Get rid of Druid summoning?

[Romnipotent]

Sounds like the DM cant hand the responsability to a player... or the player doesn't know how to... but regardless of meta-rules as to why they dont want druids, what just happened to the (generic) elven woods guarded by Dire Tiger Elven Druids! There should be an in game effect to a class being removed. Maybe no one believes in reincarnation except whackos.
If you cant handle the summoning they disappear, or stand still, but banning druids because they can swap out prepped spells for 1d3 Unicorns to heal the party up, and restore them seems a little ... well eh! I like lots of summoning, it takes a tactical mindset sometimes, but nothings like 2 wolves and 3 Dire Weasels
trip trip attach attach attach trip trip attack drain drain drain squeels of joy

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Well, I played a druid under 3.0, and I can't say that I was bothered by the lack of the summoning ability...

Still, it's easy to download and print the monster stats from the SRD, so I don't see what the problem is.

 

[danzig138]

The Druid/Fighter in my current game is surviving on summon nature's ally and produce flame spells. It hasn't been a problem so far. Like others have said, he summons it, he runs it. I have a sheet for my spellcasters that has empty stat blocks for 4 creatures. I tell them to fill it out with their most summoned creatures, and it goes smoothly from there.

 

[Romnipotent]

...I don't see what the problem is.

Because having more medium or so creatures tilts the favours of battle to the PC's for flanking and holding up other foes from being in combat immediatly. SNA is the EASIER Summon issue
Summon Monster is nasty, templatic monsters of semi impressible doom! Alienist goes further.

The issue could just be a knee-jerk reaction from a DM being drowned by a smart strategy and finding no way to counteract it.
I for one find summon animals to be quite well stopped by a MAgical Circle Against Good if available. Also, frighten animal, charm animals, dominate animals, etc.

Romers

 

[Pielorinho]

The problem I encountered was when a player of a druid kept summoning 1d3 dire apes, and then casting Animal Growth on them and her tiger animal companion. That meant that, on her turn in battle, she would be taking an action for herself, and then rolling as many as 13 attack and damage rolls for her minions--not to mention rolling for rending damage in some cases.

It was a brilliant tactic on her part, but her turn in combat took almost as long as everyone else's turn put together.

I'm playing a druid now, and I'm trying to limit my summonings to one critter at a time, in order to keep the game running smoothly.

Daniel

 

[Romnipotent]

I just keep posting!
Druids got a significant power boost in 3.5e... someone in WotC favours them

Summoning, beefing, and bashing... wildshaping and bashing, it just never stops...
let us no forget shaping into a dragon in 3e, mating with summoned animals and locals to create a surplus of half X dragons for mounts and a strong force in times of war.

 

[just__al]

Why is the DM doing any work? I have the same rule for all summoners, whether I'm running or playing:

You summon it, you play it. And you can't summon anything you don't have ready stats for.

Simple, succinct, and done.

Absolutely, and somewhere I found word documents with all the summon monster spells and summon nature's ally spells, by level, with the accompanying stats.

I give them to my players if they are going to summon things and I always have them if I'm the summoner.

Makes life much easier. The summoner involved is controlled by the summoner unless the DM feels a need to overrule a proposed course of action.

Usually this amounts to fiendish wolves moving into flanks even if not actually directed there by the summoner or something like that.

 

[just__al]

Oh and I just found this, which isn't where I got my stats from, but they are all there...


http://www.spellbooksoftware.com/d20/summons/

Stats for all the SM and SNA critters

 

[Mercule]

I've got to agree with the general sentiments posted above. If the DM is doing the work, he's either really nice, really foolish, or a bit of both. I'll flip open the MM for the occassional summoning, but if it becomes a habit (like for the player just creating a Conjurer), then it's pretty much required that the player has access to a copy of the MM -- one that I'm not using. I'd even encourage the player to get some of the Game Mechanics pre-built Initiative cards, or use the blank form to build his own.

It's a non-issue, really.

 

[Pielorinho]

I would love to see both the document with SNA creatures statted out, and (even more usefully) a document with animals who have been Animal Growthed statted out. The latter would be fantastic!

Daniel