It's pretty much the strongest thing an arcane caster can do, yup.
Well, summoning is certainly powerful, but it has aspects you must consider. First is the casting time. All of the summon monster spells have a 1 round casting time - that means you cast as a full-round action, and the spell completes at the beginning of your next turn. At low levels, this sort of action economy means that summon monster i and ii may not be worth the effort, especially with the low attack bonuses and damage output of summoned creatures at that level. Additionally, this means that enemies have a longer period of time in which to disrupt your casting.
Banish is great to take out a single summoned creature - though with protection from (insert your alignment here), they can simply ignore the creatures you send at them. Additionally, summoning lower level creatures for the numbers means that they can more easily be taken out by a single AoE spell.
That being said, I'm all about conjuring spells. They're pretty great.
Protection from good.Prevent most summons from attacking.
The 1 round casting time HURTS.
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Things to consider while dealing with summons happy foes.
1) Full round casting, super-easy to interrupt. A couple kobold snipers hanging in the back with crossbows, slings, spears, tanglefoot bags or alchemists fire have a *great* chance of forcing the spellcaster to blow that concentration check.
2) Summoned creatures attack foes, but, barring instruction, won't do anything cleverer or more optimal than that. Getting a fiendish wolf to set up a flank requires summoning them directly into a flank, and if the target takes a five foot step, and is still in biting range, the flank is ruined, and the wolf is not going to be smart enough to also take a 5 ft. step and set that flank back up again (unless the caster can make a DC 25 Handle Animal check!). Tons of animals have *great* options (giant spiders throwing web, air elementals going into whirlwind form, mephits throwing their 1/day or 1/hour effects exactly where you want them) that might not think to do so on their own.
A silence spell, or even a well-thrown thunderstone, can shut down any sort of planning or coordinating between a conjuror and his gumbies.
3) Some animals have fun movement options, like powerful charge (rhino) or trample (bison). Difficult terrain, or creatures standing in charge lanes, or even *caltrops,* can make that much harder.
4) The usual protection vs. X and magic circle vs. X, but also control summoned creature (APG), or even, for those celestial/fiendish animals, the usually very situational 1st level druid spell calm animals might prove handy.
A-good-ways-to-defeat-wizards/sorcerers/etc
With a stick while they sleep.
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Words of Power allow you to summon as a standard action.
Most people don't use Words of power.
That and master summoner.
Actual the reason most people think the master summoner is OP is because of how well he can summon.
Most people don't use Words of power.
Most people do not even know what they are. The question of their use has never been brought up to most GMs.
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This is a good thing, as words of power are a pretty broken mechanic, especially mixed with traditional pathfinder spellcasting. I suppose if the bad guys and the party both did words of power it wouldn't be so bad.
Words actually work pretty well, especially for.spontaneous casters. Word casters lose out on a lot of spell effects that just aren't duplicated. On the other hand, it is incredibly flexible.
I find them no more powerful than normal casters. And they have less narrative power, so they end up being easier to handle than regular casters once you know the system (which does take some time and effort).
WoP is really balanced when you dig into it. Even in a world with both kinds of casting, WoP is a re-balanced version of casting. It has some neat tricks, but lacks most of the staples from vanilla casting.
Not OP or broken. You do have to read the WHOLE section through to figure that out. Something normal spellcasting doesn't require.
Spellcraft check - Foe knows what you're casting.
Intelligent foe - directs ranged/mobile allies to ensure spell never gets off.
Prot.Vs/Circles.Vs already mentioned. Silence already mentioned.
Bad guy summons too.
Anything that interupts all casting. Read the concentration check rules. Many environmental conditions come into play.
Keep in mind most SM/SNA critters are 2-3 CR (or more) below the enemies in a normal (balanced) fight, moreso in boss battles, even a few minions can tie them up.