Summon Monster spells underpowered for elementals?

[Orwyn]

The feat is Spell Girding from MoF (+2 bonus on DC vs. dispel checks made against your spells).

And I agree, if you want to play a Summoner, talk your DM into some improvements to the Summon Monster series, spell research and such.

Along the line of suggestions to give Specialist wizards something unique to their school (Disguise, Bluff as class skill for Illusionists and some such, similar to the varieties of Psions), you could try to ask for the benefit of the Summoning prestige domain.

Double caster level for Summon Monster spells, giving better range, duration and protection vs. dispelling. It is not considered very powerful for the inherent weakness of Outsiders and Summoning in general.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

After some pondering, I was wondering what people thought of the following guidelines:

Summoning II gets a CR1 creature
Summoning III gets a CR3 creature
Summoning IV gets a CR5 creature
Summoning V gets a CR6 to CR7 creature
Summoning VI gets a CR8 to CR9 creature

And so on . . . maybe a little too strong?

No, they're too weak!

At 8th-level, your summoner can cast Summon Monster IV. You're facing an EL 8 (usually), and you bring a CR 5 ally to the battlefield! Too weak, IMO. This is one of the greatest weaknesses of summoning (the other being a bunch of abjuration spells).

Also, the CRs aren't always what you think they are.

A lot of monsters, like the gelugon or noble salamander, have the ability to summon other creatures.

For instance, the noble salamander is CR 9. In fact, it's CR is 7 on its own. Its CR only rises to 9 when it summons a fire elemental (CR 7 + CR 7 = CR 9).

If you summon the noble salamander, then it can't summon anything else (under the rules of Conjuration: Summoning). So it's CR is only 7. Against much tougher opponents.

The only way for a summoner to stay ahead is to find a way to cast multiple summoning spells per round.

Psion shapers face the same problem, but now there's a PrC for them at www.wizards.com the Mind's Eye feature. At 16th level, they can manifest quickened astral construct five times per day at no increased power point cost.

 

[Forrester]

After some pondering, I was wondering what people thought of the following guidelines:

Summoning II gets a CR1 creature
Summoning III gets a CR3 creature
Summoning IV gets a CR5 creature
Summoning V gets a CR6 to CR7 creature
Summoning VI gets a CR8 to CR9 creature

And so on . . . maybe a little too strong?

No, they're too weak!

Now you're just nuts .

An EL8 encounter might be four CR5 creatures.

If a 7th level spell caster can blow a single 4th level spell to take care of 1/4 of the opposition . . . I think that seems about right.

I told the guy that he can use the above guidelines; I'm now trying to figure out whether they're only okay for him (and other casters must use the original list), or whether, because he's a conjuration specialist, he should get some other bennie (like double duration or something else). He's already taken the Summoning feat getting his creatures +2 to Str, Dex, and Con -- I probably wouldn't allow that for non-conjurers.

IN a related question, I told the necromancer in the group that he can cast Summon Monster spells that summon undead instead of regular creatures. What do y'all think would be acceptable undead to summon at each level?

 

[Darkness]

Judging from the PHB, the CRs of the creatures summoned by summon monster spells are:

summon monster I: CR 1/3 to 1/2
summon monster II: CR 1/2 to 1
summon monster III: CR 2 to 3
(although elementals are CR 1, tritons are CR 4 and fiendish vipers are CR 1/2)
summon monster IV: CR 2 to 4
(most often 3; still, the M fiendish viper is CR 1)
summon monster V: CR 3 to 7
(usually 5; elementals, many outsiders and vipers are CR 3)
summon monster VI: CR 5 to 7
(exceptions: celestial dire bear is CR 9 and celestial unicorn is CR 4)

 

[Mr.Binx]

Defenders of the Faith has a very well put-together undead summoning line put together in one of the undead specialist classes that you might want to check out. It could easily enough be moved over to an arcane caster class.

 

[Darkness]

Defenders of the Faith has a very well put-together undead summoning line put together in one of the undead specialist classes that you might want to check out. It could easily enough be moved over to an arcane caster class.

*nods* And in MAgic of Faerun, there are actual summon undead spells...

 

[Shard O'Glase]

The elementals are defeinetly too wussy for their level of SM. As for giving the conjurer benies because he is a specialist, I'd stay away from it myself because I don't want to set a precendent of me ginvg special freebies to specialists, well at least until I got off my lazy butt and gave all the specializations benies.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Just an aside...

Poisonous monsters have weird CRs because the poison lasts after the battle.

Still, I wouldn't summon a viper, because the poison save DC is just too low.

According to Sean K Reynolds, the CRs of many brutes, such as the bigger elementals, are too low. I guess try summoning elementals and see if it's worth it, instead of just looking at CR.

Now you're just nuts .

An EL8 encounter might be four CR5 creatures.

Try higher level, then. The spread in CRs becomes much bigger. For instance, if you summon a gelugon at 20th-level, it has CR 12 (actually less, since it can't summon another gelugon). You need eight of them just to be effective.

 

[Forrester]

*nods* And in MAgic of Faerun, there are actual summon undead spells...

Oooh, really? I don't have that one . . . can anyone give me a little spoiler? I'm guessing there's spells like Summon Shadows and/or Summon Zombies and/or Summon Wraiths. What levels are they?

 

[Darkness]

Oooh, really? I don't have that one . . . can anyone give me a little spoiler? I'm guessing there's spells like Summon Shadows and/or Summon Zombies and/or Summon Wraiths. What levels are they?

Ok, here goes:

The spells are called summon undead I, summon undead II, and so on.

The level is the same as for summon monster (e.g., summon undead III is a 3rd-level spell), but it's always Sor/Wiz only.
There are only five, not nine, summon undead spells.

With summon undead I, you can summon a medium-size skeleton or a small zombie. After that, it advances by one size category per spell level, up to a huge zombie for summon undead IV. Other undead can be summoned as well, but not many... A ghouls is possible at level II (a ghast is level III, though, as is an allip).
But if you want something really nasty, you need summon undead V, which gets you a mummy, shadow, wight, or vampire spawn.

Also, you need a focus (three, rather: a tiny bag, a small unlit candle, and a carved bone from any humanoid) to cast any of these spells.
On the plus side, these creatures don't count against your total of commanded undead, nor do they count against the number of undead created with animate dead or such. Of course, they don't stay for very long, so it figures...

Other than that, they function exactly like summon monster (e.g., same duration, you can get more creatures if you use a more powerful spell than the one that summons a certain creature, alignment descriptors apply if you summon a wight or something, etc).