New Summon Monster Rule

[seasong]

CR = Spell Level, for my campaign. It does get a bit weak in terms of combat power at the higher levels, but I'm more interested in the high level summoning spells as a divination method.

Also, in general, a creature with CR equal to half someone's level still poses a decent enough threat to them.

 

[Merlion]

I dunno I dont think a CR 9 creature at 17th level up is going to be super helpful...definitly not in combat, maybe for other things. It IS better at lower levels though

 

[seasong]

So you do each one summons a single creature of the same challenge rating as the level of the spell?(I didnt realize Lantern Archons were CR 1)

Actually, stand corrected. I wrote that from memory, and my player just corrected me . It's a level 3 spell (from a corrected CR of 3).

I just remembered the player being able to cast it pretty early on in the campaign, and me being fine with it .

 

[Norfleet]

Summoning is unimpressive as it is. I've found that all of the creatures that I could summon, I could easily kill at levels below that which I could summon them at all.

Now you expect to summon them, and use them to kill critters tougher than what you were facing before?

Yeah, right. Summoning is useless without any additional limitations, and limiting it more won't make it better. There are far better things to be spending your limited casting time on, and summoning useless monsters ain't it.

Besides, summoned monsters drool and they smell funny.

 

[Merlion]

Summoning is unimpressive as it is. I've found that all of the creatures that I could summon, I could easily kill at levels below that which I could summon them at all.

Now you expect to summon them, and use them to kill critters tougher than what you were facing before?

.

Uhh..yea...thats why I am trying to come up with a better way to do it
Seasong: I looked em up to..I think they are CR 2...

 

[seasong]

Corrected CR of 3 - a lantern archon can take on a whole party of 3rd level characters and do some pretty significant damage before it's snuffed.

 

[Stalker0]

One variant I thought would be good for summoned monsters would be altering the duration based on casting time.

Casting Time- Duration

1 round- 1 round/lvl
1 minute - 1 minute/lvl
10 minutes - 10 minutes/lvl

Personally, I think of summoned monsters not as artillery pieces, but useful for all the special abilities they have. Great for sorcs would don't have a vast array of spells, but that can summon a few good monsters to fill in teh gaps.

 

[Intrope]

Let me offer up another suggestion: the utility of a summoned monster will be similar to the utility of playing that monster. So, use ECL (rather than CR or HD) as the guideline for what creatures you can summon.

Also, you might allow increased duration for a given spell by reducing the ECL of the summoned creature.

 

[Merlion]

That'd work to its just a hair more complicated. I like the idea of just being able to pull out the MM and see which things I can summon. Very good idea though

 

[Merlion]

how does this sound as a summon monster spell-level-summons-CR progression?

1:1
2:2
3:3
4:4-5
5: 6-7
6:8-9
7:9-10
8:10-11
9:12+
And maybe couple it with a duration increase and the ability to summon for combat or non combat...say 5 rounds+1 round/level for combat, 10 Mins + 1/min level for non combat.
But mainly I am interested in the first paty
Edit: redid it again. the version I had up here was still I think a bit overpowered. with the 12+ I'd say SM9 is needed to summon anything with a CR over 10 up to a maximum determined by the DM(I'd say 14 or 15 if it was me most likely. Edit Again: fixed an error