| 20 people marked this as a favorite. |
I would rather if instead of going into the bestiary it was a simple template and like illusory creature where it uses the caster stats on the summon. The rank of the spell could define the amount of HP, damage a abilities that it have.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
I would rather if instead of going into the bestiary it was a simple template and like illusory creature where it uses the caster stats on the summon. The rank of the spell could define the amount of HP, damage a abilities that it have.Something more like the Form Spells stat wise? I would probably make that a different spell line altogether, rather then a replacement.
Pretty much that, yeah.
The current summoning spells are somewhat useful for their utility. Summon a creature that has some nice abilities so that you can use those abilities. But they are really bad at being a combat buddy.
I would have it be a different suite of spells. Instead of Summon Animal, it could be Conjure Animal or something like that. That way one character, or two different characters, could use the summoning spell that they prefer.
And yeah, a basic stat block based on spell Rank, and with the shape modifications available like for the Pet feat.
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
I would rather if instead of going into the bestiary it was a simple template and like illusory creature where it uses the caster stats on the summon. The rank of the spell could define the amount of HP, damage a abilities that it have.Something more like the Form Spells stat wise? I would probably make that a different spell line altogether, rather then a replacement.
It would remove the need to look up creatures and avoids any balance issues from badly written common Creatures.
It definitely needs a selection of special abilities to approximate various creature abilities.Not necessarily a step forward for the current issue.
IMO, it's the step they'd need to take to make summon spells stronger in combat. Regular summon spells are not meant to be a default combat strategy. If you want to use conjured creatures as your primary damage source, you need to use an eidolons, or maybe even Incarnates. Putting an extra body on the field is already useful if your ally needs a flank or you're fighting an unintelligent foe who will target the closest warm body. They can be psuedo wall spells, clogging up narrow hallways or slowing down reinforcements while your allies chop up the enemies in front of them. Any action your enemy wastes attacking the summon is essentially stunning that foe.
The fact that the body can have any ability out of the bestiary compounds this. I've used large or huge flying creatures to fish multiple party members out of lava, saving their lives. My Kanya/Muse Azata showed up so often we made her a character in her own right, providing mobility, courageous anthem, holy damage against fiends, and a little healing of people went down or just to top folks off and keep us moving after the fight. Even her counter performance came in handy once or twice.
Summon dragon provides you just about every damage type for weaknesses you can hope for (well, if your GM lets you use OGL content, but just about all the remastered dragon content was written to be compatible with legacy dragons), with both AoE and single target options.
And of course there is spell casting. A single high rank prepared spell (or spell on your reptoire) can be turned into a variety of lower rank spells should you find yourself in need of them.
You can't expect a single spell to do all that and then also deal better white room damage than, say, lightning bolt or floating flame. The problem with summon spells aren't that they are undertuned; they just require system mastery and patience to use well.
The problem, IMO, isn't that summon spells are weak. It is that they are hard to use. It's like the pre-remaster alchemist. With system mastery, their versatility lets them shine in a variety of situations by granting access to so many different tools. But you have to comb through the monster archives to find the hidden gems and then remember that creature when the perfect situation for it arises.
And remember, summon spells are not meant to be the only thing in the only tool in a caster's repertoire/preparations. Just having one or two available gives you access to those options when you want them, while your other slots can be devoted to your work horse spells like heal, blasts, illusory creature/object, slow, etc. Really, summons embody the precarious balance point casters occupy in the system. They can do so many things that they can't also be the best at damage or they invalidate other options. Which brings us back to where they were in PF1, and PF1 summons didn't give you access to nearly as many creatures as PF2 summons.
Publishing a separate line of spells that act as Kryone describes to achieve a more reliable and simple damage source is a reasonable suggestion, but it doesn't mean the existing summon spells get to be stronger. You can have one or the other, but not both in the same spell.
I love the idea of having a separate line of summon spells that work more like a form spell, using a template rather than picking an actual creature. That way the people who prefer the current summon spells can still have them, while those who prefer raw power and less versatility would have their preference.
I also don't think a feat or something that raises the level of creatures you can summon with summon spells by 1 would be too out of line, but probably no more than one level. It should be something a character has to invest in though, I don't think summon spells should just get a blanket buff.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
I totally sympathize that summon spells feel really bad due to their lagging to-hit numbers, buuuuut.
In my opinion, summon spells are actually kinda crazy strong right now, even if they feel bad.
If we think about how valuable we consider options like Slow because of its ability to steal actions, it's a lot easier to see the value in putting another creature on the map.
A single foe Stride + Strike kinda already makes the summon worth casting, and it's often easy to leech more foe actions than that.
So long as you summon / move your creature behind the foe so they don't get w/ AoE for free, it's hard for summon spells to be wasted.
It's just so crazy flexible to put a disposable minion on the field. Flanking buddy, trap-triggerer, doorway blocker, etc. The ability for it's foe-induced death to itself be a huge "win" for the party due to taxing actions, is pretty wild.
It's true that they struggle to deal damage, but there's of course a big * as when their to-hit starts dropping off is also when summons themselves start getting spells of their own.
(as a ttrpg outsider I was/am astounded that summons are allowed to cast spells)
.
Overall, I kinda think the numbers say that summon spells are actually crazy strong in combat, maybe overpowered.
The main "catch" that really kills their feel is that they compete with the turn 1 opportunity cost, and tax a Sustain to keep going.
Summon spells are amazing value and performance, but are kinda opposite in style compared to the "normal meta" for spellcasters to dump max damage turn 1.
By their nature, they are adding more complications and hit points to the fight and drawing it out longer.
.
But, even if they can feel bad, I really do not think they could be buffed without *really* making them busted.
Right now, a huge number of "prep" or buff spells have the huge downside of their casting actions being technically empty and providing (literally) 0 value.
It's only after the buff is applied can it be invoked during a roll or something. Summons are an exception that are allowed to act as part of the spell itself for immediate benefit, which is a very nice luxury.
Summons existing is also kinda why all other sustain spells struggle to be used imo. If you *are* willing to deal with the sustain mechanic, you might as well be using it to control a minion.
Oh, and it looks like the Remaster actually removed the
"you summon a common creature with the ___ trait..."
Sooo, that's actually great. GM permission is presumed, especially for rare creatures, but this makes spells like Summon Entity's [aberration] list no longer a deal breaker.
Note that AoN's creature list inside the spell was not updated, and displays common only.
A smaller kinda funny note, but there is a bit of a loophole where the mythic trait doesn't block summoning, and of course the spells that predate the tag do not ban creating mythic creatures. Whoops.
Look at the unicorn: cast a 4th rank spell to summon a large creature who can immediately cast a 3rd level Heal (and from their location). And then another Heal the next round. Plus it has Ghost Touch & immunity to poison for specific threats. You could even use them to communicate with animals or reduce the stage on a curse, disease, or poison (and many curses only have one stage).
Or a 3rd rank spell summons a soulbound doll who can immediately cast a 2nd level Heal, one of 10* 2nd level options which represent amazing breadth for one slot, even if only some age well. (*Augury takes too long to cast.) They're otherwise disposable, but they do have immunity to lots of effects.
And of course they can trigger Hazards, use Recall Knowledge, and all the tricky things Captain Morgan listed.
So yeah, I don't think those spells need upgrading at all, though I would like a "summon generic thug" spell line too (maybe with the two-action Sustain mentioned in the recent thread about this.)
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
"Is actually good but feels bad" is an unfortunately common complaint in PF2. It's also one most of the community struggles to internalize and doesn't always see why every option (or their favorite option) can't just be as powerful and easy to use as every other option.
Personally, I enjoyed summon spells in PF1 and continue to enjoy them in PF2. I can't spam them every turn or even every combat, but I'm not overshadowing the rest of the party or slowing down combat with 1d4+1 extra turns either. I enjoy unilateral problem solving and there are very few spells in PF2 that let me do that like summons thanks to the highly cautious design. I've got summons, illusions, and not much else. Even stuff like Charm and Dominate is hard to utilize because of Incapacitate.
Ah dang, I totally missed that new Summon trait, good catch.
I would really have liked to see some sort of in-the-text nudge for the GM allowing uncommon. It is yet another "feels pretty bad" issue where there is too often a single creature option per level.
That new Summon trait also would have been a great spot to chart out that "generic dude" idea.
Or to provide some quick math to scale specific summoned creatures.
Still weird that the ability to summon Weak or Elite variants of the creature is still 100% homebrew, instead of another textual GM maybe.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I would rather if instead of going into the bestiary it was a simple template and like illusory creature where it uses the caster stats on the summon. The rank of the spell could define the amount of HP, damage a abilities that it have.
I agree, this should have been the way to do it from the start. As I understand it, when PF2e was still being developed, the developers were dealing with a lot of pushback from 1e fans, and one of the requests was for summon spells to pull from the bestiary, just like in past editions. Keeping this model I think is one of the reasons why summons aren't allowed to be all that strong, because monsters aren't balanced around being used by PCs, and even now many instances exist of specific summoned monsters being disproportionately effective for some utility ability or spell they can cast.
I also think, however, that this conversation carries a lot of similarities to the animal companion thread: summons carry a lot of hidden power because summoning a monster drops an extra body, extra HP, an extra action, and a whole bunch of additional effects onto a fight, in addition to the Strikes they may have. If you keep all of these different benefits and bump them up to the point where they all feel satisfying by themselves, it is quite likely that summons at that point may become a fair bit too strong. Not only do I support the use of monster templates rather than creatures from the bestiary, I'd find a way to remove bits from summons that aren't intended to be their main contribution so that the things they do contribute get to feel really good. It'd just be a matter of deciding what those things are and how to go about changing those spells.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I feel like if a summon spell could be limited to substituting your spell attack roll for the creatures to hit roll and you might be ok with current summons.
Biggest problem with summons is their attack roll scaling.
You don't want to add blasting or attack power from summons. You want a viable summon that can effectively attack what you're fighting. And maybe using your saves to resist auras at high level as they can wreck creatures if they have no chance of making the save.
But you don't want excess AC or hit point increases.
The simplest most effective and easy fix is use spell attack for the summons to hit and your saves to resist auras and attacks like that. Then it would probably be good.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I would rather if instead of going into the bestiary it was a simple template and like illusory creature where it uses the caster stats on the summon. The rank of the spell could define the amount of HP, damage a abilities that it have.
Exactly this. If creature stat blocks are two variable and broken to be given within relevant level ranges id rather have a template 10/10 times.
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
I would rather if instead of going into the bestiary it was a simple template and like illusory creature where it uses the caster stats on the summon. The rank of the spell could define the amount of HP, damage a abilities that it have.
The good news is that Magic+ (the 3rd party book) does exactly this for both Summon and Battleform spells, and I'm gonna be using that from now on in all home games I run.
The bad news is it's 3rd party, so not something you can use whenever you want as a player.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I know the common wisdom on these boards is that summons provide enough small tactical advantages that they are worth the spell slot, but where I've used them and players I've GM'd for have used them, they really have never been much beyond "fine". They cost a lot of actions and almost always a top rank slot. In exchange you get maybe a flank, maybe a body blocker, maybe a small amount of damage and hopefully a cast or two of a lower rank spell. In practice it's rare you can get all of these.
The best recent use of a summon at one of my tables was a 2nd rank where the summon got in a 1st rank heal and one successful hit over 3 turns. Pretty effective, but it cost 5 actions. Those 5 actions could hypothetically have been a 1st rank heal and 3 bow strikes for basically the same effect without taking a 2nd rank slot. So it's not as though this summon was somehow massively over performing, and that's with a lower level summon where ranked spells are comparatively weak and the level gap on the creature is smaller. That makes me feel as though there's room for a little more potency in the summon without rocking the boat.
Also, as someone who played a lot of SF1E, please no summon templates. That was a clunky and deeply unsatisfying system, almost as bad as the polymorph forms system from the same game.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
The incarnate trait was made to make offensive summoning spells. The HP, space, utility, and flanking are all just too many other benefits for summons.
If summoning were on par with battle form stat blocks, they would be way too powerful in comparison: you take no risk, you can still cast spells, you take up an addition space.
I had an old conjurer wizard and using a summon spell, boosting it with my focus spell, and then sending it into a room to set off traps or trigger a combat was incredibly effective. High rank creatures have so many useful abilities too, a level -2 summon at high level would greatly swing the balance of play. It’d be about the same as knowing you could get an enemy to crit fail against a debuff spell.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
The incarnate trait was made to make offensive summoning spells. The HP, space, utility, and flanking are all just too many other benefits for summons.
If summoning were on par with battle form stat blocks, they would be way too powerful in comparison: you take no risk, you can still cast spells, you take up an addition space.
I had an old conjurer wizard and using a summon spell, boosting it with my focus spell, and then sending it into a room to set off traps or trigger a combat was incredibly effective. High rank creatures have so many useful abilities too, a level -2 summon at high level would greatly swing the balance of play. It’d be about the same as knowing you could get an enemy to crit fail against a debuff spell.
Most of the incarnate spells are terrible when you calculate the damage and effectiveness compared to other spells. Some have way too big an area to be usable.
Incarnate spells are another example of spells designed to look amazing in the mind's eye, but are unusable for practical adventuring for a variety of reasons or too weak.
Where I have seen Incarnate spells used, they were effective because they have very flexible damage types and a lot of them affect only foes and have nasty riders. This is especially useful in encounter spaces where multiple encounters have collapsed on top of each other and there are large numbers of enemies.
The secrets of magic ones are not that great but their design has gotten a lot better. I recommend checking some of them out.
The problem I have had with Druid blasters is that chain lightning is pretty much the only high level damage spell you can cast in a lot of encounters because everything else is very difficult to not hit your allies with. The newer incarnate spells don't have this problem and I have seen them used in my Fist of the Ruby Phoenix campaign very well against multiple foes that are intertwined amongst the party.
I agree that using a top ranked summon spell only for trap clear is generally a waste of a spell, because a rank 1 summon will often accomplish the same thing.
However, if you are pretty confident you are getting close to the boss, and your rank 10 summon ends up eating a very high level trap and dies instead of being precast for the boss fight, then you didn't completely waste your rank 10 summon, you just could have probably done better having a weaker summon out.
I don't disagree that top rank summons often end up feeling under powered, especially if your vision for casting one was to have the summon fight a battle in your place. Top rank summoning is situational and often about matching damage types with weaknesses on attacks that do partial damage on successful save, and about exploiting an ally bard or cleric that is doing a lot of Aura buffing.
Yes, enemies can hit summons with high map attacks, but that is also ok and a good enough thing that their damage output needs to be less than spells that can't absorb attacks and waste enemy turns on top of doing damage.
*That is the real limit of summons as far as seeing them as offensive spells. Sustained pure damage spells don't do all that great of damage on their own, but they don't also debuff an enemies AC and absorb damage and actions.*
Even if an enemy uses a third action to attack and finish off a summon instead of moving to put their aura or reactive strike on vulnerable ally, that is usually pretty good for the party if the enemy is alone or one of two. Where summons get in the way and end up being less effective, especially high level ones, is where parties are mostly full of melee martials who all try to swarm a powerful enemy and end up surrounding it and not moving around much, because then the enemy isn't going to be doing anything better with it's third action than taking a pot shot at someone around it, and the often large sizes of summons can end up wasting ally actions as easily as enemy.
|
Maybe this is just me but I really like summoning using actual stat blocks. I find it sells the fantasy of summoning much more than using a template. I really felt this in dnd 5e around 2020 when they starting printing summon spells that used a template. A vital change given how problematic the first summoning spells were, but it creates a very different feeling.
Maybe this is just me but I really like summoning using actual stat blocks. I find it sells the fantasy of summoning much more than using a template. I really felt this in dnd 5e around 2020 when they starting printing summon spells that used a template. A vital change given how problematic the first summoning spells were, but it creates a very different feeling.
I prefer this too. But this so many levels behind gets progressively worse. You can't let someone summon an equal level creature as that would be brutal.
If bosses weren't so tough at CR+2 to 4, summons would be probably ok. Those CRs are hard to hit for a creature often 4 to 8 levels behind as the gap grows.
I think using spell attack to replace the creatures attack roll may work, but I have to test it out.
|
So to get value out of a summoned creature... you buy two Summon X scrolls when you make a new level? Then you use them in a moderate to severe fight to conserve your resources for the Boss Fight.
They come out of your consumables budget & you only get a few as you want to use them before you/your enemies level up and leave them in the dust.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Maybe this is just me but I really like summoning using actual stat blocks. I find it sells the fantasy of summoning much more than using a template. I really felt this in dnd 5e around 2020 when they starting printing summon spells that used a template. A vital change given how problematic the first summoning spells were, but it creates a very different feeling.
It's definitely more fun, but it creates issues unless you tightly control which monsters are on the list and can be summoned, and ensure those monsters are balanced with being summoned in mind.
Otherwise you risk a situation where putting out a new Bestiary becomes a defacto buff to summon spells, the way monster manuals ended up helping Druids in 3.5 by adding wild shape options.
Or you just decide you don't care if its imbalanced and go nuts. Games that do that can be a PITA, but it can also be really fun to just go nuts.
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
So to get value out of a summoned creature... you buy two Summon X scrolls when you make a new level? Then you use them in a moderate to severe fight to conserve your resources for the Boss Fight.
They come out of your consumables budget & you only get a few as you want to use them before you/your enemies level up and leave them in the dust.
That's not exactly an insignificant investment.
Going by table 10-9, an individual pc will acquire ~250gp in liquid currency between levels 8 and 9.So upon reaching level 9, you're spending more than the liquid gold you're like to have received to buy two scrolls of 5th level summoning of your choosing (300gp).
|
|
Eh, I mostly play PFS. The three adventure that moved my Sorcerer from 8th level to Ninth paid 300 GP each/PFS standard with all ten treasure bundles.
What else would you suggest a sorcerer to spend money on, besides scrolls (largely utility spells like Water Walk). I've looked at staves, but they don't appeal to me... they don't appear to give enough extra oomph for the cost. After resilient armor & a spacious pouch, I'm not seeing anything particularly usefull.
Note that my sorcerer has Fireball as a Signature spell, so he doesn't need a lot more blamey. He is toying with Summon Giant/Dragon just to see how usefull they are. Hence the interest in summoned creatures.
I know the common wisdom on these boards is that summons provide enough small tactical advantages that they are worth the spell slot, but where I've used them and players I've GM'd for have used them, they really have never been much beyond "fine". They cost a lot of actions and almost always a top slot
I think opinions are divided.
Summon spells are good if you put the effort in and get the right one. For example the humble skeleton can be very good if the enemy doesn't have bludgeoning weapons.But if you are just summoning something generic then maybe it's not so great.
So opinions are divided about them. It costs slots and actions. Most people have better things to do.
I don't really see that there is a consensus about them
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I know the common wisdom on these boards is that summons provide enough small tactical advantages that they are worth the spell slot, but where I've used them and players I've GM'd for have used them, they really have never been much beyond "fine". They cost a lot of actions and almost always a top slotI think opinions are divided.
Summon spells are good if you put the effort in and get the right one. For example the humble skeleton can be very good if the enemy doesn't have bludgeoning weapons.
But if you are just summoning something generic then maybe it's not so great.
So opinions are divided about them. It costs slots and actions. Most people have better things to do.I don't really see that there is a consensus about them
Low level summons are ok or mostly ok.
Once you're reaching that 4 to 6 level difference or higher, you're wasting your time with summons for combat.
I've summoned skeletons at low level. It wasn't bad.
I summon some creature using a 6th or higher level slot, I'm not summoning for combat as that is futile, especially against things with auras, gazes, aoe attacks, and the like.
I think summons are another of those elements with extremely poor higher level scaling unless you want something else from the summon than a monster to fight. That's why divine has the best summons as they can access all the outsiders with spells and special abilities. Whereas something like summon elemental or summon giant for combat is a waste of slots at higher level with the bad combat scaling.
There are also focus spells that buff summons. Still not enough to make them the only thing you do, but wizards and summoners can both devote resources to boosting summons. And cackle is really solid for saving actions.
Ultimately, summon spells are well balanced for their intended purpose. If they don't serve the purpose you'd like, eidolons, incarnates, or the new necromancer are likely better fits. The first is designed to make a conjured creature your primary DPR and the latter are basically "summons as blasts" which is the easiest way to balance them. Summons as is aren't going to become combat staples unless:
1. You strip out versatility. (In which case just make new spells.)
2. You budget your whole class around it. (Which still seems hard to balance, and I doubt Paizo intends to try looking at the design of the summoner and necromancer.)
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
I'm playing my second wizard who uses summons, and I'm happy with the outcomes. There are levels where attacks and athletics are good. There are cool spells you can leverage from your summons. There are nice 2A abilities you can get off on round 1. Folks complain about the 3A cost to do a summon, but a better way to think about it is 2A for casting it and 1A to command it do 2 actions of its own right away. That's pretty fair.
They also waste enemy actions with 100%+ effectiveness. Sure, they can get taken out easily, but they can also get lucky and last a whole fight, especially with clever play. Hits on a summon don't require healing and waste the enemy's 0 MAP attack.
If you like details and research, it's easy to build a list of summons and what they can do for you. Then it's not hard to pick one that's ideal for a situation. I like this sort of thing, and it's one of the reasons I like wizard.
I have reasonable expectations that a summon is not an I-win button and won't outshine anyone. I also view that as a challenge to try to apply them as smartly as possible to get a lot out of them. Summons are sweet in that context.
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Paizo's done a fantastic job making classes for people who want to delve into complexity (alchemist formula selection) and people who want something simple (barbarian smash).
What I don't like about the current summoning situation is that to make it work well, you really have to go through the bestiaries with a fine-toothed comb to make it work well. It's fine if you do enjoy that, and I don't want to take that away.
But I also want an option for when you don't want to do that. The idea of "conjured" creatures where the template is basically right there in the spell description is good for that.
And yeah, interesting to see how the necromancer shapes up. Maybe it'll be a case of "that, but with a different flavor of creature, not so undead"?
Doesn't the Illusory Creature spell achieve this simpler "summon" mechanic concept?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Doesn't the Illusory Creature spell achieve this simpler "summon" mechanic concept?
Illusory creature doesn't compare. Too easy to take out.
I mostly comment on the 11 to 20 game. I think level 1 to 10 is fairly balanced for every class. I think quite a few classes scale pretty bad past level 10. My average campaign goes to 15+.
I've used summons at earlier levels and they worked well enough. If you're only playing in the 1 to 10 range give or take a level, you don't really see the pain.
So many creatures at high level have all kinds of super high DC auras and gazes, special attacks, casting with heavy duty AOEs, high ACs and defenses, and riders on their attacks so the point where one hit can often take out a summon due to a missed save or missing their save against an aura.
The high level game really shows what classes, spells, and abilities scale badly.
But I prefer the high level game over the 1 to 10 game which I find pretty limiting, boring, and easy to defeat past the first few levels. Summons progressively start to get worse for combat as gain levels and often get disabled pretty quickly with a failed save or just feel like a pea shooter against what you're fighting.
Prior to the higher levels past 10, summon spells do much of what everyone on here says they do. After level 11 and up they start to fall off dramatically unless you're accessing spells. Just not worth those high level slights when you're weighing a powerful blast spell versus a summon that will likely immediately miss its save against some aura or gaze or special attack and die doing almost nothing. You just wasted a high level slot that could have done a ton of damage.
I still remember we hit level 12 and our wizard summoned a dragon to fight a dragon to keep up with its movement. Got wrecked by its fear aura, then couldn't land a hit flying and attacking once. Just a total waste of a spell slot. That wizard never used that spell again in any campaign on any caster character.
Summon Dragon should be an incredibly cool spell, but it isn't past the low levels. And you don't get it until level 9? 5th level for first spell I think.
Because that is what all the "good" examples past level 5 or so boil down to.
That hasn't been my experience. After each casting of a summon, I give it a score of 1-5 for effectiveness and track the trend on a spreadsheet. My scores average 4.2 (with 5 being the most effective). I might be a high performer, but for me summons are not a wasted top rank slot. If you pick a good creature for the situation, I haven't found it hard to achieve an effective result compared to on level P2 spells.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Doesn't the Illusory Creature spell achieve this simpler "summon" mechanic concept?Illusory creature doesn't compare. Too easy to take out.
I mostly comment on the 11 to 20 game. I think level 1 to 10 is fairly balanced for every class. I think quite a few classes scale pretty bad past level 10. My average campaign goes to 15+.
I've used summons at earlier levels and they worked well enough. If you're only playing in the 1 to 10 range give or take a level, you don't really see the pain.
So many creatures at high level have all kinds of super high DC auras and gazes, special attacks, casting with heavy duty AOEs, high ACs and defenses, and riders on their attacks so the point where one hit can often take out a summon due to a missed save or missing their save against an aura.
The high level game really shows what classes, spells, and abilities scale badly.
But I prefer the high level game over the 1 to 10 game which I find pretty limiting, boring, and easy to defeat past the first few levels. Summons progressively start to get worse for combat as gain levels and often get disabled pretty quickly with a failed save or just feel like a pea shooter against what you're fighting.
Prior to the higher levels past 10, summon spells do much of what everyone on here says they do. After level 11 and up they start to fall off dramatically unless you're accessing spells. Just not worth those high level slights when you're weighing a powerful blast spell versus a summon that will likely immediately miss its save against some aura or gaze or special attack and die doing almost nothing. You just wasted a high level slot that could have done a ton of damage.
I still remember we hit level 12 and our wizard summoned a dragon to fight a dragon to keep up with its movement. Got wrecked by its fear aura, then couldn't land a hit flying and attacking once. Just a total waste of a spell slot. That wizard never used that spell again in any campaign on any caster character.
Summon...
In general, it's the same progression problem that companions have. For some reason, the game designers made additional creatures controlled by one-action progress poorlier than PC and monsters, making then unviable over time.
The incarnate trait was made to make offensive summoning spells. The HP, space, utility, and flanking are all just too many other benefits for summons.
If summoning were on par with battle form stat blocks, they would be way too powerful in comparison: you take no risk, you can still cast spells, you take up an addition space.
I had an old conjurer wizard and using a summon spell, boosting it with my focus spell, and then sending it into a room to set off traps or trigger a combat was incredibly effective. High rank creatures have so many useful abilities too, a level -2 summon at high level would greatly swing the balance of play. It’d be about the same as knowing you could get an enemy to crit fail against a debuff spell.
A PL-4 summon can be killed with high MAP attacks. If it doesn't die or flee due to a Aura or die in a AoE without costing the enemy anything.
It won't be hitting anything and won't do anything usefull if the enemy get's a save. That leaves the kinda of abilities that work on a MC Caster Archetype. Most Ceatures don't have any of those
Your best use was "use it to trigger Traps". That isn't a good use. A Rank 1 Command or Rank 5 Command or Wall of Stone will do more to the enemy battleplan, then using a Rank 10 slot for manual mineclearing.
Traps you'd use a rank one scroll for, but that isn't exactly praise of rank 10 summons
|
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Maybe this is just me but I really like summoning using actual stat blocks. I find it sells the fantasy of summoning much more than using a template. I really felt this in dnd 5e around 2020 when they starting printing summon spells that used a template. A vital change given how problematic the first summoning spells were, but it creates a very different feeling.
I wonder if we're looking at this backwards. Especially as the game becomes more digital, maybe we should create the monster and assign it a level and rank required for summoning separately.
For example, a unicorn and a zombie owlbear are both level 3 creatures.
As mentioned above, a 4th level slot to get a unicorn is a sweet deal. Two 3rd rank heals are a time-delayed 6th rank heal, and there's a cleanse affliction. Ghost touch is also useful. It's also intelligent and capable of speaking to you, fey, and animals.
on the other hand, the zombie owlbear brings 85 HP, a fear effect locked at DC 19, and some attack power. It'll need a 14 to hit a moderate level 8 creature's AC, and the moderate attack bonus will crit it on a ten. If the level 8 enemy even cares to stay engaged with the permanently slowed summon.
If we create 'Summon brute,' that only gets sacks of hp and attack monsters, could we summon the zombie owlbear at rank 3 without breaking the game?
And yeah, the Unicorn should probably move up a spot (or be uncommon?) two 3rd rank heals with flexibility for a 5th level slot is not outside consideration.
I think the other option is to give each creature a unique summoning spell, so you have to call them in advance. Maybe you learn them in batches of threes? Less flexibility for more power (see the other thread about the wizard debate)
Roll for Combat did a Pokemon-inspired class. Could a version of the summoner with long-term bonds to a limited group of creatures that scale satisfy?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
"Useful if find the one Ability in 100 that works even with a level gap" isn't the same as "balanced".
And I doubt that even is their intended purpose.
I agree that the situation isn't necessarily balanced, though I do think the use case you cite is factored in, not necessarily as the intended purpose so much as the best-case scenario that the developers had to balance around. For every dozen dud monster stat blocks you run into, there's something like the bone croupier who punches way above their weight thanks to an ability that was never intended to fall into the players' hands. Although the developers probably don't consider it good gameplay for players to sift through the bestiaries and bookmark a handful of monsters that turn into must-pick summons, that is the reality of how those kinds of summon spells work, and that's something they had to factor in when balancing them.
I think this is also why the fantasy of summoning specific stat blocks sounds a lot better on paper than in practice: it'd be nice if every monster's intricate set of abilities were equally useful in a variety of different situations, but that's not how monsters are designed. Monsters aren't made as tools with a specific niche, they're designed around a particular vibe and usually just a single encounter, with abilities custom-made for that vibe and encounter. More often than not, those abilities are completely unremarkable on summoned monsters, and sometimes those abilities are so extreme that they become disproportionately strong when used by the party, especially when those abilities have limited uses per day. In a game where nothing had a frequency restriction that lasted longer than an encounter, perhaps monsters would be more balanced across one another to work more equally as summons, but that's unfortunately not 2e's design philosophy.
In this respect, I think the better way of summoning specific creatures is through incarnate spells: they generally don't drop a body with actions or HP, but instead generate a couple of specific effects that can be much more easily tuned to scale. They often last about as long as an actual summon, and in my opinion are much better-able to capture the essentials of an iconic creature than even the creature itself. This doesn't mean actual summons should no longer exist, but I do think dropping a body with a stat block into an encounter would work more consistently if summons followed templates, rather than bestiary stat blocks.
I still remember we hit level 12 and our wizard summoned a dragon to fight a dragon to keep up with its movement. Got wrecked by its fear aura, then couldn't land a hit flying and attacking once. Just a total waste of a spell slot. That wizard never used that spell again in any campaign on any caster character.
This is a matter of expectations. A spell should be just part of the solution versus a boss monster. If a summoned dragon was a match for an on level dragon then the game would be broken like every previous edition.
Of course it doesn't help that spells like Synesthesia and Wall of Stone exist. Which do have the power to swing an encounter all by themselves.