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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ECMO3" data-source="post: 9657690" data-attributes="member: 7030563">I generally do not find them long term and consistent at all.  Most last 1 hour at most and usually less than that if there is a difficult fight.  They are weak in two respects, first the concentration the casters must maintain and second the summons themselves. I have seen players build to make concentration last longer, mostly by getting resilient Constitution and a ton of other defenses to take less damage and make concentration checks easier, but these PCs are giving up other things for those abilities. Most don't have enough AC or enough hit points not to be killed quickly if targeted themselves.  Mirthful Fey are probably the most survivable because of their charm effect, but even they get taken down quick if you start mixing it up with multiple bad guys.  I have seen players use summons surgically so the summons don't get stomped on themselves, but that limits their effectiveness in terms of boosting damage.That is not to say they are not useful.  They are a nice damage boost while they are alive and if the summons are killed they do generally take damage off of the party, but they are not long-lived and consistent boost IMO.</blockquote>