My DM is not a fan of summoning spells, he was planning on banning them outright, but has agreed that they are allowed as long as they only summon 1 creature at a time.
I have no experience of summons in Pathfinder, will this render them worthless compared with other options? I was considering a conjuration Wizard with augment summoning, but i'm worried this will be a waste now. Thoughts?
Also, what spell would be best to conjure a chair? Would prestigiditation suffice?
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My DM is not a fan of summoning spells, he was planning on banning them outright, but has agreed that they are allowed as long as they only summon 1 creature at a time.
I have no experience of summons in Pathfinder, will this render them worthless compared with other options? I was considering a conjuration Wizard with augment summoning, but i'm worried this will be a waste now. Thoughts?
Also, what spell would be best to conjure a chair? Would prestigiditation suffice?
It won't be a waste at all. You'll still get a nice benefit. If he's limiting you to one summon at a time, you may consider the Summoner Base Class from the Advanced Players Guide (Beta). You lose a lot of blasting spells and also level 7-9 spells, but you gain a super familiar (the very customizable Eidelon) and you have the class ability (not just spell) Summon Monster. The class ability is considerably more powerful, but the only limitation is that only one summon at a time can exist, which shouldn't be a problem for your situation. You also are a bit more potent martially, though I'd still recommend staying back towards the outskirts of the brawling.
As far as prestidigitation and chairs go; probably not. The spells description explicitly states that it can only create small objects (maybe a stool?) and even those are very fragile and crude looking. The only spells I could think of that could pop out a chair would be minor creation (maybe, loosely interpreted), major creation, or fabricate. But those are 4th and 5th level spells.
It's not about simultaneous summons, it's more about spawning 4/5 creatures per round which he finds a bit 'mucky'. Apparently it's not as fun wasting monster's attacks on a horde of badgers.
I think we're sticking with the Core book until August, summoners do look cool but i'm eager to play a Wizard this time.
Being limited to a single summons doesn't make it useless. It does lower the versatility of the spells somewhat, since sometimes several less powerful things will be more useful than one single more powerful thing. But it hardly takes it to the point of uselessness.
Conjurer would still be a strong build to play. SF (Conjuration) is very useful for a wizard, as there are quite a few battlefield control spells of the conjuration school that have saving throws. (Grease, web, glitterdust, stinking cloud, cloudkill...just off the top of my head.) Picking up Augment summons then isn't very painful.
So definitely not a waste at all.
I can understand your DM's dislike for summons. It can get ridiculous with multiple summons conjuring multiple creatures, especially if both the good guys and bad guys are doing this. I wouldn't go as far as your DM though in curtailing this, I'd just have a lot of bad guys who can zap out summons easy. You might want to consider seeing if he'll limit you to a single active summoning spell, rather than a single summoned creature; this would still allow for using the multiple lower level summons, but prevents the summons spam that bogs things down. Promise him you'll be ready with your summons too, such as having their stats ready before summoning them, and rolling multiple different colored dice at a time when they attack, so that it won't bog things down.
As a player and a DM, I've rarely thought that repeated summonings is a useful tactic in an encounter. It is more overkill and wastes nice spell slots. Strategic summoning is the key; 1 to 5 creatures that are most appropriate for the situation at hand.
As for conjuring a chair? Thats too much for lowly prestidigitation to do. Probably the lowest level spell in the Rulebook to pull it off would be Minor Creation. You could always petition your DM to allow you to research a new spell that allows you to conjure a chair or a table or whatnot; the specifics would be between you and your DM as to what could be conjured, the duration, the spell level, the cost in time and gold to research, etc...
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Generally using summons spells to summon lower level creatures isn't very effective anyways. They aren't much of a threat and are ignored and relegated to gnawing at the ankles of the creatures. Your horde of badgers is a perfect example. Stick with the single summons, try and grab special abilities or spell like abilities when you can.
Generally using summons spells to summon lower level creatures isn't very effective anyways. They aren't much of a threat and are ignored and relegated to gnawing at the ankles of the creatures. Your horde of badgers is a perfect example. Stick with the single summons, try and grab special abilities or spell like abilities when you can.
This is my experience as well. Anything but the highest level summons tend to be a waste, unless you specifically want ankle fodder. That is, until you start seeing spell like abilities, and you don't frequently want more than 1 of a creature for its SLA.
As an aside, my Druid last game sicked a horde (5: 1d4+1) of Stirges on an Ogre. Con damage is your friend, and it kept him occupied for 3 rounds as he tried to kill them all. 9 con damage later, he was easy pickings.Hordes of SOME creatures can be very powerful.
So your 5th+ level druid managed to seriously hinder a CR3 creature with a 3rd level spell. Color me unimpressed.
I was pointing out that using a 3rd level spell, you only hindered a single creature of CR-2. That's horribly inefficient. Your claim was that summoning multiple creatures was useful; my counter was that it wasn't as useful as other things you could have done.
Its been my experience that using a summons spell to summon multiple creatures off the lower level list can be a very useful tactic. The best choice for a summons is of course entirely dependent on the situation at hand.
Its a given that most summon spells--when you get them--aren't going to bring in creatures that cause the BBEG much trouble, but they will cause his minions some major problems. This is especially true with the higher level summoning spells. Would I rather have 1 Elder elemental, or 1d4+1 Huge elementals?
Depends what I need them for.
If I'm trying to damage the BBEG with my summons then I want the biggest baddest summons I can get. If I'm trying to occupy spaces on the map and run interference against the minions, then probably more is better. If the target has low AC or is otherwise easy to hit, then more is better. I'd note that more creatures will generally work best against low AC targets that rely on miss chances to avoid hits, such as blinking, mirror imaged sorcerers.
And thats the strength of the summons spells: the versatility to adapt to the situation at hand. Whether by the type of creature or the number you summon, its having the option to tailor it to your needs that makes these spells great.
(Oh one tip for the summoner is to have a rod of empower or maximize for when summoning multiple creatures to get the most band for your buck.)
Like others have said, it reduces the versatility of the spells, but they dont become useless. It is still useless to summon one of the on level monsters, particularly if they are augmented.
Also, vs a high AC opponent, multiple low-level summons (dogs) can Aid Another to give someone who is having trouble hitting multiple +2's to their attack. the AC to Aid Another is a static 10.
Good point.
I wouldn't use this tactic to help the summons hit though. In that case you'd be better off with the single bigger summons, and I'd rather not have my summons wasting actions trying to help each other hit.
But if you got several summons out there aiding the Paladin in smiting evil on the red dragon, yeah that would be a very useful tactic.
To furthur this silly point, 4 lvl 5 druids can cast SNA3, get 14 stirges, and kill a cloud giant in 2 rounds (23 CON, CR 11, Touch AC 9).
I agree with your general point, but the giant's Great Cleave feat could solve this problem fairly quickly (situationally dependent of course).
I removed a post. Personal attacks are bad.
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To furthur this silly point, 4 lvl 5 druids can cast SNA3, get 14 stirges, and kill a cloud giant in 2 rounds (23 CON, CR 11, Touch AC 9).
Using a spell ANY druid can spont cast, provided they have 3rd lvl spells, they can defeat a APL+6 encounter using a swarm of creatures found on the SNA1 list.
Well this isn't entirely true.
Round 1, druid waves arms and summons **** giant does something
Round 2, 1d4+1 stirges appear, 1 dies from AoO, can't drain this round
Round 2, Giant has 3 attacks kills remaining stirges...
Round 3, 1d4+1 stirges appear, 1 dies from AoO, can't drain this round
Round 3, Giant has 3 attacks kills remaining stirges...
I guess your druid spent 4 full rounds summoning while the giant was doing something else?
Round 1-4 druid summons stealthily, giant sleeps
Round 4 stirges attach to giant
Round 5 giants turn: casts chain lightning killing all sitrges and damaging the druid.
Round 6 stirges crisp,
Round 6 giant eats druid for lunch
At some point you have to account for the 4 rounds the druid spent casting, if the party is truly able to act without the giant doing anything then the party is always going to have a bit of an advantage.
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To furthur this silly point, 4 lvl 5 druids can cast SNA3, get 14 stirges, and kill a cloud giant in 2 rounds (23 CON, CR 11, Touch AC 9).
Well this isn't entirely true....
Emphasis added.
Round 1, 4 Druids are casting. Giant deals with AnCom's.
Round 2, 4d4+4 (14) Stirges appear adjacent to the giant and make touch attacks. No AoO. Touch hits, and they Attach(Ex). 14 CON damage.
Round 3, Giant attacks 3 times, killing 3. The rest suck for 11 CON damage. Giant dies.Did I miss something in this analysis? Can the giant kill all 14 somehow? Also, Cloud Giants don't have Chain Lightning.
For some reason when reading I skipped little details like count of druids and type of giant... forgive me. Also, for some reason I thought stirges couldn't drain on the round they attached and it appears they can.
That said,
Stirges are tiny and cannot make touch attacks without provoking.
The giant:
There are a lot of possible outcomes here
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I am not saying this is "teh uber OP" tactic. All I am saying is that it is VIABLE. Rather than all swarms of low-level creatures being worthless, in certain curcumstances, a swarm of LL summons can be powerful. Stirges were just the first thing that came to mind. I expanded the analogy because some were "colored unimpressed" by the anecdote.
Stirges are a good example of a LL swarm that's good because they are difficult to ignore. I've seen more often hordes of ineffective creatures being ignored. I've also seen hordes used for flanking buddies effectively.
I played a conjurer wizard from 1-16 level, and as a test, only had one active summon spell at a time.
Worked great! I almost never felt the need for more creatures, and in most cases my summons even survived until the end of combat. I usually summoned a celestial ape, then at later levels a hound archon or bralani. I would occasionally summon a stag beetle or some other punching bag, but 90% of the time, it was one of a handful of named creatures.
I have been pushing for some sort of limit on the number of summons for some time now. If not a limit, then at least some sort of guidelines for better handling summoned creatures. In 3.5 there was a whole part of the rules for summoning the same named creature over and over (Scrapes the Dire Wolf). This had the advantage of familiarity and also allowed a character to equip and to some extent train a summon.
I just remembered one time going up against some nasty cold creature with a great AC, saves, and lots of attacks. Evocation and enchantment were my forbidden schools. I summoned 3 fire mephits, and they each attacked with their scorching ray attacks. Many may scoff at a mere 12d6 from a 5th level spell, but it was just right at the time, and allowed the character to be effective when most spells would not have worked.