Conjurer's Chess

Hey everyone!

Two things I'm after with this post. I'm curious to see what builds people can come up with and I'm furthermore hopeful that some will even 'join the cause', so to speak.

Conjurer's Chess is just that... two summoners on opposing sides of a chess board summon monsters for a preset number of rounds. Those monsters then fight each other and whoever has more monsters left when the round is over, wins.

Summon Monster, Summon Nature's Ally, Summon Desert Ally, Summon Undead, Conjure Ice Beast - all these spells and more are options.

Currently I am playing a level 6 cleric, but we'll be leveling to 8th at some point in the (near) future.

Here are the rules (warning - longish):
http://www.dragonavenue.com/forums/viewthread/545/

Books allowed and character creation (excerpt from the rules):

6) Summoners are to be 6th level (including LA), are created using 32 point buy, and may be drawn from the following sourcebooks:
Core 3
All “Complete” books and all “Races of” books
The “environment” books of Stormwrack, Frostburn and Sandstorm
The Planar Handbook
Libris Mortis, the Draconomicon, and Lords of Madness (note that the Pseudonatural Template for the Alienist (CA) will be drawn from Lords of Madness)
Magic of Incarnum
The Fiend Folio and the Monster Manual 3 and 4.

Click to expand...

And here are the venues where the conjurers battle one another:
http://www.dragonavenue.com/forums/viewthread/635/

When you take a look at those and the matches that have taken place, you'll note that the DM is doing a simply awesome job with this tournament.

So... if you have ideas for 8th level summoners to help me out, I'd be happy for some help.

And if you want to join in on the fun, simply post in the discussion thread.

Thanks!

Tashalar said:

Conjurer's Chess is just that... two summoners on opposing sides of a chess board summon monsters for a preset number of rounds. Those monsters then fight each other and whoever has more monsters left when the round is over, wins.

Click to expand...

One thing to consider - both Lantern Archons (SM IV) and Unicorns (SNA IV) radiate a Magic Circle Against Evil, which non-good summoned creatures may not enter. If your opponent uses a lot of non-good summoned creatures, you can use one of these guys to protect all your creatures from melee attacks.

I'm away from my Complete Mage - from memory, there's a feat in there that lets you apply buff spells to your creatures as you summon them. Since you only have a limited number of rounds to summon, that might be useful.

... hmm. I was looking for a way to have summoned creatures using Dispel Magic, but I see that it's against the rules.

Ah, okay - scoring isn't based on number of creatures, but number of 'game squares' occupied? (That nixes my idea of exploiting a potential Swarm loophole!) I'm still liking the lantern archons, then. Send a couple of archons and protected mooks to occupy the opponent's 'summoner's row', and cast a Magic Circle or two of your own to protect your own 'summoner's row'.

-Hyp.

One thing to consider - both Lantern Archons (SM IV) and Unicorns (SNA IV) radiate a Magic Circle Against Evil, which non-good summoned creatures may not enter.

Click to expand...

Ah, that's a very nice tactic indeed. That way one can protect weaker summons from opposing summons - or just bar half the board to an evil summoner's creatures! Well, my character is the only one who will not have access to either lantern archons or unicorns as he's an evil cleric - the wizards, sorcerer, druid and good-aligned favored soul will have though.

... hmm. I was looking for a way to have summoned creatures using Dispel Magic, but I see that it's against the rules.

Click to expand...

Yes, indeed - there has to be some limit as to what can be done on the battle-chess-board. A dispel magic could be a silver bullet and win the day - which isn't fun.

Ah, okay - scoring isn't based on number of creatures, but number of 'game squares' occupied? (That nixes my idea of exploiting a potential Swarm loophole!) I'm still liking the lantern archons, then. Send a couple of archons and protected mooks to occupy the opponent's 'summoner's row', and cast a Magic Circle or two of your own to protect your own 'summoner's row'.

Click to expand...

Yep, I wasn't quite specific enough there. My cleric is an illumian that can cast two quickened spells per match due to his power sigils and the quicken spell feat. I'll think about using magic circle spells when we level - so far they are too costly as they are of the highest spell level and we need those to cast summons.

Thanks for the feedback! I'll keep the magic circle trick in mind if I make a new character - and I'll prepared for its use by the others if I don't.

Feel like joining up, Hyp?

Anyone else interested in giving some ideas or joining up?

Come on, don't be shy. 'Tis a hell of a lot of fun.

Well, it's strange that you've put a game ad in the rules forum. You might get more traffic if you had it moved to the proper forum.

Hm... well, it's not really a game. Well, maybe it is. But I checked for 3rd edition things and only found the rules threads.

Which one would you suggest? The Gaming Action forum?

... yeah, that does sound about right. But then... I did want some advice/hints on what to do at level up - so that should've been two posts, hm?