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Its generally a risk folk take, by positioning at the back, or behind cover. The front liners should be engaging to prevent them attacking you.
Summoning loses its power the later in the combat it arrives, so ideally you want to cast it round one for arrival on round two.
You can get mirror image with the right patron. That is only going to help once a day though.
Note that casting spells only provoke when you start to cast, not all the way through.
The witches thing is generally hexes with a side line of spells, so I wouldn't normally build a witch with anything special to take advantage of summoning.
Get invisibility.
The Flight Hex is also a nice possibility to escape melee especially with lvl5 and later. Range attacks or spells are still a problem :)
A web spell can often provide you with full cover from a significant part of the battlefield while hindering enemies in a more general way.
Obscuring mist makes it hard for you to be located or targeted from afar.
Cast and move 10 feet to either side so you can still cast in full concealment but can move 5 ft (5 ft step)to see outside of the mist, you do not need line of sight to summon monsters, though accurate placement in strategic positions might be difficult (status spell might help with this). You can move to give you and your party considerable cover from ranged attackers quite easily.
Fog cloud is the same but you have much more control about the initial placement.
Levitate might help to take you out off range of many attackers, fog cloud or the like might help to prevent ranged attacks as well. More often useful at low levels where foes often have trouble dealing with such things.
Fly, ashstorm, sleetstorm, stinking cloud (with delay poison), cape of wasps, solid fog (better with freedom of movement, not a standard witch spell though), cloudkill (delay poison), overland flight.
Heroism and items might be able to raise your caster level or ability checks, raise your AC and possibly get DR.
A samsaran witch might get you some useful spells from another class as well as having beneficial modifiers, picking a proper patron might further pimp your spell list.
If they cannot see you, they cannot make the spellcraft check needed to know that you are making a summon.
BTW, how do the NPCs know that you are not just casting a standard-action spell ?
Because a standard-action spell does not need that much time.
I don't know if your GM permits non-core feats, but you could have your Witch stop by the Acadamae and learn a feat:
Acadamae Graduate
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/local-feats/acadamae-graduate-local-1
It reduces casting times for summons by one round, to a minimum of a standard action. I'm surprised it's not a much more popular feat for prepared arcane casters.
The feat is from a Player's Guide, but it is allowed in PFS play (which many consider a prudently restrictive environment), if that's any consolation.
http://paizo.com/store/byCompany/p/paizoPublishingLLC/pathfinder/adventureP ath/curseOfTheCrimsonThrone/v5748btpy8bdb
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I fail to understand the paranoia you display with your character, 666. Is your GM really so mean, that if a spellcaster begins casting a spell, the enemies will automatically ignore your teammates and begin attacking you?
A witch with the deception or trickery patron will get blink or mirror image (respectively). Take improved initiative and get a scorpion familiar, your initiative will improve by +6. Going first will be your priority if you want to avoid enemy harassment. I personally like the slumber and misfortune hexes. Sleeping enemies can't hurt you, and if they don't fall asleep, you could at least make it harder for them to hit you. But the first thing you want to do, in the surprise round or round 1, is to use your summon spell. Then you can use hexes and other spells to help out your group, and avoid getting hit (which they should be helping you with anyway).
scorpion (and tha little dino too) increase ini by 4.
Split your full round cast, stay mobile.
Round 1: Move action, then use your standard action to initiate your full-round cast.
Round 2: Use your Standard Action to finish your summon spell, have the beastie(s) do their thing, then use your move action.
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And as for monster - they don't know I summon but they DO know I cast a full round casting .... And as such - they will aim at me ;)
If I was GMing, I would go for spellcraft checks as not all monsters are automatically aware of the arcanes of spellcasting. Whatever.
If they try to attack you anytime you seem to be casting a full-round spell, make gestures and shout strange words each and every round, all round long, whether you cast a spell or not. They will make tactical mistakes by concentrating their attacks on you when trying to prevent you from casting your non-existent summon spell.
And if they don't, it is high time to ask your GM how his monsters make the difference between a fake attempt at summoning and a genuine one.
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If you and your GM have trust issues, you could just announce "I'm casting a spell" and write down on an index card what you're summoning. Show the card to anyone who passes a Spellcraft check.
Same tactic if GM-controlled monsters keep anticipating your Ready Actions; write down trigger and action, and if it happens, flip the card open.
Of course, if you trust each other, this isn't necessary. You may just want to mention to the GM that you're wondering how the monsters seem to always know when you're doing a valuable summon spell. If his answer is "monsters tend to attack casters because they're high-value targets", you can exploit that by drawing their attention. (Might want to get Acrobatics 3 and do Full Defense With Strange Gestures...)
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Just the same, a lot of creeches aren't super-intelligent, especially about magic. And why would a goblin ignore the barbarian who's about to slice him in two with a greataxe just to whip a dagger at a spellcaster? There's a little thing called self-preservation. If the party uses good teamwork, enemies can be kept plenty busy while a caster does his thing.
minor detail, you dont have to specify what you are summoning until the spell is cast. and there was a feat that lowered summons to std i thought in the SF(conj) line.
and yea, most intellegent people if they see someone doing nothing for multiple seconds are going to think he's up to something, and the longer they go with "chanting" the more fight/flight would take place. mindless mobs, dont care, but intellegent ones may start running/attacking/etc.
all kinda depends.
Just stay in the back and make sure the fighters lock down the ranged enemies. Alternatively, you could simply cast mage armor and shield on yourself to make sure you won't get hit.
what feat allow lowering casting time of spells?
if exist it is the BEST ever...
plz link it .
Quicken Spell. Yes, it is good, which is why it's a very high level metamagic feat. However, it doesn't work with 1 round spells.