Wordcasting Summoning a standard action?

[Beorn the Bear]

The only casting time I see for wordspells is a standard action. So does this mean that if you use a wordspell to summon a creature, unlike it's normal counterpart which has a 1 round casting time, you can do it as only a standard action?

Basically, is there no variance, no swift or immediate, or full round, or 1 round casting time on word spells?

[Adam Ormond]

Beorn the Bear wrote:

The only casting time I see for wordspells is a standard action. So does this mean that if you use a wordspell to summon a creature, unlike it's normal counterpart which has a 1 round casting time, you can do it as only a standard action?

Basically, is there no variance, no swift or immediate, or full round, or 1 round casting time on word spells?

I think the answer to your first question is yes.

For your second, I think there's at least one metaword to cast a spell as an immediate action.

[AceMcGrudy]

I know there is a boost option for a 0 level armor spell that lets you cast it as an immediate action.

What I am curious about is that the word spells of summoning say that you can boost the targeting to get 1d4 + 1 creatures. Boosting the selected target word causes all the effect words to be 3 levels higher.

If that is true, then the first summon spell could summon 1 monster or summon 1d4 + 1 as a 4th level spell. That seems kind of terrible compared to using a 2nd lvl spell to get 1d3 lvl 1 summons.

Is that how it is intended to work?

[Adam Ormond]

AceMcGrudy wrote:

I know there is a boost option for a 0 level armor spell that lets you cast it as an immediate action.

What I am curious about is that the word spells of summoning say that you can boost the targeting to get 1d4 + 1 creatures. Boosting the selected target word causes all the effect words to be 3 levels higher.

If that is true, then the first summon spell could summon 1 monster or summon 1d4 + 1 as a 4th level spell. That seems kind of terrible compared to using a 2nd lvl spell to get 1d3 lvl 1 summons.

Is that how it is intended to work?

I'd say 1d4+1 is appropriate for a 3rd level slot. So yes, this is weaker than standard spell casting.

Keep in mind that you can add Lengthy without an increase in spell level, which makes it better than an Extended Summon Monster I for 1d3. Granted 5 Riding Dogs for a minute and a half when you're level 7 isn't particularly impressive.

Adding levels to low levels words is generally not worth it, because low level words rarely scale well compared to the types of effects available at higher word levels. The same is true for spells -- almost no one pays for metamagic'd spells in spell slots; most use a metamagic rod for 'free'.

Classes with low max-spell level get hurt even more. The Summoner can dump a 6th level word spell for 1d4+1 SM4 monsters, or use his SLA for 1d3 SM9 monsters. One creature off the SM9 table can destroy a lot more than 5 SM4 creatures.

[Aldin]

Summoning is actually one of the few things a low level wordcaster does better than their normal casting counterpart since it is only a standard action. It isn't until you get more metas/meta uses and have the ability to mix effects that a wordcaster comes into their own (theoretically anyway - I haven't played a wordcaster yet, only read the chapter).

[MisterDave]

Adam Ormond wrote:

AceMcGrudy wrote:

I know there is a boost option for a 0 level armor spell that lets you cast it as an immediate action.

What I am curious about is that the word spells of summoning say that you can boost the targeting to get 1d4 + 1 creatures. Boosting the selected target word causes all the effect words to be 3 levels higher.

If that is true, then the first summon spell could summon 1 monster or summon 1d4 + 1 as a 4th level spell. That seems kind of terrible compared to using a 2nd lvl spell to get 1d3 lvl 1 summons.

Is that how it is intended to work?

"I'd say 1d4+1 is appropriate for a 3rd level slot. So yes, this is weaker than standard spell casting."

Did you make this post before the final rules came out? Because there is nothing in the Ultimate Magic pdf that says using Boost adds levels. It says you can only use it a certain number of times per day, that's all.

I could be wrong...