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

[Scion]

mmmm.. zen archery + that other feat that allows you to stack dex and zen archery.. and a mighty bow!

This monk will be rocking in no time

 

[Felix]

I think you underestimate the power of the Monk. (I love how Star Wars-ish that sounds. )

Three favored saves
4+ skills and interesting class skills
Hooge movement bonuses
Feat selection
DR bypassageness with Ki strike
... plus many, many more!

But that's just beating a dead horse. The monk is Tactical Mobility. Always and everywhere he is Tactical Mobility. You can't see that so much at the early levels, but when his movement is upwards of 50, you feel it. So in any situation someone needs to be somewhere now, the monk is your man.

Tanking against Hill giants isn't your forte. And really, what's the harm with having your monk sit back and hold a conversation with the bard about the druid's animals while the druid takes care of everything. Not only would that be a neat role-playing scene, but it would teach your druid not to burn all of his spells so early, but to rely on his companions as well.

And, like the fighter, you can dish it out all day long, as long as your HPs hold up. The summoner druid can't.

[Regarding the heavy armor wearing fighter] Of course he's going to be obsolete in this kind of a fight. Put a heavy armor wearing guy in a big field, spread the enemies out and you expect him to perform? Never going to happen. His place is in dungeon hallways where he can stop up the enemy's front line. Dwarven defenders and Breach-gnomes were designed with this kind of terrain in mind. If they move outdoors, they're in serious trouble. Especially if they're fighting a monk with 90 movement.

So, love your movement. Love your tumble. Love your saves. And love the +18 total bonuses for your abilities. Love the Tactical Mobility.

But don't try to tank.

 

[Herpes Cineplex]

Oh, I remember what it was like to have the wrong character in the wrong party in the wrong campaign and feel useless as a result. You have my sympathy.

Our current game (3.0) has a monk character in it, and our monk's player has had the same complaint about not really knowing what he can do to be really cool. Since it's a 3.0 game, any time we run into something that requires a magic weapon to hit, he's basically useless. Any time we run into something that doesn't give a damn about bludgeoning damage (it's happened a few times now), he's basically useless. Most of the things we fight have huge Fortitude saves, so stunning blow attempts are basically useless. And then, adding insult to injury, he's been screwed by hit point roll after hit point roll and only recently passed the wizard's max HP.

Meanwhile, we've got a paladin who deals out sickening amounts of damage on every hit, and a wizard killing the sh-t out of everything that the paladin can't reach. Compared to those two, our monk tends to look and feel a bit inferior.

What our monk has going for him is that he's basically got the best base armor class of anyone in the party; if he's trying not to be hit, odds are nothing's going to hit him. He's the only other fairly stealthy character, so he can go up and scout with the ranger/rogue...and since they both have evasion, the wizard can count on them to hold a front line for one or two rounds while the big reflex-save area-effect spells go off. He also routinely flanks with the ranger/rogue (granting sneak attack damage to the rogue and negating the flurry of blows penalty for him). So while he may only provide a trickle of damage in relative terms, it's a fairly consistent trickle of damage in most fights; as long as the bad guys don't have damage resistance, he's dangerous to them.

And honestly, without him there to back her up, our ranger/rogue would be totally useless, so for the most part our monk has been most successful filling the "utility combat" role: he's not the superstar taking down the big uglies single-handed, but he's always right there when he's needed most, taking the pressure off. Between that and expanding his out-of-combat role (he's got some good feats and advantages that no one else does), and all the various buffing spells the wizard can cast on him (there are nearly twice as many spells that can help the monk than there are for any other class), he's holding up pretty well.

--
as the wizard's player, i consider it my solemn duty to find new spells to cast on the monk
ryan

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

Oh, and I would DEFINITELY suggest you look through Oriental Adventures if you haven't already. If your DM will allow it, you can really get some nice combat feats. Could make you feel like your Monk is more useful/unique.

 

[Brother MacLaren]

As I'm playing a druid and have picked Augment Summoning (at a cost of 2 feats)... I can't wait to fight a melee brute. Flyers, things with special abilities, things with DR, many intelligent opponents that use hit-and-run tactics - then I'll be using other tactics. Foes that ambush us, can't use SNA there either.
The occasional melee brute foe such as a giant (okay, maybe ogres, we're only L3) would allow my feats to be useful. The low AC is a problem, but I think the SNA critters will make a nice damage soak since the party has relatively little healing ability handy. Always good to divert some attacks if possible. But spells are limited and encounters have been frequent (something like 50 goblins in many waves before the first dawn in the campaign), so I'll be conservative with spells.
Agree with tactical movement advantage for fighter-types. Not only is it effective, it's fun in that chess-player way. The character I swapped out (because we needed some healing ability) was a rogue who was going to go the reach-weapon fighter route. Light armor, tumble, combat reflexes, spring attack - would have been a neat combination. A monk could do much the same thing,

 

[CPXB]

Albeit run by someone with no concept of what tactics are.

You have only one thing that you can do. Punch people.

All your items are focussed towards... punching people.

It's the same for summoned monsters, shapeshifted druids and giants. All they do is hit people.

The difference is that a monk has the potential to be more than that. The monk can use ranged weapons for a start.

I mean honestly - who builds a combatant and then doesn't buy a single ranged weapon?

Finally - look at your skills. Balance. Jump. Climb. Tumble.

And what did you do? Ran up to the giant and pounded it.

Also note - your druid is now out of spells. By the book, you should be having around about 5 encounters a day. Druid's not looking too good now, is he?

Finally - if you'd had a slow fighter in the party... perhaps you should wait for the giant to close so everyone is in the fight? That's just a little bit of tactics for you...

Musta missed that "Sling +9 (1d4+4)" bit.

And, yeah, what was he supposed to do with Balance, Jump, Climb and Tumble, again? I mean, he took no attacks of opportunity.

Additional facts I might have skipped about the fight. It took place on a flat place, in a town, in fact, and if my character had just run away -- or even the whole party -- two hill giants would have been smashing the village. Which might have been tactical, but sometimes I like to role-play in my RPGs and since the town in question was my character's home town he had some motivation to prevent giants from demolishing it.

Furthermore, everyone *was* in the fight. Bard singing and casting heal spells, and the druid, as you might have gotten if you'd read my original post, hurling animal after animal on the giants.

My tactics were fine. Maybe you should work on your reading skills. *eyeroll*

 

[CPXB]

Potential best ac there is a difference.

Say you have an arcane caster, everyday they cast a mage armor on you at the beginning of the day. Now you are at 25, for a very long time. They cast cats grace on you (as it is the only enhancement you are missing) for an extra probably 2 points, now you are at 27.

27 for a 6th level character is definately not shabby!

Later on in the game you pick up some bracers of armor, get a few more items for boosting up ac in other ways, +6 item to wis and dex, and your ac can be the highest out of any other character class.

Potentials

Actually, shield is the spell that seems to do the most for my monk, but the sorcerer wasn't there and would have been doing his own thing. I have found that the sorcerer is generally way more interested in using room clearing fireballs than buffing my character.

I mean, sure, if the spellcasters decided that the way to go was buff my character, he could be spiffy -- but why buff my monk for a cat's grace when, instead, that druid could be summoning up a dire wolf? In terms of tactics, it makes better sense to have the wolf out there doing damage and taking hits than to allow my character a little better AC.

Which is the boggle, from where I sit. It makes sense for the druid to use summon nature's ally pretty much as often as she can in battle. Its a good spell, providing both offense and defense. While the sorcerer could certainly afford to shield me, in actual combat it makes more sense for him just to do damage, tactically speaking. It is not the job of the other characters in the game to make my character useful; their resources are honestly better allocated elsewhere.

 

[CPXB]

Oh, and I would DEFINITELY suggest you look through Oriental Adventures if you haven't already. If your DM will allow it, you can really get some nice combat feats. Could make you feel like your Monk is more useful/unique.

I have it, actually. I was looking through it today and most of the really cool things work only against humanoids -- which we don't fight too many of in this game so far -- or are hyperspecialized situations, like doing damage in a grapple (which is basically impossible to do much of the time because the opponents are either larger and stronger or there are more of them so grappling with one prevents my C from screening the spellcasters, removing his only legitimate function in a fight).

 

[CPXB]

Agree with tactical movement advantage for fighter-types. Not only is it effective, it's fun in that chess-player way. The character I swapped out (because we needed some healing ability) was a rogue who was going to go the reach-weapon fighter route. Light armor, tumble, combat reflexes, spring attack - would have been a neat combination. A monk could do much the same thing,

Yes, a monk could, obviously. However, then the monk is no longer a supporting character. The monk darts in, does damage, darts out -- great for the monk and it sucks for whatever the monk is fighting because now they're trying to chase a monk around the board . . . or they're going and crushing the sorcerer and druid. Well, the druid can just wildshape into a brown bear, heh, but the sorcerer would be in a world of hurt.

Stuff like that would just take my character away from being a support character, and relegate it to the role of doing trifling damage.

 

[CPXB]

Thanks everyone for the good information! My DM and I will talk about it and see if we can't come up with a good solution for our party. Y'all have been helpful, except for that one guy who dogged on my tactics.