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So, after 8 levels of exclusively using my eidolon, I've decided to try out spontaneous summoning. After a few combats, I noticed a way to optimize the number of attacks I could achieve with my summoned monsters, and by RAW, it appears to be legal.
Here's what I did ...
On my turn, I'd summon a monster with Summon Monster V, and the summoned monster would then attack immediately.
On my following turn, I would delay my action until my summoned monster attacked, then I would summon a new monster, ending the existing summon monster. The newly summoned monster would attack immediately.
This would result in two summoned Celestial Dire Lions attacking three times each (Bite, Claw x2), netting a total of six attacks.
Is this legal?
Here's the Summon Monster (Sp) from the PRD ...
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It's an interesting proposal; whether it's legal or not (or matches the designers' intent, which is not quite the same thing), you are blowing through your daily uses at double rate.
This all comes down to the age-old question, of should summoned creatures get full attack on the round they arrive?
We had this in our group in the early 3.0, when players claimed it was daft that creatures didn't have to reorient themselves on arrival, and/or that you never summoned a bear that was in the middle of having a dump.
If they rule that creatures always get full-attack on arrival, you get odd proposals like this.
If they don't, you wouldn't gain much from this tactic, but you hinder the lower-level casters whose durations are shorter, and summoners who use one creature at a time.
In most situations, I'd rather leave the original creature, to draw the opponent's attention, and make them waste attacks. It would have to be a very scary opponent to make me consider this tactic.
Yes, it would appear to be legal, but wasteful. You are blowing one use of Summon Monster each round, after all.
Your eidolon can probably beat the damage output of this exploit anyway.
Bear in mind, I've only used it when I felt I needed to, and it doesn't necessarily only apply to attacks. At 9th level, your summoned monsters start having some decent spell-like abilities, too
Thanks for the replies.
Are you sure you can cast Summon Monster so fast?
Summon Monster X spells are usually a Full-Round action, so the monster does not arrive until the start of your next turn. Sure, Spell-Like Abilities are usually just a standard action to cast, but there is this line from the CRB:
"A spell-like ability has a casting time of 1 standard action unless noted otherwise in the ability or spell description."
Based on this, I would say even the Summoner SLA to cast Summon Monster X would require a Full-Round to summon:
"A spell that takes 1 round to cast is a full-round action. It comes into effect just before the beginning of your turn in the round after you began casting the spell. You then act normally after the spell is completed."
One other possible flaw: a GM might rule that the phrase "If this ability is used again" means when you BEGIN to use it, not when you are FINISHED using it. The wording says "is used" not "is successfully used" or "is finished using" or any other wording to imply that your existing summoned monster will wait until you're done casting. By that ruling, you dismiss your first monster when you start to cast the spell that summons the second monster, not when you finish casting and the second monster appears. So make sure your GM doesn't read the rule this way or your whole plan fails entirely.
So, to use your plan (assuming your GM lets monster #1 wait around until you're done summoning monster #2):
Round 1: Do nothing but summon your monster #1.
Round 2: Monster #1 appears at the beginning of your turn. Regardless of whether you summon another one or not, you cannot possibly have two this round, so you get a normal number of attacks from one summoned monster. Let's assume you begin summoning a second monster.
Round 3: Monster #2 appears at the beginning of your turn, dismissing Monster #1. Delaying your turn does nothing because your casting time of One Round began at a certain initiative last round and it ends at the same initiative this round regardless of whether you delay now. Since the casting time ends at the beginning of your turn, it is also at the beginning of the turn for Monster #1, dismissing it before it can attack.
Now, I suppose you can let Monster #1 attack in Round 2 while you delay the time you begin to cast your second Summon Monster spell. That way, in round 3, monster #1 gets its second round of attacks while you are still casting your One Round spell so it won't be dismissed before it can attack. Doing it this way might allow you to have two summoned monsters attack in the same round (round #3).
It's costly (uses lots of daily resources) and it takes time to set up (doesn't work until the third round) and it's risky (two full rounds with you standing there doing nothing but making yourself an easy target while you cast without even moving) and your GM might not even allow it if he believes monster #1 is dismissed when you start summoning monster #2.
But yeah, it might work.
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The tactic work and is legal.
Are you sure you can cast Summon Monster so fast?
Yes, he can. it is one of the several things in which the summoner break the existing rules and assumptions:
Summoner summon monster SLA: "He can cast this spell as a standard action and the creatures remain for 1 minute per level (instead of 1 round per level)."
I dislike the summoner class because it break the rules too many times.
It get a fully customizable companion with special rules that make its abilities different from the normal monster abilities.
It get plenty of spells at a lower level than any other class, often without any thematic reason (essentially it is a class with a 8 level spell list compressed in a 6 level spell list).
It get a SLA summon ability that break the normal assumptions of the spell.
To many exceptions in a single package.
I've never really thought of this but after reading it and a little research, it seems your player is correct. In fact, this has been discussed before, with a similar consensus.
I think the "problem" language is from this sentence in the SLA:
If this ability is used again, any existing summon monster or gate immediately ends.
In contrast, if you look at the Summon Monster spell, the duration is "(D)", which would be a standard action, but the summoner's SLA description trumps. IMO, it would have been better had they simply left it at "A summoner cannot have more than one summon monster or gate spell active in this way at one time," but they didn't. So, technically, I agree, what your player is doing is RAW.
You could house rule it if you were so inclined, just say it's RAI or a flat out house rule. I'm running a summoner in another campaign with a melee-oriented eidolon. I prefer having my eidolon in combat but, when he isn't summoned or is defeated, I have not used the above-described exploit and have done just fine.
Or, as was stated, change things up and make sure you use multiple encounters in a day or even a marathon string of combats or waves of opponents. (This is what the GM does in the campaign where I'm playing a summoner, which is probably why this tactic has never even occurred to me... it's simply not feasible.) After a few instances of that, the summoner may be less likely to blow through his resources quite so quickly.
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How is this worse than a Sorcerer casting Summon Monster V to have the monster make a full attack, then next round his monster makes a full attack and he casts Summon Monster V again to summon a second one adjacent to it, which full attacks?
Zero rules questions whatsoever and it's MORE powerful, since there's more than one creature sticking around. Third round he gets three full attacks.
Correct me if I'm wrong here, but this doesn't seem broken, overpowered, or improper.
This is no worse than the summoner saying "I ready an action to cast Summon Monster as soon as my summoned monster falls." Which I see daily in Pathfinder Society.
The tactic work and is legal.
Are you sure you can cast Summon Monster so fast?Yes, he can. it is one of the several things in which the summoner break the existing rules and assumptions:
Summoner summon monster SLA: "He can cast this spell as a standard action and the creatures remain for 1 minute per level (instead of 1 round per level)."
I dislike the summoner class because it break the rules too many times.
It get a fully customizable companion with special rules that make its abilities different from the normal monster abilities.
It get plenty of spells at a lower level than any other class, often without any thematic reason (essentially it is a class with a 8 level spell list compressed in a 6 level spell list).
It get a SLA summon ability that break the normal assumptions of the spell.To many exceptions in a single package.
No offense, but breaking existing rules to fit a dedicated theme is kind of the point. Arguing that summoners can summon better than other casters is rather like arguing that rogues get extra damage for being roguish or that fighters get extra damage that other classes don't get. It defines the character type. I can certainly see why people would be miffed at some early spell access (especially spells that don't really fit the theme, such as haste but frankly the summoner list is so specialized that it seems dreadfully weak at anything but a straight-up strongest wins kind of fight.
That isn't to say the summoner is a great class. it doesn't really fit the archetype that inspires it; instead, it's a toolkit for min-maxers to stretch their muscles. I'm even more disappointed that the eidolon rules are so heavily slanted in the direction of melee bruiser. Casting-flavored eidolons could be quite fun if they could actually get any reasonable casting ability. At 20th level, you should be able to call an eidolon whose spells strike primal fear into the likes of the great genie lords--even if you have to lose some of your own casting ability to do it. They don't have to be spells either--they could have other supernatural mystical abilities normally only seen in the higher ranks of fey, outsiders, or magical beasts. Instead, at 11th level or higher, you can burn 4 points to let Sparky cast one of a limited (and arbitrarily so, with no seeming pattern at all) selection of spells, such as create food and water or, at best, lightning bolt. At least major image is fun. But you have to burn pretty much every point to get the lesser prerequisite evolutions and Charisma score to get these spells, and the save DC is likely in the range of 15. At 11th level. Truly an awe-inspiring creature forged of primal chaos, that. And it never really gets any better for the poor thing; it'd be better replaced wholesale with the Leadership feat. A few archetypes make a token attempt at this, but all fall short.
So your choice is a souped up glass cannon animal companion or a spellcaster that gets bullied around by the cohorts--nay, the cohort's cohorts--of a similarly leveled character. Such a waste of potential for what could have been a brilliant class.
But yeah, you can do a neat trick a few times a day to double up weenies on somebody. If that's your style, just go master summoner so you can do the same thing without having to unsummon your previous mooks.
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I'm playing a summoner as well, and since my eidolon is quite tough there haven't been many situations in which I've really needed the sla. But recently, the eidolon went down and we were looking at a potential TPK, so I had to rely on the summone monster sla. The earth elemental I summoned pretty much saved the day, and when the first one died I just summoned another. After the battle it occurred to me that I could have made more attacks if I had used the sla each round after the elemental had attacked. From the RAW point-of-view it's legit, but I've no idea whether the designers intended it to work that way.
Considering that a master summoner can do this each round as a standard action without losing his earlier summoned creatures (provided that the eidolon's not out), there's really nothing unusually unfair about this, ehm, technique.
The one-at-a-time restriction is only for the eidolon and the class's summon monster SLA feature. You can still cast the actual spell, use a wand, staff, or scroll as normal without regard for that limit.
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The tactic work and is legal.
Are you sure you can cast Summon Monster so fast?Yes, he can. it is one of the several things in which the summoner break the existing rules and assumptions:
Summoner summon monster SLA: "He can cast this spell as a standard action and the creatures remain for 1 minute per level (instead of 1 round per level)."
I dislike the summoner class because it break the rules too many times.
It get a fully customizable companion with special rules that make its abilities different from the normal monster abilities.
It get plenty of spells at a lower level than any other class, often without any thematic reason (essentially it is a class with a 8 level spell list compressed in a 6 level spell list).
It get a SLA summon ability that break the normal assumptions of the spell.To many exceptions in a single package.
No offense, but breaking existing rules to fit a dedicated theme is kind of the point. Arguing that summoners can summon better than other casters is rather like arguing that rogues get extra damage for being roguish or that fighters get extra damage that other classes don't get. It defines the character type. I can certainly see why people would be miffed at some early spell access (especially spells that don't really fit the theme, such as haste but frankly the summoner list is so specialized that it seems dreadfully weak at anything but a straight-up strongest wins kind of fight.
That isn't to say the summoner is a great class. it doesn't really fit the archetype that inspires it; instead, it's a toolkit for min-maxers to stretch their muscles. I'm even more disappointed that the eidolon rules are so heavily slanted in the direction of melee bruiser. Casting-flavored eidolons could be quite fun if they could actually get any reasonable casting ability. At 20th level, you should be able to call an eidolon whose spells strike primal fear into the likes of the great genie lords--even if you have to lose some of your own casting ability to do it. They don't have to be spells either--they could have other supernatural mystical abilities normally only seen in the higher ranks of fey, outsiders, or magical beasts. Instead, at 11th level or higher, you can burn 4 points to let Sparky cast one of a limited (and arbitrarily so, with no seeming pattern at all) selection of spells, such as create food and water or, at best, lightning bolt. At least major image is fun. But you have to burn pretty much every point to get the lesser prerequisite evolutions and Charisma score to get these spells, and the save DC is likely in the range of 15. At 11th level. Truly an awe-inspiring creature forged of primal chaos, that. And it never really gets any better for the poor thing; it'd be better replaced wholesale with the Leadership feat. A few archetypes make a token attempt at this, but all fall short.
So your choice is a souped up glass cannon animal companion or a spellcaster that gets bullied around by the cohorts--nay, the cohort's cohorts--of a similarly leveled character. Such a waste of potential for what could have been a brilliant class.
But yeah, you can do a neat trick a few times a day to double up weenies on somebody. If that's your style, just go master summoner so you can do the same thing without having to unsummon your previous mooks.
To sum it up, you want two caster at the price of one ...
No, thanks.The summoner has already a extremely large supply of spell ans SLA thanks to the creatures he can summon when is eidolon is away, he don't need a spellcasting ediolon as a added way to get spells.