Spell heightening (Auto)

[Freagarthach]

dnoisette wrote:

Freagarthach wrote:

"Pure caster" means for being "in melee," can physically block a doorway or hallway choke point with a single melee team member,

Physically block a doorway?

At level 9 (which I chose arbitrarily, no specific reason for that), a given monster has, on average, +17/18 to either one of their Athletics or Acrobatics skill checks.

Shoving a PC out of the way requires them to beat a DC based on the PC's Fortitude DC.
Tumbling Through a PC's square will instead require them to beat a DC based on the PC's Reflex DC.
Right off the bat, they get to choose which action they want to try, based on their specific strengths.

A PC is level 9. Assuming they're expert in their corresponding saves and have an average of 16 in either Constitution or Dexterity (which is most PCs apart from Barbarians, Rogues and Fighters), then the DC a monster has to beat is 25 (I'm assuming magic armor +2 for increased saves).

Summons are much worse. At level 9, the best you can get for these specific saves is a Lesser Elemental (Fire) with a 19 Fortitude DC and 22 Reflex DC - on average.

Now compare that with monsters' average bonuses to Athletics and Acrobatics.
That's right, they need to roll 1-5 on the dice (depending on the exact situation) to fail at walking right by your summon and ignoring it altogether.

Augment Summoning gives +1 to saves. A monster not trained in the skill being considered, or not being a Str or Dex based monster, or being part of a lower level group of attackers, takes 4 off those numbers.

That means for many situations, a monster has a coin flip chance of losing an action and still not breaking the line, which in my book means the summon just turned out to have a huge utility payoff.

Combine those odds with the truism that not all monsters are going to have either the tactical puissance or motivation to use Athletics or Acrobatics as a bypass, and the concern that "things just run by" seems situational at best.

I have only playtested to level 7 so far, but when a doorway or choke point could be used, it was held. Which is only one facet of how summons are awesome (I know you have had to read more of my larger opinion on the matter than you reasonably should, so I wont repeat here) :)

Edit: Also consider that at level 9 in PF1, there are monsters that can bypass lines and AoOs with abilities like teleporting / shadow walking / et cetera as a move action. In no edition is melee control an absolute. While lack of AoOs reduce melee control in the playtest outside certain classes and levels (which deserves consideration and debate), the plight of casters as targets is not so divergent between editions at level 9 as some impressions read (with the difference, granted, that casters in PF1 can seriously warp the magic system for some incredible defensive options at level 9) :)

[dnoisette]

Freagarthach wrote:

Augment Summoning gives +1 to saves. A monster not trained in the skill being considered, or not being a Str or Dex based monster, or being part of a lower level group of attackers, takes 4 off those numbers.

Since you're playing and not DMing, I understand you cannot take a good look at the Bestiary without risking spoiling yourself for the upcoming chapters of Doomsday Dawn.

However, monsters untrained in either one of the two skills and not STR/DEX-based are not as common as you might think.

In fact, there's very little of them because they are mostly spellcasters and the bestiary has far more of the regular "get-in-your-face" creatures than casters (which it should).

Besides, spellcasters are likely to not need to get to a PC to target them in the first place (as you did also state yourself).
The creatures that are melee-based and will require it all have high STR or DEX and are trained in at least one of the two skills.

The +1 from Augment Summoning won't do much to help that, I'm afraid. :/

[Freagarthach]

dnoisette wrote:

Freagarthach wrote:

Augment Summoning gives +1 to saves. A monster not trained in the skill being considered, or not being a Str or Dex based monster, or being part of a lower level group of attackers, takes 4 off those numbers.

Since you're playing and not DMing, I understand you cannot take a good look at the Bestiary without risking spoiling yourself for the upcoming chapters of Doomsday Dawn.

However, monsters untrained in either one of the two skills and not STR/DEX-based are not as common as you might think.

In fact, there's very little of them because they are mostly spellcasters and the bestiary has far more of the regular "get-in-your-face" creatures than casters (which it should).

Besides, spellcasters are likely to not need to get to a PC to target them in the first place (as you did also state yourself).
The creatures that are melee-based and will require it all have high STR or DEX and are trained in at least one of the two skills.

Our next play session will test level 9, so I am looking at some numbers using what will be in play then. I have a Barbarian and Fighter as teammates, and plan to use a Redcap and my pet Nimble Velociraptor (named Dioltach) as frontliners. I am what the forums have been referring to as a "pure caster," and the primary healing resource for the party, so it does make some sense for monsters to come after me.

Presuming that the above four figures can make a cordon between casters and frontline, and that it makes more sense for a monster to go after pet or summon than my melee teammates when attempting to break the line, here is some analysis.

First thing I learned, looking at this, is that Shove is an action. Pointing again to my earlier post, I feel like a summon forcing a monster to Shove, then Stride, then single attack, rather than attacking possibly at +0/-4/-8 (as is the case with my own Redcap) is a utility win all by itself. Even if they succeed, they spent two actions not attacking to do it. That said, the numbers, using level 9 even level bestiary opponents - which is a limited view of the entire context yet may tell us something:

Redcap has Fortitude DC 19, Reflex DC 19. Velociraptor has Fortitude DC 20, Reflex DC 21, which means a monster preferentially always wants to target the summon over teammates and pets.
Tactical melee monsters, level 9:

Wrath Demon needs a 3+ Acrobatics. However it can fly, bypassing the question in a most (if not nearly all) cases.
Bone Devil is trained in neither skill - needs 10+ on the roll (but can fly, see above).
Blue Dragon needs a 2+, but can Fly and Burrow.
Air Elemental needs a 2+, can Fly.
Earth Elemental needs a 2+, can Earth Glide.
Fire and Water Elementals need a 2+, could legit target a summon.
Efretti needs a 2+, can Fly.
Frost Giant needs a 2+, could legit target summon.
Night Hag is untrained in either skill, needs an 8 (60% success rate) spending a Shove action or a 9 (55% success rate) to Acrobatics.
Mummy Pharaoh needs a 6 on Acrobatics...but this is a case where I have to question whether a Mummy Pharaoh is doing backflips over the frontlines for the purposes of making melee attacks, thematically...
Roc has both Fly speed and Reach 15/20 on melee attacks.
Megalodon only exists in water, which is inherently a three dimensional environment that mostly precludes lines in any edition.
Vampire Wizard needs a 3+...and will rarely use it being a spellcaster, as you point out.
Dread Wraith has incorporeal flight.

So of the 15 monsters currently available to test that are even level to the PCs at 9th level, 8 (53%) have abilities that can usually render ground lines irrelevant in any edition, 1 is a shark, and 1 is of the caster type that we agree is generally not going to function as a melee linebreaker. While I find the Night Hag and Mummy Pharaoh questionable, we will add them as linebreakers to find that 33% of the time, the lower DCs of a summon may come into play in the context we have outlined.

Overall, I think that your concerns would have higher percentage relevance at lower levels...which is exactly where I have not experienced a problem with them to this point in practice. You are right that I do not know what the future modules have in store though, so tell me if you disagree or have another angle on this question that makes summons look less desirable as frontliners than these numbers have further convinced me they are (will be).