Issues with Summon Monster/Summon Nature's Ally (2004 Thread)

[Majere]

Im currently playing a mid level mystic theurge (mage/druid).
I have the augment summoning feat too.
Ive used summon natures ally a grand total of about once.

Summons spells take too long to cast and last too short a time in most combats ? Give up a round for 5 rounds of animal ?
The animal is going to be dead after 2 rounds of combat !
Seirously, summons animals die lie lemmings, if they dont, your DM is doing something wrong because almost every thing on the NSA list has an ac of about 16.
You were buffing the summon ? Well now your 5 round spell is going to last 4 rounds and you have spent two rounds doing nothing.

Druids generally arent that powerful unless they have TIME. And the one thing 3.5 never gives you in combat is TIME. The same applies to all spellcasting. You need TIME to learn spells and TIME to cast spells.
My theurge hardly ever cats ANY druid spells because mage spells are usually much the better option. There is not enough TIME.

The monk doesnt need time, he is always ready, he can always go. He can get a good initiative. TIME is on the monks side.
IMC The fighters do the damage, they do damage over 40-50 round combats, over 5-6 combats per day.

I also have to say Im agains rewriting a class becasue you dont like it, but if your DM is ok with that then I geuss thats ok.

Majere

 

[Will]

Actually, we really noticed the 'style changes balance' issue with City of the Spider Queen.

Without spoiling, we ended up hitting lots of opponents with SR and fire immunity or resistance. Definitely made a huge dent in our spellcasting. Fewer combat spells, but more things like Disintegrate for those hail mary efforts.

 

[ForceUser]

Im currently playing a mid level mystic theurge (mage/druid).
I have the augment summoning feat too.
Ive used summon natures ally a grand total of about once.

Summons spells take too long to cast and last too short a time in most combats ? Give up a round for 5 rounds of animal ?
The animal is going to be dead after 2 rounds of combat !
Seirously, summons animals die lie lemmings, if they dont, your DM is doing something wrong because almost every thing on the NSA list has an ac of about 16.
You were buffing the summon ? Well now your 5 round spell is going to last 4 rounds and you have spent two rounds doing nothing.

Druids generally arent that powerful unless they have TIME. And the one thing 3.5 never gives you in combat is TIME. The same applies to all spellcasting. You need TIME to learn spells and TIME to cast spells.
My theurge hardly ever cats ANY druid spells because mage spells are usually much the better option. There is not enough TIME.

The monk doesnt need time, he is always ready, he can always go. He can get a good initiative. TIME is on the monks side.
IMC The fighters do the damage, they do damage over 40-50 round combats, over 5-6 combats per day.

I also have to say Im agains rewriting a class becasue you dont like it, but if your DM is ok with that then I geuss thats ok.

Majere

I also play a druid. SNA is uncommonly cool, even moreso in 3.5. The point of most SNA monsters is to soak damage your allies would otherwise have to take. But there are a few other applications a clever player can use:

• Summon a hippogriff to fight for you at very low levels. For a 2nd level spell, hippogriff is a lot of bang for your buck. And it flies. At mid-levels, summon a clutch of hippogriffs to harry flying, fleeing, or fast-moving foes. Each has three attacks per round, does decent damage, and is a large creature!
• Provided you can speak the right languages: summon a small earth, air, or water elemental to scout ahead in the appropriate environment. Xorns are also great for scouting dungeons.
• Summon a unicorn or five to heal your party during downtime. Provided your druid speaks Sylvan, in combat have your summoned unicorns each bodyguard one party member, providing them with healing, meat shield, and a constant magic circle against evil.
• Summon a clutch of arrowhawks to fight outsiders with particularly nasty spell resistance. The arrowhawks' lightning breath is a supernatural touch attack, and thus bypasses SR. Works great on horned devils.

These uses of SNA are just off the top of my head. It's a great series of spells.

 

[Will]

Oh, second thought... definitely notice this with, of course, thieves and rangers.

I know the rogue-wizard in my game is sort of grumpy when for a long time he had absolutely _no_ traps to deal with, and I had them facing lots of undead. Greeeat. At least he had the wizardry to fall back on, and some living necromancers.

Complete balance is impossible with nearly every system.

 

[CPXB]

If you desire to continue playing a monk, I'd be happy to help you make him stronger using WotC material, but I'd counsel you to not fight an uphill battle, and change to a spellcaster or barbarian/paladin/prc'ed hybrid, and don't look back.

Thank you for the offer, but me and my DM will figure it out. I mean, just being aware this might be a problem actually will settle most of the issue for us -- we know what to do and already we have several ideas how Rashad could be buffed if he stays consistently behind the spellcasting characters in terms of overall ability. We're not afraid to tweak -- indeed, the D&D game I run is very tweaked -- but since in my games they tend to be real magic-lite none of this has come up in my games.

If the changes in the situations and the changes to my character sheet make it sufficient to put Rashad on an equal basis with the other characters, generally, I'll be pretty happy.

 

[Scion]

The Arms & Equipment guide has feats? Where?
I am thumbing through mine, and I don't see anything of the sort (but I'm kind-a stupid).

-Tatsu

It is a wonderous item no pun intended. at 30k it is a bit hard to do, but maybe someone will have one that he can rent. If some organization for monks has one, and you join the organization and pay your dues of say 1kgp/year then you have access to it and other things. It would work out all right.

Failing that, it is a pretty decent item for the monk. Ability to make that 10' step instead of a 5' step is just an incredible ability

 

[Stormrunner]

With all of those bonuses thrown in it isnt terribly surprising for the guys to do a whole lot of damage, especially while flanking as well (not sure if you used that one). At that point the attacks are something like +7 base +2 feat +4 prone +2 flank +1 bard = +16. That is just about an auto hit for each of those, and since they do some pretty hefty damage (d4+7, d4+7, d4+3, d4+3, avg 30) definately gets right up there. Along with I am not sure if that damage was 'all three of the animals attacking and this is the total damage'. If so then having 3 other guys fighting with you then the single man out is bound to do less damage

And don't forget the +2 for charging. The giants are auto-hitting already, so the -2 to AC is effectively handwaved. The lion gets to rake when it pounces, and the wolf only has one attack/round anyway, so both are better off charging every chance they get.

 

[Jhulae]

Let me put it this way: The style of the campaign is significant.

I've played with 11 different DMs since 3.0 came out (in addition to the games I've run). I can tell you with greater confidence that the issues you describe - regarding spellcasters being too strong all the time - is a factor of campaign style, not a factor of all D&D games. If the DM runs games where the PCs can rest after every battle, you have a different situation than if they can rarely rest.

That's exactly right.

In all of the campaigns I've been in with d20, the DMs roll for random encounters as the per the DMG - once per hour. That means, theoretically, we can get hit with up to 24 encounters per day in a non-city, non-dungeon environment. And, the DM makes the rolls each day of travel, and, since we play in FR, uses the FR encounter tables (yes, that means we can run into stuff that way overpowers us).

Needless to say, our spellcasters never blow their 'wad' on one battle, either in dungeons or outside of them.

We've never had a spellcaster consistently outshine any of the non-spellcasters. Yes, in some battles, they turn the tide, in others the NSCs do. Each class has its place.

Maybe it's our DMs. Maybe they're just that good at balancing things.

No, actually it's not, considering one is pretty new. I propose it's the other way around.

(@ Beaver) If a DM actually uses the encounter frequency from the DMG, it becomes *very* dicey for a spellcaster to use all their spells in one battle - with no 'campaign style change' needed, if the DM is going by the RAW.

YMMV.

 

[hong]

Sereg... hit points aren't an issue if you have even a few minutes downtime. Wands of CLW can easily top off a party, if need be. You don't have that option with spells.

You will, eventually, run out of even wands of CLW. Even if you don't, you will eventually run the DM's patience out.

There is this myth that just because a fighter's (or a monk's) abilities are always-on, they can keep going and going like the Energizer bunny. This just isn't the case. D&D is setup so that no one class can solo a dungeon, save with extensive DM intervention; you need skills that every class contributes.

If your wiz has run out of teleports or dim doors, and you need to get to the other side of a wall, then you're stuck. If your cleric has run out of heals, and one guy is down 10 Con points from a fight with wraiths, then you're stuck. Besides which, even if your class abilities are always-on, your magic items might not be; if you've used all 10 rounds from your boots of speed, or your 1/day cape of the mountebank, then that's a major reduction in your power. Past a certain point, having always-on abilities is useless, because you're still constrained by the need for your buddies and your items to keep up.

 

[Will]

I'm sorry if I overstated my case. What I meant to show is that nonspellcasters generally have more lasting power than spellcasters, not that nonspellcasters can go on infinitely.

The suggestion was made that hit points are as significant a used-up resource as spells, and I'm pretty sure this is not the case. Hit points _are_ dangerous to burn through, but it's just not in the same league.