Building a summoner

[eris404]

Hello all!

I will be playing a character that is a wizard/cleric/alienist, about 12th level. Because the alienist prestige class is designed towards summoning, I was hoping to get some suggestions for feats, skills, spells (but not magic items) that would be good choices for her.

Thanks!

edit: Just wanted to clarify that her total character level is about 12. The actual character level may change depending on a DM ruling.

 

[Happiest_Sadist]

Well, you are going the wrong way about building a summoner. I've played a very effective summoner, as has a fellow PC in a game I've played. There are two mistakes you have made. First, do not multiclass two spell casting classes. Summon spells gain even more than other spells from high level. The higher list monsters are needed to be effective.

Second, wizards and clerics make relatively poor summoners. The celestial/fiendish templates do not add much to creatures. Instead you are better off going with druid. Druid gets animals a level earlier than wizard/cleric and this is better. Getting to the following animals is crucial for combat. Wolf, Crocodile, Dire Wolf, Giant Crocodile. At your level as a druid you can summon 1d4+1 giant crocodiles, which with their huge size and improved grab can each take out a PC of equal level. Also they get elementals earlier.
The other class that works great for summons is the Psion. Astral constructs are great. Although they are only for combat, they are more versitile than any other class gets. You have a flying creature, a swiming creature, a grappling creature, etc at every level.

 

[Zappo]

I don't entirely agree with Happiest_Sadist. There's no doubt that multiclassing two spellcasting classes is a wrong choice; you need a high caster level and upper level spells.

However, druids lack something very important: Planar Binding/Ally. These spells are the only real way to have a summoned creature around you for any length of time. Clerics have it less risky, but wizards don't have to waste XP on it and can call whatever they like despite the alignment.

I think that a wizard could be the best choice for a Summon Monster-oriented summoner. If you're going for Planar Binding, a sorcerer may be a best choice, because the high Charisma is going to help.

Cleric has the advantage of access to the Thaumaturgist prestige class, which gives him a bunch of advantages which arcane casters can't easily replicate.

 

[MDSnowman]

For my money the best summoner you're going to find is the Avatar, from Green ronin's book of the same name. You get a ridiculuous ammount of summoning spells, as well as the ability to polymorph into said celestials. You get all the basic summon monster spells and bind/ally spells as well as banner spells that let you buff everyone around you.

You'll want
(From the PHB)
Spell Focus: Conjuring
Augment Summonings

(From the Avatar's handbook)
Holy Summoner (Increases the duration of a summoning)
Imperative Summoning (Creatures you summon get a partial action on the round it appears, and there after can take an extra partial action every round)
Rapid Summoning (Casting summoning Spells becomes a standard action)
Summoner's Bond (Summoning a good outsider nets you a +2 Sacred Bonus to Charisma and Wisdom while that creature is under your control)

(From savage Species)
Assume Supernatural Ability (Alows you to keep one supernatural ability of a creature when you're polymorphed, for an Avatar this is a must, it lets you have some of a celestials's nifty tricks when you take their shape.)

 

[Chris Parker]

Nah. See if your DM will let you take the ridiculously broken mystic theurge. Youll get something good that way, even if you try not to.

 

[Olive]

Why put a cleric in the mix?

Anyway, you NEED augment summoning (and therefore it's pre-req spell focus), but everything else is fairly normal for a wizard build. I like spell penetration myself. Remember to use the psuedonatural's ability to true strike.

You might want to start with a reasonably high WIS, to make up for the losses down the line.

Remember to play up the madness aspect fo things, cos that's fun.

Ignore Chris Parker's opinion of the MT. What's 'broken' is how weak multiclass clr/wiz are with out that PrC... the abilities and spells over lap so little that it's almost pointless trying to play one without the PrC, and you lose everything else interesting about the classes (familiars, turning, bonus feats etc), but at least the spell levels are only two or three levels behind everything else.

 

[mercucio]

Ditch the cleric levels, they're not going to help you, especially is you are aiming to snag the 6th level Alienist class feature Extra Summoning. Go with a wizard 5/Alienist 7. Assuming you race is human this gives you 5 feats from levels, 1 human bonus feat, 2 bonus metamagic feats (alienist) 1 wizard bonus feat, and Scribe Scroll. That's 10 feats .

Pick up Spell Focus (conjuration) and Augment Summoning (+4 Str and +4 Con to summoned monsters is *HUGE*). Improved Familiar would make good flavor, and Extend Spell is always a good choice to make your summoned monsters last longer. You might also want to consider being a conjuration specialist, which would grant you and extra conjuration spell per spell level.

 

[Vargo]

Bah, ignore them.

Drop the Wizard levels, take a Cleric with the domains of Knowledge and Madness, and then pick up Alienist @ level 6. See if you can talk your DM into letting you use the 3.0 Madness domain, instead of the overnerfed 3.5 version. If he's leery about the DC addition, just remove DCs and keep the bonus spells. Quite frankly, I don't see what the hoopla was about - by 12th level, you're looking at a +6 to Wisdom, which is a +3DC increase - not that much, IMO, unless you start mixing it with other DC increasing prestige classes.

Augument Summoning is a must, though.

 

[mo]

I've been playing an alienist for a little while now, and I regret building him with low charisma - the planar binding spells are very powerful and a hell of a lot of fun to roll play, and cha is very important in making them work. I put the points into Wis, and think that probably wasn't the best idea. I wouldn't worry to much about the Wisdom loss the alienist suffers - you are going to have a strong will save as anyway.

There are a few options in Unearthed Arcana you might want to consider. I don't really remember the specifics (anyone?), but there is one which gives you a reduced casting time for summon spells which would be good, as the full round is a hassle. Also one which acts like a super augment summoning which might be good. I think you swap out your familar, which isn't such a loss when you are taking alienist levels.

The other thing I did was choose illusion as a proscribed school, which suits the character, but I think the invisability / summon monster / silent spell trick would have been good (altho less so at higher levels).

 

[Olive]

Drop the Wizard levels, take a Cleric with the domains of Knowledge and Madness, and then pick up Alienist @ level 6.

Nice... the 3.0 madness domain makes the wis hit ok. I'd keep the 3.5 one myself. More in line with other domain powers, and less book keeping hassle.