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This beefy version of [summon] allows a beginning epic wizard to summon a balor without much difficulty. I wonder if that is too much; it fits the power curve I'm extrapolating from the summon monster suite and from shambler, but still...
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Didn't we have this conversation before?
Actually, I like it. I'm comfortable erring on the side of generous seeds right now, given Matt's demonstrated prodigious metamagic capabilities. A 21st-level caster can choose to [Call] or [Summon] a balor; if he summons it (say for 20 rounds, with no other mitigation), he gets unconditional service but doesn't benefit from some of its SLAs (
teleport, summon etc.). Jacobeans are going to excel in conjurations anyway, by the looks of things.
It's 3.5 bone devils on average from
summon monster IX (CR almost 17): also bear in mind that using this yardstick, Matt can empower this spell at 23rd level (5.25 bone devils = CR 20.6), albeit for only 20 rounds. There again, he can cast it 5 times in a day - that's a lot of bone devils.
A 21st level wizard who opts for a
summon balor spell is only going to be able to cast it once in a day. A 23rd-level Jake could cast two of these in a day - by this time, they'd have an unmitigated 20-minute duration. A brace of summoned balors is handy, no doubt, but I can see a lot of situations where the bone devils - and multiple redundancies therof - might be handier.
We're stuck in the power vs. flexibility conundrum, as always. Multiple lower-CR summonees are going to be viable for Matt; at 30th-level he can triple-empower his
summon monster IX (8.75 bone devils, CR 26.6). Jake can
summon a solar - that's pretty sweet. But that assumes a
WotC CR, and I think we should probably be looking at Pd28. Without mitigation or appropriate feats, the solar isn't available until level 37 using the Pd scale (SP40 for a 20-round spell). Lots to think about, here.
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Edit: I'm wondering if a thread per seed might be a little excessive. You might want to consolidate a little.