Ever since UM was released with Superior Summoning it's changed how I play Druids when I'm casting SNA. Since I'm cat sitting (smelling a whole different kind of "summon nature" when I go near that litter box :P ) and want to kill some time I figured I'd see how useful people ranked SS at SNA's various levels for Druids.
Obviously some of this is circumstantial... in a small room you just can't summon a lot of creatures, in a mass battle 1 big creature just can't be everywhere... but in a 'general' sense, how do you rank Superior Summonings usefulness at the various levels?
Let's say a 1-4 scale, where
1= SS is generally useless (you'd take advantage of it less than 1/5 the time)
2= SS slightly to somewhat useful (you'd use it sometimes, at most half the time)
3= SS is useful (you'd most often use it, but you'd occasionally use the single higher creature time to time)
4= SS is tops (Unless space was a concern or something, you'd use the higher level creature less than 1/5 the time)
How would you rank each SNA level?
Mine went...
I - 1 [Can't use]
II - 1 [Rarely, for the eagles maybe]
III - 3 [Think I'd take an avg of 3+ Hyenas or Elementals from II over any of these]
IV - 2 [Mephits SLAs are nice, Tigers and Rhinos are okay, but a Hyena pack or elemental horde has uses too]
V - 1 or 2 [Cyclops is nice for it's trick, DR on elementals, Anky tanks]
VI - 1 [Dire Tiger is just really good IMO]
VII - 2 [Elementals with DR 10 and T-Rex/DireCrocs/Rocs vs multiple dire tigers]
VIII - 4 [Nothing here beats multiple VII's, or maybe VI's, that I see]
IX - 4 [I like Storm Giants, but unless space is a factor, they're just not on par with multiple TRex-Rocs or Greater/Elder elementals]
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I have a 6th level Saurian Shaman, and I use SS primarily for Stirges right now.
1) N/A
2) 1d3+1 Stirges
3) 1d4+2 Stirges or 1d3+1 Young Crocodiles
At 7th level I'll be too busy summoning a Young Ankylosaurus with SNA4, but if I need a lot of medium sized crocodiles I suppose I could get 1d4+2 of them instead.
Will have to see how it plays out at higher levels. Summoning a pack of Velociraptors sounds like fun, too.