Making the best non-summoner summoner I can make

[EsperMagic]

So my DM banned the Summoner class which after all I've heard I can't blame apparently they are rather powerful. So my goal is to make the best summoner I can without being an actual summoner. So far my idea is an CG Evagelist Cleric with the Heroism subdomain. I take Spell Focus: Conjuration, Augment Summoning, and Sacred Summons. I can then summon as a standard action and as long asI'm within 30 feet affect them with the heroism spell(domain power) and then also add on Inspire Courage(from the evangelist archetype). Is this the closest I can get ignoring the whole eidolon factor for a decent summmoner?

[Darksol the Painbringer]

Sounds solid enough to me.

Another option is to go Wizard with Conjuration Specialization and take the same sort of feats. It'd be even better since you get bonus Metamagic feats, such as Quicken, Extend, etc.

[Dasrak]

I've always regarded the Summoner as a strange class theme-wise. Aside from its eidolon (which works quite differently than actual summoning), it's very mediocre at summoning spells. When it comes to your conventional summon monster spells, virtually any full-progression spellcaster leaves the Summoner in his dust.

Your Cleric build looks solid; sacred summons is one of the easiest ways to reduce the summoning spell line down to standard actions, and well worth the feat if you're pursuing this path. Good pick with the heroism subdomain.

At low levels, you probably want to grab the spell specialization feat; duration is the big problem with Summoned creatures, and a +2 caster level boost gets the summon monster spell line functional that much earlier. Because you can reassign your specialized spell every time you level up, it will never become a complete dead weight.

Another way to reduce the casting time to a standard action is the words of power alternate magic system. All wordspells are standard actions. Whether your GM allows words of power and whether you're comfortable with this alternate system are another matter entirely. Spontaneous spellcasters are vastly preferable when building wordcasters, so Sorcerer and Oracle would be your go-to classes for this path. If your GM allows it, you can also dabble with wordspells by picking the experimental spellcaster feat.

If you're 15th level or above, an Abyssal Sorcerer with the Superior Summoning feat can be awesome. You effectively get a 3 for 1 deal when summoning demons or fiendish creatures! Because Sorcerers have no alignment restrictions on their spells cast, you can still be good and summon evil creatures.

[EsperMagic]

i tried to talk him into using wordcasting but the standard action for free basically and the lack of material components and then him having to learn a new system was just too much. I think with my current build I really only will ever need WIS and CON for casting and staying alive since im within 30 ft of the action which makes the dwarf very attractive and allows me to take steel soul. Though If Im focusing on summoning I might be able to get by with the minimum wis per spell level and increase cha for channelling and be part-healer. though then thats another feat line and not looking so hot on the dwarf.

[Dasrak]

I wouldn't bother investing feats in your channeling. I wouldn't go any further than leaving your charisma at 10 and using it for out-of-combat healing. A better option may be to give yourself a decent strength score so you can contribute to melee fights. Cleric is still a 3/4 BAB class, after all.

[Unruly]

Dasrak wrote:

I've always regarded the Summoner as a strange class theme-wise. Aside from its eidolon (which works quite differently than actual summoning), it's very mediocre at summoning spells. When it comes to your conventional summon monster spells, virtually any full-progression spellcaster leaves the Summoner in his dust.

A high Cha Master Summoner would disagree. 5+Cha/day, 1-minute/level standard action free summons that allow you to have as many active at a time as your want(If you eidolon isn't out, or else it's one plus your half-eidolon) is really nice, even when you're looking at the reduced spellcasting.

Anyway, you could also try building a caster druid. You'd be getting Summon Nature's Ally rather than Summon Monster, but you could grab all the same feats, still get the subdomain if you picked a domain for your nature bond, and you can wild shape still to remain semi-effective in combat. Plus, you get a little more out-of-combat utility.

[666bender]

personally i like the druid with saurain archtype.
SO MUCH versatility all in 1.
summon as earth elemental while you are in the floor.
fly as air .
are you out of spells? great - go dino and kill the fie with bites.
you need a friend to protect you ? your dino familiar is there just for that.

[Cap. Darling]

If your GM is restricting a class because you have heard that it is off the power scale. Dont you find it pehaps a little counterproductive. To try to max a character in his game?
But if you can say no to that. I think you cleric sounds like a great idea. And one that will work fine alone and on a team:)
Edit: phone helping me spell.

[Sissyl]

I think maybe augment summoning is a bit weak, to be honest. Sure, it gives them a +2 bonus to attack and damage, and it's always on, but the early levels is when you gain the most from it. Could be a thing to retrain. Sacred summons is a bit tricky about the alignment demands - the creature summoned must have the exact same alignment SUBTYPES as your deity's alignment - not yours. In effect, this is not something that exists until SM3, the celestial template doesn't give you alignment subtypes. Summon Good Monster from Champions of Purity is a very good feat, but requires a Good alignment. Finally, Superior Summoning gets you more critters, but only weaker ones, which may not be all that useful. Worth noting is that an aasimar alternate spell ability from the random table is "summoned creatures last 2 extra rounds", which gives you 3 rounds from the start, but will become dead weight pretty quickly. As for other abilities, make sure you have enough to buff your creatures, and ability to stay out of harm's way. Summoning creatures is a very tricky section of strategy.

[EsperMagic]

Unruly wrote:

Dasrak wrote:

I've always regarded the Summoner as a strange class theme-wise. Aside from its eidolon (which works quite differently than actual summoning), it's very mediocre at summoning spells. When it comes to your conventional summon monster spells, virtually any full-progression spellcaster leaves the Summoner in his dust.

A high Cha Master Summoner would disagree. 5+Cha/day, 1-minute/level standard action free summons that allow you to have as many active at a time as your want(If you eidolon isn't out, or else it's one plus your half-eidolon) is really nice, even when you're looking at the reduced spellcasting.

Anyway, you could also try building a caster druid. You'd be getting Summon Nature's Ally rather than Summon Monster, but you could grab all the same feats, still get the subdomain if you picked a domain for your nature bond, and you can wild shape still to remain semi-effective in combat. Plus, you get a little more out-of-combat utility.

Except SNA is significantly weaker and Druid do not have the aura class feature so i'd basically be limited to summoning dinosaurs which don't have SLA's. I also lose all the free buffs

[EsperMagic]

Sissyl wrote:

I think maybe augment summoning is a bit weak, to be honest. Sure, it gives them a +2 bonus to attack and damage, and it's always on, but the early levels is when you gain the most from it. Could be a thing to retrain. Sacred summons is a bit tricky about the alignment demands - the creature summoned must have the exact same alignment SUBTYPES as your deity's alignment - not yours. In effect, this is not something that exists until SM3, the celestial template doesn't give you alignment subtypes. Summon Good Monster from Champions of Purity is a very good feat, but requires a Good alignment. Finally, Superior Summoning gets you more critters, but only weaker ones, which may not be all that useful. Worth noting is that an aasimar alternate spell ability from the random table is "summoned creatures last 2 extra rounds", which gives you 3 rounds from the start, but will become dead weight pretty quickly. As for other abilities, make sure you have enough to buff your creatures, and ability to stay out of harm's way. Summoning creatures is a very tricky section of strategy.

hence why i went with CG, Cayden Cailen has the right domain i wanted and selections of summons at most spell levels. im not a huge fan of superior summons but summon good monster is a maybe

[Master of the Dark Triad]

Be a preservationist alchemist and take planer preservationist.

Purple worm, I choose you!

[Titania, the Summer Queen]

My one and only goto option for druid is as a arms dealer and bringing multiple Cyclops along and then handing them a x4 2handed weapon. Allowing autocrits. They can wrack up damage awfully quick. However getting to the required level is a bit of a drag.

[Sissyl]

Let me tell you, dumping a trio of Celestial Eagles on some lvl 2 critters was sodding impressive. By this time, they had 3 rounds to stay... but they needed only 1, with a fair margin.

[Devilkiller]

If you DM has banned Summoners it might be at least partially because he or she doesn’t like summoned monsters. You might want to let the DM know your plan. That said, Evangelist is a great choice. CG seems like a good alignment since you’ll be able to summon azatas as a standard action. LG would be OK too since Lantern Archons can be quite useful, especially with Superior Summons.

Taking the Heroism subdomain sounds pretty brilliant. Another option you might consider is taking the Animal or Scalykind domains to get an animal companion. This option would work best in a game where you can take the Boon Companion feat. An animal companion like the big cat can be nearly as effective as an eidolon sometimes. If nothing else they can boost your AC a lot with Bodyguard and Benevolent armor. That should help give you time to use a full-round summon when needed. I guess they could also flank with your summoned monsters. With a menacing amulet that would give your critters +4 to hit, as good or better than Heroism.

High Wisdom ensures your higher level summons will be available more often. A metamagic rod of echoing spell could improve on that, and Scribe Scroll might help a bit.

[EsperMagic]

He doesnt actually mind summoned monsters(having had conjuration wizards and a reach cleric previously in this campaign played by others), I think it was mostly the combination of having the summoner casting spells/buffing/summoning while you also have an ultra pimped eidolon dealing damage in melee.

The azata's were a big draw because there is the bralani i think with lightning bolt and cure serious attached to them, plus the normal ranged attacks which allows them to stay with me back out of combat but still get buffed. I would actually consider superior summons for more of them.

Is dwarf the best choice racially though(+2 con and wis are awesome in this build) or should i go with human for the bonus feat?

[Cap. Darling]

Dwarf looks like a good choice. I think your plann looks sound. If you start on level one you will get the third feat in your plan rigth about when it starts to become worth your time to summon stuff. And from level 8 you can summon as a standart, Inspire as a move, and grant heroism effect as a swift. That is gonna be wicked if the figth is happening where you are. "Instant Army Coming up:)"
If you go with dwarf it may be somthing to consider to take a dip in figther to get armor and shield stuff but i dont know if i there is a good place to delay spell progression:)
Any way it looks like an awesome character.

[Douglas Muir 406]

Here's a thing about a summony character, whether cleric or wizard: since summoning spells don't care about your casting stat, focusing on summoning lets you be more MAD-y.

Put another way: if you're playing an enchantment specialist or a fireballing evoker, you need to crank those save DCs as high as possible. So you want a really high casting stat. But if you're throwing summons all day long, it doesn't matter if your stat is 20 or 12. (Okay, yes, bonus spells. But otherwise not.) So if you're tired of playing clumsy clerics, weak ugly wizards, or sorcerors who are too dumb to be allowed to cross the street alone, focusing on summoning is a fun, playable workaround.

Doug M.

[Douglas Muir 406]

Quote:

Acadamae Graduate (Local)

You have passed the grueling Test of Summoning and graduated from the Acadamae.

Prerequisites: Specialist wizard level 1st, cannot have conjuration as a forbidden school, Korvosa affinity.

Benefit: Whenever you cast a prepared arcane spell from the conjuration (summoning) school that takes longer than a standard action to cast, reduce the casting time by one round (to a minimum casting time of one standard action). Casting a spell in this way is taxing and requires a Fortitude save (DC 15 + spell level) to resist becoming fatigued.

The Fort save against fatigue is a killer... unless you have a paladin in the party. If you do, and can convince him to take the anti-fatigue mercy at 3rd level, then suddenly this feat rocks hard.

Doug M.

[nate lange]

evangelist clerics are a great way to go if you want to focus on summoning a little army... augment summoning (and, obviously, superior summoning) are worth more when using a lower level list to get multiple creatures, and group buffs from perform and heroism (and group heals from channel) multiply in usefulness the more creatures you have out.

if, instead, you'd rather focus on a 'pet', druid is a decent option or a sylvan sorcerer is even better (boon companion gets animal to full progression and you have access to insanely good buffs to put on it- like form of the dragon 3 and transformation at high levels).

you could try to work a combo of the two also, but it wouldn't be as good at either... a summoner wizard could get a full progression companion for 3 feats (nature soul and animal ally from faiths and philosophies, and boon companion), although you have a limited list of animal choices; if you take the Magaambyan Arcanist PrC (listed as "Collegiate Arcanist" on pfsrd), you gain an aura (allowing you to take sacred summons) and get to add some druid spells to your list (potentially resulting in the best list in the game for buffing an animal companion or summoned creature)- plus, you get +1 CL and a bonus to the duration of spells with the good descriptor (which includes any summon you can use Sacred Summons for). like i said, its not as good at 'army summoning' as the cleric (since you miss out on perform and channel), and its pet may not be quite as good as a sylvan sorcerer (mostly just because you can't choose some of the go-to animals like big cats and dinosaurs), but overall this might be the closest you can get to a summoner.

edit: there's a handful of ways to get around fatigue, all of which will make the feat in previous post more usable/valuable (a dip in lame oracle, a human with heart of the fields, there's an item that lets you take subdual damage instead of getting fatigued... pretty much anything that lets you ragecycle...), or (since you don't need to really focus on your casting stat) you can crank your Con and pick up great fortitude and try to make most of those saves.

[LazarX]

Dasrak wrote:

I've always regarded the Summoner as a strange class theme-wise. Aside from its eidolon (which works quite differently than actual summoning), it's very mediocre at summoning spells.

It's hardly mediocre. It get the full wizard span as cast spells, but more importantly those Spell Like Abilities are standard actions which you can quicken with the Quicken Spell-like ability feat. That's a major boost.

[EsperMagic]

Yeah i like all these ideas on getting a semi-eidolon and its helpful, but I'm actually ok without that part of a summoner. I just like the whole army-summoning thing. I think it's cool. Maybe the dwarf was bullied as a child for not being strong enough to mine(low str) and learned to conjure up people to defend him from his bullies and now that he is grown travels the world to use his armies to help people.

Right now using a 20 pt buy im looking at this for level one.

Dwarf
Str: 10
Dex: 14
Con: 16
Int: 13
Wis: 17
Cha: 8

I could drop Str below ten to get another skill point per level, but not sure if its worth it. Otherwise level bonuses will go to Wis at least 2 and the rest to Con.

As far as feats go
1:Spell Focus: Conjuration
3:Augment Summoning
5:Sacred Summons
7:Toughness
9:Summon Good Monster
11:Craft Wondrous Item
13:Craft Staff/Rod or Improved Initiative

[Devilkiller]

I’ve been summoning a lot of Bralani recently, and they’re pretty good. The Lillend can be nice too though her Inspire Courage won’t stack with yours the way it does with our party’s Archivist Bard. I guess you could Inspire Greatness instead though, and she has a heap of healing.

I agree with your plan to keep Wisdom fairly high. It affects lots of stuff besides summoning, and helps determines how many summons you’ll get per day at your highest spell levels. Your Str being so low

I hadn’t seen the “Summon Good Monster” feat before. It looks pretty cool, but I wonder why the table of additional monsters has a column for subtypes but nothing in it. I guess this means the monsters wouldn’t work with Sacred Summons whereas I’d think that maybe they should.

Craft Rod is great if you have enough downtime. Craft Wondrous Items is nice too though the two might compete for downtime. If your campaign has some common monster types you might want to craft a few spare amulets with bane versus their creature types. You can then put the amulets on summoned monsters as needed. It only costs 2,000gp and is on average +2 to hit and +9 to damage.

The main quibble I have is with Toughness t 7th level. Your Con looks fine, and you can cast Cure spells and eventually Heal. You also appear to be a back of the party PC based on your low Str. I’d go with an animal companion and Boon Companion. If you don’t want a pet maybe you could consider Extra Channel and crafting a phylactery of positive channeling. It isn’t optimal, but your party could save a lot on healing wands.

[EsperMagic]

the campaign is KM so plenty of downtime actually. Not sure how to get the animal companion at this point unless I give up the heroism sub-domain which may be iffy as its yet another bonus to stack on summons. Also I do not have medium armor due to the archetype, though i may take prof. in that if i give up toughness

[Master of the Dark Triad]

Improved initative instead of toughness?

[nate lange]

i would advise against taking 8 Cha... i know it's a tempting stat to dump when you're looking at your own survivability but it also determines how many times you can heal your entire army at once (via channel) and for how many rounds you can buff your whole army at once (via performance)... at the very least you should think about taking the 10 out of Cha and switching it with the 13 you have in Int.

[EsperMagic]

hmmm that makes me want to change the whole stat block now...

Str: 8
Dex: 14
Con: 16
Int: 10
Wis: 17
Cha: 12

Though at this point I could just go human, and take the dual talent alternate racial trait and still get +2 WIS and CON, plus a "free +2 CHA"(from losing the dwarf negative)

Str: 9
Dex: 14
Con: 16
Int: 10
Wis: 17
Cha: 14

Drop toughness for Medium Armor Proficiency with the courageous on it...hmmm

[nate lange]

i hate to keep throwing monkey wrenches into your plans, but be careful mixing low Str with heavier armor... a lot of medium armor will also make you encumbered if you only have 8-9 Str (and that's just the armor... add in weapons, treasure, etc and you may run into real trouble)

[Yebng]

muleback cords will counter your encumbrance problem, and they're really cheap

[EsperMagic]

i dont plan to have weapons...they seem rather ineffective at this point in my build. and we dont mess with encumberance from loot/treasure. so i figured mithral armor would be the way to go.

[Devilkiller]

Getting an animal companion is pretty simple. Just take the Animal domain. If you'd be willing to be LG then Erastil has it. If not then there's an elven deity named Ketephys who is CG and has it. As I’d mentioned earlier, flank is a +2, and adding a menacing amulet would make it +4. Summon something behind the enemy and flanking should be fairly easy.

Here’s a feat build out (human for the extra feat)
1:Spell Focus: Conjuration, Augment Summoning
3: Craft Wondrous Item
5: Boon Companion
7:Sacred Summons
9: Craft Magic Arms & Armor
11: Discordant Voice
13: Superior Summoning

Of course you might not want an animal companion for some reason. If so then it would be easy enough to swap out Boon Companion for something else. Craft Wondrous Items might still be nice to have so that you could make various stat boosters and maybe some bane amulets to put on summoned monsters. Craft Rod might make more sense at 9th level (Kingmaker is a good campaign for crafting)

[Curaigh]

Dinnae forget to take the languages of the critters you plan to summon. The options when you can communicate with a critter are so much more than 'it attacks your enemies'

Channel becomes 1d3 times better when you summon 1d3 critters. Well almost. Rod of metamagic (extend) should be purchased as soon as you can get it.

[BigDTBone]

I've always thought that Druid/wizard mystic theurge makes the best/most versatile summoning specialist. You get both sets of summoning lists and bunches of slots to use. Using an early entry method with asimar or teifling helps with being behind the spell level curve.

[Sissyl]

Curaigh wrote:

Dinnae forget to take the languages of the critters you plan to summon. The options when you can communicate with a critter are so much more than 'it attacks your enemies'

Channel becomes 1d3 times better when you summon 1d3 critters. Well almost. Rod of metamagic (extend) should be purchased as soon as you can get it.

Interestingly, not as many languages as you might think. Yes, you need the elemental languages, celestial and draconic. Infernal gets you hell hounds, only. Sylvan gets you blink dogs. Turns out the only summon monster critters that are difficult to communicate with are big demons and these two dogs.

[EsperMagic]

Im staying away from druids because im not a huge fan of SNA, when compared to Sm. The nature's ally creatures just dont have all the SLAs and at wills and such.

Also Im still confused why people keep telling me to get an animal companion. I was pretty clear im doing the heroism subdoimain for additional buffs.

[Devilkiller]

@BigDTBone - Mystic Theurge sounds like kind of a bad plan for a summoning PC since you'll be stuck summoning weaker monsters. Do you feel like having more spells available to summon wimpy stuff makes up for that?

@EsperMagic - I was originally just pointing out that the animal companion might produce better results in game mechanics terms. Later on you said something about not being sure how you'd get the animal companion, so I went into more detail. Maybe it should have been clear what you were saying, but it wasn't clear to me. That said, enjoy heroism.

As an aside, I agree with you about SNA vs SM except that having played a high level Druid I'll have to say that the various giants are pretty nice.

[EsperMagic]

I agree if i were going druid of some sort I would totally focus on SNA for the giants and possiby the dinosaurs. But then I would also be more martialand use them as flanking buddies until the high levels.

[Reynard_the_fox]

You'll probably want to consider the Shaman archetypes for Druids. If you're looking for pure summon DPS, it's really, really hard to beat the Lion Shaman. Multiple advanced giant dire tigers with extra HP as a standard action? Yes please!

[666bender]

Best? Druid lion shaman with heoism as domain.
Summon, buff and kill.
Opponent is strong ? Turn earth elemental and summon form total cover in te floor.
Opponent is beaten? Shape to dire tiger and .... Kill....

[BigDTBone]

Devilkiller wrote:

@BigDTBone - Mystic Theurge sounds like kind of a bad plan for a summoning PC since you'll be stuck summoning weaker monsters. Do you feel like having more spells available to summon wimpy stuff makes up for that?

@EsperMagic - I was originally just pointing out that the animal companion might produce better results in game mechanics terms. Later on you said something about not being sure how you'd get the animal companion, so I went into more detail. Maybe it should have been clear what you were saying, but it wasn't clear to me. That said, enjoy heroism.

As an aside, I agree with you about SNA vs SM except that having played a high level Druid I'll have to say that the various giants are pretty nice.

With the correct entry setup into MT, you would have a Wizard and Druid level just one less than your character level. So, summons aren't any further behind than a full spontaneous caster, plus you get both lists.

If you don't like the SNA lists, then do Mystic Theurge as a Wiz/Cleric. Again, just one level down and you get double the slots.

[Devilkiller]

Ok, I had forgotten about early entry to MT with spell-like abilities. With that I guess it is a pretty good combination. I think just playing a Master Summoner would be simpler, but I guess that's not an option for the OP since the DM banned it.

[EsperMagic]

ugh seriously...no more druid talk.