Summoning too weak?

[Thomas5251212]

As the second question in my possibly ongoing set of questions about EoM, my reading of the Summoning rules seems to make them perhaps overly weak by moderate levels. The base summoning isn't, of course, but the base summoning as written is next to useless; you summon something you can't control, and have no more influence over than if you'd run into it in the wild. The double-cost version which makes the creature friendlier seems more useful, but still is problematic with anything but dumb monsters. In addition, by moderate to high levels, summoning things several CR downhill of you seems of generally dubious usefulness; there might be some utility functions, but I can't see a 14th level caster getting that much benefit out of summoning CR 7 monsters.

I realize the Expert Summoner (if I'm remembering the name right) feat helps here some, but it seems odd that the basic category seems of such limited usefulness.

 

[RangerWickett]

If you look at the core rulebook summon spells, they're pretty much the same. With summon monster 5, you summon CR 5 creatures, even though you're at least 9th level. The base summon effect is designed to simulate things like Planar Binding, where you have to negotiate. Plus it lets you summon a nasty creature in the middle of the bad guys, hoping it will take out its anger on whatever's closest.

 

[Thomas5251212]

If you look at the core rulebook summon spells, they're pretty much the same. With summon monster 5, you summon CR 5 creatures, even though you're at least 9th level. The base summon effect is designed to simulate things like Planar Binding, where you have to negotiate. Plus it lets you summon a nasty creature in the middle of the bad guys, hoping it will take out its anger on whatever's closest.

Well, to be honest, I do consider by-the-book summoning somewhat useless beyond the first few levels, too, but frankly the double-cost summonings seem weaker even than that, since you still have to deal with attitude on the intelligent ones.

As to Planar Binding--the problem there is the summonings don't last very long; so it again looks like by the time you summon something, negotiate with it, and send it off to do its thing it'll have had to be down-CR by more than a bit just because of paying for your duration.

As to the "monster dropped in the middle"--I got the impression the summoned creatures knew who summoned them; did I err? If so, it'd seem logical they'd be ticked at him, and ignore others if they got the heck out of its way. Of course dumb monsters might not think this through all the way.

 

[RangerWickett]

Ah, I see what you mean. I meant for the obedient summons to make the creature fully loyal.

How about: "Obedient. Summoned creatures are completely loyal, though they may resent being summoned."

 

[Thomas5251212]

Ah, I see what you mean. I meant for the obedient summons to make the creature fully loyal.

How about: "Obedient. Summoned creatures are completely loyal, though they may resent being summoned."

Well, that would at least help; I still think in practice above about eighth level it's going to be less and less worth your time unless you're summoning them for some utility function, but at least that's no worse than the base rules are.

 

[DonTadow]

Ah, I see what you mean. I meant for the obedient summons to make the creature fully loyal.

How about: "Obedient. Summoned creatures are completely loyal, though they may resent being summoned."

I'm creating a summon prestige class at 10th level for my cleric and i might incorporate that in her powers