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Ok, I read a lot of threads here about how powerful and game breaking it is to summon creatures to do the fighting for you. But we’re just not seeing it. We’ve tried out mid to kinda high level (4-12) summoners, sorcerer, and druids that summon.
Don’t get me wrong, it is decent and occasionally it has been incredibly useful. Earth elemental to earth glide us past a barrier. Swarm of lantern archons for a creature with really high resistances of all types. Bunch of fire elementals is about the perfect distraction. A few dolphins to help us get to and back from an undersea wreck. Etc… I’m certainly not saying they are useless.
But everyone talks about how the show up the martial characters, soloing AP’s, make the whole rest of the party useless, break the modules, etc…
In a tough fight, the bad guys can usually take down anything you can summon in 1-2 rounds and can’t usually hit reliably with enough damage to take out opponents by themselves. Granted, that is still useful. It is great to distract casters, if the bad guys are targeting the summons they are not targeting you, and some of the special abilities are very useful. But they aren’t often winning fights by themselves and if they do, the PC probably had to burn all of the summons for the day in that single fight.
So are we picking the wrong creatures to summon? I’ve tried most of the ones on the list that seem reasonable. But they never fight as well as the other PC’s. Some useful spells, but they certainly aren’t as good a caster as another PC. And whichever class you use, you only get so many each day. (Though the druid seems to be the best at lots of them with spontaneously converting potentially all their spells to summons.)
I suppose our tactics could be the problem. I’m no tactical genius. But we try to put them in flanking positions, took the languages to communicate with them so we can give them detailed orders, and try to use their strengths appropriately.
We don’t usually buff them except for communal buff spells and things like haste that affect all of us. But that would be using up even more of our limited spells in a single fight.
Is it only a high level thing? If it doesn't happen until level 18, I guess it isn't an issue for us. None of our campaigns have ever gotten that high level.
I’m Confused Again.
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In my experience, they don't fight as well as the PC fighters and other fighter types. But they do serve to increase the number of actions targeting the enemy, which can make a single BBEG very sad very fast. Of course, in a turn-based game, solo enemy encounters are usually going to be overwhelmed by multiple PCs anyway, this really just increases the tendency.
One other thing they can do is bog down play with one player, the player whose PC summoned the monsters, getting a lot more play compared to everyone else. So it's incumbent on the summoning player to have his crap together and work swiftly and efficiently as much as he can.
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Even if they never successfully hit or do damage, the biggest thing they're doing is absorbing hits. Every 1d4+1 celestial hawks you summon is 1d4+1 attacks that don't hit your front liner. They also provide flanking bonuses and prevent movement through their squares (depending on size). Add in SLAs on higher level summons, and they never even have to hit or do damage.
Or just summon an augmented celestial rhino at 7th level and have it powerful charge the BBEG for 4d6+21. Then compare that to the 7d6 from Cone of Cold and see which you like better.
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Indeed. If the summons make the enemy creatures spend attacks on them, that is attacks your fighter/barbarian/paladin/whatever didn't have to take, and is healing spells you don't need to cast. So, summons are powerful as an anvil for the martials (hammer) to smash the enemies against. They also block charge routes, protect the squishies, take up space, and often have decent secondary effects on their attacks (grapple/trip/blind/poison/etc).
What other spell lets you swim to an ocean wreck
AND
distract people with fires
AND
earth glide past the barrier
AND
ignore high DR and SR
AND
grapple casters
AND
etc.????
The thing that makes summon monster/nature's ally so great is that it's really flexible and pretty powerful. Aside from which, with the classic summoning feats you can beef up many save DCs. Don't forget your celestial ankylosaurus's daze DC goes up to 25 with augment summoning since the DC is strength based. Ditto for many of the summons with nasty poisons.
Let's talk about summons, what works and what their weaknesses are.
Good:
1.) They appear wherever you want and act how you want, within language and int.
2.) Anything targeting them isn't targeting you, generally.
3.) SLA's that are available by mid-level cover nearly every popular spell and situation.
4.) Wicked powerful spike summons like the cyclops and celestial dire lion.
5.) They are as buffable as you are generally.
Bad:
1.) Summoning takes time to do and more time to saturate the board with.
2.) Unless you are a summoner, summons don't stay long.
3.) subpar hp/level at some levels.
4.) Generally weaker attacks.
5.) Unless you are a summoner, they cost spell slots.
Summon's damage is not always subpar. At level 3, a summoner's augmented earth elemental is superior to the damage of anything other than a dedicated fighting class, with a smash at +7(1d6+8) when power attacking a ground target.
Try a Master Summoner. It will give you a feel for how many summons it takes to just outright win encounters, and you feel like a baby DM while you play.
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Augmented small air elemental has a strength of 16 and a heavy load around 170 lbs with a perfect fly speed of 100. So if you can speak auran, almost nothing is out of your reach. This is achievable at level 3.
While summoner is obviously a good summoner, the arcanist occultist archetype can do most of the same things and get true full casting.
Even if they never successfully hit or do damage, the biggest thing they're doing is absorbing hits. Every 1d4+1 celestial hawks you summon is 1d4+1 attacks that don't hit your front liner. They also provide flanking bonuses and prevent movement through their squares (depending on size). Add in SLAs on higher level summons, and they never even have to hit or do damage.
Or just summon an augmented celestial rhino at 7th level and have it powerful charge the BBEG for 4d6+21. Then compare that to the 7d6 from Cone of Cold and see which you like better.
I already agreed, absorbing hits is excellent. But it doesn't allow you completely replace the martial characters.
Like the rhino you just mentioned. When it was the highest level thing I could summon, I tried it several times. The only thing it could manage to actually score a hit on was the mooks. Using up my highest level slot for a couple of mooks was not horrible, but it wasn't that amazing. It would absorb several hits which is even better, but still not great.
I could have used an ice storm which would have instantly killed all the mooks and damaged the main bad guy.
So it sounds like you guys are agreeing with use. The summon spells are pretty dang good, but don't break the game (by invalidating all the other PC's) like I constantly read on these forums.
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Why would you want to invalidate other people's characters? When you can make them stronger by summoning monsters to set up flanking for example?
Again and again there's talk of wizards replacing fighters. But a wizard is best when he's a force multiplier; and you get more out of multiplication if you're multiplying an already big number, like a good fighter.
the damage is 1d6+11 for the elemental
20 str= +5 modifier *1.5=+7 damage
earth mastery= +1
power attack= +2*1.5=+3
total is 1d6+11and you can generally assume flank or charge modifiers with your to hit
You are calculating for two handed. There is nothing in the monster entry to imply this is a two handed attack. It's a fist slam.
Summon Monster is just another spell. It is not meant to be an "I Win" button.
Most of he summons leave alot to be desired but there are a few gems...
Hard to go wrong with Eagles.
Lantern Archeons are pretty scary. Especially against non-flying/non-AE bad guys. They are our standard construct killers.
Let's try a different comparison, then.
A caster who uses mostly summoning spells will Be more useful than a caster who uses mostly evocation spells.
See if that's true.
Yeah but you can feat boost them with Augment summons and a variety of others if you're willing to dip druid. What really makes them shine is group buffs.
Try that summoning again with a bard or let off some group buffs 1st.
Having played a mythic summoning-focused cleric to (I think) 11/3, my take is this: With mythic allowing you Speedy Summons and a few more boosts, it becomes a ridiculously powerful option... but other characters of equal level can do equally impressive things. Getting a few CR 6 creatures on board isn't THAT massive, even adding the +4 Str, +4 Con, DR 5/epic, and the extra creatures. Mostly, at this point, they STILL don't hit anything, and serve mostly as a battlefield saturation method. There are exceptions, like the Lantern Archons, Bralanis with their lightning bolts en masse, and so on, but it would be difficult to say it's a complete game-changer. Without mythic, it's far more limited in scope and far more situational. The lists according to alignment consist of few creatures indeed, still with the same problem of mainly blocking movement and serving as hit absorbers. Casting them with a 1 round casting time or choosing between the few options available as Sacred Summons is a slow or picky process. Not to mention they put a VERY heavy toll on feats (Spell Focus: Conjuration, Augment Summoning, Superior Summoning, Sacred Summons, Summon Good/Neutral Monster makes for FIVE feats, i.e. not done before level 7 - and that's as a human with EVERYTHING else ignored) and even skills (Linguistics primarily, not that Clerics get too many skill points).
All in all, sure, it has very clear advantages. However, the days of CoDzilla died with 3.5. It's no longer anything resembling an I WIN-button. Sure, you can get some advantage out of each creature, but if you're going to pretend that one single summoning is going to * provide you with SLAs, * protect the squishies, * absorb blows, * autoflank, * do damage to the enemy, * block movement on the board - you seriously need to play a summoning character to understand how it plays. You use a high-level spell slot to get a creature several CRs below yours, or a few even weaker ones. You have the feats to slightly boost it to compensate for its pitiful stats. What you get is flexibility and various tactical options. There is no guarantee of anything happening, indeed, most sensible enemies would make it a priority to take out the summoner and his/her pals quickly rather than attack the summoned creatures. The win you make in action economy is partly compensated by the long casting time, denying your action when summoning. In a very short battle, you will barely gain from this. To add to this, remember that YOU HAVE NO OTHER FEATS that give you any secondary capabilities. If you intend to go for summoning, you need to focus on it completely for it to be worthwhile. The positive message is that the short duration is rarely a problem beyond level 3-4, because the fights are so short.
Sum total: It's hardly as über as it's often described. It is a valid tactical option if you devote yourself to it. In this, it is hardly unique.
Summons are best for their special abilities and the ability to place them behind the enemy lines. They give a lot of flexibility and at times can change the whole encounter.
I'm rather fond of the elementals, possibly because I've had two good successes using them. An earth elemental using earth glide to scout a location, and a water elemental putting out the fire that the villain started in order to destroy evidence. Any idea how difficult it is to burn something a water elemental doesn't want burned?
The range is limited, but it really can change the dynamics of a battle.
That said, I wouldn't want to try soloing with a summoning specialist. Works a lot better with a rogue or warrior-type to apply damage. The summoning provides well positioned allies and the rest of the group usually does the real damage.
If your summons can't hit, have them flank and Aid Another in combat -- CRB 197 Aid Another. The +2 to hit or +2 AC against the next hit can really help.
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Why would you want to invalidate other people's characters? When you can make them stronger by summoning monsters to set up flanking for example?
Again and again there's talk of wizards replacing fighters. But a wizard is best when he's a force multiplier; and you get more out of multiplication if you're multiplying an already big number, like a good fighter.
It isn't, "I want to do this," it is, "I was told you can/should do this and I don't see how, am I dumb or are these people saying it full of it?" It's a puzzle thing, if you have a puzzle and someone tells you, "I solved it in N moves," and you can only figure out how to solve it in N+Y moves, you want to know what the better answer is, even if you aren't going to use it later. Curiosity plus the challenge of battles of wits.
Of course, the answer is that the people claiming martials can be replaced are full of it.
I am not trying to wreck the game.
I love the concept. I mean it is a classic in novels for a reason. It is just kool to summon things to do everything for you. The ultimate lazy character.
However, reading the boards our whole group GM and players was very leery about allowing in a PC that specialized in summoning creatures (not talking about the eidolon right now). There are pages and pages of examples of people going on and on about how it will wreck everything and all the other players will hate it.
But we talked about it and looked at the list of what could be summoned, at which levels, and what the PC would have to take to be good at it. It didn't really seem all that horrifically over powered.
So I tried a sorc monster summoner in PFS and the group decided to give a summoning druid a try. There was a very clear understanding that if it caused problems at the table I would retire the druid for something else.
My PFS sorc finds that only about 1 in 3 missions is summoning the better option than a haste or communal energy resistance spell. The druid summoned more often than that. But everyone's reaction was positive. It was good, but not so good that anyone else felt like their PC was a waste of time. Didn't seem all that terribly more effective than the oracle I use in the previous campaign. Completely different play style and probably a bit more versatile, but not outshining everyone else.
Does tend to lengthen our already too long fights, but as I get better organized and learn the various creatures that has been getting more manageable.
I don't want an "I WIN" button or to take over the campaign just for myself. But what I've read made it seem like it should have been an I WIN or campaign take over. That didn't happen, so I figured I was not doing it correctly.
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My own experience (having played a couple of summoning-focused conjurers) is that summoned creatures only trivialize encounters that were trivial to begin with.
Summoned critters are definitely useful, but in of themselves they don't win fights. They just make it easier for the rest of your party to win the fight.
(Of course, as a wizard, that full-round summoning time is killer; at later levels I was precasting summons as a pre-combat buff - if I was already under attack then I didn't have the time to bring in critters. A summoner or a divine caster jumping through the necessary hoops doesn't have that problem.)
Summon a large number of creatures that surround the bad guys, and only use their actions to Aid Another on the various PCs fighting those bad guys. The PC gets flanking plus a guaranteed unnamed bonus on their next attack, and the enemy has to decide whether to ignore them (and keep facing massively powerful attack rolls) or "waste" its actions taking out the small fry. Combine with a martial type using Power Attack to pump up the damage.
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You are calculating for two handed. There is nothing in the monster entry to imply this is a two handed attack. It's a fist slam.the damage is 1d6+11 for the elemental
20 str= +5 modifier *1.5=+7 damage
earth mastery= +1
power attack= +2*1.5=+3
total is 1d6+11and you can generally assume flank or charge modifiers with your to hit
Bestiary page 302: "If a creature has only one natural attack, it is always made using the creature’s full base attack bonus and adds 1-1/2 the creature’s Strength bonus on attack rolls."
Power attack feat: "This bonus to damage is increased by half (+50%) if you are making an attack with a two-handed weapon, a one handedweapon using two hands, or a primary natural weapon that adds 1-1/2 times your Strength modifier on damage rolls."
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As a personal service announcement to all Wizard conjurors out there, all the cool magi have been utilizing
With the drug
To speed their summoning endeavours.
Ha! Are those PFS legal and which books?
A Comprehensive Guide to the Weaselmancer:
- Step one: Acquire Augment Summoning and Superior Summoning feats.
- Step two: Summon 1d3+1 weasels each with really high Strength (for a weasel).
- Step three: Attach said weasels to enemy's face.
- Step four: ...Profit!
I'll just throw in, I had a hilariously fun battle with Summons last night. I Used Summon Monster VI to summon 3 Ankylosaurus as a standard action (Acadamae Graduate) used my rod of quicken to Haste them all. 3 Huge dinos forcing DC 25 Fort saves on 6 attacks total. Enemies were Dazed for Days...
Bestiary page 302: "If a creature has only one natural attack, it is always made using the creature’s full base attack bonus and adds 1-1/2 the creature’s Strength bonus on attack rolls."
Power attack feat: "This bonus to damage is increased by half (+50%) if you are making an attack with a two-handed weapon, a one handed
weapon using two hands, or a primary natural weapon that adds 1-1/2 times your Strength modifier on damage rolls."
You are 100% correct. I was in error; my apologies. Also, WOOT! My earth elementals just got way better!
Summons grant flanking, deal damage, take damage, absorb an opponent's actions, activate traps, and have their own skills and spells that can aid in other situations. While some spells might be more powerful than summons in certain situations it's safer to summon creatures in most situations then it is to cast other spells, especially if your party likes to engage in melee.
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There really are some nutty things which can be done with summons, but posts on the message boards tends toward hyperbole sometimes. If summoned monsters have seemed useful but not overpowering in your games then it sounds like you’re using them well. Honestly I do think that summons can “completely replace martial PCs” if needed though. A party of 3 Summoners and a Cleric would probably have an easy time romping through adventures. If you’re in a party with competent martial PCs you shouldn’t need to “replace” them though - unless maybe there’s some new Internet trend like “Fighter Shaming”.
I actually think the THF Barbarian/Paladin/Fighter is the character least replaceable at low levels by summons. They are the only build capable of wacking through DR at first, giving them a really solid role until the summoner can get elementals and then again as those elementals slip behind. By mid-levels there are many options for ridiculous damage.
In my current campaign, our Barbarian is MVP by far over our MS, even though he's saved party lives countless times.
Weasel and skunk summoning is classic DND bad guy trolling.
no since that's not the spell but the creatures from the spell.
My favorite summoning moment was when an important NPC's ship was attacked. The other players flew into a frenzy trying how to best get to the ship from the beach we were on. In the middle of their calculating how many people they could fly or teleport or whatnot over to the ship, I summoned an orca. The rest of the party stood around dumbfounded as it tore the monster a sphincter.
Summoning is one of those things that can immediately change the balance of a fight by taking the advantage away from the bad guy. Bad guy is in the water? have some sharks. Bad guy is in the air? I got a whole slew of answers to that. And it's a lot quicker that buffing the entire party to deal with the situation.
Extinguishing fires with water elementals is pretty useful, but I also once used one to secretly deliver a message into a building via the toilet. You need to speak Aquan and have a watertight scrollcase, but it is an amusing method of communication. Obviously if the rest of the party knew Aquan you could also just have the toilet water talk to them directly.
@boring7 - I’m thinking about the level of play you’d expect in an unaltered AP or maybe one where the DM slaps the advanced template on monsters and calls it a day. It helps a lot if you have high enough Knowledge skills to know what DR and smite are suitable for the encounter at hand.
That ruling might work for Augment summoning (I disagree) but Superior Summoning (number of critters summoned) totally affects the spell.
At least, as-written.
TO THE FAQ!
edit: nothing in the faq
I like that idea, but every game I've been in except 1 long ago is ended by level 15.
Hold on...there's something I never thought about before that could make high level summoning even more effective. The Spell Perfection feat says that
"if you have other feats which allow you to apply a set numerical bonus to any aspect of this spell (such as Spell Focus, Spell Penetration, Weapon Focus [ray], and so on), double the bonus granted by that feat when applied to this spell"Would that double the bonuses from Augment Summoning and Superior Summoning? Because +8 Str/Con and +2 creatures is really nice for pretty much any summoning spell.
My understanding from reading many threads is that this is legal and RAI. You have to spend a lot of resources to get this feat wise and benefits are reasonable at high level. Also it doesn't work with the Summoner's (Su) ability, so it can be exploited.
I'm also playing an Occultist Arcanist. As others have said, summons will never replace other characters, but it may step on their toes. There is also an absurd amount of flexibility. With the Alter Summoned Monster spell, you can have a beat stick that turns into a healer after combat, giving you many healing spells, etc.
But I think what really has to potential to bother other players is the amount of table time you can fill up. I personally only rarely field more than one summoned creature, and when I do I hand out stat sheets to the other players so they can control them.
We are about to hit level 20 in my current campaign. The Occultist Arcanist, which already can basically do anything at level 19, has a capstone where creatures summoned by the Occultist Arcanist special ability cost nothing to summon and last until killed, dismissed, or replaced. This means basically unlimited access to all sorts of healing and buffing spells.
But I think what really has to potential to bother other players is the amount of table time you can fill up. I personally only rarely field more than one summoned creature, and when I do I hand out stat sheets to the other players so they can control them.
I have a houserule of only one summon at a time. If you summon from a lower level list you can instead apply the advanced or giant template to it.