the master summoner may be better at summoning than a wizard, but a wizard has far more options, and that summon SLA can be dispelled. thus removing it entirely with a caster level check.
the wizard has far more options, but the master summoner does little more than rapidly churn out mooks. churning out mooks wears down a foe. but mooks are merely expendable.
the master summoner. doesn't have the versatility of the wizard, they compensate by summoning faster with longer durations. but the downside of summoning, is that summons die fast, can be dispelled, and that most master summoners are hosed by such things as DR and High Armor class, moreso than even a 2WF rogue.
plus the summons dissapear in a matter of minutes anyway. so you can just run and wait for them to expire. running for a half hour should suffice.
summons nowhere near rival a level appropriate PC of any class on their own. their main purpose, is that they are expendable.
You do know that there are summons that use range touch attacks and ignore Dr, heck a silly cr 2 lantern archron does that.
a lot of people don't seem realize how nasty the summon monsters list are, that many of these monster when summoned in numbers are insane.
Summoned in numbers is nasty. you have to be 5th level to summon a single lantern archon, 7th to summon 1d3 and 9th to summon 1d4+1. by level 5, a CR appropriate foe for 1PC is level 6. level 8 at 7th and level 10 at 9th.
by the lowest of these levels, the level appropriate casters will have easy access to dispel magic, waste a standard action to waste a summon, plus the caster has a higher caster level than you. in fact, by 7th level, where you can summon 1d3 archons, an 8th level sorcerer, a level appropriate foe for 1 7th level PC, could have potentially nearly as many uses of dispel as you have summons. and their spell slots scale faster than your summon uses.
a level appropriate NPC sorcerer can pretty much negate your limited use trick using a limited use trick that could scale much faster in uses per day.
You really don't know master summoners can do. I have seen a master summoner using lantern archon ( 30 foot range, touch ac, ignore all Dr)level an apl + 5 encounter with ease. Out damage every class combined, while buffing and creating flanking opportunties and had meatshields summons on the field doing combat manuvers. The character was retired that session.To put it in simpler tactical terms. There is guide in the guide to guide which discusses the combat in the game in terms of roles. There are hammers, advils and forges. Wizard are best at being forges. They make terrible hammers. Wizards can do I role very well at a time. The master summoner can do all 3 roles simultaneously at very high level. This is ultimately why the class is problematic, because it certain assumptions made in the game. In a game of interdepence a class with the ability to function without need for others is problematic.a master summoner isn't healing, and they aren't killing on their own
they are using summons to die for them. they also aren't the skill monkey either.
a wizard can be a caster and a skill monkey, but are horrible damage dealers
a master summoner contributes little more than buffs, battlefield control, and a boatload of summons.
a master summoner is a battlefield control specialist and nothing more. they take space, mitigate damage, and waste enemy resources through their summons. and to gaurantee their summons keep up, they have to flood the battlefield, and overwhelm with a higher action economy. in fact, the whole class revolves around messing with the action economy. either by making your group's actions worth more, gaining extra actions, or by making your foe waste actions.
one really powerful trick, no matter how powerful, is merely a single trick. it is just a really powerful trick.
a master summoner may be powerful against an inexperienced, uninformed, or misguided DM. but the tactics are quite easy to counter.
it is called Dispel Magic. a spell any reasonably smart spontaneous caster would take.
it wastes a standard action, but invalidates the action spent summoning.
a master summoner may be powerful against an inexperienced, uninformed, or misguided DM. but...You really don't know master summoners can do. I have seen a master summoner using lantern archon ( 30 foot range, touch ac, ignore all Dr)level an apl + 5 encounter with ease. Out damage every class combined, while buffing and creating flanking opportunties and had meatshields summons on the field doing combat manuvers. The character was retired that session.To put it in simpler tactical terms. There is guide in the guide to guide which discusses the combat in the game in terms of roles. There are hammers, advils and forges. Wizard are best at being forges. They make terrible hammers. Wizards can do I role very well at a time. The master summoner can do all 3 roles simultaneously at very high level. This is ultimately why the class is problematic, because it certain assumptions made in the game. In a game of interdepence a class with the ability to function without need for others is problematic.a master summoner isn't healing, and they aren't killing on their own
they are using summons to die for them. they also aren't the skill monkey either.
a wizard can be a caster and a skill monkey, but are horrible damage dealers
a master summoner contributes little more than buffs, battlefield control, and a boatload of summons.
a master summoner is a battlefield control specialist and nothing more. they take space, mitigate damage, and waste enemy resources through their summons. and to gaurantee their summons keep up, they have to flood the battlefield, and overwhelm with a higher action economy. in fact, the whole class revolves around messing with the action economy. either by making your group's actions worth more, gaining extra actions, or by making your foe waste actions.
one really powerful trick, no matter how powerful, is merely a single trick. it is just a really powerful trick.
So we have now agreed only a spontaneous caster with dispel magic has even prayer. 1. Dispel magic is not automatic. 2. Dont you think if successful the sorcerer who has cast a spell to take a negative action rather than a positive one is now going to be target. 3 if he ever fails one roll he's dead because the summons are going to kill him because if ever falls behind he's dead.
My dm is my age he's been playing since the 80's in high school. We know how the game game works. As I said its not a contest, its not close. The master summoner just breaks too many rules. Another one it breaks is the lessening effect of magic users as rounds progress. Simplely because only so many buff or battle control spells can be I'm effect at one time. What made codzilla so effective was that it kinda broke that rule because after the cleric or druid casts they could wade into battle. The master summoner obliterates this assumption. As each rounds passes he becomes more and more powerful. That really is a serious issue, because if you can't keep pace you get overwhelmed and the fact is the monsters and magic in general is really designed with this assumption, except in the case of blast spells with coincidently unless all the casters efforts were put into it, is very weak.
The master summoner just breaks too many base assumptions, about how the game works, how summons works, to not be problematic.
well, you do have to be more obvious about countering a master summoner than you do a wizard.
the summoner may have access to the ability to spam a better version of one of the wizard's best tools. and a powerful tool it is. and spontaneous casters with dispel magic is one of the few ways to defeat them. it also requires a bit of obvious metagaming on the DM's part.
something golems don't do.
the summoner, is easier to optimize because the options are more obvious. but most full casters are stronger in the hands of a player whom has massive amounts of experience playing 3E casters.
Kinda agree with everyone here at the same time on the master summoner; the issue is that Summon Monster is a strong spell in itself, is buffed enormously by the Master Summoner archetype, and the archetype is automatically optimized right out of the box.
The wizard takes more knowledge to understand how to use and it's easier to make a bad wizard than a bad master summoner.
Summons are incredibly versatile, especially when they can be massed pre-combat as they can by a master summoner. At 7th level it can prepare for a combat by summoning 1d3 Lantern Archons that can bless the whole party and then do avg 4d6 dmg/round at range, a mephit for any kind of spell effect useful for the combat at hand if anythings known (like wind wall, stinking cloud or glitterdust, saving your casters spell slots and actions, and then acting as a flanker/harasser), and a Hound Archon to act as flanking buddy to your martials, granting Magic Circle Against Evil.
These can all be summoned pre-combat, if the party knows combat is going to be around. And they last 7 minutes, which isn't bad.
The eidolon can be built as a quite good skill monkey and used out of combat for those purposes, like a very powerful familiar rather than a very weak combatant.
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Just my 2c to this discussion...
I am an unabashed optimizer. I agonize over every choice for my character, whether its a feat, skill point, new spell known, etc. I LOVE the summoner class. Its one that I just keep coming back to. When the master summoner came out, I was thrilled, because it did what I thought the class was supposed to do: Summon, as opposed to buff a pet and let it maul your enemies.
Then I played one. Eidolon was a lockpicker/searcher/scout type (I even used the small eidolon so he would never be a combat threat). Character was the party face, having taken a trait that gave Diplomacy as a class skill (and eventually the skilled: diplomacy evolution through Aspect).
Plain and simple, in most situations, the master summoner stole the thunder of almost every character on the table. He was analogous to a Swiss Army Knife. No, you may not have the most optimal tool for any given encounter/challenge, but you have something good enough to get the job done in almost all cases (the only exception being a shadow demon that we ran into at around 8th level), and in some cases egregiously so. I started putting an unspoken limit on myself of only ever having two SLA's worth of summons on the table at one time...this was to let others do their thing as well as for time considerations (even though I was super organized, I was hogging way more time than one of seven players should).
Following that experiment I had to promise my GM and group that I would never play that class ever again. Even I have my limits...
The master summoner gets OP when you have multiple encounters within a couple of minutes of each other or prep time, and prep time is always a dangerous thing to give casters.
Agreed completely.
At 5th level you would need 5+ lantern archons to equal the damage of an archer or pouncing Eidolon ... at that rate unless he can carry them over between encounters he is going to run out of summons faster than a wizard runs out of spells.
Not sure I agree with this. Did you account for the fact that the summoner (and eidolon, but meh) itself gets to act too, and that the lantern archons can buff the whole party, and that each archon forces every enemy within 20ft to do a (low-DC, granted) save or take -2 on combat stats?
I mean, to start out combat with either an archer (and archers are strong, no doubt) or say a master summoner, an eidolon with a wand of grease, three lantern archons, everyone in the party Aided, and the master summoner starts with Hasting the five strongest combatants? And the archons moving up to force 3xDC13 saves (fail once = -2 on ac/attacks/saves). I'd much rather prefer to have the latter on my side.But of course, that's supposing you get to prebuff/summon. If you don't, the archer will no doubt be more useful. So again, down to play style.
I don't think it's so much that master summoners overpower enemies with their damage as the fact they can bring so much as that they can bring so many different things and that each of those things can itself have several abilities. Massing a single type of creature won't often be that good, it's when you mix them up they become really powerful.
But the issue I think crops up more at levels 7+; SM 3 has a few decent options but few that are good in and of themselves (jaguar is okay, so is crocodile, lantern archons are good) but several of them are much more useful when able to bring several (one dretch is useless, but if you summon 4 before a fight their stinking clouds can be very useful!) and SM4 is where the interesting casters such as Mephits start to show up.
The power of a monster summoner is a bit more contextual than of a normal summoner. The thing about martial damage is that it's the most dependable way of dealing with opponents in the game, this dependability is it's strength ... and the most valuable niche of the martial classes. The Eidolon invades this niche, this is why it's more of a problem than the contextual power of batman wizards and master summoners ... it leaves nothing for the martials to excel at.
Exactly.
My biggest problem as a gm is that the eidolon and the summoner have a telepathic bond... I ran a game and the summoner would hide behind a wall and rely on his eidolon to scout/see/attack/skills/ everything, simply transferring hp to it when needed and hiding out of combat the whole time. Not only was it annoying as I couldn't easily even attack him... But it really just destroyed any role playing with him. It's sort of like... Why even ply the class if you could play a fighter? That's all most people have the eidolon do, so just play a monstrous Pc!
The master summoner is broken under the basic game assumption as their ability to stack summons out of combat totally derails the CR system. I am running an Eberron game with a 5th level Master Summoner. Currently he can summon 20 to 40 small earth elementals and have 4 minutes remaining before they disappear to send them into the "dungeon" and pummel anything they can get their hands on.
The CR system in no way is able to cope with this ability. Sure it exhausts most of his SLA summons, but he also just wrecked the dungeon. 40 combat rounds is a long time if you actually stay tracking things by rounds. Pre-buffing is one thing, and very powerful, but this is way beyond that. However, if as the GM you throw out the CR system having a master summoner can allow a party to do things outside the normal game and you can have some really epic fights (though it does take a long time).
The master summoner ability should have been to have their eidolon out and use one of their summon monster SLA. To compensate the eidolon should be more powerful than it currently is for a master summoner, but less so than a normal summoner.
Synthesist Summoners are powerful in their own right, but in a different way. They do not derail the CR system like a master summoner, but do have sort of have their cake and eat it too with being able to be a skill monkey, martial, caster. Synthesists tend to toss the caster martial disparity right in the face of martial characters, but they are still within the scope of the CR system (though at the high end of it). The other part of the Synthesist that is kind of broken is their ability to dump stat, that was taken out of the game for a reason and adding it back in was a bad choice.
Regular Summoners seem powerful and create some problems, but not more so than any other powerful class.
I'm playing a synth in Skull and Shackles...and while I ROCK against the lower level thugs, I am not an autowin-button.
The action economy vs a regular summoner hurts big time. Also, even with a 28 AC (Mage Armor and Shield) at 5th level, I still get tagged with some hits from enemy BBEGs and as my synth is only getting 8 hp per level + con (which is more than I'm supposed to get)they go fast. Just wrapped up a random encounter and the enemy captain went toe to toe with me and my Eidolon went from 55 HP to 4 in 3-4 rounds...some bad luck sure, but yeesh, in a regular to small group, the synth looks really good on paper, but once your Eidolon goes down, you could be screwed...especially if YOU are the tank of the party.
But that kind of dump can get you killed, I did 10's for my STR, DEX, and CON, and almost didn't make it to 2nd level. The 11-15 hp your Eidolon has can go FAST, leaving you a crippled spellcaster that is most likely based by something mean.
Well I have an interesting session with a master summoner to relate and would like to get peoples feedback on it.
The characters (this is Eberron) are a Human Paladin 5, Warforged Artificer 5, Gnome Synthesist Summoner 5, and a Gnome Master Summoner 5. They were tasked with hunting down a band of Trolls that had been raiding caravans coming from Greywall into Breland. The characters successfully tracked the Troll raiders back to their cavern lair.
The Troll raiding party consisted of 8 Trolls, Troll Fighter 1, Troll Adept 5, 4 Trollhounds, 3 Harpies, and a Harpy Ranger 2. They were spread throughout a cavern complex that was about 200 feet across in total with various smaller chambers where different groups lived.
The characters set up outside the lair hiding above the entrance up on the side of the mountain on a ledge. The synthesist scouted the area briefly using invisibility, high stealth, and a climb speed and reported back. The master summoner used 8 of his daily summons to call forth 22 small earth elementals and sent them down to the lair. By the time the elementals were in position there was 35 round left on the summons. The characters roughly timed when the elementals would be attacking and feather falled down to the entrance.
The earth elementals surprised the harpies and killed them all coming up from the floor of the cavern beneath them. Power Attacking they have a +7 to hit and do 1d6+11 damage. The harpies all had max hit points (70 for the regular 90 for the leader) and they all died in one round of attacks (one harpy was out scouting so they each had 7 elementals on them). This alerted the trolls in the nearby cave and they began to get up and head towards the harpy cave. The earth elementals retreated into the ground and waited for someone to show up.
The characters hasted themselves and began making their way into the troll cave. The trolls then charged into the harpy cave and the earth elementals came up out of the ground and slaughtered the trolls. The characters came into the troll cave and mopped up the few remaining ones with no difficulty. The master summoner called up 4 small fire elementals who went around finishing off the downed trolls. The characters didn't even need to show up.
According to the CR guidelines this was about a CR 13 encounter, and it wasn't even close. The trolls stood no chance against the swarm of augmented small earth elementals. The fire elementals were not a factor they strictly played clean up. The master summoner still had 2 summons remaining.
This is how the master summoner is broken, it totally breaks the CR system as having 20 or so additional disposable creatures that you hand pick from a list cannot be accounted for by the system. Almost the entire combat was all the players resolving elementals vs trolls and the characters themselves played very little part in the victory. My thoughts are after this encounter to either change the master summoner or have him take another class (maybe just be a regular summoner).
My thoughts on changing the master summoner are to remove the ability to stack his SLA summon monsters, so that he can only have one in effect at a time but to allow him to have his eidolon out at the same time as one of his SLA summon monsters. To compensate for the power loss I was going to buff the eidolon some, but still have it weaker than a normal eidolon. My thought was to give it 1/2 the evolutions of a normal eidolon or make it 1/2 level but allow the Boon Companion feat to increase the level of the eidolon by 4 which would make it equal to a normal eidolon until 9th level where it would start to fall behind. Additionally I was going to give the master summoner the Superior Summoning feat as a bonus feat at 4th since it is something all master summoners would be taking.
What do people think about this as a potential fix and or what do you think about the encounter outlined above. Thanks!
Instead of throwing many mid-range creatures at them consolidate to have fewer, more powerful creatures that use lackeys to do their dirty work. Keeps CRs about the same but boosts the few that are important story pushers to ACs and HPs that let them withstand a larger assault.
My thoughts on changing the master summoner are to remove the ability to stack his SLA summon monsters, so that he can only have one in effect at a time but to allow him to have his eidolon out at the same time as one of his SLA summon monsters. To compensate for the power loss I was going to buff the eidolon some, but still have it weaker than a normal eidolon. My thought was to give it 1/2 the evolutions of a normal eidolon or make it 1/2 level but allow the Boon Companion feat to increase the level of the eidolon by 4 which would make it equal to a normal eidolon until 9th level where it would start to fall behind. Additionally I was going to give the master summoner the Superior Summoning feat as a bonus feat at 4th since it is something all master summoners would be taking.
Definitely nerf out the coexisting SLA summoned monsters. That's very powerful given the summoner's extended duration.
Instead of allowing it half the evolutions, consider having the eidolon be based on the summoner's level -3 (like the ranger's animal companion compared to a druid's). It'll be noticeable but having a summoned monster active at the same time should compensate for it.
Alternatively, consider allowing no more than 2 instances of the SLA summoned monster stack (when the eidolon isn't around) and leave the eidolon at half. That could allow the summoner to have 2 distinct sets of summoned creatures, which could be nice, and parallels the ability to have the eidolon out with one set of SLA summoned critters. The general rule then becomes 2 active SLA summonings: eidolon + summoned monsters or summoned monsters (1) + summoned monsters (2).
Instead of throwing many mid-range creatures at them consolidate to have fewer, more powerful creatures that use lackeys to do their dirty work. Keeps CRs about the same but boosts the few that are important story pushers to ACs and HPs that let them withstand a larger assault.
They are 5th level, what would you suggest?
Instead of throwing many mid-range creatures at them consolidate to have fewer, more powerful creatures that use lackeys to do their dirty work. Keeps CRs about the same but boosts the few that are important story pushers to ACs and HPs that let them withstand a larger assault.They are 5th level, what would you suggest?
I'm not sure about your group but the group I GM for can handle CRs around 2-4 above their APL as expected. A summoner in the group warrants a constant +1 CR at minimum, imo. So, I'd say a CR 4 or 5 "big bad" with 3 or 4 CR 1 and 2s as lackeys, maybe CR 3 if a lieutenant type is appropriate. I say that playing a summoner myself. Also, you're starting to get into some monsters with some buffs on them and some low-level magic toys. The protection line of spells are low level and very handy versus summons.
Don't be afraid to push their limits especially with the more resources they gain. Just be sure to balance this out with occasional easy encounters so they can still feel powerful as they level. You know, GM 101 stuff.
Also keep in mind there are ranges within a certain CR. There are weak CR 10 fights and there are grueling CR 10 fights. It all depends on the individual enemies and your group's makeup. Be inventive and experiment.
The stories I'm hearing about amster summoners are interesting.
Ultiamtely master summoners dont have an advantage in terms of raw mathematics. Fighters can hit harder, wizards cna do more, heck even clerics can ultiamtely have better numbers in literally everything.
No what a master summoner ultiamtely pushes is a serisouly underrated pair of aspects to combat: actions and positioning.
It's a funny concept and hard for GM's to understand since they only concern themselves with numbers. Of course they understand it ina very basic sense, more people equals more attacks, flying means better defense while potentially good offense etc. etc.
But let's take a look at our contenders.
This is your average small earth elemental.
This is your average troll
Oh adn trollhounds too.
Generally speaking the average troll ought to rip apart an earth lelemental. In terms of attacks it has three to the elementals 1.
So 22 earth elementals = 22 slams.
10 trolls = 30 attacks with bigger numbers and damage.
4 Troll hounds = 4 more attacks on top of that
I'm discounting harpies since they died in the surprise rounds apparently.
So we know that basically the trolls could have taken the elementals easily. So what was the deciding factor.
2 things: first there were four other pc's to worry about No matter what CR your encounter is if your bad guys have spent lots of resources, actions, and spells dealign with garbage they're going to lose.
Second, positioning. Pure positioning. You see once the surprise round started the trolls were effectively f*@@ed. They cannot earth glide and the pc's were cutting off the entrance. So a group of elementals could pop from the ground, get in an attack and pop back under to surround adn flank another enemy to keep them from effectively regrouping.
Ultimately a druid, cleric, or wiard could have accomplished the same thing but much slower since he'd have to deal with each group individually rather than simultaneously. In fact it might have been a waste on the summoner's part altogether since he may have only really needed one or two summons per group.
Ultimately he didnt trivialize a big encounter, he simply crushed a large one by expending a lot of resources all at once. Several classes can do this already like maguses, cavaliers, paladins, certain cleric and wizard builds etc.
I find it kind of funny. I wonder how our friend the usmmoner would have handled the latter half of the Skinsaw Murders? It would probably have ate him alive.
The only thing that's broken about summoners is the amount of arms they can have. Once they errata that nonsense, they become a cheerfully first tier class with the druid and the cleric and the wizard.
You could easily play a game with 4 summoners and not miss a beat, probably, as they can cover all the major roles, and respec when needed.
But the arms thing.
I can drop a ~2800 DPR build on a level 20 summoner. That's disgusting and broken. Because of arms and guns.
Fix the arms, all will be well.
But that kind of dump can get you killed, I did 10's for my STR, DEX, and CON, and almost didn't make it to 2nd level. The 11-15 hp your Eidolon has can go FAST, leaving you a crippled spellcaster that is most likely based by something mean.Kinda what things liker mage armor and protection from evil are for.
Then at level 5, magical flight lol
???
If the baddie can hit me with Eidolon Suit + Shield + Mage Armor, wouldn't you think the baddie can whack me a bit easier when it is just Dex 10 + Mage Armor + Shield?
Fly is nice, but you wont always have it up, and the power of the Synth is melee, not ranged, so fly is not all that great in combat aside being able to get around. And if you are based when the 'suit' goes bye bye, your best bet it withdraw...and start summoning...and until you get up there in levels (Summon IV), Summon Monster is not all that hot.
Also, yo don't get Fly till 7th.
Now if you are talking evolutions...yeah cool, but does you no good when yer 'suit' it gone.
To be fair, I started skimming in the middle of page 3... but I didn't see anyone bring up the item creation problems of the Summoner - getting some spells at a lower level/caster level can give the party some items for cheaper than expected.
Anything in particular that could be created early/cheaper that worries you?
I can drop a ~2800 DPR build on a level 20 summoner. That's disgusting and broken. Because of arms and guns.
Fix the arms, all will be well.
That it? My master summoner, at level 9, just summoning all hound archons can do ~3,225 DPR total. Granted, that's not on my character itself but it demonstrates the point.
There are other things that can potentially be fixed. Not trying to be all one-uppy on you. Just illustrating a point.
I can drop a ~2800 DPR build on a level 20 summoner. That's disgusting and broken. Because of arms and guns.
Fix the arms, all will be well.
That it? My master summoner, at level 9, just summoning all hound archons can do ~3,225 DPR total. Granted, that's not on my character itself but it demonstrates the point.
There are other things that can potentially be fixed. Not trying to be all one-uppy on you. Just illustrating a point.
Haha. Sorry, should have said ~2800 without magic. Haven't run the stats for it with magic or summons yet. With summons, that number should be more disgusting.
Question: How many rounds does it take to get that 3k damage at level 9? That might be the balancing factor.
Anything in particular that could be created early/cheaper that worries you?
Certain constant effects are much cheaper. The equation goes from 20*9*2000 to 20*6*2000 at level 20. And really it goes from 17*9*2000 (306,000) to 16*6*2000 (192,000) as summoners get their highest tier spells a level earlier than wizards. It's a difference of 120,000gp at level 20. An infinite use/day item for summon monster viii only costs 172,800gp. For a wizard though that same item would cost 216,000gp.
Now, there's a lot of back and forth about balance that can be had over this since summoners don't get wish and so on so it depends on your point of view.
They do, however, get protection from spells on their spell list and a summoner could make such an item at 288k, 44k cheaper construction cost compared to wizard of 15th level. That's very attractive to me considering WBL then. Other than that summoners only really get discern location or dimensional lock for spells I would want items of. The wizard selection is almost infinitely more attractive imo.
Haha. Sorry, should have said ~2800 without magic. Haven't run the stats for it with magic or summons yet. With summons, that number should be more disgusting.
Question: How many rounds does it take to get that 3k damage at level 9? That might be the balancing factor.
11 rounds I believe. Far more than most fights last and it's not on a single target. Though, if I were switching things up and summoning ranged creatures as well it could probably all be concentrated. Around level 17, I believe, with the Quicken Spell-like Ability feat you can do it in half the time.
11 rounds I believe. Far more than most fights last and it's not on a single target. Though, if I were switching things up and summoning ranged creatures as well it could probably all be concentrated. Around level 17, I believe, with the Quicken Spell-like Ability feat you can do it in half the time.Haha. Sorry, should have said ~2800 without magic. Haven't run the stats for it with magic or summons yet. With summons, that number should be more disgusting.
Question: How many rounds does it take to get that 3k damage at level 9? That might be the balancing factor.
That makes sense, though 11 rounds of prep time gets into corner case territory, as you said, not many fights should last that long.
Are you lance pouncing with your eidolon or abusing it's arms, or is this based around it not being summoned and spamming summon monster? Also curious if it's a 1/day nova or if it's sustainable.
1/day nova spamming summons. The summoner itself is a natural lycanthrope, though, so it's sorta synthy already as a weretiger. Right now, in hybrid form, again level 9, it can do about ~115 DPR base and that's not even optimized with anything other than the template giving me tiger feats.
It's also dealing with 33 summoned archons.
Note that summoner crafting also changes the dynamics of some things in the world - certain usables that couldn't exist before now do.
For example, potions of dimension door, potion of greater invisibility, potion of stone skin, wand of wall of stone, wand of teleport, wand of overland flight, wand of lesser planar binding and wand of insect plague.
This changes the dynamics at mid levels by quite a bit, in my opinion in a positive way. Full casters become less important when you can buy an (though expensive) wand of overland flight or wand of teleport, all martial characters can benefit greatly from a potion of greater invisibility (especially rogues) etc etc. If one can get a hold of partial wands in the campaign (some DM's allow this, though I don't), the magical ability of anyone with UMD is greatly enhanced as Wall of Stone and Insect Plague can completely turn an encounter around on occacion.
I have yet to play an AP that gives you unlimited time at that high a level to craft a 100k plus item. And at that level, wizards are owning the place anyway.
I've read on here some parties temporarily "take a break" to force some downtime.
I have yet to play an AP that gives you unlimited time at that high a level to craft a 100k plus item. And at that level, wizards are owning the place anyway.
Once planar travel gets going, it might be possible for the party to get to somewhere in for example the plane of time where time slows down enough to allow for large periods of down-time without passing time on the material plane. A summoner or full caster could also use create lesser demiplane, then buy a scroll of greater demiplane and use that to halt the time in their plane to half.
A wand of Haste is only 6000gp now, easily affordable by low-level parties. Boots of speed can now be had for 8000gp instead of 12000gp. Summon Monster V can now be made into a wand, and Stoneskin can be made into a potion... there's a pretty big list of stuff that can be had much more cheaply, even at lower levels. And they don't have to spend time crafting it.
Calculate the market price based on the lowest possible level caster, no matter who makes the item.
This means the market price for a lot of items is lowered, not just those the party summoner crafts. Even a party with no summoner benefits from a world where summoners are allowed.
I have yet to play an AP that gives you unlimited time at that high a level to craft a 100k plus item. And at that level, wizards are owning the place anyway.Once planar travel gets going, it might be possible for the party to get to somewhere in for example the plane of time where time slows down enough to allow for large periods of down-time without passing time on the material plane. A summoner or full caster could also use create lesser demiplane, then buy a scroll of greater demiplane and use that to halt the time in their plane to half.
Wow, that's extra cheese, and the DM may want to not allow that, as that just ratchets up Wizards/Clerics even more.
Wow, that's extra cheese, and the DM may want to not allow that, as that just ratchets up Wizards/Clerics even more.I have yet to play an AP that gives you unlimited time at that high a level to craft a 100k plus item. And at that level, wizards are owning the place anyway.Once planar travel gets going, it might be possible for the party to get to somewhere in for example the plane of time where time slows down enough to allow for large periods of down-time without passing time on the material plane. A summoner or full caster could also use create lesser demiplane, then buy a scroll of greater demiplane and use that to halt the time in their plane to half.
I don't think it's cheese - cheese for me is abusing the letter of the rules or using combinations that where never intended or don't make sense. This makes sense for the in-game _characters_; Getting to a plane where times flows slower would make sense for a high-level spellcaster aiming to do something time-requiring (or for anyone, really).
The fact that changing time flow is part of the Create Greater Demiplane shows that it's an _intended_ part of the rules, and it also isn't anti-thematic.
That said, yes it changes the power dynamic and makes crafting even stronger, and the DM should be aware of it (or even limit/disallow it, for example by houseruling out the time-changing part from create demiplane), but it's there and intended and has been part of the game for very long.
We rarely play at those high levels, though we have a bit of planar travel and our players have occacionally used such spaces, but since we keep to pretty low levels I as a DM can have control over their access to it.
A wand of Haste is only 6000gp now, easily affordable by low-level parties. Boots of speed can now be had for 8000gp instead of 12000gp. Summon Monster V can now be made into a wand, and Stoneskin can be made into a potion... there's a pretty big list of stuff that can be had much more cheaply, even at lower levels. And they don't have to spend time crafting it.
Calculate the market price based on the lowest possible level caster, no matter who makes the item.This means the market price for a lot of items is lowered, not just those the party summoner crafts. Even a party with no summoner benefits from a world where summoners are allowed.
Actually, boots of speed are a specific item - I do not think their price changes, it's fixed at what it is (just like a ring of invisibility that is far from the gold price chart). Wondrous items do not follow a specific formula - the formulas are just guidelines the DM can use when pricing out items.
It would affect those items where the price is formulaic by RAW, such as scrolls, potions and wands though, so you're right about the wand of haste (though with 4 rounds of duration and only affecting 4 people it _is_ less potent than the CL5 one). Summon Monster V as a wand doesn't seem that useful to me - wands seem most useful when it's a spell you'd want to use often and where there are no cheaper alternatives, summon monster 5 is pretty limited in scope to combat and will get outshone by other spells pretty fast, but wall of stone, teleport and summon insect swarm keeps being useful throughout the levels.
I don't think it's cheese - cheese for me is abusing the letter of the rules or using combinations that where never intended or don't make sense. This makes sense for the in-game _characters_; Getting to a plane where times flows slower would make sense for a high-level spellcaster aiming to do something time-requiring (or for anyone, really).
The fact that changing time flow is part of the Create Greater Demiplane shows that it's an _intended_ part of the rules, and it also isn't anti-thematic.
That said, yes it changes the power dynamic and makes crafting even stronger, and the DM should be aware of it (or even limit/disallow it, for example by houseruling out the time-changing part from create demiplane), but it's there and intended and has been part of the game for very long.
We rarely play at those high levels, though we have a bit of planar travel and our players have occacionally used such spaces, but since we keep to pretty low levels I as a DM can have control over their access to it.
And players had best be ready for what is good for them will be good for the gander...this just leads to silly escalation.
And players had best be ready for what is good for them will be good for the gander...this just leads to silly escalation.
Well yeah, but it's kind of a standard trope of powerful villains to hang around in other (or even their own) planes of existance. Just look at the fortress of regrets for an obvious example.
Can any class really beat a wizard one he reaches level 11?
Infinite simulacrums seems pretty good
Actually, wizards, sorcerers and summoners all get access to Simulacrum at level 13. It's a broken spell, but note that it's not really infinite; the maximum with standard WBL at level 13 is 280 hit dice of simulacra, and that's assuming the caster is naked, all the simulacra will be naked, and they don't take damage (each hit point costs 100 gp to restore).
I agree simulacrum is one of the, if not the, most powerful spell in the game - but it's not just wizards that get it, they don't get it at level 11 (generally at least - don't know if there's some trick to get it earlier), and they're not infinite.
If we assume the 13th level caster spends half it's gold on personal gear, and it want to make replicas of say itself, it can make 20 7th level casters (that are completely without gear). Crazy powerful, but not infinite.
EDIT: And of course, it's up to DM adjudication more than most spells. Note this line:
"(and the appropriate hit points, feats, skill ranks, and special abilities for a creature of that level or HD)"
A DM would be completely within the rules to state that if you copy a creature with special abilities, it loses those if they're not what she considers appropriate for that level or HD.
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So sick of the Summoners are OP gripes...
-Magus can deal a ton of damage and break games where DM does but one combat a day. In that kind of game magus is full of cheese.
-In a game that the DM doesn't bother with weather and allows range, archery focused characters can be op
-In a game where the gm makes everything out doors the cavaleer can be super dominant.
-In a game low on undead witch with sleep hex can just make every encounter boring.
-In a game where the party wizard is always kind of informed on what he/she is facing the wizard is opName a type of group/gm I'll find a way to make it op really the summoner isn't that cheesy. At least not any more so than any other optimized character can be cheesy. Oh and I can take out the whole sum moners army with a rogue and good timing.
+1
Oh you just take the "True Name" Discovery, which breaks all the rules of binding, and you bind an efreeti or noble djinni, which gives you unlimited wishes at no cost. You can then use those wishes to cover any material components you would want, +5 to all your stats, etc
Uhm... No. A noble djinni may only grant you three wishes, period.
"May grant three wishes to any being (nongenies only) who captures them."Efreeti may grant up to three wishes per day.
But note that all wishes are extremely dangerous when you wish through a third party; anyone who's seen wishmaster will understand basically how an efreeti will act. Even a vizier, though (chaotic) good, have no reason not to plot your downfall from moment one.
Note though that the discovery itself basically tells the DM to screw with you:
"It is in your best interest to call this creature only sparingly, and occasionally reward it in some fashion to mollify its wrath. If you repeatedly fail to offer it a reward appropriate to its type and ethos, the creature may begin plotting ways to destroy the bond between you, whether by creating an accident that will destroy your memory of the name, by plaguing you with nuisances or dangers until you vow never to call on it again, or by actively seeking to destroy you through its own devices or those of an underling. If this creature is of a lawful type and you are violating its ethos [such as forcing an efreeti to benefit your good or chaotic goals, my comment], its superiors may even destroy it or you rather than allow you to contaminate their servant further. Worse, they may establish situations where it is necessary for you to summon this outsider, opening gateways to infernal or angelic interference, in order to gain a foothold on the Material Plane."
So yeah. You don't pay it what the DM says, you'll get your butt kicked by beings more powerful than you in no time.
This discovery is, like a few other abilities in the game (i'm looking at you leadership) basically something that requires active DM support to function. If your DM doesn't like how you use the ability, it is not only through rule 0 but through the specific rules for the ability in question within her power to stop you.