How many beasties does Summon Creature get you?


Rules Questions


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Summon Creature is pretty clear in stating that when you take it as a 1st-level spell, you pick four beasties you could potentially summon.

However, say I took it as a 5th-level spell...do I still pick four beasties? Or do I pick 20 beasties (four for each level in which I can cast it)?

Now let's say I also took it as a 6th-level spell. Can I now summon 8 creatures, or 44?

I don't even know what to write on my character sheet.

The Exchange

Starfinder Charter Superscriber
Ravingdork wrote:
However, say I took it as a 5th-level spell...do I still pick four beasties? Or do I pick 20 beasties (four for each level in which I can cast it)?

"You can gain summon creature a second time at the highest spell level you know, selecting four additional appropriate creatures at each level you can cast this spell."

So if you have it known at 5th level and at 1st level you can summon 8 different creatures. 4 1st level creatures and 4 5th level creatures(or 3 5th level creatures and three of a 1-4th level creature.)

Ravingdork wrote:

Now let's say I also took it as a 6th-level spell. Can I now summon 8 creatures, or 44?

I don't even know what to write on my character sheet.

12, 4 for 1st level, 4 for 5th level, and 4 for 6th level, you can also choose to train out of knowing Summon Creature 1 and/or 5th though but you then only have 4 creatures you can summon with 6th level spell slots.


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Now I'm even more confused. I thought you could only take the spell twice.

What's more, when you learn a spell that can be cast at variable spell levels, you gain the ability to cast it at the spell level you know
and at every level below that
.

Taken with the wording of the spell description, wouldn't the above rule mean I would get 4 choices for the level I took it, plus 4 more choices for each level below that since I can "undercast" it? And if I took it a second time, the number of choices should nearly double as well?


I think the intent is that you get 4 creatures at each spell level at which you can cast it, and that taking it a second time just expands the levels at which you can cast it. So you would have 24 summons, 4 for each spell level, and could retrain the 1st level one out for another spell when you got the 6th level one.

Speaking of, their method for gaining spells is really wrongbaddumb. It should have just been something like you gain 1-2 spells known at every level, and if those spells can be cast at variable spell levels you just learn the spell once and can then cast it at any spell level you have access to.


Per page 330 of the CRB, when you learn a variable level spell, you can cast it at any spell level equal to or below the level you actually learned. Per page 144 of Alien Archive, Summon Creature is special - you can learn it twice at the highest spell level you know. Otherwise, it follows the standard rules for spells - you can learn it once at the highest spell level you know. It's possible to learn this spell a maximum of 12 times, because when 1st level is the highest you know, you can learn Summon Creature 1 twice, then you can do it again at SL 2, and so on.

Each time you learn it, you either choose 4 types at each level you can cast, or you can replace selections with a member of a lower list, which lets you summon multiple. This means when you learn the L6 copy, you can gain 24 types (4 at each spell level) - in general, learning a copy at SLX gets you 4X new creatures learned. However, the downside is that you're burning up spells known for diminishing returns, so it's hardly OP. For example, if you take it twice at SL6, twice at SL 5, and once at SL 4, you'll have 2 more known "types" than even exist on the SL1 list - meaning using any spells known on the SL1 copy no longer does anything.

Recapping:
Learning Summon Creature at SLX nets you 4 additional picks at every SL from 1 to X inclusive. You can learn it at SLX twice, but only while it is the highest spell level you can learn - otherwise, you can only learn it once. Each time you learn the SL6 copy, for example, you get a total of 24 additional picks.


The way it was explained to me is like quindraco describes.

Learn it at level 1 as SL1 spell, get 4 creatures from level 1 list.
Learn it again at level 3 as SL1 spell, get 8 (total) creatures from level 1 list.
Learn it again at level 4 as SL2 spell, keep 8 creatures above, but also add 4 from level 2 list.
Learn it again at 6, and you have 8 level 2 and 8 level 1 creatures.

At 16th or 17th level, you can potentially have it learned twice in every spell level and have up to 48 different creatures, total, to summon. If you start at a higher level spell, you get all the lower level ones for "free" same as any other variable level spell.


pithica42 wrote:

The way it was explained to me is like quindraco describes.

Learn it at level 1 as SL1 spell, get 4 creatures from level 1 list.
Learn it again at level 3 as SL1 spell, get 8 (total) creatures from level 1 list.
Learn it again at level 4 as SL2 spell, keep 8 creatures above, but also add 4 from level 2 list.
Learn it again at 6, and you have 8 level 2 and 8 level 1 creatures.

At 16th or 17th level, you can potentially have it learned twice in every spell level and have up to 48 different creatures, total, to summon. If you start at a higher level spell, you get all the lower level ones for "free" same as any other variable level spell.

The theoretical maximum is more than 48; you get 48 just from learning the SL6 copy twice. You can reach 88 from SL6 twice plus SL5 twice. After that, you'll start knowing more than exist on the tables, so the scaling slows down. If the tables were infinitely big, the maximum would be 168 known types. In reality, the maximum is significantly smaller.


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Alright, I think I am even more confused than ever now.

Can someone just tell me what I'd get if I took it once, as a 6th-level spell, at 17th-level? At least then I could finish my character build.

Also, would the choices granted to me allow for weaker versionswhen cast? Say I chose elder shadow creature as one of my choices, could I then use the spell to summon three huge shadow creatures instead? Or would I need to eat up another one of my creature slots to have that as an additional summoning option?


If you take it ONCE as a 6th-level spell, at 17th level, you would gain 4 at each SL from 1 to 6. Each one from 2 to 6 could either be 1 summon from that table or 3 from below - for example, the 4 known from 6 could be 1 Elder Robot, 3 Huge Robots, 1 Elder Fire Elemental, and 3 Huge Fire Elementals. Your total number of "slots" is 24: 4 at each spell level. Each "slot" can be 1 from that spell level's table, or 3 from any table below it.


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
quindraco wrote:
If you take it ONCE as a 6th-level spell, at 17th level, you would gain 4 at each SL from 1 to 6. Each one from 2 to 6 could either be 1 summon from that table or 3 from below - for example, the 4 known from 6 could be 1 Elder Robot, 3 Huge Robots, 1 Elder Fire Elemental, and 3 Huge Fire Elementals. Your total number of "slots" is 24: 4 at each spell level. Each "slot" can be 1 from that spell level's table, or 3 from any table below it.

Oh wow. Anyone have a good way to note all that on the character sheet?

So what exactly changes if I also took it as a 5th-level spell as well? I get 20 more choices, 4 from levels 1-5?

Could I take it as 6th-level spell a second time? Or am I limited to one instance per spell level?

Can I take the spell more than twice?


quindraco wrote:
The theoretical maximum is more than 48; you get 48 just from learning the SL6 copy twice. You can reach 88 from SL6 twice plus SL5 twice. After that, you'll start knowing more than exist on the tables, so the scaling slows down. If the tables were infinitely big, the maximum would be 168 known types. In reality, the maximum is significantly smaller.

Wait, what?

I don't think that's how it works. You can only ever learn it 'twice', period. I don't think you can learn it 'twice' as a 6th, getting two lists from 1-6, then also learn it 'twice' as a 5th and getting two lists from 1-5, and so on down the line. Like other variable level spells, when you learn it as a higher spell level, you 'lose' the lower level version from your spells known and replace it with something else. I mean, I don't think that breaks the game or anything, but it seems insanely silly and overly complicated.

Ravingdork wrote:
Can someone just tell me what I'd get if I took it once, as a 6th-level spell, at 17th-level? At least then I could finish my character build.

You'd get four creature slots from each level list, for a total of 24 slots. 4 6ths, 4 5ths, 4 4ths, and so on.

Quote:
Also, would the choices granted to me allow for weaker versionswhen cast? Say I chose elder shadow creature as one of my choices, could I then use the spell to summon three huge shadow creatures instead? Or would I need to eat up another one of my creature slots to have that as an additional summoning option?

You can always cast a lower level spell with a higher level spell slot. So you can always use SC3 to also cast SC2 or SC1. Doing this confers no extra benefit, you're only using the higher level slot for the lower level spell.

If, however, you spend one of your four SC3 creature slots on an SC2 or SC1 creature, you can use SC3 to summon 3 of that SC2 or SC1 creature.


I believe the theoretical maximum is 130 for a Neutral Monoclassed caster: SL 1 can't be spent learning triples from a table below it, and SL2 only has 33 learnables (1 of each from its own table plus 17 triples from SL1), but the SLs above it all combine learning fewer from that table with having triples from below them to consume every learnable from that SL.

You could achieve nearly this maximum, 129, with:
2xSL6 (you know 8 from SL6)
2xSL5 (you know 16 from SL5
2sSL4 (you know 24 from SL4)
2xSL3 (you know 32 from SL3 and SL2, and all 17 from SL1).


Ravingdork wrote:

So what exactly changes if I also took it as a 5th-level spell as well? I get 20 more choices, 4 from levels 1-5?

Could I take it as 6th-level spell a second time? Or am I limited to one instance per spell level?

Can I take the spell more than twice?

1) Yes, 20.

2) Yes, 2 instances per spell level, provided you learned the second copy when it was the highest you could cast.
3) No.


pithica42 wrote:
I don't think that's how it works. You can only ever learn it 'twice', period. I don't think you can learn it 'twice' as a 6th, getting two lists from 1-6, then also learn it 'twice' as a 5th and getting two lists from 1-5, and so on down the line. Like other variable level spells, when you learn it as a higher spell level, you 'lose' the lower level version from your spells known and replace it with something else. I mean, I don't think that breaks the game or anything, but it seems insanely silly and overly complicated.

This is false. Forgetting lower level spells of a variable level spell is an optional effect, per page 330 of the CRB.

p330 wrote:
If you know a variable-level spell and later select it again as a higher-level spell known, you can immediately select a new spell known to replace the lower-level version of the variable- level spell.

(Emphasis added).

Assuming a Monoclassed Technomancer, this means you can select Summon Creature 1 twice at Levels 1, 4, 7, 10, 13, and 16. Each time, you can choose whether or not to forget the lower levels, so if you choose not to, you can "stack" summonables known. As I keep repeating, this is of very little utility - any caster trying this is nerfing the heck out of themselves.


I stand, corrected.


You clearly don't "lose" the lower level summon choices, seeing as you can still undercast the spell.

That said, I would really like someone to suggest a good reason for why anyone would ever want more than eight summon options per spell level. Even that seems excessive and unlikely to be useful, compared with the 4/level you get by just learning the spell once.


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

So if I already have one instance of the spell known, and decide to take it a second time, the second instance must be the highest level spell I can cast? Am I understanding that correctly? No taking it as a 6th-level spell, then taking it as a 3rd?


That's my understanding, yes. But I've already been wrong in this thread once.


Ravingdork wrote:
So if I already have one instance of the spell known, and decide to take it a second time, the second instance must be the highest level spell I can cast? Am I understanding that correctly? No taking it as a 6th-level spell, then taking it as a 3rd?

No, you can. See page 119: "Every time you gain a level, you can swap out one spell you already know and learn a single new spell of the same level in its place."

You've said you're talking about a level 17 Technomancer. At level 16, you learn 2 SL 6 spells, and at level 17, you learn 1. At either level, at the same time you do this, you can "lose" a single 3rd level spell you know to learn Summon Creature 3 instead. This means you can learn Summon Creature 6, and then learn Summon Creature 3, provided you did not already know SC3 (see below).

Remember, order matters when learning your spells - the rules governing your selection at level 4 are not the same as the rules at level 17. You have to learn your spells "in order" to make a legal Technomancer.

Note from above: There's no rule I can find banning you from learning the same spell over and over again - probably because for most spells, there is literally no benefit. Summon Creature is an odd duck, but to the best of my ability to parse the rules, you can learn SC3 after already knowing SC3 at level 17 - it just won't do anything, as the special rule adding additional creatures known won't trigger. Accordingly, I'm skipping the interim work and just telling you you can't do it, instead of telling you you can, but it's a terrible idea. It's possible your GM will rule otherwise.


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

I'm making a mystic, not a technomancer. :P

And he's starting at level 17, so I'm just picking spells known "in the moment" with little to no thought on the order in which they would have been taken naturally.


Dangit, twice in one thread. I knew I picked the wrong day to stop sniffing glue. I think it's now quindraco's job to go around and correct all of my mistakes. It's a full time job, but someone has to do it. :)

Scarab Sages Starfinder Design Lead

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Ravingdork wrote:

Now I'm even more confused. I thought you could only take the spell twice.

What's more, when you learn a spell that can be cast at variable spell levels, you gain the ability to cast it at the spell level you know
and at every level below that
.

Taken with the wording of the spell description, wouldn't the above rule mean I would get 4 choices for the level I took it, plus 4 more choices for each level below that since I can "undercast" it? And if I took it a second time, the number of choices should nearly double as well?

Yes.

So it you have ti as a single 3rd level spell, you pick:
4 creatures for casting it as a 3rd level spell.
4 for a 2nd level.
4 for a 1st.

If you knew it as two 3rd level spells, those numbers would all be 8.


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Thank you, Owen and friends. It's starting to sink in now I think.

Owen, is it possible to take the spell more than twice? The wording makes this ambiguous.


quindraco wrote:
Ravingdork wrote:

So what exactly changes if I also took it as a 5th-level spell as well? I get 20 more choices, 4 from levels 1-5?

Could I take it as 6th-level spell a second time? Or am I limited to one instance per spell level?

Can I take the spell more than twice?

1) Yes, 20.

2) Yes, 2 instances per spell level, provided you learned the second copy when it was the highest you could cast.
3) No.

My guess is that it was not the intention that you be able to take the spell 12 times. There's two ways to look at the rules text, narrow or broad.

Alien Archive wrote:
You can gain summon creature a second time at the highest spell level you know, selecting four additional appropriate creatures at each level you can cast this spell.

If the phrasing were "You can gain summon creature a second time.", then its clear you could only ever have it on your spell list twice.

If the phrasing were "You can gain summon creature at the highest spell level you know", then its clear that when you take it, it must be at your highest level spell level.

The question is, when you combine them, is the phrase "at the highest spell level you know" qualifying the "second time", or is it qualifying the "you can gain".

Take the phrase "You can take ten dollars a second time at noon." after you've already taken 10 dollars once. Does this mean you can take ten more dollars at noon today, tomorrow, and the day after? Or does this mean you can take 10 dollars today at noon, and that is it because that is twice in total. I certainly didn't say you could take 10 dollars a third time.

If a GM said you can have the spell a maximum of twice on your spell list, not 12, I think that she would be perfectly justified given the sentence used. Its a valid reading of that rule. While your reading is also valid, it also is the more complicated, requiring hysteresis in the character build and an almost unwieldy large numbers of known summons.

Scarab Sages Starfinder Design Lead

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Ravingdork wrote:
Owen, is it possible to take the spell more than twice? The wording makes this ambiguous.

No. You can only take it a second time, and only at the highest spell level you know it at.

Now to be honest, it won't break the game if you are allowed to take it more often, or take it at different levels known. Being able to summon 12 or 16 things at each spell level doesn't make you significantly more powerful compared to being able to summon 8 and having two other spells to choose from.

But in playlists, people having, say, 12 creatures per spell level seemed to draw out the time their turn took due to decision paralysis (while, for whatever reason, having 4 to choose from didn't, even if that was over 6 spell levels for a total of 24 choices), so we locked it at selecting the spell twice.


Owen K. C. Stephens wrote:
No. You can only take it a second time, and only at the highest spell level you know it at.

Is this in the CRB anywhere? Or in Alien Archive? I can't seem to find it, and the wording is important for allowing someone who knows Summon Creature twice at a Spell Level below 6 to "level up" the spell like with any other leveled spell.


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Owen, how might this appear in a stat block? I ask, because it seems like it would take up a lot of space, and because I model my character sheets after the official stat blocks.


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Did I do this right? It's a level 17 mystic that took summon creature once as a 6th-level spell.
.
.
.

SUMMON CREATURE OPTIONS
Summon Creature VI demon, shadow creature (single, multiple), surnoch (multiple)
Summon Creature V First World beast, mountain eel (multiple), orocoran (multiple), surnoch
Summon Creature IV crest-eater (multiple), ksarik (multiple), mountain eel, orocoran
Summon Creature III air elemental (multiple), earth elemental (multiple), fire elemental (multiple), water elemental (multiple)
Summon Creature II demon (single, multiple), shadow creature (single, multiple)
Summon Creature I demon, First World beast, shadow creature, skittermander whelp

Does anyone have any suggestions for a more effective list? I was mostly going for a villain who kills with "scary nightmares" vibe.

Also, can I breed ksarik by summoning them, and having them infect victims with their carrion spores?


That list looks "legal" to me (but I don't, at this point, blame you if you don't want to take my word for it).

The demon is going to give you piercing/evil/chaos, the shadow creature will give you cold, and both the Surnoch and Orocoran piercing/acid, the first world Beast gives you grapple and the mountain eel paralysis. So you have a pretty broad range of attack options in 5-6.

You may want to switch out the multiple shadow creatures at 6 and the surnoch or Orocoran at 5 for something that gave some other damage type or better ranged attack or grapple. I don't know what your alignment is, so I'm not sure what you'd be better off taking. I like Robots, but that's TM only. Depending on your alignment you could go with Azata, Archon, or Inevitible in their place.

I tend to be of the philosophy that at high level, your lower level slots (1-3) should mostly be utility stuff. Things that can set off traps or burrow through walls or set things on fire or steal objects for you or something. Elementals are almost always good for that sort of thing, as is anything very big or very small.


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Chaotic Evil. He's modeled loosely on DC's Joker character.


The Daemon is the only aligned one I can think of you could actually use that you aren't already using. I really don't think you need the Surnoch in both 5 and 6, especially not 5. Maybe trade that for Daemon. Or you could go with Fire or Air elemental. A fire elemental would give you a new energy/kinetic to work with and an Air elemental would give you a new attack/debuff (whirlwind is pretty dang awesome).

Otherwise, I think you're good.

EDIT: I forgot to mention the Protean, you could also get that with your alignment, but I don't think it gives you anything over the Demon. The Daemon at least gives you a new-ish attack form (ranged piercing). I honestly think the Fire or Air elemental would be better, and I'd argue that at least the giant Fire Elemental would still be scary and fit, flavor-wise.

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