So I'm playing a level 8 conjuration specialist with augment summoning. Summons should be good, but they kinda suck.

Because I have so few opportunieis to act in a battle, it boils down to chosing between first casting haste and first casting summon. Haste always wins.

On turn 2 then if the fight is over or close to over then I just wait. Otherwise if the fight is looking tough, maybe then I can consider summoning, but if I do, then I have to pass this round doing nothing (1 round casting time sucks).

Round 3, I have my summon out and can take actions with, but the fight is over.

This is systematic behavior. The few opportunities where the fight is not over, the summon fails to do anything constructive. They never hit anything. They are too slow to appear.

The last time one of my summons was effective was at level 1 when I summoned a riding dog. (which was later nerfed as apparently riding dogs are no longer summonable by summon monster 1)

In some cases the battle isn't over by round 3, but then other things call for attention. I might need to scorching ray something, or glitterdust something, or spiked pit someone.

Yes you are doing it wrong. You took a string of feats that make you a better summoner but think like a blaster. If you are summoning to purely do damage you will always be disappointed.

Summons can have abilities that help debuff or hinder enemies, they can provide flanking bonuses, some can trip or bull rush or a number of other useful combat maneuvers. Also summons are good for drawing attacks of opportunity from enemies so that your allies can move around the battle field more without taking damage in doing so.

I took feats to build a better summoner because I wanted to do summoning with a touch of buffing. The thing is summons are so awkward I end up doing only buffing with a touch of blasting on the side because it ends up being the only sensible choice. Every guide frowns on Scorching Ray but it's basically my go-to spell (it's that or magic missile or lightning bolt).


minoritarian wrote:


Could you point me in the direction of these please? Would be really helpful!

Hmmm, Book of The Summoner has some great feats but honestly it is extremely spendy when you consider how much of the pdf is reprinted data.

If you're playing an actual Summoner class the Summoner's Circle has some fun stuff. Tactical Archetypes 1 has a great Summoner archetype called Celestial Commander. Super Genius Games also has Extra Evolutions with some nice adds. It Came from Beyond the Stars has a nice scifi take with alterning the Synthesist archetype. Class Acts: Summoners has some new evolutions as well.

Hope that helps.

Grand Lodge

Summons rock, although cutting down to core material gives you slightly less to work with. What you need to realize is it an extremely versatile spell and they have their purpose at the right time. Admittedly, if your encounters last 2-3 rounds...you may want to focus on the other conjuration spells. Your GM should probably up the anti, too. When I run non-pfs games I design encounters to last 7-10 rounds, to drain peoples resources more and give some near useless abilities more use.

So, with summon monster 4 you have a many choices, but a few good situational ones are:

1) Earth Elemental - see invisbility7 if the opponent is touching the ground, make sure you can hit with your glitterdust. Granted, see invisibility does the same thing but it doesn't punch afterwards and has less versatility in a spell slot.

2) Mephits - there are 12 mephits, some have one or 2 good spells. For instance, Summon an ooze mephit, have it stinking cloud and acid arrow, then fly in to its doom. It will eat a hit or two that should have gone to someone else.

3) Assuming Superior summoning: 1d3+1 Dretches. First round drop x stinking clouds. The saves only DC 13, but 4 of those really increases the odds of failure. Afterwards they can run in and attack, as they are immune to the stinking cloud effects.

4) The Dire Boar: He's got 5 HD so gains DR at this level. Not the best meat shield, but gives flanking and will take a few hits.

5) Giant Wasp: Against flying enemies. Heck, if you don't have a strong range party you may be one of the few people who can do anything.

6) Lantern Archons: Ignore all DR attacks. Great when the GM throws a DR 15/adamntine creature before the party can really deal with it.

7) Hound Archon: Have a decent aura and decent attacks. Big DR and SR, he should survive a while and do some damage.

8) Aurochs: If you have superior summoning and can roll 2 on the d3 their trample ability gets pretty good.

And summoning only gets better as you level. One of my favorite is the Lilend Azata at summon monster 6. The turn she comes into play she can bard song as a move action, cast one of her awesome spells as a standard, and you get a full round of actions, to lay down some haste. Remember, the goal of a conjuration wizard usually shouldn't be to do damage, its to control the battlefield.

Maybe check out Treantmonks guide. I think its a core only, so you have a little more versatility then whats in there, but not much.


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Ganryu wrote:
I will discuss rope trick with the group. I've avoided it because the GM classified it as something prone to enable dungeoncrawling abuse, but if we use it when not in a dungeon it should be ok.

<sigh> Just because something is used, as intended, on a frequent basis, does not mean it is abuse. No party should be reliant on any single spell or "trick". But neither should every party have most of their encounters be the result of surprise or while trying to rest. There needs to be a happy medium between challenge and enjoyment, and it sounds (potentially) out of whack here. I know if I were playing a prepared caster of any sort and we were attacked at night 9 times out of 10, I would most certainly start getting "abusive" about my preparations to counter it.

Now, if all of this is occuring as a result of bad decision making on the part of the party, then so be it, but it still sounds "not fun", and the DM should be finding other ways to challenge the group.


I'm not that irritated about the night encounters per se. The problem is the lack of prep time for anything.

I discussed it just now with the inquisitor player, and he did not see the problem, but he agreed that he never uses any of his buff spells because that would waste rounds in combat.

The paladin player has already complained about never using any of his spells because it would waste valuable rounds in combat.

The alchemist also rarely uses extract buffs, but that's mostly because we've recently been fighting things with very long range and attacks of opportunity. As we close for melee quickly, it means little opportunity for him to buff anything, so he relies mostly on bombs.


Driver 325 yards wrote:
Ganryu wrote:

So I'm playing a level 8 conjuration specialist with augment summoning. Summons should be good, but they kinda suck.

No character is effective in all situations.

Most build characters that will shine in certain situations and not so much so in others. This makes sense when your GM varies his types of encounters. However, when you GM only has one strategy it makes sense to build a character that strives in that.

So your GM has surprise attacks that you can't anticipate, makes short lasting fights and takes away the feats that make you summon quicker. He hates rope trick. He has created an environment where summoners do not thrive.

Further, you have a group of melee attackers on your team that outshine summoned creatures all day everyday. So your group is not of a composition that requires a summoner. Further, they don't scout or have effective perception so they can't help you with your summoning.

Sounds like summoning does kinda suck for you not because summoning sucks but because the deck has been stacked against the summoner in your particular case.

Summoning will be relegated to a secondary spell for you. Get the utility out of it you can from the spells the summoned creatures can cast. Keep one big summon spell for that one time that you might need it. Otherwise focus on other spells.

I will say it again, focus on other spells. Don't fight an uphill battle against a GM. You will lose. The beauty of a wizard is that he can adapt to the GM through the spells he chooses to prepare.

This

Every GM is different. Find out what his style and try to make characters that thrive in that style. Although on a personal note I do feel bad for everyone here who's experience is that most combats last less than 5 rounds. That makes me very sad.

I've had many different GMs. Some GMs, there's no reason to ever play a rogue. Some GMs LOVE one particular race. Ranger = profit. For some GMs, Knowledge skills are useless because they don't know what's in the world beyond the pc's line of sight. As a GM, I pride myself on incorporating a vast array of skill sets and memorable and challenging encounters. Who knew 4 level 3 halfling snipers could cause so much havoc to an 8th level party?. However, I'm not the best when it comes to descriptions. I'd be more likely to tell you the dimensions of a room rather than what the room is made out of, what you smell, etc... In our sessions, the most used skill is probably perception (Which I attribute to my poor descriptions really).

Point is, play to your gm's style and you will have a blast.


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By the way, when I GM some battles last for far more than 5 rounds. Maybe that is the case in modules, but I tend to not use modules.

Boy, if everyone only experiences 3-5 round battles, you don't know the fun you are missing out on with epic battles.

The last battle I GM'd put the party against 100 zombies that came in waves against a town that was somewhat fortified.

Fighting, protecting the fences, getting the townfolks out of harms way, area spells, hand to hand, etc... over about 20 rounds. Plus, I made the characters make their decisions quickly (no long drawn out turns).

It was a fairly quick 20 rounds and was absolutely thrilling.

Your summoner would have had fun.

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