How do you use summoned creatures?

[Storm Raven]

There's another angle here to consider but it's kind of wierd. It has nothing to do with game balance though.

Personally I find it a LOT easier to deal with constructs as a player than I do summoned monsters. You have a ton of monsters, I need to know what they can/cannot do, have stats on hand, etc. This is a great way to bog down a game especially if you don't have your stuff prepped ahead of time.

On the other hand, constructs have fairly consistent stats and you just have to plug in the special abilities. I find it a lot easier to work with as a player and would assume as a DM also

Our group uses a table rule on this: if you want to summon a creature, you must have the creature's stats on hand. Because of this, I have a large file full of 5 x 8 index cards with dozens of templated creatures for my Conjuration specialist to use.

 

[Pielorinho]

Personally I find it a LOT easier to deal with constructs as a player than I do summoned monsters. You have a ton of monsters, I need to know what they can/cannot do, have stats on hand, etc. This is a great way to bog down a game especially if you don't have your stuff prepped ahead of time.

Good point. I think on WOTC's Web site you can download stats for the commonly summoned critters from the Summon MOnster spells, but even those downloads only go so far. It doesn't help Druid players (like me).

I play a summoner-druid with the augment summoning feat; in order to deal with my various creatures, I've spent a couple of hours creating index cards with all their stats on them. Since getting the animal growth spell recently, I've put some time into writing the animal's enlarged stats on the back of the cards.

Figuring this stuff out is complicated: you have to adjust attack rolls by increased strength, increased size, and (unless i remember incorrectly) increased HD; you have to adjust damage by increased strength and increased size; you adjust armor class by increased size, decreased dexterity, and increased natural armor; you adjust two of your three saves by changed ability scores (and maybe by increase HD? I forget); you adjust HP for increased CON; and for some creatures, you adjust stuff such as grappling attack bonus, changes to skills based on new abilities, and so forth. It's no trivial adjustment to make.

Nonetheless, I really appreciate the flexibility of the summoning spells.

Daniel

 

[Shard O'Glase]

Not to doubt you, but my experience has been different. Have you actually played with both in practice?

Yeah I've played with both in practive. I playe a shaper up to level 16, and a wizard specialied in conjuration up to 15. I was a neutral wizard so a lot of the alignment issues didn't matter to me, so that was a +to the SMs that not all casters get. At low levels I found that well they both sucked. Level 3 AC was a standout sucky level, which I think should be errataed. My biggest beef with the SMs charts was the large power disparity at each level. End result though was as the levels increased if I neded something for a fight SM provided a something better, there was usualyl a standout mosnter at each level. Some levels might have a weakness toward air or water travel, but that was more than made up for by the spellcasting power/teleportation/tunneling abilities I gained with the monsters from SM spells.

My overall preference was for the shaper, which is hands down my favorite class. And I actually prefered using ACs because all I had to remember was a small lsit of abilites, which I could easily choose from, where with SM I had to remember a small list of monsters each with a small list of abilities. 3 by 5 cards helped but new levels of SM spells required a lot more getting used to than new levels of AC powers.

I still think that the SM spells rpovided better combatants, and provided more versatility. I think the problem is the AC versatility is almost focussd purely towards fighting, and mellee combat(a couple movement powers and high str provide some other base utility) at that. And yet at most levels you can find a melle combatant on the SM list who is superior in most mellee situations. And the out of a fight utility just gets insane for the SM lists. the really high end ones are just silly, providing you the services of 14th levle clerics and the like, but even baring those(which I do) the teleports, tunnels, cure light wounds etc. provide a lot of out of combat utility that the ACs fail at.

 

[Zad]

Our group uses a table rule on this: if you want to summon a creature, you must have the creature's stats on hand. Because of this, I have a large file full of 5 x 8 index cards with dozens of templated creatures for my Conjuration specialist to use

Good rule to use for both summoned creatures and constructs. Personally I have some voodoo I did in Excel that I use for my astral constructs. I pick the type (I, III, etc) from a drop down and it looks up and fills in the stats. Then I pick abilities from other drop downs. Makes my life much easier.

 

[wolff96]

I love summoning as a druid.

Granted, I'm only level 5, but I really like Summon Nature's Ally III. The wizard summons are probably nastier, being templated, but I like the salamander, elemental, and (most especially) the dire weasel.

The nature's ally list is more limited, but we use the variant from Dragon (Ish #302?) with the Legendary Animals added to the upper level summonings... I can't wait.

 

[Kershek]

Good rule to use for both summoned creatures and constructs. Personally I have some voodoo I did in Excel that I use for my astral constructs. I pick the type (I, III, etc) from a drop down and it looks up and fills in the stats. Then I pick abilities from other drop downs. Makes my life much easier.

Ooh, I would like this tool. Can you send it to lathrum@hotmail.com?

 

[Zad]

Sure, just let me rip out of the character sheet it's in with.

It also makes the assumption you have the augment construct feat but lemme see if I can back that out easily

 

[Templetroll]

There's about a billion and one uses for summouned monsters...

Thoqqua - One of my favorites... used him to get through bars/walls, burned right through them.

Fiendish dire bat - short-duration air escape (for small creaures), retrieve/deliver items in high/low places.

Thoqqua also burrows; I used it to dig next to a burrowing creature that had swallowed a party member whole and it hit the tail, killed the crit and allowed our guy easier egress from the beastie.

The Fiendish Dire Bat also has Blindsight; we used it to gain some target acquisition on an invisible critter. My character summoned two of them and they absorbed a couple spells and several melee attacks. Even Summon I creatures can do that!

Also, Summon Monster III can be used to summon several SM I-types of creatures and they can be placed to provide Flanking for your fighter types!

Keep in mind, any wolf type of summoned monster or nature's ally also has that Trip attack even if it cannot cause damage with a hit!

 

[Pielorinho]

One more use of summoned creatures:

An arrowhawk has a good fly speed and a plinky little attack that almost always hits. Excellent for use against fleeing opponents; I've used it to off a gargoyle and some sort of weird flying-beetle creature our DM sicced on us.

And summoning a dire bat, of course, is a classic response to your enemy's casting of darkness. Or you can cast darkness on the dire bat and send it against your enemies for wacky hijinks.

As Templetroll pointed out, wolves get the improved trip ability, and i think this is a good point: know your creature's weird abilities inside-out, and figure out how to work them into your combat strategy. Your melee fighters oughtta try to flank an enemy with the wolf and should delay their action until right after the wolf has gone; with any luck, the opponent will be tripped, and the fighter gets a +6 bonus to attack (+2 for flanking, +4 for attacking a prone enemy). A wolf by itself isn't a great combatant, but a spell that often grants +6 to your frontline fighters is pretty sweet.

Daniel

Daniel

 

[Caliber]

How do you all think allowing templates to be changed out would affect the Summon Monster series?

For example, a caster can apply Celestial or Fiendish at her choice, to the monsters that are templated. (ie, if she wants a Fiendish Bison, she can get it)

What about allowing the Anarchic and uhm ... the lawful template from MotP?