Opinion on modifying 'Summon Monster" spells....

[Scrogz]

Here is what is up for debate in our group....

Summon Monster 1 gets 1 (lvl 1)creature
Summon Monster 2 get d3 (lvl 1) creatures
Summon Monster 3 gets d4+1 (lvl 1) creatures

Some of us (meaning me) don't like the fact I might burn a second level spell and get the same effect as a lvl 1 spell, a single creature

I've proposed modifying as follows:

Summon Monster 1 gets 1 (lvl 1)creature
Summon Monster 2 get 1+d2 (lvl 1) creatures
Summon Monster 3 gets 2+d3 (lvl 1) creatures

This way using a higher level spell grants additonal return, something that I believe makes sense without changing the "cap" on the spell.

Anyone like/dislike or have an opinion?

Modified Summon Monster tables to include Beast 2 and 3 creatures might help solve the problem also as I would be less tempted to only summon eagles, which are almost always the best answer until you get Lantern Archons.

[mplindustries]

I think with the way enemies scale, it's practically never worthwhile to summon multiple lower level creatures. I'd leave it at 1d3 just so people are reminded of this fact and don't waste their spell slots on it. I can't think of a single level of Summon Monster where a single creature would be worse than even three from a previous list.

[Are]

I have considered elimination the random chance altogether, and instead let the higher level spell yield 2 "level-1" creatures or 4 "level-2" creatures.

So SM2 could yield 2 SM1 creatures, while SM3 could yield 4 SM1 creatures or 2 SM2 creatures.

[Scrogz]

mplindustries wrote:

I think with the way enemies scale, it's practically never worthwhile to summon multiple lower level creatures. I'd leave it at 1d3 just so people are reminded of this fact and don't waste their spell slots on it. I can't think of a single level of Summon Monster where a single creature would be worse than even three from a previous list.

With Summon Monster 2 I will almost always take the multiple eagles over anything on the summon monster 2 list.

Multiple Lantern Archons with a Monster summon 4 is a scary thing.

[Cheapy]

mplindustries wrote:

I think with the way enemies scale, it's practically never worthwhile to summon multiple lower level creatures. I'd leave it at 1d3 just so people are reminded of this fact and don't waste their spell slots on it. I can't think of a single level of Summon Monster where a single creature would be worse than even three from a previous list.

Once you get Superior Summoning, things change drastically.

I would much rather have up to 4 celestial dire tigers all using Smite Evil to deal +14 damage on all 5 of their attacks than most other SM7 creatures.

Or up to 6 lantern archons (4 average) than a fair number of the SM5 monsters. Non-flying creatures will have a tough time hitting them and they *while* whittle enemies down.

[meatrace]

Scrogz wrote:

mplindustries wrote:

I think with the way enemies scale, it's practically never worthwhile to summon multiple lower level creatures. I'd leave it at 1d3 just so people are reminded of this fact and don't waste their spell slots on it. I can't think of a single level of Summon Monster where a single creature would be worse than even three from a previous list.

With Summon Monster 2 I will almost always take the multiple eagles over anything on the summon monster 2 list.

Multiple Lantern Archons with a Monster summon 4 is a scary thing.

You hit both of my points!

Yeah, a mitt full of eagles can be a serious threat. And a swarm of Lantern Archons>any Golem. SM V + Invis=win vs. golems.

[Liam Warner]

Ah I remember the day's when the "monster" you got was random each time you cast it unless you started making bargains with a specific individual or group e.g. I'll supply you with a fish a month if you let me be able to summon you X times a day/week/month. Of course you could always make bargains with everything you could summon so you could specify exactly what you got but that could get expensive especially with the more powerful creatures. One player of mine actually agreed to a mutal summoning contract where in they could summon an archon whenever they wanted but the archon could do the same to them.