I'm still undecided about what the correct answer is there. It is clear that (as an example) a Celestial Eagle wouldn't normally attack a skeleton.
It is by no means clear. The spell says that the summons attack your enemies. Full stop. It doesn't say it requires any kind of HA check to do that. Normally you have to do a handle animal check to order an animal you control, whether it's an AC or a purchased animal, to attack. You don't when it's a summoned creature. The rule about animals not attacking undead and so forth appear in the Handle Animal skill rules, so it's not really clear that when animals attack automatically due to a spell, without having to make an HA check, that you would have to make one in order to attack certain foes. Would you argue that a summoned creature wouldn't attack the natural enemies of that type of animal, and that would require an HA check as well? For instance, dolphins attacking a Dire Shark, which wouldn't make sense for normal dolphins to attack as opposed to swimming away. Summoned dolphins would definitely attack, because that's what the spell does.
In regards to Augment Summoning, FAQ
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And I obviously don't want to have to say: Look, guys - I'm clearly not a GM who can run with summoning! So I have to ban it from any of my games.
Instead, I seek advice and try to learn to up my game.
That's what we're here for. Also, the quote string (how we get those nice boxes?) its "[ QUOTE="Name" ]" and close it with a "[ /QUOTE ]" Tighten up the brackets to make it work. I had to spread them out so it wouldn't put my note on how to do it into a quote box.
My advice might be of dubious use, but I am a guy who's been there before.
Encounters, at their core, eat resources. If the guy is cranking out 8 eagles to deal with every encounter, he's going to run dry on them pretty soon. If he's not cranking them out, the party has more opportunity to do stuff.
This comes up a bit when I discuss martials vs spellcasters as well.
Attrition is a part of the game. Resources (hp, spells, arrows, wands) get expended in the course of adventuring. The summoner has cha mod+3 uses of his summoning per day. That means he has about 7 of them, and he might be able to double up on say three or four (and one good swordblow puts the eagles into the staggered territory). Your PCs lack an area healer (no channel in that composition) so a staggered eagle stays a staggered eagle. I doubt the witch will want to blow spells on a five minute member of the party. I assume your summoner is 5th level? 3rd? If he was higher he'd have better stuff then eagles.
I just ran an eighth level party through a dungeon that had something close to a dozen encounters. All across the scale. If you're running from an AP, that's an issue you have to deal with as APs tend to have janky encounter distribution.
Space things out, make minutes count out of combat. Casing a room for loot might be enough to make the summons despawn. Summoners have more then their summon monster ability.
You want him to go into a battle and ask himself "What resource do I want to expend here?" He might just see one goblin, but what if that single goblin is a goblin suicide bomber? What if that one goblin is an illusion? What if that one goblin has /protection from good/ up?
Since our friend is relying on celestial eagles, as others have pointed out, a simple protection from good spell makes his celestial eagle summons instantly irrelevant but not the summoner. Even without his favorite toys, he can still do stuff. One goblin adept, one bad guy cleric, and his Diehard summons are off the table, but he still has other stuff.
The party doesn't want to throw in likely because as you said, it consumes resources they don't want to waste. Its logical. But logical can be boring.
For that I have the following suggestions.
1.) Bring the fight to them. Have the goblin patrol come in from behind them for example.
2.) As I said, give them objectives that require direct action or have complexity. Find a key, stop a complex mechanism, convince a guy to help out or not run away (Someone shouting "HOLD THE LIIIIINE!" Matters a hell of a lot more when he won't disappear in a few minutes.)
3.) Learn crowd control. Baddies should have ways of dealing with crowds just like the party does.
4.) Be a crowd. Use /more goblin/. Or more mook in general. Don't worry about those CR charts, you want to entertain people. Maybe throw a few more goblins in the pool. Maybe have them in tougher armor. Maybe the goblins get a spider swarm to pour out of the nearby wall, that's immune to weapons (like eagle's claws).
5.) Big numbers are fun, but players don't recount stories as much about how they hit the ogre for 20 damage as much as when they outsmarted him, or dropped a chandelier on him, or when he tried to bullrush them and they faked him into running off a cliff. Combat manuevers, environmental stuff, its all fun. Avoid the monster closet.
And I obviously don't want to have to say: Look, guys - I'm clearly not a GM who can run with summoning! So I have to ban it from any of my games.
Instead, I seek advice and try to learn to up my game.
That's what we're here for. Also, the quote string (how we get those nice boxes?) its "[ QUOTE="Name" ]" and close it with a "[ /QUOTE ]" Tighten up the brackets to make it work. I had to spread them out so it wouldn't put my note on how to do it into a quote box.
My advice might be of dubious use, but I am a guy who's been there before.
Encounters, at their core, eat resources. If the guy is cranking out 8 eagles to deal with every encounter, he's going to run dry on them pretty soon. If he's not cranking them out, the party has more opportunity to do stuff.
This comes up a bit when I discuss martials vs spellcasters as well.
Attrition is a part of the game. Resources (hp, spells, arrows, wands) get expended in the course of adventuring. The summoner has cha mod+3 uses of his summoning per day. That means he has about 7 of them, and he might be able to double up on say three or four (and one good swordblow puts the eagles into the staggered territory). Your PCs lack an area healer (no channel in that composition) so a staggered eagle stays a staggered eagle. I doubt the witch will want to blow spells on a five minute member of the party. I assume your summoner is 5th level? 3rd? If he was higher he'd have better stuff then eagles.
I just ran an eighth level party through a dungeon that had something close to a dozen encounters. All across the scale. If you're running from an AP, that's an issue you have to deal with as APs tend to have janky encounter distribution.
Space things out, make minutes count out of combat. Casing a room for loot might be enough to make the summons despawn. Summoners have more then their summon monster ability.
You want him to go into a battle and ask himself "What resource do I want to expend here?" He might just see one...
ARGHHHHHHHHHHH, how could I forget Protection from <Alignment>!?
I'm running a WotR game now, so I should know better!
EDIT: Also your post touches on some stuff I've been talking about today. Specifically making the out of combat minutes count. Warning Wrath of the Righteous spoilers if you click here.
Upped their AC by +1, max hp, gave them some means to deal with the eagles (nets & short bows), but my main concern now is the # of summoned minions leaving the other players with nothing to do.
Longspear may work better because it should be easy to provoke an attack of opportunity.
Gob 1 in front retreats through the spear-gobs when eagles start to attack them. Eagles naturally follow their target, provoking the attacks of opportunity. Even goblins should be able to outsmart summoned eagles.
-Skeletons have DR 5/Bludgeoning which should ignore most of the damage from the talon attacks of the augmented eagles.
My understanding is claws count as S/P/B so skeletons will not work. You need something with DR against special materials -- silver, cold iron, etc.
On the other hand, there is reason to question if summoned eagles would attack undead.
-On the point that they're doing on the dangerous and fun stuff, are you enforcing the Handle Animal aspect of summons? I think this was covered last thread, but I just want to be sure. Basically they're under your control and he has to use...
Good point. If they want to do anything beyond attack, it is a handle animal check -- usually as a push action. Another check when they get hurt.
The problem with using that rule is it will slow down combat.
My understanding is claws count as S/P/B so skeletons will not work. You need something with DR against special materials -- silver, cold iron, etc.
Eagles have 2 Talon attacks, not Claws. Also, Claws are B/S.
Link to the monster rules, you'll have to search for the table. It's under natural attacks.
My understanding is claws count as S/P/B so skeletons will not work. You need something with DR against special materials -- silver, cold iron, etc.Eagles have 2 Talon attacks, not Claws. Also, Claws are B/S.
Link to the monster rules, you'll have to search for the table. It's under natural attacks.
Thanks, I had missed that in the rules. I bet what happened is I asked about it for a specific attack that was a bite attack and then generalized the answer to all natural attacks.
I wish they would just list this when listing the attacks.
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Failing the fly check by 5 or more causes you to fall, which provokes if you pass out of threatened squares.That is not actually a rule.
-Enforce the flying rules. Hover and 90 degree turns aren't automatic for Eagles. Failing these could provoke AoOs from the goblin.
As I understand it, involuntary movement usually doesn't provoke. In the case of Bull Rush for example, you need the Greater Bull Rush feat to actually cause the target to provoke.
The Fly rules don't mention anything about provoking for falling.
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Failing the fly check by 5 or more causes you to fall, which provokes if you pass out of threatened squares.That is not actually a rule.
-Enforce the flying rules. Hover and 90 degree turns aren't automatic for Eagles. Failing these could provoke AoOs from the goblin.
As I understand it, involuntary movement usually doesn't provoke. In the case of Bull Rush for example, you need the Greater Bull Rush feat to actually cause the target to provoke.
The Fly rules don't mention anything about provoking for falling.
The falling doesn't provoke. The getting back up does. Involuntary falling knocks you prone.
Consider house ruling that he can roll to see how.many eagles he would get but anything beyond 2 eagles instead pumps up one or more of the other eagles. Saves on how.many actions are being taken.
An interesting idea, Raymond. But my player is already feeling the "I'm having so much trouble with your character, I'm having to rewrite the class" thing that he's getting ready to roll a new one.
For me, the simplest house rule would be: "Summoning spells: A Player may only ever have 1 summoning spell in play at a time." And: "Summoning spells can only summon 1 creature off their respective list. (No casting a lower level Summoning spell for 1d3 or 1d4 + minions.)" Boom! Problem solved.
Of course, then I have completely undercut the Summoner class, and the Master Summoner especially. But it would make my life so much easier. It would apply to anyone with a summoning ability. And it would no longer leave my other players marginalized.
Spook205: "Heroes are supposed to do stuff that makes their players feel awesome. Your solution also might just be to add more goblins."
Did that. Upped their AC by +1, max hp, gave them some means to deal with the eagles (nets & short bows), but my main concern now is the # of summoned minions leaving the other players with nothing to do.
** spoiler omitted **
The Summoner feels special. The other players feel disinterested. And I'm trying to keep it interesting. And he's not being a dick! He's playing the class the way it is meant to be played, using summoning the way summoning is supposed to be used: "Here! Let my meat-shields bear the brunt of the danger!"
I might be missing something, but shouldn't upping the difficulty of all the encounters help mitigate this. If it is reasonably possible, include stuff like spellcasters with AOE CC and fun things like tanglefoot bags (DC15 reflex or fall out of the sky).
Also, the summoner has very little control over the summons. You are the one that determines how they behave. He can use push animal to make the summons defend him (one at a time, as a full round action - with 10 summons this should take at least a minute in and of itself), but once they are in combat it is reasonable for them to rush off and charge the threats, even if it is tactically inadvisable. For example, sitting some goblins armed with bows at a barricade or an elevated, difficult to access position 100 feet away will encourage the summons to run off and fight them. Your party will not be able to support them very well for a couple of rounds, meaning by the time your party gets to the goblins the summons will be thinned quite substantially. If the situation is tactically terrible from the start, your party might want to bypass the encounter entirely or approach it from a different angle, forcing them to leave the summons to run in and die. Be aware though that using earth elementals instead gets around this if he can communicate with them (they are intelligent and can obey complex orders).
I don't know how much freedom the AP as written gives you to actually do this, but spacing out encounters (so a single batch of summons will run out of duration before the day is over) should help as well.
If you do both of these, The summoner will be forced to either a) rely on his companions for a good deal of encounters because he blew all his summons quickly, or b) stop it with the flying cawblender of death and actually practice basic resource conservation techniques like not spamming limited use abilities that make other party members redundant unless the situation actually warrants it.
That said, master summoners are a very strong archetype for a very strong class, and I am not surprised you are having trouble.
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Consider house ruling that he can roll to see how.many eagles he would get but anything beyond 2 eagles instead pumps up one or more of the other eagles. Saves on how.many actions are being taken.An interesting idea, Raymond. But my player is already feeling the "I'm having so much trouble with your character, I'm having to rewrite the class" thing that he's getting ready to roll a new one.
For me, the simplest house rule would be: "Summoning spells: A Player may only ever have 1 summoning spell in play at a time." And: "Summoning spells can only summon 1 creature off their respective list. (No casting a lower level Summoning spell for 1d3 or 1d4 + minions.)" Boom! Problem solved.
Of course, then I have completely undercut the Summoner class, and the Master Summoner especially. But it would make my life so much easier. It would apply to anyone with a summoning ability. And it would no longer leave my other players marginalized.
Solutions are usually better coming around organically, but if you feel you need this, take it.
Just some caveats.
a. Players may harbor residual resentment that Summoner-Player had to 'let them' have the spotlight by being a martyr.
b. The summoner player might feel obliged to clam up himself, and go from center of everything to trying to play a high functioning NPC to 'atone.' Which may intensify point a.
Not saying these will happen, just something to watch out for.
Failing the fly check by 5 or more causes you to fall, which provokes if you pass out of threatened squares.That is not actually a rule.
-Enforce the flying rules. Hover and 90 degree turns aren't automatic for Eagles. Failing these could provoke AoOs from the goblin.
As I understand it, involuntary movement usually doesn't provoke. In the case of Bull Rush for example, you need the Greater Bull Rush feat to actually cause the target to provoke.
The Fly rules don't mention anything about provoking for falling.
I should clarify. Say you're hovering to full-attack and you fail your fly check by 4 or less. You're not allowed to hover, but you also don't fall, which means you must move. And that movement provokes AoOs.
Falling is a different issue, I'd think that movement would also provoke.
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Failing the fly check by 5 or more causes you to fall, which provokes if you pass out of threatened squares.That is not actually a rule.
-Enforce the flying rules. Hover and 90 degree turns aren't automatic for Eagles. Failing these could provoke AoOs from the goblin.
As I understand it, involuntary movement usually doesn't provoke. In the case of Bull Rush for example, you need the Greater Bull Rush feat to actually cause the target to provoke.
The Fly rules don't mention anything about provoking for falling.
I should clarify. Say you're hovering to full-attack and you fail your fly check by 4 or less. You're not allowed to hover, but you also don't fall, which means you must move. And that movement provokes AoOs.
Falling is a different issue, I'd think that movement would also provoke.
Falling does not provoke. The hovering thing is nastier though. Fail the check at all and you have to move (and presumably provoke). Meaning, no full attack.
This is why I was mentioning they have a 35% chance of not being able to full attack (I was wrong, its 30%). They have a +8 fly skill, the DC for hover is 15. Meaning they need to regularly hit 7+. This means that hovering to full attack only works 2/3s of the time. Also unless they want to make another (easier) check, they have to move at least 20 feet.
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Failing the fly check by 5 or more causes you to fall, which provokes if you pass out of threatened squares.That is not actually a rule.
-Enforce the flying rules. Hover and 90 degree turns aren't automatic for Eagles. Failing these could provoke AoOs from the goblin.
As I understand it, involuntary movement usually doesn't provoke. In the case of Bull Rush for example, you need the Greater Bull Rush feat to actually cause the target to provoke.
The Fly rules don't mention anything about provoking for falling.
I should clarify. Say you're hovering to full-attack and you fail your fly check by 4 or less. You're not allowed to hover, but you also don't fall, which means you must move. And that movement provokes AoOs.
Falling is a different issue, I'd think that movement would also provoke.
Falling does not provoke. The hovering thing is nastier though. Fail the check at all and you have to move (and presumably provoke). Meaning, no full attack.
This is why I was mentioning they have a 35% chance of not being able to full attack (I was wrong, its 30%). They have a +8 fly skill, the DC for hover is 15. Meaning they need to regularly hit 7+. This means that hovering to full attack only works 2/3s of the time. Also unless they want to make another (easier) check, they have to move at least 20 feet.
I used those checks, and it helped immensely as the eagles who failed only got 1 attack, and then took an AoO as they had to move away. And only got 1 attack when they returned. With a reach weapon, that could give my gobos another AoO on the return.
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Failing the fly check by 5 or more causes you to fall, which provokes if you pass out of threatened squares.That is not actually a rule.
-Enforce the flying rules. Hover and 90 degree turns aren't automatic for Eagles. Failing these could provoke AoOs from the goblin.
As I understand it, involuntary movement usually doesn't provoke. In the case of Bull Rush for example, you need the Greater Bull Rush feat to actually cause the target to provoke.
The Fly rules don't mention anything about provoking for falling.
I should clarify. Say you're hovering to full-attack and you fail your fly check by 4 or less. You're not allowed to hover, but you also don't fall, which means you must move. And that movement provokes AoOs.
Falling is a different issue, I'd think that movement would also provoke.
I see. The forced movement would provoke, fair enough. I'm not sure about the falling. It makes sense, but there's no actual rule saying so. So you're into the grey area, and that's a bad place to be if your advice is "stick to the rules and everything will work out".
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Also, there's still the issue that most of the time, eagles don't actually need to hover, because there's no rule that they have to fly to full-attack. They can do so just fine from the ground.
And that's realistic; real-world eagles also use their talons and beak while on the ground. So since it happens IRL, I think it's dubious to forbid it in-game on grounds of realism.
And I obviously don't want to have to say: Look, guys - I'm clearly not a GM who can run with summoning! So I have to ban it from any of my games.
Instead, I seek advice and try to learn to up my game.
Maybe let the other players control the summoned minions actions(so long as they act in good faith), instead of just the dice rolls.
Something that just occurred to me: I should up the CR of encounters, but by how much? Adding more CR allows me to "buy" more mooks. But there's no system for how much to bump a CR by simply due to a Summoner (or due to summoning, for that matter).
The CR system isn't that precise. I just try adding something that 'seems' about right in my head and see what happens.
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Something that just occurred to me: I should up the CR of encounters, but by how much? Adding more CR allows me to "buy" more mooks. But there's no system for how much to bump a CR by simply due to a Summoner (or due to summoning, for that matter).
Ballpark. I find counting the eidolon as an additional party member assists in this.
Beyond that, you need to read and familiarize yourself with the monsters themselves.
If he's kicking it with a 29 AC at level 9. A monster that hits with a +9 claw attack, even if its CR 9 (because of DR and other defensive shennigans) isn't going to be more then a throw pillow.
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I wouldn't add more mooks. Your summoner is already acting appropriately by summoning more chumps to deal with the numbers, and that's what's causing the problems.
Add better quality opposition by tacking rogue levels on adepts and giving them partially-charged wands of Scorching Ray instead. When they pop out of stealth and nail someone with a scorching ray or sneak attack acid splash, its gonna hurt. 3 levels of poisoner rogue and now you've got drow sleep poison that's inhaled...feel free to toss them augmented smoke bombs and watch the summoner drop and his summons go "poof!" in the process.
... This isn't an MMO and summoned creatures don't automatically know who (other than the summoner) is on 'their side.'
Most (though I admit not all) read the spell as, yes they do know who the enemies are.
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I wouldn't add more mooks. Your summoner is already acting appropriately by summoning more chumps to deal with the numbers, and that's what's causing the problems.
Add better quality opposition by tacking rogue levels on adepts and giving them partially-charged wands of Scorching Ray instead. When they pop out of stealth and nail someone with a scorching ray or sneak attack acid splash, its gonna hurt. 3 levels of poisoner rogue and now you've got drow sleep poison that's inhaled...feel free to toss them augmented smoke bombs and watch the summoner drop and his summons go "poof!" in the process.
Some notes.
Eidolons, presuming you don't have that one feat, disappear on unconsciousness. Summon Monster doesn't operate that way. In fact, as summon monster is dismissible (not concentration), it means that the caster has to be conscious to end it early. Take down the summoner and his summons are still quite operational for the next, oh, several minutes .
Also, not every encounter can consist of adept rogues. Or maybe it can if its like, land of the magical rogues with wands.
And lastly, drow sleep poison is horrible. It never works on anything you want to use it on, the DC is criminally low. Maybe there's something in the poisoner archetype that boosts the DC that I don't know about, though?
More mooks means more stuff going on. Bigger threats can be surrounded, and cut to pieces piecemeal by the summons and the party. Smaller, more numerous threats present a gestalt threat.
They also assist and amplify the problems the summoner has, which is where to put his stuff. Summoners can easilly start tripping over their own summons, particularly when they're master sums.
One thing I'd like to make clear is that I was responding to Otherwhere, who I've corresponded with before now. His party has a 3rd level master summoner that's proven challenging. I've run a master summoner at low levels so feel somewhat qualified to comment. The entirety of my play on both sides of the screen since 3.5 has been at levels 2-5, so I freely admit I don't have a clue of what 7th level + is like in Pathfinder.
I wouldn't add more mooks. Your summoner is already acting appropriately by summoning more chumps to deal with the numbers, and that's what's causing the problems.
Add better quality opposition by tacking rogue levels on adepts and giving them partially-charged wands of Scorching Ray instead. When they pop out of stealth and nail someone with a scorching ray or sneak attack acid splash, its gonna hurt. 3 levels of poisoner rogue and now you've got drow sleep poison that's inhaled...feel free to toss them augmented smoke bombs and watch the summoner drop and his summons go "poof!" in the process.
Some notes.
Eidolons, presuming you don't have that one feat, disappear on unconsciousness. Summon Monster doesn't operate that way. In fact, as summon monster is dismissible (not concentration), it means that the caster has to be conscious to end it early. Take down the summoner and his summons are still quite operational for the next, oh, several minutes .
Didn't know that. I'll keep that in mind for the next time I play my Master Summoner. Still, it stems the tide of SLA summons.
Also, not every encounter can consist of adept rogues. Or maybe it can if its like, land of the magical rogues with wands.
Didn't say that. Its a good way to add some tricks to the adepts that often direct the flunkies.
And lastly, drow sleep poison is horrible. It never works on anything you want to use it on, the DC is criminally low. Maybe there's something in the poisoner archetype that boosts the DC that I don't know about, though?
The summoner and other non-martials are often packing low fortitude saves. At 3rd level, which is what Otherwhere's players are at, its about 50/50 to drop those with a poor fort save with a dc 13 or 14 poison. You can up the DC by adding more doses at once.
A sleep spell or color spray on the summoned critters can work pretty well, too, as the lower level summons tend to have very poor will saves. Protection from ____ spells help there, too, but primarily, the biggest threat his bad guys are trying to counter is the conga line of monsters his summoner player is dumping onto the battlemat.
More mooks means more stuff going on. Bigger threats can be surrounded, and cut to pieces piecemeal by the summons and the party. Smaller, more numerous threats present a gestalt threat.
They also assist and amplify the problems the summoner has, which is where to put his stuff. Summoners can easilly start tripping over their own summons, particularly when they're master sums.
Yep, but that's working against the problem many people have mentioned in the first place - combat turns are taking too long due to the amount of active entities on the battlemat. Adding more options to the mini bosses might be helpful just so they can't be as easily isolated and shut down compared to just adding more bodies. If the mini bosses ID the summoner as a major threat and start hassling him, he can no longer operate with impunity. I suggested rogue levels and wands or scrolls for augmentation as I found that to be a good combo for the adept lieutenant-types in a goblin campaign I was running.
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One thing I'd like to make clear is that I was responding to Otherwhere, who I've corresponded with before now. His party has a 3rd level master summoner that's proven challenging. I've run a master summoner at low levels so feel somewhat qualified to comment. The entirety of my play on both sides of the screen since 3.5 has been at levels 2-5, so I freely admit I don't have a clue of what 7th level + is like in Pathfinder.
Ah! my error then! I GM for a group with a synth at 8th level and a group with a normal synth at 15. So DCs of 13 are kind of...yeah, to me. :)
I appreciate all suggestions, and take what works for me, so thank you Spook205 and Experiment 626 for your suggestions and support!
The "more mooks" approach does mean longer combats, but gives me the means to have the MS need to summon minions to balance out or gain the advantage in action economy.
Tougher enemies makes his minions less effective as anything but a meat shield, but doesn't give the others much to do. They're less marginalized, but still need to wait longer for their turn.
And I'm doing my best to keep the encounters "balanced", so was looking at the CR - but, as I said, Pathfinder doesn't consider a summoner in the party and how that can totally skew encounters. They really need to add that to their guides.
And I'm doing my best to keep the encounters "balanced", so was looking at the CR - but, as I said, Pathfinder doesn't consider a summoner in the party and how that can totally skew encounters. They really need to add that to their guides.
Have you checked this guide out, Otherwhere?
And I'm doing my best to keep the encounters "balanced", so was looking at the CR - but, as I said, Pathfinder doesn't consider a summoner in the party and how that can totally skew encounters. They really need to add that to their guides.Have you checked this guide out, Otherwhere?
Yes - thanks! A good resource for anyone, so I'm glad you linked it here.
Most pack-o-summons have substantially fewer hit points than major player types a that level, and substantially lower saves. Bad guys might break out some of those old lower-level crowd control or area-effect spells -- fireball, wall of fire, or even sleep or color spray. The PCs might be affected a bit, the summons will definitely be dealt with.
Area save-or-damage, and area save-or-suck, spells, are really helpful against low-level summons. They won't be as effective against single big summons, of course, but keep in mind that even big creatures often have poor Will or Reflex saves.