Summoning: Casting times and preferences

[Mouseferatu]

Okay, I haven't seen a lot of characters focus on the summon monster or summon nature's ally spells. The only ones that have have all made use of optional rules (such as the conjurer in Unearthed Arcana) that reduce the casting time.

So, would people use these spells more if they were standard actions? Is there really a need for them to have 1 round casting times? Personally, I've seen no real evidence that these spells are particularly broken (though I admit they can be pretty potent). I'm not convinced such a long casting time is necessary, and I've almost never seen anyone use them when they had to abide by that restriction.

Just curious what others think.

 

[Kunimatyu]

I think that the 1 round casting time is annoying and makes you way too prone to impromptu target practice.

What -would- be fair would be to have the animals appear immediately, but not attack until your next turn. A feat would also be available to allow the creature to attack immediately, but only if you spend a full-round action(not 1 round; key difference) to summon them.

 

[brehobit]

I find SNA to be a very powerful set of spells. Now admittedly, when I've played a druid that did this, I built her around it. But if you spend pretty much all your feats on being a good summoner you become _huge_.

Nothing more fun than dropping the creatures at the start of your turn (from last turn) then casting another as a standard action and dropping them in at the same time. Can really change the fight in a hurry.

 

[Mercule]

I think a full-round action would be more appropriate than either a standard action or "one full round". The latter is a bizarre and unnecessary construct. Standard action might be a bit nice, but not game-breaking.

 

[Hammerhead]

Also, the summoner's best friend: Rapid Spell. Don't bother picking up the feat, just get the metamagic item (if you can).

 

[blargney the second]

I think it'd be fine as a standard action. My NPCs would have fun with that too.

 

[ZSutherland]

My major gripe with the spells isn't the casting time, though I don't see that it would make them over-powered to drop to a full-round action, but the book-keeping necessary to really get the full value of this spell. Keeping the stats for all potentially summoned critters, buffed with augment summoning if you have it (and you should if you're going to use these spells much), etc. I generally suggest that players keep a notecard with the stat-block for each summoned creature so they don't have to try to look it up in the MM and modify it in their heads to fit various buffs. Unfortunately, that usually turns my players off completely.

As for the specifics of the casting time, I've never really understood the purpose of it. Given that the monsters summoned (or nature's allies) are pretty weak in comparison to any other party member combatively, their best use in combat is aid ally actions, setting up flanks, and eating enemy damage. Eventually, some of them have some nice special attacks or special qualities that are situationally useful in combat. On the other hand, a clever and inventive player can find out of combat uses for some of the creatures that can be immensely useful (like a burrow speed), but these applications aren't really negatively affected by the long cast time, since they're not cast in round-by-round combat.

 

[Nifft]

The monsters are weak in combat ... if you compare them to PCs with high stats.

I'll wager that a Wizard in a group of four 25-point-buy PCs won't find his summons to be all that weak.

The trouble is that, relative to the regular power creep areas (PrC, feats, spells, etc. -- direct damage output enhancements), summoning spells have gotten only a few HUGE power boosts, which are typically campaign-specific and otherwise ignored. (Rashemi Elemental Summons and Ashbound Summoner, I'm looking at you!)

The 3.0e Alienist was a reasonable power-creep for summoners, but then they nerfed that so hard in Complete Arcane that it's almost as bad as Mindbender.

The other problem is: when you learn a "normal" spell, you can fit all the effects on one card. If a splatbook comes out with a new spell, you can take it or not, and it's just one extra card.

To boost summoning, one needs more critters, or more templates, or both. That's a multiplication of cards. Apparently, complexity does not sell.

So, IMHO the easy fix is: reduce casting time if you're not playing Core-only 25pt buy.

C, -- N

 

[Graf]

I am generally a huge stickler for RAW.
Especially when it comes to tichy little changes (people don’t remember, or they only remember sometimes, or you remember like two rounds later).

But the summoning spells casting times are aggravating.
The sub-rule (or whatever) is hard to remember and violates one of the unspoken rules of DnD. Namely: Someone goes, then someone else goes. Sure, it doesn’t make any sense for your fighter buddy to run (withdraw) 60 away from the orc and you cast a wall of fire before the the orc has moved even a step to follow your friend but that’s how the rules work.

Spell casting (i.e. casting summoning spells) that sorta takes multiple actions (it's going on while other people do stuff), but doesn’t (cause you get another action when you normally would) implicitly breaks the expected game flow.

And, frankly, it’s not much of a balancing factor anyway; most casters spend a pretty big chunk of time standing around during combat anyway; I’m not sure that casting times are important enough to act as any kind of significant “limiting factor” if the spells are too powerful (highly debatable I think) then they ought to be made weaker if they aren’t they aren’t.

[edits=clarity]

 

[frankthedm]

What people who think summon spells take too long usually don't consider or try to ignore is

1. Being able to choose what you summon is versatility that must be paid for. Whether or not one agrees with 3e charging casters through the nose for spells with any versatility, that is the way things go.

2. Summons are bodies. Another living creatures to take hits and take advantage of the combat positioning rules. Instant flanks for rogues, grapplers to tie up enemies, speed bumps to foil charges and to take advantage of how wotc hosed overrun. Trap detectors and trap springers.

The unweildy casting times makes sure the party has to place effort into protecting the caster in exchange for a meat shield even a lawful good character can allow to die without a second thought.