I keep seeing the recommendation to summon lantern archons to deal with a wide variety of "problems".
The latest was a recommendation to just summon a group of them to kill golems.
It seems that these "CR2" critters are quite powerful.
Why wouldn't a wizard just summon them for any fight?
Maybe if they feel the need for summoning something that does more straight up damage they would summon an Auroch or Croc or something, but yeah, Lantern Archons are awesome and I think are generally more useful than a lot of the alternatives.
EDIT: The fact they can voltron into a super lantern whirlwind is beyond badass, anyway to summon 9 of them at once?
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Use a few SM V, or be a master summoner.
Lvl3 Master Summoner, And now I summon, VOLTRON!
Maybe if they feel the need for summoning something that does more straight up damage they would summon an Auroch or Croc or something, but yeah, Lantern Archons are awesome and I think are generally more useful than a lot of the alternatives.
EDIT: The fact they can voltron into a super lantern whirlwind is beyond badass, anyway to summon 9 of them at once?
I'd like to pull that off in a game once just to see the reactions around the table, though you're probably better off just having 9 of them firing off their laser attacks each round.
Lantern Archons are mobile laser batteries capable of destroying any number of creatures. Two shots a round, against Touch AC, and ignoring all DR. They also have that aura, which can be useful. And of course, the free aid spell. My players have used them to trivialize more than one fight so far. I'm getting sick of them.
Also, I'm not sure the Voltron version is all that much better than nine individual lanterns.
For example, a Flesh Golem is a CR 7 large construct. It has DR 5/adamantite, 79 HP, and a touch AC of 8. Each archon can do two +3 rays (1d6 damage). This means each round, each archon does an average of 5.6 damage a round. That should take three archons 5 rounds to kill the golem. It can't do anything back since it can't hit them as they fly 30 feet up.
Or, like my party likes to do, summon two groups and run around with 5-6 archons that do a bit more damage (improved summoning and a summoning-focused wizard). So against, say, full werewolves where they just ignore the DR 10/silver I just cry to myself.
The idea that these critters are only useful against creatures with high DR and low touch AC is underestimating their value quite a bit in my opinion.
These things are little flying laser beams that are pretty much unhittable for monsters who can't fly or do range attacks, and even then they have DR themselves and can outfly most other creatures.
Mummy problems? Summon a few of these in the crypt and "hold portal" the door while you sit outside chatting with the rest of the group and listening to the howls of mummy pain from within.
I'd say that these things would be quite handy in 80% of the fights I've been in up through, say, level 12 or so.
I just noticed that it would appears Lantern Archons were a SMIV in 3.5, but were changed to a SMIII in Pathfinder, maybe thats why I don't remember them being as awesome way back when.
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Frickin lazer beams!
I summon 1d4+1 of them and then our sorceress cast haste on them. All from inside my tiny hut. It's amazing.
Edit: we are 15th level.
What effect does casting haste on them have? Do they then get three light ray attacks per round?
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What effect does casting haste on them have? Do they then get three light ray attacks per round?
Yes.
One of the most fun characters I ever ran was a Halflng Master Summoner / Holy Tactician. He would summon 'hunting packs' of Lantern Archons (usually 2-3 summons of 1d4+2 each), granting the teamwork feat of Target of Opportunity to work together. Once he gained the ability to fly, it was a blast - death by a thousand cuts, but a blast.
The two important things to remember is that they ignore all DR and are capable of casting Aid on the party.
I'm just wishing now that my druid could summon them.
I've not seen much use for them and find their abilities to be WAY overstated here on the forums. Their damage is pitifully low, their firing range short, and with a +3 to hit they are going to be missing more often than not (especially with melee party members getting in the way). By the time you get enough of them out to do anything meaningful the fight is already over. Getting a sizable swarm of them also eats up a LOT of spell slots and turn by turn actions that probably could have been better spent. In all likelihood, any enemy that can actually threaten the party will just ignore the archons and continue attacking the party anyways.
They are also weak and easily destroyed. Sure that takes hits away from the PCs, but that's true for any summoned monster. The mummy example above if a particularly bad one. In close catacombs, they won't be as able to stay out of the mummies' reach.
Sure they can be quite good, completely destroying something in very specific situations with the right set up, but this is also true of most any other spell or ability. If the party totally gets the drop on the bad guy and have 5 rounds to prep first, it doesn't really matter what options they choose--the bad guy is screwed.
So yeah, cool, but nothing to get excited about.
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The Archon's light ray benefiting from Haste seems kind of questionable to me. It's not a natural on manufactured weapon, it's an (Ex) ability.
RD, if the ceiling is low enough that they can't stay out of reach, that's an issue. But, they can move 60', shoot 30' and the mummy can only move 20' and has no reach. So they could move to 30' away, shoot, and repeat ad nauseum. And if the quarters are too tight for getting past the mummy, hey, greater teleport at will. So I think a mummy fight is actually a pretty tailor made fight for lantern archons, unless you have to fight in a tiny, tiny room.
In any situation where the party has a tank or tanks that can bottle up the enemy, archons could "pew pew" at will. And if the party includes a witch, that +3 may not look quite so bad, particularly against a debuffed touch AC. And you can use any number of full-party buffs that would boost the archon's attack.
I didn't say they were unbeatable, just that they look like they would be pretty good to have in a fight for a lot of levels above when you can first summon them. And in some cases they can dominate the fight.
The Archon's light ray benefiting from Haste seems kind of questionable to me. It's not a natural on manufactured weapon, it's an (Ex) ability.
It's certainly debatable.
I don't know about light rays and haste specifically, but I have had game designers state that a Tzitzimitl's eye beam doesn't work with its Vital Strike feat. That leads me to believe that special abilities like these are not really natural attacks in the traditional sense.
The trick with lantern archons is summoning a lot of them. A friend of mine was playing in a all wizard campaign so they had not fighters or other tanks and had to deal with a huge adamantine golem guarding a portal. They had to get past it but it was immune to almost all spells. The entire party memorized as many summoning spells as they could and summoned up a ridicules number of them. Sure the golem was taking out several a round, but there were a ton of them. I was not in the campaign so do not have the full details but from what I remember my friend saying it had hundreds of HP.
The strategy does not work for everything but is a good way to deal with something no one in the party can hurt.
The strategy does not work for everything but is a good way to deal with something no one in the party can hurt.
And I would argue it works pretty darn well even when the rest of the party CAN hurt the enemy. It's still two d6 ranged touch DR-ignoring attacks per round. And if the target is having to deal with a pouncing barbarian in their face, then those archons are probably free to just "pew pew" away.
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hey, greater teleport at will.
Unless I'm mistaken summoned creatures can't use their teleport abilities.
A summoned monster cannot summon or otherwise conjure another creature, nor can it use any teleportation or planar travel abilities.
Emphasis mine.
That said, they still seem to be more than a fair match for a mummy, certainly.
Wow, I did not know that Tiems...
I wonder how many other players never noticed that little nugget...
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Once I summoned a hound archon, gave it my bag of holding, and told it to teleport to far away X city after I climbed in. It wasn't until after I slew the leader of city X and took it for my own, that the GM and I discovered that little rule.
I. lost. everything. An entire game day that resulted in the reset button being pressed.
On another note, I'm still not seeing the appeal of lantern archons. Let's say I'm a 9th-level master summoner. That's a pretty ideal circumstance, no? <-- rhetorical
Round one, I conjure up 1d4+1 lanterns, or an average of 3.5.
Round two, I do it again for a total of 7.
In round one, they release six lasers at the enemy (touch AC 10). However, the party barbarian is in the enemy's face. The lanterns now take a -4 for firing into melee and the enemy gains a +4 cover bonus to AC. The lanterns need a 15 or better to hit. They have a 75% chance of missing on any given attack. So six lasers, each hitting for an average of 3.5 damage.
(3.5 x 6) x .25 = 5.25 damage in round one.
In round two, the original three lanterns plus the four new ones all shoot at the same enemy.
(3.5 x 14) x .25 = 12.25 damage in round two.
For two rounds of effort we've managed an average of 17.5 damage.
That's less than if the wizard hit him twice with magic missile. In fact a single casting of magic missile at 9th-level does 17.5 damage on average. That means that I've accomplished with one 1st-level spell what you've used two 5th-level spell-like abilities for.
WHY ARE YOU EVEN HERE? Odds are, the pouncing barbarian would have finished off the enemy in the same round with or without your army of lightbulbs. When that happens, you've effectively done nothing to contribute to the party. In fact, you've probably drained resources by picking a subpar option.
Sure, the archons can keep pinging away with their lasers (for up to 9 rounds), but I can keep blasting things with my magic missiles, ore fireballs, or chain lightning. Eventually, you will have a huge swarm, but by then the other party members have likely already finished the battle.
Almost any other spell or ability choice is going to be better most of the time. I've already shown how standard blasting is going to be better most of the time.
And what was it people kept saying about blasting? Oh yeah...
...IT SUCKS.
One minor caveat. You could likely position the lantern archons when summoning them in such a way that their target wouldn't get the cover bonus to his/her AC (and then with perfect fly they can usually make sure they keep such a position themselves), though the -4 penalty is pretty much impossible to avoid.
In general, though, the only time my players usually bust out the lantern archons is when they are up against a creature that for whatever reason they have no reliable way to deal significant damage to because of DR that they couldn't bypass. The Aid does also help in certain situations.
But yes, in many cases a Haste would have served your party better. Or 7 dretches all dropping an overlapping stinking cloud.
In round two, the original three lanterns plus the four new ones all shoot at the same enemy.
(3.5 x 14) x .25 = 12.25 damage in round two.
For two rounds of effort we've managed an average of 17.5 damage.
That's less than if the wizard hit him twice with magic missile. In fact a single casting of magic missile at 9th-level does 17.5 damage on average. That means that I've accomplished with one 1st-level spell what you've used two 5th-level spell-like abilities for.
SM3 isn't a summoner spell.
SM4 is a 3rd level Summoner spell.So SM5 is a 4th level Summoner Spell.
So 2 4th level spells to accomplish 1 1st level, but ignores SR.
A 3rd level spell is that MIGHT deal 2d6 damage a round is GOOD?
Where are you guys coming up with this stuff???
Problem: The magic missle won't absorb damage for you where as the lantern archons can. Teleport isn't available to them of course but they do offer damage and a decent meat shield.
And it's a third level spell that will probably deal 2d6 damage a round, which might have mediating factors.
Much like your magic missile might find itself negated by SR or a shield spell or the fact it's useless against a golem altogether since the golem is immune to it.
Also you can keep lantern archons outside and anti magic field and have them shoot into it with their (EX) rays. Something that's rather hard to duplicate.
IF you have (or are) a bard then they become better -- after all once you pile inspire courage and good hope on them the damage becomes rather better and hits more often.
I never said it was a worthless spell option, far from it, I just think that everyone is piling on WAY too much praise for what it actually does.
The more I hear how bad they are, the better I feel about them. The way I've seen them referenced in some threads I had come to believe they must be too good.
One thing to keep in mind, if you do kill the enemy before your rounds run out, or the enemy turns out to have a higher touch AC than you anticipated you can have your Archons switch to buffing up everybody with an Aid spell or even detecting evil on a captured foe for you.
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They're good, but for certain jobs only. If you play a wizard with emphasis on summon monster, you'll notice LAs don't get a lot of benefit from Augment Summoning.
SM-3 also summons the Leopard, which, with +4 Strength, Smite [alignment] from template, and Pounce-Rake-Grab, is an absolute death machine.
The leopard will end normal fights a lot sooner, which means less time for the enemy to hurt you. That's nice. The LA is for battles that you need to win through attrition, rather than shock and awe.
So the LA isn't always the best summon at its tier, but for certain jobs it's wonderful. It has a pretty rare ability to get past DR and kite monsters, so it's more notable than the leopard, which does things a lot of other monsters do too.
I rather like the Aid at will power; in some fights I summon an LA just to hover on the fighter's shoulder, feeding him 1d8+3 temporary HP every round. (It's a 2H fighter, so he needs regular infusions.)
In summary: LA is special and powerful, but not so universally good as to make other summons at the same tier obsolete.
The true value of a summoner is not being able to summon the perfect creature. It is being able to summon the perfect creature for the job. Lantern archons are ideal against creatures with high DR/SR like golems (they can dismantle golems with great ease), whereas in many cases summoning 1d4+1 arochs to be meatshields and use a 2d6+9 trample attack each is more useful for dealing with mobs of enemies (especially if said enemies have lowish Reflex saves). Meanwhile Lemure devils are a good option if you're just trying to slow foes down (they have DR 5/good or silver and immunity to fire, mind-affecting, fear, poison, and resist acid and cold 10), especially if you have Augment Summoning (17 HP each). Dretches are also nice as they can cast cause fear, and stinking cloud 1/day, which can allow you to layer some clouds if needed but otherwise aren't very strong.
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Ashiel gives nice examples.
Lantern Archons are one tool in your toolkit. They get a lot of attention because they do something quite unusual: they provide a wizard with a weapon against multi-resistant monsters. But they're not so powerful as to be the end-all of summoned monsters. If you want real brute power, consider the Augmented version of the Hound Archon instead.
Anyway, did anyone else notice that the Lantern Archon's light rays are totally useless against Shadows, because they're nonmagical, and therefore don't penetrate the Shadow's incorporeality? Sweet, sweet irony...
Ashiel gives nice examples.
Lantern Archons are one tool in your toolkit. They get a lot of attention because they do something quite unusual: they provide a wizard with a weapon against multi-resistant monsters. But they're not so powerful as to be the end-all of summoned monsters. If you want real brute power, consider the Augmented version of the Hound Archon instead.
Anyway, did anyone else notice that the Lantern Archon's light rays are totally useless against Shadows, because they're nonmagical, and therefore don't penetrate the Shadow's incorporeality? Sweet, sweet irony...
My favorite use of lantern archons isn't even for the light rays. They cast continual flame as a spell-like ability. It's a good way to light your lanterns, create everburning torches, and light up your base (everburning bicks are really cool to have in your keep's walls).
EDIT: For example, when you can summon a lantern archon it lasts for 5 rounds. During those 5 rounds you can have it cast continual flame on 5 different items in the duration. A wizard with only a 13 Intelligence (minimum needed to cast the spell) can thus create 5 everburning torches per day by casting summon monster III.
EDIT 2: I probably like this because I actually spend a lot of time focused on non-combat things, NPCs, and working on things like bases, homes, small villages, etc. A 5th level PC could easily be the leader of their own thorpe or hamlet and can light up their streets with the continual flame spells and really pretty designs and sparkling trees and such (which is really cool if you want a treetop village).
Summoned creatures can't use SLAs that mimic spells with an expensive material component in Pathfinder unless you provide that component, Ashiel. Was a bigger rude awakening to me than the inability to use their teleport.
Edit: Actually, in rereading the spell description while writing this response, I noticed that it simply flat out prevents the casting of any SLA that mimics a spell with an expensive material component. You can't even provide one for the monster, it appears. How droll.
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I've seen these little blighters used courtesy of the party's summoner.
The 'lantern archon firing squad' is his go-to solution for problems of superior mobility, DR, or high resistances.
And even without the teleportation, the flight speed on the guys is nowhere short of amazing meaning they make good couriers for a summoner (who can keep them out longer if he tells his eidolon to take a powder).
The archons are surprisingly tough to deal with to be honest, as action economy, and their own mobility makes them targets you want to hit, but might not be able to. With their own DR and defenses, its tough for most folks to just 'swat' the things.
Admittedly, I'm dealing wih an eight person party (one of whom is a summoner), so it tends to be a flood of bodies on both sides of the table.
The continual flame thing was used once by the self-same summoner. He pulled in a few of them and made a ton of novelty everburning torches for a festival.
Lemures though in my experience seem to have an issue with overrun. Their low bab (meaning low threat), and pretty abyssmal CMD mean that warrior types can linebacker through them quite easilly by the time the summoner gets to the point where he can yank in a lot of them (also if he's a PC its technically evil to summon the little blighters).
The archons are comparatively fast, agile, and armed with 'fricking laser beams.'
Air elementals are similar though (even small ones), enough of them can be pulled in to cause trouble for low level folks, or hem things in. They're also shockingly useful against vampires who've gone to mist.
Summoned creatures can't use SLAs that mimic spells with an expensive material component in Pathfinder unless you provide that component, Ashiel. Was a bigger rude awakening to me than the inability to use their teleport.
Ah, my bad. I recalled the section in the Magic chapter that mentions summoning and how the summoned creatures can't use teleportation spells but it didn't mention the material component bit in the magic chapter under either summons or spell-like abilities; but it has a small line about it in the Summon Monster spell. Thanks for the heads up.
Oh well, that just means instead of 5th level we just wait 'till 9th level and call some lantern archons with lesser planar binding. A difference of 4 levels isn't so bad when we're talking about lighting up our keep with lots of pretty fireless torches. Also a great way to light up your swimming pool.
My experience came from running my party through an adventure full of flesh golems followed by one with werewolves, so naturally the LAs are more useful than not.
As for the example you gave, RavingDork, you'd summon one set of the archons and have them use their Aura of Menace (the creature could technically roll a 1, right?) and Aid on the Barbarian while the others go to the enemy's other side to avoid the cover penalty.
However, that's just one combat scenario. Instead imagine one with a number of weaker enemies, or one in which the big guy has support of his own. They are quite fun against enemy ranged targets. Not to mention if the other side has fliers.
They can also simply provide strategic road blocks. Seven archons makes a 35 foot wall to keep a creature from getting over to the wizard.
Wouldn't it be easier to just cast continual flame itself?Summoned creatures can't use SLAs that mimic spells with an expensive material component in Pathfinder unless you provide that component, Ashiel. Was a bigger rude awakening to me than the inability to use their teleport.Ah, my bad. I recalled the section in the Magic chapter that mentions summoning and how the summoned creatures can't use teleportation spells but it didn't mention the material component bit in the magic chapter under either summons or spell-like abilities; but it has a small line about it in the Summon Monster spell. Thanks for the heads up.
Oh well, that just means instead of 5th level we just wait 'till 9th level and call some lantern archons with lesser planar binding. A difference of 4 levels isn't so bad when we're talking about lighting up our keep with lots of pretty fireless torches. Also a great way to light up your swimming pool.
It would be, but it'd be more expensive. Continual flame has a 50 gp material component cost and would require you to keep resting to regain your spells, so if you want to really spam it around it's more efficient to get a lantern archon to do it for you (such as via lesser planar binding at 9th level) because they have it as an At-will SLA. They can also fly which makes it really easy to dot a castle or other structure with continual flames.
For example, if a party finds an old abandoned castle or reclaims an underground keep from creatures with darkvision, you'll probably want to light the sucker up and maybe even get a little fancy with it. So you call yourself a Lantern archon and explain the layout and where you would like him to light stuff up. He flies around casting continual flame on stuff as he goes and you can have nicely lit hallways, towards, balconies, or whatever have you in short order.
Aligned arrows on a ranger's quiver, and these guys are pretty much dead meat. or any decent spell effect will take them down. If needs be, one chain lightning will take out a room full of these guys if you need precision, fireball if you don't.
They aren't trouble to kill from the player's perspective, but most random bad guys won't be wandering around with a quiver of aligned arrows. Now, for fireball/chain lightning, I guess it depends if the bad guy would consider the archons more of a threat than the players and if the players spread them out smartly.
Ashiel, don't you have to provide the material components for the Archons to cast continual flame yourself?
I can see a benefit from having them cast a bunch of them per summoned archon, but in the end it's going to cost the same isn't it? You might get it done faster, but not cheaper.
At the very least you have forced the opposition to spend actions and resources to take out the archons and the archons have likely already done at least a little damage meaning you came out ahead.
Ashiel, don't you have to provide the material components for the Archons to cast continual flame yourself?
I can see a benefit from having them cast a bunch of them per summoned archon, but in the end it's going to cost the same isn't it? You might get it done faster, but not cheaper.
Not at all AD. SLAs do not have components (including vocal, somatic, or material). A lantern archon does not need the 50 gp material component to cast continual flame.
Sorry folks but:
PRD - "When the spell that summoned a creature ends and the creature disappears, all the spells it has cast expire. A summoned creature cannot use any innate summoning abilities it may have."
So that continual light will only be continual for a few rounds. Same with the aid, etc. Casting aid every round is still some pretty sweet pre-healing, but all spells end when the creature blinks out.
I find Lantern Archons to be a kind of "easy button" for some types of encounters that would otherwise be challenging. Sort of like the orb of force spell from 3.5 (no SR, and not many creatures resist force). I think they come up on the boards with such frequency because they answer the question of what can a caster do against creatures that would resist most of the casters other spells.
One final note: The celestial and fiendish templates no longer grant the ability to bypass DR/magic. It is now /good or evil. If you are using summon monster spells, you have to wait until you can summon a creature that uses manufactured weapons (SM4 or later). DR is likely to be much more of a concern then it used to be.
Not at all AD. SLAs do not have components (including vocal, somatic, or material). A lantern archon does not need the 50 gp material component to cast continual flame.Ashiel, don't you have to provide the material components for the Archons to cast continual flame yourself?
I can see a benefit from having them cast a bunch of them per summoned archon, but in the end it's going to cost the same isn't it? You might get it done faster, but not cheaper.
For reference:
Spell-Like Abilities: Usually, a spell-like ability works just like the spell of that name. A spell-like ability has no verbal, somatic, or material component, nor does it require a focus. The user activates it mentally. Armor never affects a spell-like ability's use, even if the ability resembles an arcane spell with a somatic component.
A spell-like ability has a casting time of 1 standard action unless noted otherwise in the ability or spell description. In all other ways, a spell-like ability functions just like a spell.
Spell-like abilities are subject to spell resistance and dispel magic. They do not function in areas where magic is suppressed or negated. Spell-like abilities cannot be used to counterspell, nor can they be counterspelled.
If a character class grants a spell-like ability that is not based on an actual spell, the ability's effective spell level is equal to the highest-level class spell the character can cast, and is cast at the class level the ability is granted.
This is also one of the reasons the Pit Fiend is so terrible! It can cast trap the soul on you without having to spew up a gemstone costing thousands of gold pieces. Your soul gets trapped as a soul gem but it doesn't require a gem to begin with!