Summoners in D&D...
- Thread starter Remathilis
- Start date
Ogrork the Mighty
Explorer
Don't forget the Thaumaturgist prestige class (from either Complete Divine or Defenders of the Faith, I can't recall which).
Catavarie
First Post
I ran into this problem once before while DMing a game, one of my players wanted to be a Summoner and not anything else, he was absolutely adimant about bieng a Summoner. I hated the Idea at first (I'm kinda lazy like that), but I let him do it. We sat and talked over the details for several days before we were both happy with the way things worked out. WE decided that a "Summoner" is able to 'call forth' or 'create mystically' what he needed at the time be it anything from a bag to a "pet". I'll try to remeber all the details as my notes from then have long since been missing:
Speciallized Wizard which has access to all Level 0 Wizard Spells
Then we took all the Summoning style spells (Excluding Undead summonings) and created a new list of spells for him to have.
Also created a few Utility Summoning spells such as Portable hole, Rope, Fire (non-combat use, good for lighting a torch though), Skin of Water, Door (can be cast on a wall to give you way through it), Flying Carpet, etc..
The player really enjoyed the experience and it added a nice variety to the group.
P.S. This was done int he days of 2e, so Might workout differently now with 3.5, and be sure and discuss all possible spells, even unwritten ones, with your DM and tell him to take good notes so that he will have the resaource for next time someone wants to be a Summoner.
Speciallized Wizard which has access to all Level 0 Wizard Spells
Then we took all the Summoning style spells (Excluding Undead summonings) and created a new list of spells for him to have.
Also created a few Utility Summoning spells such as Portable hole, Rope, Fire (non-combat use, good for lighting a torch though), Skin of Water, Door (can be cast on a wall to give you way through it), Flying Carpet, etc..
The player really enjoyed the experience and it added a nice variety to the group.
P.S. This was done int he days of 2e, so Might workout differently now with 3.5, and be sure and discuss all possible spells, even unwritten ones, with your DM and tell him to take good notes so that he will have the resaource for next time someone wants to be a Summoner.
GlassJaw
Hero
I played a Drd/Wiz/Mystic Theurge up to level 17 and it was a really fun character. I specialed in Conjuration and had Spell Focus (Conj) and Augment Summoning. The cool thing is that I could use SF (Conj) for wizard spells and get Aug Summoning for Summon Nature's Ally. Summong Nature's Ally + Animal Growth is awesome and borderline on broken.
One of the last battles of the campaign I summoned a T-Rex and 4 rhinos and cast Animal Growth on them all. Great fun but make sure you have all your statblocks made beforehand!
One of the last battles of the campaign I summoned a T-Rex and 4 rhinos and cast Animal Growth on them all. Great fun but make sure you have all your statblocks made beforehand!
Zappo
Explorer
Here are my opinions on the various options for a Summoner character:
Sorcerer: Best choice IMO. You get summon monster and planar binding spells. As a sorcerer, you have a limited number of spells known, but that isn't a real problem: first, there aren't that many summoning spells, and second, a summoner is very versatile anyway. Remember that you don't have to take every single summon monster spell, as the higher level ones can handily emulate the lower level ones. You can cast lots of spells, and use metamagic on them with no increased casting time (summon monsters are 1 round anyway). If only you could use persistant spell on summons... but we can use planar binding for that. Oh, as a sorcerer you have a high Charisma, which is very useful with planar binding. The class is simply perfect for a summoner. Just don't assume that your creatures will always do the work for you, and remember to take the usual sorcerer staples - magic missile, fireball, dispel and a couple others.
Wizard: A close second. You get summon monster and planar binding one level earlier which is very important, but the sorcerer wins in all other respects.
Druid: You get spontaneous summoning, but you get that with a sorcerer too. However, you can only use nature's ally, which are much less useful than summon monsters IMO as few of them have useful special abilities. You don't get planar binding or planar ally, which is a major weakness. The druid is better as a combat summoner; he has animal growth and nature's allies are quite tough already. He also gets more things to do outside summoning. As an overall summoning specialist, I'd still use a sorcerer though, simply because of planar binding.
Cleric: Much like the wizard, only worse. Like wizards, you don't get spontaneous summoning. You also don't get planar binding - instead, you get planar ally, which carries an XP cost. And, you can't summon creatures of the wrong alignment, while arcane casters don't have this issue. The big advantage is that, like the druid, you are pretty good outside summoning.
Psion: This is actually pretty good. To be more precise, I'd be a Wilder and take the astral construct power using the extend knowledge feat (or whatever, the feat which lets you get an extra power from any list). You get supreme versatility in defining your creature, and astral constructs are pretty tough in combat too, even though (like the druid) you miss on miscellaneous powers. Unfortunately, you lack planar binding or similar effects, and this gives the edge to the sorcerer again.
Sorcerer: Best choice IMO. You get summon monster and planar binding spells. As a sorcerer, you have a limited number of spells known, but that isn't a real problem: first, there aren't that many summoning spells, and second, a summoner is very versatile anyway. Remember that you don't have to take every single summon monster spell, as the higher level ones can handily emulate the lower level ones. You can cast lots of spells, and use metamagic on them with no increased casting time (summon monsters are 1 round anyway). If only you could use persistant spell on summons... but we can use planar binding for that. Oh, as a sorcerer you have a high Charisma, which is very useful with planar binding. The class is simply perfect for a summoner. Just don't assume that your creatures will always do the work for you, and remember to take the usual sorcerer staples - magic missile, fireball, dispel and a couple others.
Wizard: A close second. You get summon monster and planar binding one level earlier which is very important, but the sorcerer wins in all other respects.
Druid: You get spontaneous summoning, but you get that with a sorcerer too. However, you can only use nature's ally, which are much less useful than summon monsters IMO as few of them have useful special abilities. You don't get planar binding or planar ally, which is a major weakness. The druid is better as a combat summoner; he has animal growth and nature's allies are quite tough already. He also gets more things to do outside summoning. As an overall summoning specialist, I'd still use a sorcerer though, simply because of planar binding.
Cleric: Much like the wizard, only worse. Like wizards, you don't get spontaneous summoning. You also don't get planar binding - instead, you get planar ally, which carries an XP cost. And, you can't summon creatures of the wrong alignment, while arcane casters don't have this issue. The big advantage is that, like the druid, you are pretty good outside summoning.
Psion: This is actually pretty good. To be more precise, I'd be a Wilder and take the astral construct power using the extend knowledge feat (or whatever, the feat which lets you get an extra power from any list). You get supreme versatility in defining your creature, and astral constructs are pretty tough in combat too, even though (like the druid) you miss on miscellaneous powers. Unfortunately, you lack planar binding or similar effects, and this gives the edge to the sorcerer again.
Last edited:
Elrik_DarkFury
First Post
A specialist wizard can be very strong if you are allowed by your DM to use Specialist Wizard Variants from Unearthed Arcana.
1)Replace your ability to summon a familiar for Rapid summoning.You can now cast summon monster as a standard action.(a no brainer for me)
2)Do not gain extra feat for advancig as a wizard for Enchanced Summoning.Instead of scribe scroll you gain Augment summoning at 1rst level.At 10th level your creatures gain another +2 to str and con.This raises to +4 at 20th level and stack with Augment summoning.
Also your creatures are toughter to dispell.Beginning at 5th level add +2 to th DC of any caster level made to dispel your summoned creatures.
(Also a no-brainer)
3)Do not gain the extra spell for beeing a specialist wizard to be able to turn your prepared spells into summons, althought the summon spell is going to be 1 spell level less than the one you used.This means that if you give up an improved invisibility spell to summon, you ll get a summon monster III creature not a summon monster (IV).
(not as good as a druid's ability but still great).
___________________
The Wizard
1)Replace your ability to summon a familiar for Rapid summoning.You can now cast summon monster as a standard action.(a no brainer for me)
2)Do not gain extra feat for advancig as a wizard for Enchanced Summoning.Instead of scribe scroll you gain Augment summoning at 1rst level.At 10th level your creatures gain another +2 to str and con.This raises to +4 at 20th level and stack with Augment summoning.
Also your creatures are toughter to dispell.Beginning at 5th level add +2 to th DC of any caster level made to dispel your summoned creatures.
(Also a no-brainer)
3)Do not gain the extra spell for beeing a specialist wizard to be able to turn your prepared spells into summons, althought the summon spell is going to be 1 spell level less than the one you used.This means that if you give up an improved invisibility spell to summon, you ll get a summon monster III creature not a summon monster (IV).
(not as good as a druid's ability but still great).
___________________
The Wizard
Dr. Strangemonkey
First Post
demiurge1138 said:
Seconded on the shaper psions point.
Similar Threads
