How do you use summoned creatures?

[Spatula]

I think the casting of the spell infers an intent upon the creature being summoned. Otherwise, how does the summoned creature know what is an eneny?

How does any spell that affects only enemies (or allies) tell the difference? It's magic. The fact is that you need to speak the creature's language in order to get it to perform non-combat tasks.

In one of Monte Cook's Eldritch Might books he has a series of cantrips that let you speak one of the extraplanar lanaguages for a short duration. I think he created those spells for just this purpose, so that wizards wouldn't have to spend tons of skill points to be able to communicate with summoned creatures.

 

[Shard O'Glase]

They have there uses in the genral utility category of spells, but for combat they suck. There really weak, and the 1 round casting time neuters them. The problem is if there meant for utility they really need a longer duraiton 1/minute a level perhaps, if there meant for combat they failed miserably, if there meant for both they failed on both ends making a weak spell.

There main purpose until high levels seems to be a few utility things like tunenling, or setting off traps the rogue doesn't want to tackle.

 

[Forrester]

In my campaign, I rescaled the Summon Monster spells thusly:

Summon Monster II gets CR1 creatures
Summon Monster III gets CR3 creatures
Summon Monster IV gets CR5 creatures
Summon Monster V gets CR7 creatures
Summon Monster VI gets CR9 creatures
Summon Monster VII gets CR11 creatures
Summon Monster VIII gets CR13 creatures
Summon Monster IX gets CR15 creatures

Now, the conjurer can't get ANY creature with the given CR (I won't bore you with the system details), but the power levels here are a good guideline. A little on the powerful side, perhaps, but I don't think it's broken. I mean, if you play Core rules, one protection from evil or Dispel Magic can protect you just fine from all these guys.

 

[clark411]

Summon Monster is great. Once our party cleric was womped by an invisible floating giant squid in a dungeon we were visiting... since it was only me (the rogue) and our neighborhood Psion left, we did what any normal person would do.

Summon 38 celestial bison over the course of three minutes, having each one charge its way into the room, eventually killing the squid bit by bit when it didn't get it's AoO's off.

Beyond that, upon teleporting into the Sea in Celestia, we all started to drown till, as the wiz (above rogue died- this is about a year afterwards), I was able to summon three celestial orcas to swim us up long enough for the psion to bestow us all with flight. Would have died otherwise.

Summon monster is far more utility and indirect benefit in combat. Surrounding yourself with animals in combat is basically a poor man's Bigby's Hand spell. Being able to summon them anywhere makes them great flanking help for Rogues. Being able to summon them while enjoying improved invisiblity can cause excellent mischief when dealing diversions to your average guard.

 

[nameless]

I've found that using summoned creatures is more a tactical decision than one to beat up things. By the time you can summon something, it's usually less powerful physically than the tanks and less powerful magically than the wizards. So the real strength is in the miscellaneous abilities that they have, and just sticking an extra body on the battlefield. Summoned monsters love sucking up AoO's, flanking, aiding another, and taking some hits that the cleric doesn't need to waste healing magic on. In this way, you are preventing HP loss, like healing, and probably causing at least mininal damage. And of course, there are the always popular trapspringers and such.

The way I see it, damage dealing isn't actually a wizard's best area. They are good at hampering the enemy, and offense is usually best served by effects that take someone out of the fight, so the tanks can shred them later. Spellcasters only have so many spells per day, they can't afford to waste more than one on most enemies, hopefully one spell will neutralize more than one threat. That's why blinding the enemy rogue is better than acid arrowing him. If he's blind, he definitely can't sneak attack anybody, and he can't really do anything in combat or run away fast enough to make a difference. Sure, he has all his hit points, but Tordek can power attack to make up for the difference.

 

[Legildur]

Got to agree with the flanking use. My Rogue loves it when the Cleric summons some Celestial Bison (mind you, that's all he ever summons, and he'd prefer to do that than buff other characters).

The bison are also used to chase fleeing enemies, and startle unsuspecting enemies in areas we haven't scouted yet. And their Smite Evil ability has its uses, along with their damage reduction - they usually last a couple of rounds.

And don't that having more allies means less chance that you'll be targeted.

 

[Viktyr Gehrig]

How does Summoning compare with a Psion using Astral Constructs?

 

[WizarDru]

How does Summoning compare with a Psion using Astral Constructs?

My experience has been that Astral Constructs are much more utilitarian, being more configurable to a situation overall. Summoned creatures have their uses, and some are much better than Astral Constructs in specific situations, but Astral Constructs have far more uses, and are better in combat until later levels, when it becomes more situationally dependent.

 

[Tewligan]

Short-term summoning

Yeah, the short duration of the summon spells is the biggest problem I have with them. Hmm...I wonder if it would be too unbalancing to change the spell duration to a minute per level, but make each round that the summoned creature spends in combat effectively use up a minute of time? That way, you'd get no more attacks with it than you would with the original version of the spell, but it would become more useful in non-combat situations. Is that too powerful? Would bumping the spell level help if it is too powerful?

 

[Pielorinho]

I don't think the duration is bad at higher levels -- at fifth level and above, I used summon monster spells without any problem. At that point, they'll usually last for the bulk of a combat. It's at lower levels, I think, that they're less useful.

So what if you make their durations equal 3 rounds + 1 round/level? They'll still last for only one combat in most cases, and the added power at higher levels is negligible -- but at lower levels, they become much more useful.

Daniel