Augment Summoning ... how worthwhile ?

[philreed]

I probably try to get the other feats later... but that means 12th lvl only to get them all. So many feats... so few slots ! :confused

Unnaturally Gifted
You're lucky and have been blessed with greater abilities than most others (and a greedy DM).
Prerequisite: $20 (for the DM).
Benefit: When you take this feat you may immediately select two more feats.
Special: You may only be unnaturally gifted once per $20. You may take this feat multiple times, and its effects stack each time, but it's gonna start to get expensive pretty fast.

 

[Rashak Mani]

Like all things Druidic... the "stealth" spellcasting depends on the setting. If there are a lot of animals around and combat hasn't started and startled those animals away... its a heck of hard thing to detect the wierd waving squirrel.

Now once combat starts... why the hell is that squirrel sticking around ?

 

[Brother MacLaren]

I wouldn't say that ID'd wildshaped spellcasting is automatic, but then I wouldn't say that ID'ing normal spellcasting is either. The example of the caster in the arena, for example, or people "pretending" to cast. Don't forget that the druid can ask animals to "act really strangely" in some defined way to create decoys. Spot versus Hide in the arena case (positioning yourself behind the large loud heckler), Spellcraft versus Bluff in the faker's case. A nonhumanoid caster should be harder to ID, because the sounds and movements aren't what a humanoid caster is familiar with.

The way I would rationalize giving a straight-up Spellcraft check as opposed to one with a penalty is to say that the Spellcraft skill includes a mystical sense that enables the user to recognize magic no matter what form it takes. But even then I see no way that an untrained person should be able to differentiate spellcasting from faking or "animals acting weirdly." This goes beyond druids and wildshape, of course; PCs may well wish to have the party rogue pretend to be a wizard to draw attacks away from the true wizard.

 

[MerricB]

I developed my House Rule for Spell Focus after seeing the problem with druidic spells. (In my campaign Spell Focus gives +1 DC to spells with saves, +1 caster level otherwise)

There is at least one other feats in the Augment Summoning tree in a supplement: Beckon the Frozen (from Frostburn) - summoned creatures can gain the Cold subtype, deal an additional 1d6 cold damage. Very nice indeed. (I'd expect this to be augmented further)

Cheers!

 

[Thanee]

I think Augment Summoning is good enough with Summon Nature's Ally and spontaneous casting of summon spells, that it is worth two feats.

However, Sudden Extent surely isn't worth a single feat, just get regular Extent Spell instead or any other good metamagic feat, like Quicken Spell (for laaaater).

Bye
Thanee

 

[Thorntangle]

I don't think it's been mentioned yet, but if you do go with Augment Summoning it's almost always better to summon 1d3 of nature's allies one level below (and sometimes better to summon 1d4+1 of allies two levels below the spell level).

Your core SNA list gives you Hippogriffs at 2nd! 1d3 Hippogriffs is better than 1 dire wolf when casting SNA III.

 

[Kalendraf]

Ay, someone's been reading too much Robert Jordan.

I once discussed this campaign in another thread, and someone else made the RJ connection. Actually, it's been a long time since I read any of those books, and when I was making up this campaign, it was not even a consideration.

I was trying to come up with an interesting background to help explain it being a lower-than-normal magic world. I also wanted to draw upon a few real-world historical events but modify them for a fantasy world. The 3 primary ones ended up being these: A) The Crusades, B) Witchhunts in both the new and old world, and C) Colonization of the New World. These 3 elements would help set the stage for the campaign.

As I started looking thru plot ideas, it seemed rather easy to tie these together if there was some underlying feud between clerics and wizards. I toyed around with ideas to explain that. One idea was that several gods had died, weakening their churches, and arcane types had stepped in to fill the power void. The remaining churches uncovered (or at least surmised) a plot by some powerful arcane cabal to eventually wipe out all the gods at which point the remaining churches banded together and started hunting down wizards (aka witchhunt). Another idea was that clerics had simply begun losing their powers and the campaign was going to focus on the effects of that and possibly give the characters a chance to restore things.

But each idea had some nuance I didn't like. I then more or less stumbled on the idea that wizards may be the ones who'd been effected. But instead of losing power, it was that the power had become corrupted somehow. It still works, but if you aren't careful it can cause horrible side-effects. Without even considering RJ's books, I went ahead and pursued several aspects of this, and finally came up with the current campaign.

I had a DM do something similar and the response was, "This is D&D, don't mess with the balance. If you want to play WoT, we'll pull out the WoT books."

Wizards and sorcerers gain extra abilities in this world. Meanwhile they suffer other restrictions. All-in-all, it remains pretty balanced. But the flavor it's added has been really interesting, and IMHO, well worth it.

 

[Kalendraf]

I like playing Druids, I know how wicked they can be, as a summoner and as a shapeshifter, but as a DM I would say that a spellcasting squirrel/monkey/pick animal is casting a spell it would be detected by a Spot check...

If you're close enough to see the animal doing the casting, then you can do this. Just thinking in terms of the real world, I doubt I'd be able to detect a tiny bird or squirrel doing unusual paw or claw movements from very far away. Of course, this is a game, which doesn't necessarily follow the same reality rules, so in this case I'm looking at the closest ones available.

Even when not trying to hide, I'd say that the size modifier of the creature helps or hinders how easy it is to spot what the creature is doing. It's going to be a lot easier to spot a Hippo trying to cast a spell than it is to spot a squirrel doing it. In the case of a tiny animal, the size modifier is +8 (I think). If it takes a DC10 to spot a human caster at a certain range casting a spell, then by the size rules, I would estimate that it's more like a DC18 to spot a tiny animal doing so at the same distance. I think in actuality the tiny animal would be even harder to detect than that, but this at least attempts to follow existing rules.

...and then a spellcraft check as per the rules. As someone said earlier, no matter what form my Druid is casting a spell is not "natural behavior", so should stand out and be recognizeable to someone who knows what to look for.

Spellcraft requires training to use, so this method of detection largely limits it to other casters and perhaps a few higher level types that have decided to invest in it. I'm not saying that spellcraft shouldn't factor into the detection, just that it may wind up being overly restrictive. If you are up close to an animal casting a spell, I'd say that even an untrained person might be able to notice something it's doing and figure out that it's casting a spell. So maybe for these purposes, I'd make an exception and allow untrained spellcraft checks (DC15+) to determine if those wierd movements are spellcasting. Still requires the spot check to be made 1st.

In addition, crossing species likely makes detection harder. There are spells that factor in species-crossing (Hideous Laughter) and impose a +4 penalty/bonus on the roll. For crossing creature types w/ spellcraft checks, I'd suggest applying that. That moves the DC to 19+. For an untrained person, it will be pretty difficult, but for someone with enough ranks in spellcraft (which I guess could cover topics like alternate species casting), it's a makeable roll.

What I've discussed above are abviously house-rules, but IMHO they cover the situation pretty well while following existing rules.

 

[Staffan]

Druids also get a number of conjuration attack spells, especially in supplements. So the gap between summoning druid and blasting druid isn't very wide.

I don't know about supplements, but the PHB has less than five druid conjuration spells that have saves, plus the Cure spells on undead (which doesn't really count, since it's such a specialized use). They don't start showing up until 5th or 6th level. So, for a druid, Spell Focus: Conjuration is pretty much a wasted feat.

 

[Treebore]

Kalendraf,

If you read ALL the rules for Spot you would see that they say pretty much the same thing you do. As per the Spellcraft check, the rules say you have to know what a spell casting looks like, IE be trained, so I agree with you there too.

However, I would rule differently than you if a fighter is watching this lone squirrel about 80 feet away would not "know" the squirrel is casting a spell. The fighter would be far more likely to think the squirrel is diseased. Even if he were somehow able to identify it as spellcasting, so what? By the time he figures it out the spell has been cast, unless it is a multi-round casting time, and he still has to make his save, then the Druid runs off and hides, getting a nice bonus due to size, then sneaks up and casts again. Only those with the spell knowledge are able to recognize a spell being cast quickly enough to couhnter it. Plus taking the time to spot the squirrel would probably take up a standard action, at the very least, anyway. Especially if it is at some distance and well hidden.