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Rating the summon monster spells was a roller coaster ride. Through the mid-levels the new monsters were surprising and effective, peaking out at level 7 with the amazing Tyrannosaurus, and then nose-diving through SMVIII and SMIX.
While I still agree with Treantmonk on his points about why summoning works, SMVIII and SMIX seem to be best spent summoning multiple creatures from SMVII's list.
Maybe I'm being a little harsh to SMIX, but comparing it to the Bestiary Statistics provided by Shoelessinsight, the monsters just don't seem that great, especially when some SMVII options sport similar statistics with the ability to smite evil.
But that's just me venting. Here's an introduction!
My latest sleep depriver was a Summon Monster guide for my Complete Wizard guide. It was a good experience for me in putting things into perspective, but I present it to you early because it turns out :GASP: Wizards aren't the only class that can cast this spell. So presenting it as a separate guide could be useful to a lot of people.
As far as work on the complete guide goes, all I have left is the spells and then it's just adjusting the guide according to comments I receive from you guys.
Also, feel free to make arguments for anything you disagree with in this guide, I need to hear them, because I would like to be wrong in some of my assessments.
The Bulette is actually a summon monster VI, it's a typo on the d20pfsrd website.
The Bulette is actually a summon monster VI, it's a typo on the d20pfsrd website.
Makes sense.
Hey Kaptain, I'm liking your guide quite a bit. A couple of comments though:
-If you are going to list alternative summons, it be nice if you gave some more basic information on what they are. IE they are religion specific summons that only work for priests of the appropriate deity. Whether your GM rules that only divine casters can be "priests" or any follower can be considered one is something only he knows. Also, if you could list which deity is required with each alternate summon, this list would go from being something nice to something I would print out and bring with me.
-Lantern Archons are pretty awesome in the right situation, especially when you can multiple out at once. Stacking aura of menaces together and spamming attacks that ignore pretty much all defenses, while being able to fly and provide another mediocre buff at will is pretty damn nice. They are especially useful if you can summon before a fight starts.
-You should at least note the Lemures ability to see in supernatural darkness. That's a nice option to have at 3rd or 4th level- especially in PFS which seems to have a lo of deeper darkness effects going on.
More to come later probably.
Lame, made me go look and notice the PRD has not been updated to show that Riding Dog is now just Dog in SMI.
So far so good reading through, just made a Summoning Wizard so this should help.
What a fantastic guide! I particularly love the summaries before each listing of monsters. It's so incredibly useful.
You include the teleportation abilities in the guide, I thought summoned monsters lost them all
Alternate lists are always religion specific iirc.
You include the teleportation abilities in the guide, I thought summoned monsters lost them all
This was a matter of not going over those sort of rules for a refresh before going through the guide.
I remembered that you couldn't summon with summons, and that the Wish spell didn't work, but for whatever reason I didn't remember the teleportation rule (And the Raise Dead rule)
Fixed it though. Thanks for pointing it out.
Some initial comments.
The giant ant worker does not get grab so its CMB is 4 less then you indicate (those 4 points were a benefit of grab)
Any summoned creature cannot use teleport abilities (you've listed this wrong for most of your outsiders)
Dire Boar is SM4 not 3.
Not sure why anyone would use an ant drone, it just adds a template to the normal soldier ant... which doesn't not increase its HD at all. Using SM4 to summon a 2HD ant seems ill advised.
It also might be worth noting that the many of the animals on the SM4 list actually have 5HD, thus making them eligible for some DR good/evil from the celestial/fiendish template that gets applied (as well as energy resistance 10 instead of 5). Sadly, the dire Ape, Giant Wasp, and Giant Ant Drone miss out as they have less the 5 HD.
Also, the Dire Tiger and the Giant Octopus on the SM6 list reach the 11+ HD line that moves them up to DR 10 alignment and 15 resists (further confirming the awesomeness of the cat I suppose)
Would have thought the Unholy Blight power of the Erinyes devil, and being able to spam it at will at range, while flying, would have gotten a mention... 6d8 per round (plus sickened) 20' radius burst with a 220' range is not a bad thing... just have to avoid the non-evil friendlies =)
(same for Chaos Hammer and the Hezrou later, but since thats SM8, its less sexy)The Gaele (and the Trumpet Archon) cannot use Raise Dead as it has an expensive material component which is restricted in summoned critter spellcasting.
The grab I quote is from the OGC, but you might be right in that it's a typo. I think I'm going to leave it as is with a disclaimer that it might be a typo for now until I can get more info.
Fixed the teleport problem.
Dire Boar is a level earlier for some deities, which I will address when I rewrite the intro in a moment.
The Ant Drone's HP is relatively weak. I need to change that word "Viable" and put "Usable". He's still an orange option, after all the 19 DC on his poison isn't all bad. At level 7 and 8 it's around a 55% to 50% chance of applying the poison.
I'll mention the DC in the summary for SM4.
I did see Unholy Blight, but because of the DC and targeting only good creatures I kind of glanced over it. I'll mention it though. It has about a 50% success rate on average.
Fixed the Raise dead thing.
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Hey Kaptain, I'm liking your guide quite a bit. A couple of comments though:
-If you are going to list alternative summons, it be nice if you gave some more basic information on what they are. IE they are religion specific summons that only work for priests of the appropriate deity. Whether your GM rules that only divine casters can be "priests" or any follower can be considered one is something only he knows. Also, if you could list which deity is required with each alternate summon, this list would go from being something nice to something I would print out and bring with me.
-Lantern Archons are pretty awesome in the right situation, especially when you can multiple out at once. Stacking aura of menaces together and spamming attacks that ignore pretty much all defenses, while being able to fly and provide another mediocre buff at will is pretty damn nice. They are especially useful if you can summon before a fight starts.
-You should at least note the Lemures ability to see in supernatural darkness. That's a nice option to have at 3rd or 4th level- especially in PFS which seems to have a lo of deeper darkness effects going on.
More to come later probably.
Yeah, my lack of explanation of the alternate summons was something I was going to do before I posted, but for some reason forgot.
Gave lantern archon a half-green to make it stand out and mentioned the multiple summoning benefit. I think you've got a point there.
Made a mention on the Lemure.
Thanks for the feedback!
Are there any similar guides for Summon Nature's Ally?
Heh, you should PM Shoelessinight and see if he'll do it.
He's more of a druid enthusiast than I am.
Alternate lists are always religion specific iirc.
Yeah, I added an explanation to the intro (or a reference to an explanation, since I wanted to fit it all in one page.)
To note -- the lantern archon has some pretty hefty DR -- not many creatures either count to overcome it or have the +4 weaponry to do so. Through levels 5~9 it's survivability is actually pretty high because of this, so use it to absorb hits that you would otherwise take (like AoO's by having it shoot while in range or move through). With its aid ability it can aid, shoot round 2, then if it takes damage aid again before repeating.
I know this is a general summoning guide, but if you have a bard in the party the lantern archon can look much better (especially in groups) -- when buffed with bardic performance and possibly good hope they hit rather consistently for a better 1d6+4 damage per ray (two rays each). Without a bard... well they are usually still fairly consistent but not nearly as nice.
With a bard and haste they get fearsome -- three ranged touch attacks that ignore DR. (And if, say, a high-level paladin gives them aura of justice? Hope the enemy has a high touch AC... he's going to need it, badly.)
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The Bulette is actually a summon monster VI, it's a typo on the d20pfsrd website.This is now fixed.
You know, it's pretty easy to let us know about mistakes and it usually takes us just a couple of minutes to fix them so please do feel free to report these things to us! :)
Anything else?
You're right. I should have reported that, but I was lazy. Will sacrifice some players in my next game to atone for my sin, sorry :(
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It's an interesting document, although I think it's somewhat misleading to list 3.5 Summon Monster options from Legacy of Fire in a Pathfinder summoning guide.
I've listed my personal picks for best Summon Monster/Nature's Ally by level in a previous thread (Bestiary only):
Best Summon Monster by level
It's an interesting document, although I think it's somewhat misleading to list 3.5 Summon Monster options from Legacy of Fire in a Pathfinder summoning guide.
I've listed my personal picks for best Summon Monster/Nature's Ally by level in a previous thread (Bestiary only):
Best Summon Monster by level
Well, I suppose I COULD remove the alternate summons.
I think I agree with your list. Some of them though I'd still be looking at a lower level for multiple summons instead.
With a bard and haste they get fearsome -- three ranged touch attacks that ignore DR. (And if, say, a high-level paladin gives them aura of justice? Hope the enemy has a high touch AC... he's going to need it, badly.)
Haste is a good idea.
And I agree that it's a pretty good idea to summon multiple lanterns just for damage.
With the SMVI Lillend you don't even need to be a bard (Though it won't be quite as effective.)
The Cerberi also has combat reflexes and stand still for what it's worth.
Personally, I'm not a fan of including the alternative summons in the lists because they are meant only for setting-specific characters. They aren't meant for general use, and the inclusion of them should not be mistaken to mean that they are balanced for everyone.
Also, earth elementals are quite nice. Drop a Create Pit in front of some enemies, and have the EEs bowl / bullrush the enemies into the pit. Effective? Maybe not. Hilarious? Yes.
I think earth elementals are my favorite of the elementals, which you might gather from my ratings of the elemental entries.
Personally, I'm not a fan of including the alternative summons in the lists because they are meant only for setting-specific characters. They aren't meant for general use, and the inclusion of them should not be mistaken to mean that they are balanced for everyone.
I went through and put a few more visual dividers to separate them. I'll consider removing them later.
Oh! One more thing: the feat Spell Perfection. Double the bonus (for that one spell) from Augment Summoning and Superior Summoning. Blow an SMVIII, and get 1d4+3 Strength 36 huge earth elementals?
Spell perfection is an idea that I've had, but it only effects one spell. Summon Monster IX would be the best use for that feat. And yeah, all those monsters could be pretty tough if only for utility if nothing else.
Too bad they're gargantuan, because 1d4+3 Tyrannosaurus' would be even scarier if you could fit them.
Well, I suppose I COULD remove the alternate summons.It's an interesting document, although I think it's somewhat misleading to list 3.5 Summon Monster options from Legacy of Fire in a Pathfinder summoning guide.
I've listed my personal picks for best Summon Monster/Nature's Ally by level in a previous thread (Bestiary only):
Best Summon Monster by level
It's not the alternate summons that are misleading (IMO), it's 3.5 vs. Pathfinder. The Pathfinder versions of SM/SNA have clearly been rebalanced compared to the 3.5 versions, so it's a bit like comparing apples to oranges.
I think I agree with your list. Some of them though I'd still be looking at a lower level for multiple summons instead.
I think you have some better ideas on your list than I do, particularly for the higher levels (which I don't really have much experience with so I didn't think through too closely).
And yes, I agree that multiple lower level summons are sometimes the best choice.
Fixed the Raise dead thing.
Creatures summoned using this spell cannot use spells or spell-like abilities that duplicate spells with expensive material components (such as wish).
I believe that the RAI was to prevent summoners from circumventing the high cost for some spells (such as raise dead and wish).
But what if the summoner provided the material components, would the summoned creature be able to cast the spell in question? I'd say yes.
EDIT: Oh, and of course, thank you for that brilliant guide!
This is a great guide. Thank you for taking the time and putting it together.
Good guide.
However, I think the shadow demon should be a much higher rating. It is a nasty monster despite it's low damage output. This thing is really hard to kill, it is/has:
- incorporeal(1/2 damage from magic weapons, NO damage from non-magic weapons)
- DR10/cold iron or good
- immunity to cold, electricity, and poison
- resistance 10 to fire and acid
- SR 17
- invisible in anything other than bright light(and it has deeper darkness at will)
Also, despite it's low melee damage (using a touch attack as you mentioned) it has pounce and telekinesis at will, fear at will, shadow conjuration 3/day, shadow evocation 3/day, and magic jar 1/day.
With it's incorporeal ability, it can single handedly take down (or occupy) opponents of a much higher CR than it if they don't have magic weapons or other magical attacks.
I suppose the biggest weakness of the shadow demon would be if an opponent ignores it, but even so I think it deserves a higher rating.
I think the Hound Archon should be Blue as it has DR10 Evil on top of everything else you mentioned.
I think the Hound Archon should be Blue as it has DR10 Evil on top of everything else you mentioned.
Yeah, I agree.
I did mention in the summary that I think he is one of the two best summons that level.
I think a bump up in color is probably appropriate.
Good guide.
However, I think the shadow demon should be a much higher rating. It is a nasty monster despite it's low damage output. This thing is really hard to kill, it is/has:
- incorporeal(1/2 damage from magic weapons, NO damage from non-magic weapons)
- DR10/cold iron or good
- immunity to cold, electricity, and poison
- resistance 10 to fire and acid
- SR 17
- invisible in anything other than bright light(and it has deeper darkness at will)
Also, despite it's low melee damage (using a touch attack as you mentioned) it has pounce and telekinesis at will, fear at will, shadow conjuration 3/day, shadow evocation 3/day, and magic jar 1/day.
With it's incorporeal ability, it can single handedly take down (or occupy) opponents of a much higher CR than it if they don't have magic weapons or other magical attacks.
I suppose the biggest weakness of the shadow demon would be if an opponent ignores it, but even so I think it deserves a higher rating.
It would be cool to BE a Shadow Demon, but the big question is how he contributes the the party.
My DMs might be a little different from yours, but the less threatening and harder to damage the creature is, the less likely it is that they're going to attack them instead of you. (And it makes sense as any rational foe would realize, especially if their smart enough to realize you can make more of them by casting another spell.)
I'll make him green as a niche option, since he is pretty solid. Like the Lantern Archon in its own level though I don't think that he offers enough team contribution to compete with some of the other giants of SMVI (Like the Dire Tiger.)
Fixed the Raise dead thing.Creatures summoned using this spell cannot use spells or spell-like abilities that duplicate spells with expensive material components (such as wish).I believe that the RAI was to prevent summoners from circumventing the high cost for some spells (such as raise dead and wish).
But what if the summoner provided the material components, would the summoned creature be able to cast the spell in question? I'd say yes.
EDIT: Oh, and of course, thank you for that brilliant guide!
I think that that would be a houserule that would depend on the DM.
One of the DMs I've played with would say "make the Cleric do it. You're a Wizard and you're not supposed to be able to do that."
Of course that was the same DM that didn't want me to play a Dungeon Crusher in 3.5 because it would circumvent the rogue's role.
I personally don't see any problem with it.
Good guide.
However, I think the shadow demon should be a much higher rating. It is a nasty monster despite it's low damage output.
I think some of it is campaign-dependent.
For instance, if you spend most of your time fighting one big enemy, then creatures with high grapple checks (like a crocodile or a celestial dire tiger) start to look pretty good. But if you tend to fight more groups of weaker enemies, creatures that can hurt multiple foes (like an aurochs or a shadow demon) are possibly more useful.
I think comparing the shadow demon to the lantern archon is spot on -- they both are actually better when you can summon groups of them to block/attack/absorb damage etc -- when you have several of them at once they really rock.
Also to keep in mind, not sure if it's in the guide or not, is this little quote from the universal monster rules:
A creature with an alignment subtype (chaotic, evil, good, or lawful) can overcome this type of damage reduction with its natural weapons and weapons it wields as if the weapons or natural weapons had an alignment (or alignments) that matched the subtype(s) of the creature.
As an addendum, the Celestial / Fiendish / Resolute / Entropic templates do not give the alignment subtype.
But if you need to overcome alignment DR, summoning a creature of that alignment will let you do that. Material DR is a different story, but that's what dips into druid for SNA and then the *light Summons is for :)
Thanks for the guide, I will use it when I play a Summoner.
I also would like to see the 'restrictions' on the added summons to know who can actually cast them.
Cheers.
Small Elementals: Lightning Elemental really stands out for the insane CMB it can get against foes made of or using metal. Won't cover too many encounter types, but you also aren't forced to choose which monster you're summoning in advance, so just being there as an option to devastate humanoid foes and certain others is nice.
Ankylosaurus might be blue, the dazing effect is pretty awesome.
I think in general for the mid and higher level spells, you don't really factor in the power of smite evil/good with having multiple attacks and in some cases pounce. Adding +HD to every damage roll can be brutal, especially if you have pounce as well. Like, Lion may not be the best, but Red seems too harsh, for example.
Also, wow those alternate summons are broken...
My impression of SM was that 1 was bad, 2-3 were sorta ok, and then 4+ it starts to get really good. The actual options for 8 and 9 may suck, but being able to summon multiple very good options from the lower levels + superior summons alone makes them good spells.
I think comparing the shadow demon to the lantern archon is spot on -- they both are actually better when you can summon groups of them to block/attack/absorb damage etc -- when you have several of them at once they really rock.
Yes, I'd even say that the Shadow Demon is an upgrade to the Lantern Archon.
Except that the Lantern Archon's range and damage reduction piercing still keeps it relevant even then.
Small Elementals: Lightning Elemental really stands out for the insane CMB it can get against foes made of or using metal. Won't cover too many encounter types, but you also aren't forced to choose which monster you're summoning in advance, so just being there as an option to devastate humanoid foes and certain others is nice.
Ankylosaurus might be blue, the dazing effect is pretty awesome.
I think in general for the mid and higher level spells, you don't really factor in the power of smite evil/good with having multiple attacks and in some cases pounce. Adding +HD to every damage roll can be brutal, especially if you have pounce as well. Like, Lion may not be the best, but Red seems too harsh, for example.
Also, wow those alternate summons are broken...
My impression of SM was that 1 was bad, 2-3 were sorta ok, and then 4+ it starts to get really good. The actual options for 8 and 9 may suck, but being able to summon multiple very good options from the lower levels + superior summons alone makes them good spells.
If you're fighting anything metal, Lightning elemental is astonishing.
That dazing effect IS awesome. I think I should have made him blue to start. Not sure why I didn't. With Augment Summons he's going to have more than a 50% chance to stun at CL9 on average.
As far as Smite Evil... Yeah, +5 extra damage does help the lion. I think I'm still a little hung up on his to-hit though. I guess he can be orange...
As far as your assessment on the levels, I'd agree. Summoning multiple monsters is the best feature. Too bad that some of the best monsters to summon multiple of are already enormous and hard to fit in places.
Thanks for the guide, I will use it when I play a Summoner.
I also would like to see the 'restrictions' on the added summons to know who can actually cast them.
Cheers.
Well, the biggest restriction is your DM. They're all adventure path specific and the OGC doesn't have all that information unfortunately.
If you want the exact specifics for why you should be able to summon them, then your only choice is to seek out the adventure path itself. (Which sources are listed with each of the alternate summons in the guide, as well as in the summon monster entry on the OGC.)
Very Cool!!!!!!!
Please leave in the odd ball stuff just sight source of where came form.
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Great guide! Two things, though: first, you should probably talk about Superior Summoning a bit. I crunched the numbers a while back, and it seems that for dishing out damage, it's almost always better to have 1d3+1 creatures of a lower level than 1 of the current level (sans DR).
Also, I think you've underrated the big cats. With pounce and rake they get a whopping 5 attacks on a charge when you first summon them, with Smite also if you like, plus they can potentially grapple. Summon a few leopards or lions and have them pounce on something, and there's a very good chance it will not continue that fight.