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So ok. I recently made a discovery (which may not be news to y’all but was to me).
Many do not like pet classes at the table. Especially if they go overboard with the summoning because it slows down the table. And everyone is watching the player of the pet caster most of the time. I completely get that. That seems to be the biggest and most universal complaint against pet builds.
My first PFS character was a sorcerer that specialized in the summon monster chain. However, to keep people happy and the game moving, he actually rarely summons anything until we are losing (or think we are about to). He usually just buffs with the occasional crowd control spell. Nothing wrong with that, but I built him to summon and don’t usually do that.
Just recently, I am using him for the first time in a PFS PbP. I just realized that My summoned creatures don’t use up any table time in PbP! I also looked through and found others that have guys with a wand monkey familiar or an animal companion that use up no table time either. Some include the pet action within their post. Some make a separate post at the pet (my personal preference since they might not stay on the same initiative with held actions). All the time needed to consider multiple actions, roll dice, look up some obsure fiddly rules, etc… No problem.
So my question to you guys that GM and/or players in PFS games as a PbP:
Would a PC that goes in for the pets in a big way bother you if it was only used in PbP games?
Don’t know exactly what as yet. Sorcerer with SMx, conjuration wizard with SMx, druid with AC and SNAx, summoner with eidolon and SMx, any of which might also have eldritch heritage for a familiar. Lots of possibilities.
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A PC that "goes in for pets in a big way" is only bothersome if the person playing it fails to come to the table prepared (Read: a folder with the stat blocks for everything he might summon, templates applied, and with sources on hand) and fails to adjudicate the creature's turns quickly (knows the bonuses, has dice ready to roll in a group/easy to sort, can reliably do the math quickly), and at no point goes so "big" that they actively impact the fun of the other players at the table.
Yes, this means flooding the field with 5+ summoned creatures and your pet isn't likely to be wise. It isn't fun for anyone involved. Now, having a summoned creature or two, perhaps a pet (Eidolon, Animal Companion) is fine.
If folks are being mindful and conscious of what they're doing in the game there is no reason you can't play a summons/pet oriented character.
I do think this may be easier to do in PbP to avoid slowdown; but as a post already noted, most people who don't like like summons/pets just don't like them. Slow-down is the more practical reason to argue against it, but is addressable.
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A PC that "goes in for pets in a big way" is only bothersome if the person playing it fails to come to the table prepared (Read: a folder with the stat blocks for everything he might summon, templates applied, and with sources on hand) and fails to adjudicate the creature's turns quickly (knows the bonuses, has dice ready to roll in a group/easy to sort, can reliably do the math quickly), and at no point goes so "big" that they actively impact the fun of the other players at the table.
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A lot of people just hear that I have Summon Monster V and just assume I am going to grind the game to a halt. They start grumbling before everyone has even sat down at the table.
I have every single creature I can summon (with template) printed up on it's own sheet. The elementals and archons that I usually summon are right on top of the stack for easy access. They are pretty simple to run and I know them well.I usually take less time on my turn than anyone that does anything other than "I full attack" and I'm quicker than some of the TWF's at adding up all their dice.
The 2 times I have flooded the field with max summonings, was only at request. Once we were losing at the end of Carrion Hill and once we thought we would be losing fighting the whole castle in Jester's Fraud.
I will admit, my turns took a long time then because that was a lot of dice rolls to keep track of. But again it was at request. "Crap! How many creatures can you summon right now?"
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Yes, this means flooding the field with 5+ summoned creatures and your pet isn't likely to be wise. It isn't fun for anyone involved. Now, having a summoned creature or two, perhaps a pet (Eidolon, Animal Companion) is fine.This is the reason, the entire purpose of superior summons. That's my problem with the feat.
Well, usually it isn't the smart choice anyway. I almost always summon just 1 per casting of the highest level creature I can summon. The higher level creatures usually fight way better than a few more of the low level creatures.
So would you be ok if I didn't have/use Superior Summons? If I just used summon monster or summon natures ally once or twice a combat for a singleton of the best combatant I can manage, would that be fine?
That would usually be a better option anyway.
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Well, usually it isn't the smart choice anyway. I almost always summon just 1 per casting of the highest level creature I can summon. The higher level creatures usually fight way better than a few more of the low level creatures.This is wrong if you're looking for combat effectiveness. Statistically you get more HP/DPR from summoning down with superior summons at every single level.
So would you be ok if I didn't have/use Superior Summons? If I just used summon monster or summon natures ally once or twice a combat for a singleton of the best combatant I can manage, would that be fine?I have little issue with singular summoned creatures.
That would usually be a better choice anyway.The problem is that summoning down is almost strictly better than summoning max level.
I have not usually found that to be the case. A single AoE (stone call, burning hands, alchemist bomb, or fireball) or sometimes even a spread out volley of arrows and they are all gone.
But even if it were usually more effective, I have no problem normally using a smaller number of better creatures.
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I have not usually found that to be the case. A single AoE (stone call, burning hands, alchemist bomb, or fireball) or sometimes even a spread out volley of arrows and they are all gone.
But even if it were usually more effective, I have no problem normally using a smaller number of better creatures.
1) There's not much AOE in PFS.
2) They tend to have HP to survive average damage from one AOE. For example burning hands CL5 is 12.5 average damage vs 3 earth elementals with 17 HP after augment.
3) Double Aoe's would kill the high level one anyway.
4) Multiple creatures can force a casting defensively check trivially.
5) The DPR and HP pool are both higher at all levels. I've played my druid to 13th and it's even more true on the SM list since they have smite.
May just be the scenarios in which I've played my sorc. Other than those 2 occasions I mentioned (very special circumstances), every time I've tried summoning down they all/nearly all died the very next enemy action to something that probably would not have killed the higher level monster.
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Yes, this means flooding the field with 5+ summoned creatures and your pet isn't likely to be wise. It isn't fun for anyone involved. Now, having a summoned creature or two, perhaps a pet (Eidolon, Animal Companion) is fine.This is the reason, the entire purpose of superior summons. That's my problem with the feat.
Except summons, even with Superior Summons, is still a die roll. It is unlikely to see that many summoned monsters hit the field. If someone is casting multiple Summon X spells, they're being a jerk. And as another poster pointed out, swarms of weaker creatures are generally not helpful. I've only done it four times with my Summoner. Two of these occasions were during Eyes of the Ten. And all were done during events where failing to bring in more man (outsider?) power could quickly lead to PC deaths.
I could argue this all day, but I'm really sick to death of "Summons/Pets suck" when the real issue is "Summons/Pets suck when the player is not being courteous about them." You could really swap out summons/pets in those statements for any concept and that's half the threads on these boards.
TL;DR Don't be a jerk and plan ahead and you'll be ok. This is the same thing asked of every player in PFS.
Venture-Captain, Germany—Hamburg
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Summoned creatures don't fall into the pet limit anyways. You are free to summon as many creatures as your stats allow you to.
From my experience, you don't have to cast more than ~2 summon spells per combat. Most combats are over more quickly than you can throw additional monsters in. If a combat lasts long enough to make more summons useful, chances are your teammates will thank you for the support (because the group obviously had to deal with a big lot of enemies) rather than be mad at you for summoning.
As was already mentioned above, the real problem with summoned monsters can be players who don't prepare accordingly and take lots of time for looking up the monsters' stats. But the same problem happens with every caster who doesn't know what their spells do or melee type who doesn't know how their maneuvers work.
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Summoned creatures don't fall into the pet limit anyways. You are free to summon as many creatures as your stats allow you to....
For the purposes of this thread, I wasn't really concerned with the hard PFS rules limit. I am more concerned with the fuzzier fellow player and GM tolerance limit.
Like I said, I've run into many people who are 'certain' that any combat pets (and most especially summoned creatures) will grind the game to a halt. PbP seemed an ideal way to alleviate that concern.
The responses seem to indicate that some people may still be upset if I were to summon lots of lower level creatures. I'm still not sure I understand exactly why that is a concern, but it isn't really a problem issue for me. Usually, I would want to summon a singleton of the most powerful that I can manage anyway.
I am quite well organized with my summoned critters anyway. But for PbP, each player has literally hours to put together their actions in all the detail they want. So it won't slow down the game at all.