Dealing with multiple conjured creatures (Was: LA/CR correlation?)

[LazarusLong42]

Edit: OK, maybe this is against ettiquette, but I realized after sleeping on it that my real worry is not mechanical, it *is* philosophical. Last night I had one player making twelve attacks (with summoned creatures), and everyone else waited for him to get their one attack in. More details in my post below. How do I keep this from becoming mind-numbing for the other players?

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So, I have a player who is a summoner. He's been using air-elemental blood hawks, and tonight I finally found out just what all that entailed (my own fault here, I'd been trying to get the campaign going. ) Anyway... so, I rechecked the Air template in MotP.

It gives +6 to Dex (and other special abilities), it has an LA of +4, but for monsters of CR <=3, it's CR +0.

I can't find another template that is quite so powerful as the Earth and Air elemental templates, yet does not increase CR, and can find no template with LA +3 or greater that doesn't increase CR at least +1.

So... am I crazy thinking the Air and Earth templates are horribly overpowered, and need to be seriously nerfed by bumping their CR... or would this be a justifiable decision?

(Let's assume, for this discussion, that the philosophical ramifications of changing a rule mid-stride are not going to come into play. That's a different conversation and a different question altogether.)

 

[green slime]

No, I don't think the elemental templates are in a great way disparate to the other templates. So yes, I think you are crazy...

 

[Heretic Apostate]

It's a matter of use.

Remember, CR is for opponents of the players. The opponents are only needed for one or two fights. Thus, if something is useful, but must be used in place of something else that is useful (i.e., it doesn't stack), it doesn't make as much of a difference in the fight.

But LA is for the players. Give the characters a bunch of abilities, and it's useful for the life of the character. Sure, some abilities may not stack, but if something is useful in a fight, it gives versatility.

 

[Voadam]

...or, "Am I nuts thinking the elemental templates in Manual of the Planes are way, way overpowered?"

So, I have a player who is a summoner. He's been using air-elemental blood hawks, and tonight I finally found out just what all that entailed (my own fault here, I'd been trying to get the campaign going. ) Anyway... so, I rechecked the Air template in MotP.

It gives +6 to Dex (and other special abilities), it has an LA of +4, but for monsters of CR <=3, it's CR +0.

I can't find another template that is quite so powerful as the Earth and Air elemental templates, yet does not increase CR, and can find no template with LA +3 or greater that doesn't increase CR at least +1.

So... am I crazy thinking the Air and Earth templates are horribly overpowered, and need to be seriously nerfed by bumping their CR... or would this be a justifiable decision?

(Let's assume, for this discussion, that the philosophical ramifications of changing a rule mid-stride are not going to come into play. That's a different conversation and a different question altogether.)

I don't have MotP, what else besides +6 dex does it give? +3 to AC and init alone is not enough to increase the combat challenge of a low powered monster I'd figure. Are they immune to crits? DR? Do they get an elemental attack (perhaps lightning for air)?

 

[LazarusLong42]

I don't have MotP, what else besides +6 dex does it give? +3 to AC and init alone is not enough to increase the combat challenge of a low powered monster I'd figure. Are they immune to crits? DR? Do they get an elemental attack (perhaps lightning for air)?

Immunity to poison/paralysis/stunning. Immune to crits. Adds Flyby Attack to the list of feats.

Remember, CR is for opponents of the players. The opponents are only needed for one or two fights. Thus, if something is useful, but must be used in place of something else that is useful (i.e., it doesn't stack), it doesn't make as much of a difference in the fight.

But LA is for the players. Give the characters a bunch of abilities, and it's useful for the life of the character. Sure, some abilities may not stack, but if something is useful in a fight, it gives versatility.

Hrm. This leads to the interesting thought: why is CR used for summoned monsters, rather than LA? If a character summons the same monster over and over, every single fight, it's useful for the life of the character (and, of course, scales over time).

I think what I'm really worried about is not the way the battle went last night--there was some poor prior planning that went into that. What vaguely peeves me is that summoned creatures (from SM I and SNA I) did some 50+ points of damage in four rounds... and the actual PCs did less than 20. Three of the PCs were pretty much standing around; two were summoning (a druid and the conjurer); and the paladin was getting some good hits in.

My worry is that at higher levels, this will become tedious for the non-summoning players--already, last night I heard a "well, this is going to take a while" as the conjurer rolled for four summoned creatures with three attacks each. (This is at second level, and they just hit third. No one else is getting more than one attack.)

Has anyone had experience with this? Is there anything to do to make it non-tedious for the other four players, other than to start commonly targeting the conjurer with attacks? Am I worrying about this way too much?

 

[dreaded_beast]

Is one of the reasons that you are worried about summoned monsters is that your players may get bored waiting for the summoned monsters to attack?

Maybe the summoner can have the stats prepared for his monsters, which may aid in speeding up combat.

In regards to damage (wizard 50 points, other players around 20), I believe that wizards at comparable levels can do roughly the same amount of damage with other spells (fireball, lightning bolt). This is just my guesstimate

I believe that wizard's being able to summon creatures to fight for them is one of their trademark abilities. Nerfing it or lessening it's impact may make the wizard class weaker in some respects, especially if your player likes to summon creatures.

 

[LazarusLong42]

Worry about other players being bored is exactly where I'm going with this. And he already has his monsters statted out, so that's not the problem. Perhaps I'll just give him a dozen d20s and say "roll these all at once." I also worry, from an RP perspective, that the other PCs--not the players--will feel they are unnecessary, if the wizard and the druid can summon an army for every combat.

As to damage, my main worry is that half the PCs really didn't do anything. But this wizard is second level, using SM I--compare the damage to magic missile, not fireball

I don't want to nerf the summoner; in this particular case I'm wondering if the creature summoned isn't too powerful for SM I. It has a higher attack bonus than any of the PCs, including the paladin. (+8, 6 of it from Dex and Finesse)

I'm partially just rambling here, but any input is helpful

 

[physics_ninja]

How is a 2nd level character summoning so many critters? A specialist conjuror with an int bonus only has four first level slots, while a sorcerer has five. It seems to me that this guy has just blown all of his available spells.

Remember that both SM1 and SNA1 each can summon only *one* critter. Furthermore, those spells last only two rounds at level two.

If you have only one combat per day, then these guys are using a good strategy. If you have two or more combats (and remember, a 2nd level party should be able to handle 3-4 EL 2 encounters per day) then the above strategy will leave these guys standing around doing nothing later on.

Edit: Grammer stuff.

 

[Zappo]

I think that this creature is slightly too powerful for SM1, on the basis that the creature has a benefit from the +6 DEX which is substantially greater than a +6 DEX. Then again, this character is blowing all his spells to summon these critters - I wouldn't nerf him too much.

Maybe an air genie will pay him a visit and ask why his prized birds keep vanishing...

 

[LazarusLong42]

They had two combats that day**... but he kept all his spells for the second combat, and yes, he did blow them all at once. I hadn't actually thought about the fact that he'd be high and dry in a subsequent combat, but you have a really good point there.

**(They're second level but with 7 PCs, so they're an EL 4 party. The encounters were EL 4 and (in theory) EL 7.)