It's not a bad tactic in the right circumstances. However, it is very likely one of the reasons dungeons have traps and other hazards. Fishing the barbarian out from the bottom of a pit trap tends to slow the group down a bit. There are some Paizo modules where this will quickly kill party members.Why? It's perfectly understandable and a good 'blitz' tactic. I usually do the APs so this is easier, but generally speaking I always have my forts/castles/dungeons/whatever 'populated' first, with placements based on whether they've been alerted or not. If the PCs just RUSH through, they *can* get easily overwhelmed but they can just as easily overwhelm the enemy.
Why would you purposefully try to meta-game and separate the enemies just because the PCs have a good tactic? I think the best way to approach any adventure is to decide what the enemies will do early on, how they'll react to various things, and then go with it.
Not if you have long term summons to send down the hallway in front of you... "One of my ten leopards fell into a pit trap! Bye Leopard #8! See you on the flip side!" Sure, you have various terrain and secret door divisions which mean you can't necessarily blitz an *entire* dungeon like this, but many dungeons (assuming you take the more-standard approach of mapping and populating a dungeon rather than making it up room by room - I can appreciate Kolo's approach but I think it's fair to say it's atypical) have discrete sections it's easy to clear without someone "coming in behind you to loot."
Having played through RotR and CoCT and part of SD, you can get away with this a lot, things aren't so much "Tomb of Horrors" nowadays. Even better are "outdoor" scenarios like the attack on Sandpoint or the assault on Xin-Shalast where you don't have artificial dungeony things to hinder you from running rampant across groups of enemies.
Oh im positive my approach is atypical there. And i guess i have a different view point then alot of paizo customers as I do not use published adventures accept for ideas. I generally like to tailor things to both challenge my pc's and play to their strengths so they can shine as well. Hard to do with a published adventure that cant account for all the kinds of character that can be made.
Who is more "prepared" than the players of the other characters? They are focusing on their one character they know very well. They take time X to take their turn when their initiative comes. If you think taking a turn with 5 creatures takes much less than 5*X, I'm not sure why. And I think we all know there's a reasonably common 3.5e syndrome where people get distracted just waiting for a 5 man party to run through a round. By adding in 5 summons to a 5 man party you've just started taking half the time and have upped the "wait factor" to 10*X for the other PCs.
Speaking only for myself here, but if X is the time I take for just my own turn, and Y is the time it takes for the fastest other player to take his single character's turn, and I can run a summoned monster in no more time than my own character, then 5*X < Y.
I typically have my turn done in less than 30 seconds. Most of the rest of the table takes a couple minutes per turn.
So please, stop stating that a summoner will always, always, always take more time than every other character as if it were an incontrovertible fact.
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...I suggested capping the SLA to one at a time to avoid any potential abuse before it starts, and in return, automatically give the summoner the summon monster spells as bonus spells to counter any loss of power the SLA cap would incur...
I must have missed your reply earlier, I personally think this is a great comprimise. Personally I look forward to playing this class. Love the idea of someone who does summons, and going to work the spells like Magic circle and planar ally's. Nothing like signing a well written contract with a devil.
Part of his schtick is that the summoner can do adventures solo because he CAN conjure an army. As in, "my GM is going to run a solo campaign for me, I'm going to play a summoner because he's especially suited for it."I was thinking this class is exceptionally well suited for solo play. If that was part of the goal then it's a definite success.
I agree- I looked at the class and thought man I would never let anyone play this unless there were only 3 or less PC's.
The large amount of summoning for long duration + uber pet + other spells results in giving one Player multiple actions in combat and extremely flexible 'battlefield control'- or from another angle significant spotlight dominance in combat encounters
I'm not getting this "the summons don't understand you" argument.
Summoned monsters are all outsiders (celestial template, fiendish template, etc). Almost every monster in the game can understand Common, Even if they can't, learning, say, Celestial isn't more than one skill rank expenditure. There isn't a summon monster that is incapable of understanding commands from its summoner, and they will do what you tell them to the best of their ability. This isn't the same as a druid summoning actual animals via Summon Nature's Ally. This is someone calling up monsters with INTs of 3 or higher that are more than capable of understanding what they're told.
I like the idea of the class a great deal. But I do think that this thing's action economy would get downright ridiculous. Considering that Paizo's pretty much on record as saying they don't like the XPH (one of the best 3.5 supplements around in my opinion) because of the potential for novaing, and considering that they design Pathfinder APs with a great many one-encounter-a-day portions, the fact that this class is more than capable of novaing a powerful ability and then still have additional power on top of it strikes me as odd. Thinking about my experiences in the 2nd Darkness campaign I've been playing my druid through, there's been plenty of opportunities for me to prep for a fight before wandering into one. A summoner in those situations would have been very likely to have a big coterie of monsters, and if there was another fight later on, the rest of the party would potentially have been unharmed, with no resources spent and the summoner's eidolon would still be well and truly a force to be reckoned with.
I won't actually get a chance to play this class - I'm in an ongoing campaign that we want to get through before the DM has her baby, and the other campaign I'm in has enough oddity with 6 players already that replacing my paladin with a summoner mid-stream would make the game a headache for my DM, most definitely. I don't have the time to really playtest, but I can at least look at rules objectively and eyeball stuff and listen to other people's opinions. And the "this is too much" camp really do make a decent point. Obviously seeing it in action would be nice, so we'll see what other people really experience.
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They take time X to take their turn when their initiative comes. If you think taking a turn with 5 creatures takes much less than 5*X, I'm not sure why.
Because, while yes, higher level creatures do have some abilities, summoned monsters / temporary help do not generally have the same wide selection of abilities, spells and feats as a PC (not including cohorts)
for example: from summon monster IX - Nalfeshnee (demon) it has 5 castable spell like abilities, and 1 SU, in addition to it's regular attacks. Glabrezu have 9... well yes this is a number of things to decide upon / consider, it's no where near the 16-17 levels worth of spells and feats to consider from a PC
This is also why, as i said, you start preparing the next turn immediatly, count out what's going to move where and use what. I never said that it doesn't slow play, what I said was that it's not a major issue, and that it by and large isn't a problem. yes exceptions occur but it's not the 'rule' that play will slow down.
I'm not getting this "the summons don't understand you" argument.
Summoned monsters are all outsiders (celestial template, fiendish template, etc). Almost every monster in the game can understand Common, Even if they can't, learning, say, Celestial isn't more than one skill rank expenditure. There isn't a summon monster that is incapable of understanding commands from its summoner, and they will do what you tell them to the best of their ability. This isn't the same as a druid summoning actual animals via Summon Nature's Ally. This is someone calling up monsters with INTs of 3 or higher that are more than capable of understanding what they're told.
The celestial/fiendish templates no longer grants an intelligence boost nor a language. Giant spiders dont understand common, nor do bats. The spell says they attack your enemies to the best of their abilities, not follow your commands. There are ways a summoner could potentially communicate with his summon, but it is not standard for most of the monsters.
Aestolia,
While I agree that in good stable groups, time would not be an issue most of the time, the time rolling and calculating a few extra die rolls adds up over the course of several rounds, and one group I currently play with only gets about 4 hours per session. Also, I have been in a group where the players liked to argue (a lot). I feel that my suggestion provides an adequate compromise while removing arguments before they start; those who want to spam SM still can, but it takes time and resources to do so, like anything that powerful should.
Well I just read through the summoner last night after a long day at work. I may be in the minority but I love the class as is. It sort of reminds me of the Dread Necromancer which I was a big fan of. As a DM I wouldn't have a problem letting a player play one. It would be up to them to have stat sheets and such on there creatures. It's a sweet class and once I go back to playing again instead of DMing it will be my first choice. Your never going to please everyone so if you don't like it don't play it. My 2 cents is to keep it just as it is it's not underpowered or overpowered.
"Can you find any *evidence* that in the hands of a skilled player, the summoner as written ruins the game or ruins the fun for the other people playing because he has so many summoned creatures out that his turns take too long?Summon monster V allows you to summon 1d4 + 1 leopards. Thus, on average, you’re going to have three leopards per summon. Now, these leopards aren’t really powerhouses; they’re there to soak up attacks and be annoying to the enemy. Thus, you set them in the back, and then they charge.
With their pounce ability, the leopards charge at your enemies and make full attacks. That means you’re rolling a bite attack and two claw attacks for each leopard. That means you’re rolling nine attacks in a round. And that’s not even getting into the good stuff, either.
Once your kitties are done mauling at the enemy, your eidolon gets a turn. We’ll say that he has three natural attacks—a bite, a tail slap, and a gore. That’s not too far out of the question.
Here’s what the turn looks like:
1. Summoner moves.
2. Summoner casts summon monster V as an SLA. Three leopards appear.
3. Leopard moves.
4. Leopard attacks. Roll 1d20 + 8 vs. AC. Hit? 1d3+3 damage.
5. Leopard attacks. Roll 1d20 + 8 vs. AC. Hit? 1d3+3 damage.
6. Leopard attacks. Roll 1d20 + 8 vs. AC. Hit? 1d6 + 3 damage and CMB +4 vs. CMD to start a grapple. Hit? You and target gain grappled condition.
7. Leopard moves.
8. Leopard attacks. Roll 1d20 + 8 vs. AC. Hit? 1d3+3 damage.
9. Leopard attacks. Roll 1d20 + 8 vs. AC. Hit? 1d3+3 damage.
10. Leopard attacks. Roll 1d20 + 8 vs. AC. Hit? 1d6 + 3 damage and CMB +4 vs. CMD to start a grapple. Hit? You and target gain grappled condition.
11. Leopard moves.
12. Leopard attacks. Roll 1d20 + 8 vs. AC. Hit? 1d3+3 damage.
13. Leopard attacks. Roll 1d20 + 8 vs. AC. Hit? 1d3+3 damage.
14. Leopard attacks. Roll 1d20 + 8 vs. AC. Hit? 1d6 + 3 damage and CMB +4 vs. CMD to start a grapple. Hit? You...
If you roll on attack at a time it can be an issue, that is why you roll several d20's at once. You can also roll when it is not your go so when the DM gets to you the rolls are done. If the battlefield changes before its your go only give the results of the dice rolls that would not count.
The only thing stopping the second option is the issue of trust between the DM and the player, but that is not a fault you can saddle the class with.
That makes no sense at all because you are assuming that all house rules affect everyone equally. What if I say fireball has a cap of 5d6? I have just nerfed the arcane guy and left the other classes untouched.Sure, a GM can nerf anything he wants, but if you let your fear of being nerfed discourage you from trying new things, you'll end up missing out on a lot of the fun.
GMs usually nerf certain rules to keep them from being abused (I'm looking at you, Munchkins).
As long as you're not abusive about how you play the game, there's probably nothing to worry about.
What does that have to do with my last statement? I was just using that as an example the poster how illogical his post was.
Not if you have long term summons to send down the hallway in front of you... "One of my ten leopards fell into a pit trap! Bye Leopard #8! See you on the flip side!" Sure, you have various terrain and secret door divisions which mean you can't necessarily blitz an *entire* dungeon like this, but many dungeons (assuming you take the more-standard approach of mapping and populating a dungeon rather than making it up room by room - I can appreciate Kolo's approach but I think it's fair to say it's atypical) have discrete sections it's easy to clear without someone "coming in behind you to loot."
Having played through RotR and CoCT and part of SD, you can get away with this a lot, things aren't so much "Tomb of Horrors" nowadays. Even better are "outdoor" scenarios like the attack on Sandpoint or the assault on Xin-Shalast where you don't have artificial dungeony things to hinder you from running rampant across groups of enemies.
I was talking in more general terms about storming dungeons, not the whole summon thing...
To be honest I'm not getting the whole troupe of leopards thing. By the time you can call up 10 of them they get one shotted or just ignored. They storm a room and fireball/ dragon's breath/ wall of fire wipes them all out. Or they run into a golem and are just completely worthless beyond being difficult terrain.
Maybe I'd be more convinced if I saw this tactic used effectively in an adventure I'm familiar with. You talk about using it Rise of the Runelords, where? What scenario would it dominate? There are tons of sections in RotRL where things are quite spread out and this wouldn't work well. I'm not saying it won't work but right now it's just random conjecture.
I'm not getting this "the summons don't understand you" argument.
Well mainly because they... can't understand you. They are unintelligent creatures you call, they don't speak, they don't understand common, they have animal intelligence. The example is a group of leopards. You can give them a general imperative but they aren't remote controlled bots.
Some summons have languages and intelligence but in the example he gives they don't.
I'm not getting this "the summons don't understand you" argument.Well mainly because they... can't understand you. They are unintelligent creatures you call, they don't speak, they don't understand common, they have animal intelligence. The example is a group of leopards. You can give them a general imperative but they aren't remote controlled bots.
Some summons have languages and intelligence but in the example he gives they don't.
well the summoner does have the handle animal skill. he could try each round to get one of them to do what he wants untrained :)
well the summoner does have the handle animal skill. he could try each round to get one of them to do what he wants untrained :)I'm not getting this "the summons don't understand you" argument.Well mainly because they... can't understand you. They are unintelligent creatures you call, they don't speak, they don't understand common, they have animal intelligence. The example is a group of leopards. You can give them a general imperative but they aren't remote controlled bots.
Some summons have languages and intelligence but in the example he gives they don't.
Josh suggested that a sidebar on the nature of how much you can communicate with the creatures would be a good addition. I agree, there is a lot of confusion over how much control you have over summoned critters.
I'm not getting this "the summons don't understand you" argument.Well mainly because they... can't understand you. They are unintelligent creatures you call, they don't speak, they don't understand common, they have animal intelligence. The example is a group of leopards. You can give them a general imperative but they aren't remote controlled bots.
Some summons have languages and intelligence but in the example he gives they don't.
Yeah, this'd be one of those things that changed between 3.5 and Pathfinder for reasons I'm not entirely sure about and that I hadn't noticed. In 3.5, the Celestial and Fiendish templates raised a creature's INT to a minimum of 3, which would in turn mean that they would understand you, because they'd be sentient. Didn't realize that that no longer applied in Pathfinder for whatever reason. It does render most summon spells less useful than before, which is something of a shame. Wizards don't even have access to Speak with Animals like druids do to get around the limitation.
Unless you have a common language with an intelligent summon, they will simply attack your enemy to the best of their ability. So whatever a normal monster of that type would do.
If you don't have make your handle animal check so will the summoned animals.
If you can communicate with them they will do what you say to the best of their ability.
That's pretty much how I run things but there seems to be a good bit of confusion out there over it.
That's pretty much how I run things but there seems to be a good bit of confusion out there over it.Unless you have a common language with an intelligent summon, they will simply attack your enemy to the best of their ability. So whatever a normal monster of that type would do.
If you don't have make your handle animal check so will the summoned animals.
If you can communicate with them they will do what you say to the best of their ability.
I allow handle animal checks to 'push' any monster that is summoned and not just animals. But otherwise yea im run it that way too.
Sure... and that's just one spell plus the eidolon! But note that the wizard conjurer can *already* create a similar situation using the core rules. I'd like to see if, in PLAY, a summoner's conjured army is a significant problem. It very well may be. But speculation and numbered lists of actions aren't conclusive. I want to see playtest results.
It has been proven time and time again that summoner characters in 3e are a pain in the ass. The years of druids spamming summon nature's ally with their animal companions in tow are prime examples of this. Conjurers are other offenders. These are all known facts.
Then there's a class that has summoning as its main class feature, and you demand playtesting to prove has already been proven? Honestly, this is like demanding playtest evidence to show that wizards are more powerful than fighters: it fails because that balance issue doesn't crop up in a number of games. It doesn't change the fact that the fighter is incredibly weak compared to the wizard.
Your attitude of "playtest or it didn't happen" is the exact wrong attitude to take in a game. Given your track record of mechanical gaffes in the past, I think that you can give me the benefit of the doubt.
If they are so bothersome, don't allow them in your games.
They are summoners of course they are going to have summoning, as they should.
I don't think it was a problem then or is it a problem now. Maybe for some players that can not handle it.
To many of us summoning monsters is not an issue.
Joe, that's not very helpful. It's very negative, and I feel that you telling me not to playtest a class during the time period set aside specifically to playtest a class is very helpful. You're essentially telling me to not participate in the open playtest and to keep my mouth shut because you don't want to hear any criticisms.
I don't think that discouraging playtesting is a positive way to support Paizo and the PRPG, do you?
What two-week window? You mean two-month window?
Playtest reports are accepted up until the end of January.
The summoner will want to do this, some significant percentage of the time.
Correction:
The socially clueless/munchkin/jerkwad summoner will want to do it a significant portion of the time.
The sane summoners don't want to have to deal with 16 monsters any more than the DM does.
The real problem here is that the current summoning rules slow down every game on their own, and the poor summoner is only the living avatar of this concept.
There is NO game I was involved where the cleric/druid/conjurer character hasn't ruined the game's pace a lot. One cannot simply let this matter to gamers's kindness.
If the party is in trouble, the fighter fights, the paladin smites and the summoner...summons. If the party works tactically, the summoner guy will be able to fill the battlefield with critters in a few rounds.
There's no trick available to minimize his playing time over a certain level. And this level is often too darn slow.
Maybe the time has come to introduce ADVANCED rules for general summoning in our ADVANCED player's guide.
Some examples could be:
-Direct the summoned montsters consumes at least a move action of the summoner.
-Cap of three summon spells active per player
-The summoner shares actions with its eidolon
-Maybe redefine the summoning spells themselves. The summoned critters of a single spell could act as a SINGLE entity, and attack once per round, not (#critter attacks x #critters). Maybe we could give them a bonus on attacks and damage rolls based on the number of critters conjured.
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However, I agree with the thesis that the problem here is the summoning subsystem itself. The summoner ISN'T definitely more game-breaker than every character who is heavily focused on summoning.
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Then nova all but one summon, whatever. Three to four summons pre-summoned wreck one fight a day, and no summoner is going to have less than five a day.
Bear in mind, at level five, the summoner can completely wreck one encounter a day with four leopards, and still have one summon per fight left over for the remainder of a typical day.
It must be nice to have a DM who only ever gives you one encounter a day >.> cause you know that's how it always happens...
Any character can have an abusive number of minions. I DMed a playtest with a summoner and had no trouble at all. The player had all the stats he planed to use at hand.
Being a summoner is not very different from being a high cha guy with leadership feat. You get your powerful cohort and lots of minions. It's up to you to use them or not. All I'm saying is that it's already in the game. The existence or not of a summoner will not change it.
Honestly,
I've been running games for over 20 years. I've never had a problem with 'dozens of mooks' being brought in by the players (summons, hired gangers, normals, whatever the game or genre there is always some ability to get massive numbers).
The key is area of effects. Drop a fireball and a dozen wolves go down in one hit. Throw a grenade in the middle of the biker gang and watch them go down. Cone of cold, hailstorm, chain lightning. All of these are perfectly valid spells for an enemy to use (and it could be a sorcerer, a wizard, a druid, or a rogue with UMD). A cleric channeling negative energy could wipe out an entire days worth of summons with one well placed channel.
It's the GM's job to work with the core rules and balance the game for the players. The summoner's ability to summon is no more or less crazy than the ability of a druid or sorcerer or wizard to summon (maximized summon scrolls or wands for example, prestige classes that give longer summoning times, feats that boost caster level for certain schools, all of this has existed in the past). The same things that kept a druid/sorcerer/wizard under control when it comes to summons keeps a summoner under control.
And a final note, what's good for the goose is good for the gander. Have a summoner spam summon on the PC's once in a while. If you as the GM need ideas for keeping players summonings under control, use the summons on them. :) I've often found that if I can't figure out how to counter an uber-trick someone comes up with, all I have to do is turn it around on the PC's and they will, very inventively, come up with some way to fix their own little red wagon. ;)
Tricks:1. Plan out your round while others are doing their actions.
2. Be organized.
2a. Have things readily available and in multiple fashions
2b. Have a nice way of handling buffs/debuffs.
3. Pre-roll certain attacks that you know are going to happen.Please note that these 'tricks' apply to players regardless if they are summoning, casters, archers, or just the guy up front with a sword.
-James
Yes James, but these tricks apply to every character, if you wish...
The problem here is that considering the same tactical acumen, tricks and rules knowledge, a "normal" character's turn lasts xxx time, while his summoner/conjurer/druid/whatever buddy's one lasts xxx per critter. And a summoner is SUPPOSED to be surrounded by an enormous number of critters, because this is his most effective tactic.
Sure... and that's just one spell plus the eidolon! But note that the wizard conjurer can *already* create a similar situation using the core rules. I'd like to see if, in PLAY, a summoner's conjured army is a significant problem. It very well may be. But speculation and numbered lists of actions aren't conclusive. I want to see playtest results.It has been proven time and time again that summoner characters in 3e are a pain in the ass. The years of druids spamming summon nature's ally with their animal companions in tow are prime examples of this. Conjurers are other offenders. These are all known facts.
Then there's a class that has summoning as its main class feature, and you demand playtesting to prove has already been proven? Honestly, this is like demanding playtest evidence to show that wizards are more powerful than fighters: it fails because that balance issue doesn't crop up in a number of games. It doesn't change the fact that the fighter is incredibly weak compared to the wizard.
Your attitude of "playtest or it didn't happen" is the exact wrong attitude to take in a game. Given your track record of mechanical gaffes in the past, I think that you can give me the benefit of the doubt.
It is not a fact. I have shown some ideas, maybe not in this thread, how to play multiple characters and still resolves your turn efficiently. It may be a fact that its a problem for some, but to state it as an absolute fact, assumes its a problem for all.