So how can you get the moat summons monsters on the battlefield?
How many summons can you have going at once?
As many as you can cast before the duration runs out or the GM flips the table over.
As many as you can cast before the duration runs out or the GM flips the table over.
A flippant answer, but correct.
It might help to know why the OP wants to know this? Even if you could summon 50 monsters to the field at the same time, would you really want to? Think about what that would do to the game. Your turn would take almost 50 times as long as anyone else. That wouldn't be fun for anyone else. It probably wouldn't even be fun for you.
I have a summon focused wizard in my campaign. I have plans to throw builds similar ro my various players at them. Most of the others are simple to build. Summoning is a pain in the bum. But I still wanna do it.
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Master summoner is the obvious choice for getting lots of summons out fast.
If you have lots of times and don’t need better control, you can combine heightened mount spells with a wand of alter summoned monster.
The saurian shaman druid can get a lot of dinosaurs of multiple spell levels out fast. But they are only rounds per level, so they won’t stack up as far as the minute per level options. They can combine with a rod of extend spell which will help slightly.
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It is quite easy to overrun the board with weak summoned creatures. The thing is they are weak summoned creatures. When you summon creatures from the lower-level list you get more creatures, but they are significantly weaker than if you summon a single creature. With summon monster III I can summon a single cheetah, or I can summon 1d4+1. The Dire rats will have about 5 HP and get a single attack at +1 to hit doing 1d4 for damage. The Cheetah will have 19 HP gets 3 attacks at +6 and does 1d6+3, and 1d3+3 (x2). The Cheetah will have a much better chance to hit and do more damage than the Dire Rats. A single fire ball cast by a 5th level wizard could kill all the rats even if they make their save and the wizard rolls poorly. The cheetah on the other had will probably survive the fireball even if it fails its save.
Summoning up hordes of weak creatures is usually a delaying tactic. If all you are looking to do is to fill the battlefield and cause the players to have to spend time and resources dealing with the horde it can work. If you want to challenge the players, it will probably not work as well as summoning fewer but stronger creatures.
Aside from summoning an Eidolon, summoning in general is a weak tactic in pathfinder, even though there are ways to boost your summons, most creatures (even boosted ones) will still be one-shot by a CR level appropriate opponent. At best it's a delaying tactic - but not a winning one.
But as mentioned above, it's not difficult to overrun the board, it's just not much fun for anyone involved.
summoning in general is a weak tactic in pathfinder,... most creatures (even boosted ones) will still be one-shot by a CR level appropriate opponent. At best it's a delaying tactic - but not a winning one.
That's really not true for an appropriate level summons. Maybe if your party routinely fights above their CR, then it could be true, but it's not the expected interaction. And sure at low level a summon can be killed in one shot, but so could a wizard or rogue. Even in those cases, a summon that takes all of the attacks from an enemy and then poofs away succeeded in preventing more damage than most cure spells will ever heal, while still getting to get its one round of actions.
But at higher levels, a summoned monster has sufficient hit points and damage reductions to last a few rounds against a monster of your CR. The bigger problem is that intelligent monsters may not try to attack the summoned monster at first and instead go after the summoner.
Summoning is versatile, you can choose a creature that fits your needs and tactics.
Aside from summoning an Eidolon, summoning in general is a weak tactic in pathfinder, even though there are ways to boost your summons, most creatures (even boosted ones) will still be one-shot by a CR level appropriate opponent. At best it's a delaying tactic - but not a winning one.
But as mentioned above, it's not difficult to overrun the board, it's just not much fun for anyone involved.
When considering how strong summoning is you have to look at it from the standpoint of cost effectiveness. Saying a summoned creature can be a one shot by a level appropriate opponent is missing the fact that a summons is usually only part of the summoning characters power. Take the case of a 5th level conjurer wizard. They will probably have Monster Summoning 3 as a spell, and augmented summoning as a feat. When the conjurer summons the celestial cheetah, he has expended a single 3rd level spell. The celestial cheetah will have 19 HP an AC of 15 and three attacks at +6 doing 1d6+6 & 1d3+6 (x2). It also has a spell resistance of 7 and 5 points of resistance vs acid, cold and electricity, and fairly decent fortitude and reflex saves. Compare that to the same wizard casting a fireball. The average damage for the fire ball will be 17.5 if the targets fail their saves and 8.75 if they make it.
When look at the effectiveness of summon monster vs another spell it hold up fairly decent. If you compare summon monster to the entirety of another character is does not look good. Expecting any single spell to be a challenge to the party by itself is unrealistic. You have to compare how the resource compares to a similar resource.
Aside from summoning an Eidolon, summoning in general is a weak tactic in pathfinder, even though there are ways to boost your summons, most creatures (even boosted ones) will still be one-shot by a CR level appropriate opponent. At best it's a delaying tactic - but not a winning one.
But as mentioned above, it's not difficult to overrun the board, it's just not much fun for anyone involved.
When considering how strong summoning is you have to look at it from the standpoint of cost effectiveness. Saying a summoned creature can be a one shot by a level appropriate opponent is missing the fact that a summons is usually only part of the summoning characters power. Take the case of a 5th level conjurer wizard. They will probably have Monster Summoning 3 as a spell, and augmented summoning as a feat. When the conjurer summons the celestial cheetah, he has expended a single 3rd level spell. The celestial cheetah will have 19 HP an AC of 15 and three attacks at +6 doing 1d6+6 & 1d3+6 (x2). It also has a spell resistance of 7 and 5 points of resistance vs acid, cold and electricity, and fairly decent fortitude and reflex saves. Compare that to the same wizard casting a fireball. The average damage for the fire ball will be 17.5 if the targets fail their saves and 8.75 if they make it.
When look at the effectiveness of summon monster vs another spell it hold up fairly decent. If you compare summon monster to the entirety of another character is does not look good. Expecting any single spell to be a challenge to the party by itself is unrealistic. You have to compare how the resource compares to a similar resource.
Summons have a casting time of 1 round, so in any combat you are down 1 round of damage, right off the bat.
Then you have to consider if the summoned monster needs to move to engage or not. depending on where it arrives, it might get to attack first, or not (it should if the player is smart).
with it only being +6 to hit it will need to roll a 19 to hit a 5th level NPC fighter. Yet that same fighter will need to roll only a 3 to hit it with his sword - doing 11+ damage on average. certainly killing it if he crits. So at best, it's a 2 round speed bump, with no damage dealt to the fighter. that fireball you mention, will probably do that full 17.5 damage, since the fighters reflex is +0, about 1/4 of his hit points.
now, I agree, the numbers will work differently against different classes, rouges and their evasion etc.
but a fighter type mook, would be a standard bad guy a 5th level party should face, and against them, a summon spell is just bad... A Magic missile will do more damage
The summon attacking the 5th level fighter might have some trouble hitting, but attacking the 5th level wizard is going to be a piece of cake. The Cheetah also has the sprint special ability so can be summoned 500 feet away from his target and still get an attack. The celestial template also gives the cheetah smite good/evil so it can bypass all DR. So after a single round the opposing wizard has a dangerous opponent right next to him that is going to make spell casting difficult There is a good chance this is going to tie up the wizard for at least a couple of rounds. Any spell the wizard casts against the cheetah has a 10% chance of failing outright (spell resistance), the Cheetah has fairly good fortitude and reflex saves so is has a good chance of making the save if its spell resistance does not stop it. It also has 5 points of resistance vs 3 types of energy.
With summon monster 3 I could also summon up a Dretch or a Latern Archon. The Latern Archon can fly and use its light ray to attack the fighter. Chances are the fighters touch attack is not that good so will be taking damage from the light ray without being able to attack back. The 5th level fighter is not likely to have a weapon that does evil damage so even if it can attack the Archon, it will have trouble doing damage. The Archon’s light ray ignores all DR so will hurt the fighter even if he somehow has DR. Your melee focused 5th level fighter is not going to be able to do much vs the Lantern Archon.
Summoning if properly used can be a strong tactic but requires knowing what you are dealing with and a good sense of both tactics and game mastery. Summons also last multiple rounds so if the summoning character knows you are coming, they can cast the spell before combat begins. Having a celestial/fiendish cheetah waiting to attack the party’s wizard is always a good opening move.
As many as you can cast before the duration runs out or the GM flips the table over.A flippant answer, but correct.
Because of the table, right?
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Lanter archons are fairly good.
You can summon one of them with a 3rd level spell, but using a 5th level spell and Superior summoning you can get 1d4+2 of them.
I have seen them force a standard lich to flee. 6-12 ranged touch attacks that don't care about DR are painful if you haven't a high touch armor class.
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They also work really well vs golems. I heard about an all-arcane caster party that took out several iron golems this way. The entire party all summoned up as many lantern archons as they could and had them attack in mass. About 30 touch attacks per round took them down in no time.
Alignment can sometimes be a concern. A chaotic evil caster won’t “feel right” when casting a lawful good spell like summoning the lantern archon. If you aren’t something like a cleric that is mostly just a roleplay limitation, though there are rules for such spells changing your alignment if you cast them often enough.
Summons can be useful, but you have to take into account the limitations:
1) As a 1st-2nd level character, summon monster I or summon nature's ally I are pretty weak and of short duration. There are much better choices for 1st-level spells.
2) At 3rd-5th level, summoning starts to become useful with the summon...II and summon...III creature choices, especially with the Augment Summoning feat to give them a bit of a boost.
3) The primary use of summoned creatures is tactical. They should be used to generate flanking (Close range; "pop" them on the other side of the enemies), block enemy movement/draw attacks ("meat shield" for the "squishy" caster(s)), impose conditions (e.g, a wolf from summon...II for trip attempts on a hit or a constrictor snake from summon...III for grab/constrict), exploit weaknesses (the lantern archons from summon monster III was mentioned; very useful against melee brutes and/or enemy casters [forcing concentration checks from damage]), and/or to provide special abilities (elementals with summon...II and up, satyr with summon nature's ally IV, hound archon with summon monster IV, etc.); they aren't a replacement for a combat-focused PC, but are very good at making the PCs' lives easier and often reducing the amount of healing needed.
Agreed, the Cauldron is very nice for a summoning build. I have a cleric that focuses on summoning and that item plus Superior Summoning means I summon a minimum of 3 creatures per spell. They get all up into melee while the cleric stays safely back and either buffs the entire party or plucks away with his longbow.
If you seriously concentrate on building a character around summoning they can get very strong indeed.
I built a Master Summoner that had its origin in seeing a build, by Mercadior I think, and thinking "I can improve on this". By methodically adding to your summoned creatures power, even if the improvement is not so large in itself, the strategy gets very powerful.
Eventually statements like this "It is quite easy to overrun the board with weak summoned creatures. The thing is they are weak summoned creatures." seem hopelessly wrong. I would bring out some kind of feline with multiple attacks that had decent chances to hit.
And if you are not playing a master summoner, and my GM comes down with all the symptoms of typhoid if the idea is floated, the strategy can likewise be made very powerful. It is not so easy, but you are a full caster as well, rather than a half caster. Cauldrons are great as are rods of giant summoning.
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Alignment can sometimes be a concern. A chaotic evil caster won’t “feel right” when casting a lawful good spell like summoning the lantern archon. If you aren’t something like a cleric that is mostly just a roleplay limitation, though there are rules for such spells changing your alignment if you cast them often enough.
Most evil clerics can't cast the good version of Summon monster (and vice versa).
Chaotic, Evil, Good, and Lawful Spells: A cleric can’t cast spells of an alignment opposed to her own or her deity’s (if she has one). Spells associated with particular alignments are indicated by the chaotic, evil, good, and lawful descriptors in their spell descriptions.
When you use a summoning spell to summon a creature with an
alignment or elemental subtype, it is a spell of that type.
To be clear, that's what I was saying. I guess you were just showing why?
Yeah, for clerics, it's a real limitation. But for any aligned character it should at least be a roleplay consideration. A good person shouldn't want to cast an evil spell, but may do so if under enough pressure. The same should be true for any other opposed alignment. Doing actions against your alignment should feel bad, and casting such spells is an aligned action.
I personally don't like to go as far as having repeated actions actually change your alignment, but if you are completely ignoring the alignment facets of the spells, then something more heavy handed similar to that may be required.
I think part of the problem with summons is that the creature is always completely loyal to the caster of the spell. I never understood why an angel would be slavishly loyal to an evil character. I understand that is how the spell is written, but the reason why the spell works like that does not make sense. Saying it is magic and does not need a reason is plane lazy.
The only thing that makes any sense is that by casting the spell you are making a bargain with a higher power for services in exchange for some price. It would be something similar to selling part of your soul for power. You would not be actually trading your soul, but allowing yourself to be corrupted. That would justify the spell being able to change your alignment.
Having some sort of control roll for creatures that have a different alignment from the caster would have been a good idea. Put a penalty for differing alignment or increase the DC of the roll for every step you do not match the creature’s alignment.
I don't think the creature is intended to be "completely loyal". It will always attack your enemies, but in the absence of enemies its behavior could be about anything. The spell says you can direct it to do other things, but it doesn't say it necessarily obeys the way it does with attacking.
It’s really not that loyal. The creature is only bound to serve you as a mount. It’s under no specific compulsion to do anything else.
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I mean, there is the mount->alter summoned monster exploit to get a loyal Glabrezu/shield archon whatever at level 5 for a metamagic rager, but its very much an exploit.
A "Glabrezu/shield archon whatever" that only "serve you as a mount". Swapping the creature doesn't change what the creature is willing to do.
People that try to use that exploit willingly forget those little details.
I don’t think it’s reasonable to say it “only” serves you as a mount either. That’s just the only thing it’s compelled to do. The creature’s own nature should also determine its actions. For instance, the archon would still happily fight demons and undead or someone it witnessed committing evil.