Summoned creatures against demons (DR)


Advice


I'm currently playing a summoner cleric and our campaign main enemy are demons. I'm currently LV 7 and trying to figure out how to bypass demon damage resist 10/good. Summon monster up to 4 does not includy any good outsiders yet to overcome the DR. I can only summon monsters wtih natural weapons, so align weapon does not help and as cleric i can't cast align fang.


I believe a creatures natural attacks count as their subtype for alignment automatically?

I read that somewhere but I cannot find it atm.


I know that creatures with alignment based subtypes do (like hound archon), but he can't be summoned with SM4 an i'm not counting the spell "summon hount archon", as i need to concentrate on it.


Some monsters are vulnerable to magic weapons. Any weapon with at least a +1 magical enhancement bonus on attack and damage rolls overcomes the damage reduction of these monsters. Such creatures' natural weapons (but not their attacks with weapons) are treated as magic weapons for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction.

Some monsters are vulnerable to good-, evil-, chaotically, or lawfully aligned weapons. When a cleric casts align weapon, affected weapons might gain one or more of these properties, and certain magic weapons have these properties as well. A creature with an alignment subtype (chaotic, evil, good, or lawful) can overcome this type of damage reduction with its natural weapons and weapons it wields as if the weapons or natural weapons had an alignment (or alignments) that matched the subtype(s) of the creature

so check what your eidolon's subtype is and it can overcome that DR automatically with natural attacks. eidolons have subtypes if he is unchained.
oh whoops I misread your first post. I saw summoner and thought summoner silly me lol


as far as normal creatures go just summon lantern archons. they aren't great solo but when you can summon multiples of them they get great. with a full attack they do 2d6 as a ranged touch attack that overcomes ALL damage reduction and they fly and have an aura that gives people who fail the aura's save -2 to a bunch of stuff.

Lantern.

The Exchange

Lantern Archon?!
I use them a lot.

Edit: NINJAS EVERYWHERE! ^^


I'm not sure about lantern archon. I know of it, but it's damage is just too low and i can only summon 1 at a time (I've got 2 spell slots). Our last fight was 4 demons with around 66 HP (we won with help from NPC), so it takes foverer to kill them, while the archons are like one hits.

My favorite summon so far is summon undead 4, while summoning 4 owlbear skeletons from SU4. Each of them has ~32HP, 3 attack and is large. I think it's better to hope for a crit with these than to summon 1 lantern archon...

Scarab Sages

Are you using the aligned creatures from the summon lists?
They used to be explicitly called out (eg 'celestial dog', 'fiendish wolf'), but that has been left out of the name, on the understanding either template can be applied to such creatures.

Every such creature has a smite ability, which increases the damage vs their opposite alignment, though it doesn't bypass opposing DR, as a paladin does (whether that's by design, or an oversight, I don't know).

They have to pick one target to apply smite to, which makes it more effective vs one or two enemies than a large group, but it's a start.

Scarab Sages

Have you looked into the Summon Good Monster or Summon Neutral Monster feats? Or any other feats that expand your summoned monster options?


The creatures on the feat lists are nice. However i haven't spend any feats on summons yet, rather i got all the feats for persistent divine metamagic. But i'm thinking about augment summing for lv 9.

The templates don't grant the creatures subtypes and the smite isn't really big at this level. It sure's a start, but 4 owlbear skeletons with a sum of 12 attacks (and more chances to crit) each turn seems better in comparison. Too bad undead are immune to mind affecting, so many buffs don't work on them.

Scarab Sages

Another option is to summon creatures with manufactured weapons, then further enchant those weapons. This method is more action consuming, but more flexible. This method is especially effective if you have a shared language with the summoned creature, so you can give them complex orders (like attack with the bow instead of the knife...).


crayne01 wrote:
I know that creatures with alignment based subtypes do (like hound archon), but he can't be summoned with SM4 an i'm not counting the spell "summon hount archon", as i need to concentrate on it.

Uh, what? Hound archon is right here on the summon monster IV list. Alternatively, if you use your summon monster IV spell to conjure lantern archons you'll get 1d3 of those. If the demons you are fighting can't fly you can just order your lantern archons to float 25 feet above ground (they pass Fly check to hover in place on natural 1 anyway).

EDIT: summon hound archon? That's 3.5 spell that was made obsolete by update to summon monster tables in Pathfinder. Are you using 3.5 description of summon monster spells too?


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There are feats for this that should be considered...

Starlight Summons makes natural weapons cold iron.
Moonlight Summons makes them silver.
Sunlight Summons makes them magic.

Also, there is a simple trait that can do the cold iron thing...has to do with Sarkoris, the nation extinguished by the Worldwound. Cannot recall the name at the moment.


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Fourshadow wrote:

There are feats for this that should be considered...

Starlight Summons makes natural weapons cold iron.
Moonlight Summons makes them silver.
Sunlight Summons makes them magic.

Also, there is a simple trait that can do the cold iron thing...has to do with Sarkoris, the nation extinguished by the Worldwound. Cannot recall the name at the moment.

Demonbane Summoner is the trait you're thinking of :)


As mentioned earlier, OP is using 3.5 material. Summon Undead doesn't exist in PF.


It does in "Into the breach: the summoner" from d20pfsrd publishing.

Scarab Sages

Heretek wrote:
As mentioned earlier, OP is using 3.5 material. Summon Undead doesn't exist in PF.

Except via the Skeleton Summoner feat. But that one is still technically summon monster.


crayne01 wrote:

I'm not sure about lantern archon. I know of it, but it's damage is just too low and i can only summon 1 at a time (I've got 2 spell slots). Our last fight was 4 demons with around 66 HP (we won with help from NPC), so it takes foverer to kill them, while the archons are like one hits.

In one adventure at GenCon, my level 7 evangelist cleric summoned 1d3 Lantern Archons (getting 3) and did 64 damage in one round with them.

+2/+2 morale bonus from Banner of the Ancient Kings
+3/+3 competence bonus from Inspire Courage

(I was giving the whole party these buffs)

And then the Lantern Archons were hasted to get 3 attacks. 9 attacks of 1d6+5 penetrating all DR really added up!

However, just with a regular Summon Monster IV spell, you can summon a celestial lion that can do okay damage past DR 10/good. If you are a dedicated summoning cleric with Augment Summoning, your lion can smite evil and be doing...

+9 bite/claw/claw (1d8+12/1d4+12/1d4+12) + rake potential

And then you can buff that thing and the party even further with Prayer, Bless, Haste, etc.


Quintain wrote:
It does in "Into the breach: the summoner" from d20pfsrd publishing.

There is a forum for 3PP material...this is Paizo's forum.


Murdock Mudeater wrote:
Heretek wrote:
As mentioned earlier, OP is using 3.5 material. Summon Undead doesn't exist in PF.
Except via the Skeleton Summoner feat. But that one is still technically summon monster.

Except OP is clearly summoning 4 Owlbear Skeletons. This is only doable with the 3.5 spell which specifies Owlbear Skeletons. Also Summon Undead is special in that the weaker versions summon the exact numbers of creatures, not 1d3/1d4. So OP is using Summon Undead 4 to Summon exactly 4 Owlbear Skeletons obtained from Summon Undead 2s list, each time.

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