If you intend to go the summoning route (as a cleric at least), you REALLY need to take the feats associated with it. Augment Summoning gives the summons a bit of staying power. Superior Summoning gets you an extra copy. Sacred Summons slashes the casting time for some creatures - but it's absolutely vital to get this. It applies to creatures with the same alignment subtypes as your deity's alignment, in total a few creatures in the standard summons lists. Incidentally, you should ALWAYS have the exact alignment as your god if you are a summoning cleric - remember the Evil/Good/Chaos/Lawful spell restrictions for clerics. If you want a few more creatures, which you probably do, you want the Summon Good/Neutral Monster feats.
So: Spell Focus (Conjuration), Augment Summoning, Sacred Summons, Superior Summoning, Summon Good Monster. You can be done at lvl 7 - but there isn't much to improve summoning after that. Note that high-level summons get progressively lower than your level - CR 14 at Summon Monster IX isn't that impressive, so longevity of the campaign matters.
Druid summoning isn't much fun. The feats you get to improve them are questionable, you don't get celestials, and so on. Then again, the bigger animals, like tigers, are pretty neat.
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try a 9th level druid with destruction domain and summons cyclops. 11th level and can kill almost anything. told my players if they play nice i wont ever use this. course that didnt apply to mythic.explain please the tactic?
destruction lets you auto confirm a crit. cyclops get to auto crit once a day. = 9d6+20 something damage. now at 11 and you get 1d3 + 1 and get 4 or them, it is going to hurt alot.
destruction lets you auto confirm a crit. cyclops get to auto crit once a day. = 9d6+20 something damage. now at 11 and you get 1d3 + 1 and get 4 or them, it is going to hurt alot.try a 9th level druid with destruction domain and summons cyclops. 11th level and can kill almost anything. told my players if they play nice i wont ever use this. course that didnt apply to mythic.explain please the tactic?
Also, my druid who summons Cyclops also carries 5 large sized Tetsubo's for the x4 multiplier. love me some Cyclops.
Well, it's like another spell slot as you can replace any spell you've learned for that day with a spontaneous SNA; no wizard or cleric can do that.
And as most summoned creatures have an alignment of N you don't need to worry about the proctection from xyz line of spells to render your summon useless.
Ruyan.
i agree clerics are great, because - of celestials....
now, i was refering to why people like summon as druids...
there i dont undersatnd...
the animals are not great, not striking hard .
Summon natures ally's strength doesnt lie in raw power, but flexibility. Got an enemy flying around hard to hit, summon a bird, creatures in the water, summon an aquatic animal. Beyond that summon natures ally (baring stuff like the lion shaman) isnt as good as an actual martial character, but its a great stop gap. In a tough fight? If one or two blows go towards that summoned creatures instead of a party member that might mean the difference between life and death. Fighting alot of enemies and worried about getting surrounded? Summon a couple animals to get in the way and slow down enemy minions.
It also depends on the relative power level of a group. A summoned animal has a much bigger impact on an unoptimized 15 point buy party, then a highly optimized 25 point buy (or generous roll method) party. They also work better in conjunction with buffs then any other spell.
For instane I once had a conjuration wizard and a summoning druid in the same party as a bard. It went very, very well.
Summoned Monsters/Nature's Allies are proactive cure spells. Every hit they take is one your party doen't take.
They are also a poor man's battlefield control, as you can get some pretty big creatures that foes have to move/tumble around to get to your squishies. And they are incredibly versitile. If nothing else, they are flanking/aid another buddies equivalent to +2/+4 buffs. Prayer is 3rd level for the same basic effect.
destruction lets you auto confirm a crit. cyclops get to auto crit once a day. = 9d6+20 something damage. now at 11 and you get 1d3 + 1 and get 4 or them, it is going to hurt alot.try a 9th level druid with destruction domain and summons cyclops. 11th level and can kill almost anything. told my players if they play nice i wont ever use this. course that didnt apply to mythic.explain please the tactic?
Holy Polyphemus, Batman. "Loaded die" 1/day is a hell of an ability for a Large CR 5 monster.
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SNA is, generally speaking, inferior to SM (there are exceptions).
That said, a Druid gets to cast SNA as spontaneous spells which adds some nice flexibility to the spell list.
Also, although SNA may not be as good as SM overall (and not nearly as good as when a Summoner uses it), summoning is still really useful and powerful, SNA included.
You mention how "Flame strike" is a great option that does "so much more" damage than an equivalent level summoning spell.
If a 7th level Druid casts flame strike - he could do anywhere up to 42 points of damage (potentially to multiple opponents), while a SNA spell (let's say a Giant Scorpion with SNA IV augmented with AS) could only do up to 36 points of damage.
However, consider that damage is a one-time damage with the flame strike, while the summoned creature will attack again for the next 6 rounds, meaning that same creature actually has a damage potential of 252.
That's not it though. That Scorpion has a chance for up to 14 grapple attempts and 7 poisonings.
Also keep in mind that scorpion can flank to provide +2 to hit bonuses to party allies
It can also block enemies from attacking you
I haven't mentioned the possibility for attacks of opportunity yet, increase that damage potential to 336.
You can also use to to block up bottlenecks, find invisible creatures (tremorsense), and, as you mention, eat up the attacks of the enemy (a use I don't think you give enough value to)
Of course, you don't have to summon a scorpion, SNA IV gives lots of other options for lots of other uses as well. If you look at all the SLA options between every kind of mephit and Satyr's, you will find a significant selection, or maybe you want to Bull Rush (earth elemental), or Trip (wolf), or just need to fly across a gorge (wasp).
Summoning means versatility. When playing a caster, versatility = power.