Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 zombiegleemax Jul 01, 2005 4:04:43	In my opinion, summoning a monster, from a wizard's or sorcerer's standpoint, should be more than "Poof! A flash of blue-white light, a haze of magical smoke, and a fiendish goblin stands in front of you, ready to do your bidding for a minute or two, before disappearing suddenly." I imagine summoning to be more along the lines of the Planar Binding or Planar Ally spells, with long durations and more self-willed servants, than the various Summon Monster's and the like. So, I propose a new spin on summoning monsters with these short-duration spells: greatly increased durations to the summon spells, but with certain drawbacks and tweaks to make it more interesting and, if this makes any sense, more "magically realistic". The benefits: 1. Longer duration. Increase the duration from a measly 1 round/level to 1 week/level. Who would summon a monster for 2 rounds, really? In perspective, this would be similar to summoning a rather weak monster for maybe 10-15 seconds. If I was a fresh-from-academy wizard, I think I would simply use my magical skill to blast the target to mush/protect my hide directly, rather than use a "meat shield" that would vanish shortly. Strangely, that's it for the benefits. Here are what some would call "drawbacks", but I see them more as tools to enrich the summoning experience. The drawbacks: 1. A summoning circle. A magical shrine dedicated to piercing the distance between the material world and the far off plane where this creature resides. It seems that summoning would be inherently powerful magic, so it would need some kind of focus to work properly. This lends itself to an interesting mechanic, but I'll talk about later. Also, this circle could be used multiple times, making it the source of all your summoned creatures. This explains summoning rooms in the homes of lower-level wizards and sorcerers, and also gives opportunity to dungeons ("Attention! The lord of this region requests that you fine adventurers seek out and destroy the summoning chambers of Dark Lord Terenic, as his creatures insist on bothering the farmers."). Lastly, the circle or gateway would have a cost to it's construction, similar to a component, or maybe even an XP cost, like a magic item. 2. Monster personality. A creature that sticks around for a minute or two at the very most is basically guaranteed to not have any kind of roleplaying significance. However, if the same Azer has been preparing your meals for a month, he might have a few quirks that you might notice (maybe in him, maybe in your cooking :P). Also, if a red Slaad has been guarding the gates to your stronghold for only three days, and he's already been assaulted by numerous assassins intent on taking your scalp, he's probably not going to have a very nice disposition towards you. Since these monsters would be more free-willed, they might require some persuasion to do your bidding (Diplomacy DC 10+the monster's HD+ it's Cha modifier would seem well enough, or your standard Intimidate check for the abusive types). 3. The end of the duration brings up a question: if the summoning circle is the way to bridge the gap between your world and theirs, wouldn't that also be the way that they would leave? I would imagine the magic of summoning the creature would give it a kind of "magical clock" that told it how long it had to be in your service; when that time started running down, the creature might behave in a less-than-favorable way, knowing it only has to put up with being subservient for a little longer (possibly a +4 to the Diplomacy DC). However, dependent on your treatment of the creature, it might actually want to stay. On the other side of the coin, it's not impossible for a badly treated servant to try and sneak into your summoning chamber to flee home (it can try, even if it doesn't know the proper spells or rituals). Meaning, that Azer cook of yours, if nicely fed, clothed, and housed, might want to stick around in the material plane for even longer than the prescribed duration. Also, the Slaad guardian might have a few plans of his own regarding his tenure as your slave, such as either A) faking a grievous injury, allowing him a chance to escape from you prematurely, or B) attempting to maul you to death mercilessly when you turn your back on him next. To sum all of this up, I think this would make for quite the interesting variant rule, allowing even lower-level spellcasters to taste the ability of controlling a small band of servants. Imagine the chaos if a bumbling mage, living in the forest near your typical hamlet, tried his hand a summoning some lesser fiendish animals, only to have them all simultaneously revolt and wander off into the countryside. Using the rules as they are now, the bumbling mage in question would have to be level 9 to cast Lesser Planar Binding, seeming to me to be far too experienced a mage to be bumbling about as such, and he could summon a creature of up to 8HD, meaning this hedge-wizard would, instead of releasing a rather mundane threat of fiendish vipers, has now unleashed an angry Vrock upon the vulnerable townsfolk, which would surely reduce their poor town to ashes. In essence, this variant would allow lower-level wizards and sorcerers to take a crack at summoning like the "big boys" do. It gives summoning creatures a more uniform feel to it, I suppose, and what's to stop a conjurer from using the same summoning chamber his entire career, from apprentice to master mage? I also think it adds a kind of seriousness to summoning. Consider this last little adventure hook: an overzealous apprentice, fresh from his first lessons on monster summoning, quietly makes his way into his master's summoning chamber, eager to use his newfound skills. Overconfident in his abilities, the naive mageling opens his master's summoning book, wanting to summon something tremendous enough to impress his master in the morning. However, the apprentice soon learns that his master was right: "When summoning a creature, pick something you know you can control. Don't be like a chip-toothed troll, and try to bite off more than you can chew... whatever it is, may bite you back."
#2 zombiegleemax Jul 29, 2005 23:45:48	I see a major problem in it. If a single spellcaster just uses one slot a day, by the end of 3 weeks, he has a small platoon of creatures following him around, which he'll have for a while. And he's only had to use one spell a day. Without limits on A) the number of creatures the wizard can control, and B) the cost of maintaining the summons, I think it's too powerful. I definitely like the flavor of it though. The short durations never made much sense to me either. I always pretended the wizard was shaping the creature out of magic, so that it made more sense to me.
#3 oakspar77777 Jul 30, 2005 1:07:46	Creature summoning has three major things going for it. First, it is very versatile in combat. You don't choose what to summon until you cast the spell, so you can summon creatures especially well suited to the foe you are facing (elementals with specific immunities, etc). You also choose where it pops in at, allowing it good access to engaging spellcasters, setting up flanks and AoOs, and the like. Second, it is very versatile as an auxiliary spell outside of combat. It can fetch items with flyers, trip traps, flush enemies, even serve as decent short term mounts (especially with flight, starting at SM4). Third, they are NOT inherently aggressive, meaning that they do not end the protection granted by spells like invisibility and sanctuary. They also have some important limiting factors. First, they take a Full Round to cast. That makes them very easy to disrupt, and harder to cast in succession, cannot be quickened, etc. Second, they do not last long. This keeps them from replacing Steed spells, Charm spells, or other auxiliary spells. Third, the creatures they summon are never on CR with the encounter, making them combat balance shifters, rather than combat enders (like the more popular save or die spells). THEREFORE Most people's dissatisfaction with summoning spells comes from their general uselessness at lower levels. They do, however, scale well, since their duration continually increases, making a LV19 SM3 much better than a LV12 SM3 (which is not the case with most LV3 spells). Also, there is one in every spell slot and they can scale down at power to two lists with multiple creatures, meaning they can fill holes in "weaker" spell levels. If you want to up the amount your players use Summon Spells, I would suggest the following changes: First, introduce a minimum duration of 5 rounds. That increases their usefulness at low levels without increase the spell power overall. Second, consider ways to improve the creatures summoned. Give them names and make them individuals, so that the Dire Rats you summon are always the SAME Dire Rats (that come in the same order). Then, all you need is a way to reach said animal (in care of deity on outer planes for divine, a huge bestiary of a Conjurers guild for arcane, or an established grove for a druid, etc). That way, your PC can use some of their wealth to improve their summoned creatures with magical items. A few otherwise pawn-shop bait bracers, rings, and amulets will boost the individuals summoned, and gives the PC more of a feeling of "control" over the spell. (Though clever PCs might give a specific item like a scroll or wand to such a creature so that the summon spell served to also summon that item without having to risk carrying it on them.) Third, make sure your players know how to use Summoning spells to full effect, setting up flanks for Rogues and Fighters, Constrictors, bears, and other good grapplers to disrupt spellcasters, using defensive spells and walls, etc.
#4 azzrael Jul 31, 2005 13:13:33	Excellent post. I have actually been thinking the same thing for some time now. Chalk summoning circles, incense, several minutes of chanting the proper incantations, and a battle of wills with the summoned creature, together make summoning actually interesting. The instant summon monster spells have always seemed kind of cheap and shallow to me. Kudos.
#5 zombiegleemax Jul 31, 2005 16:45:13	This sounds like a good idea, though you may want to use something more along the lines of the "incantations" from Unearthed Arcana. One of the components of the incantation could be a spell slot from the appropriate level. The material, xp, and time requirements for something like what you are suggesting also seem to match up with the incantation idea. Now you have a pile of fiendish goblins running around causing trouble for your 5th level sorcerer, and he hires the PCs to "mop them up" since their durations won't end for a while. That's just my thought.
#6 angus_cotton Aug 01, 2005 15:46:23	I really can't tell if this is a serious nerf or a super-munchkinlike benefit. Let me tell you first off, that I have played a druid to level 24, and the summon spells as presented in the players handbook are extremely powerful, if not too powerful in some cases. Yes, 1/round per level seems weak and useless at lower levels, but that is cause they are supposed to be. Wizards, druids, sorcerers, they just won't outshine the melee classes in the lower levels, but on the other hand, at HIGHER levels these classes all outshine the party melees. Likewise, the summoning spells get INSANE. Just using the core books, you can summon multiple Dire Tigers and Animal Growth them on the round they are summoned pretty much. Add some of the supplemental handbooks, and you get Bearheart, Greater Magic Fang, Nature's Favor, Nature's Avatar. Add the alternate summoning charts from Dragon magazine, if ya DM allows it, and you can summon Dire Elephants and solo Tarrasques. Even if the summoned creatures you have are not a challenge for the opponent you are fighting, you can still summon 1d4+1 monsters every round. This gives the monster targets to hit, and thus sucks up damage that your party would otherwise be taking. You can chain summon a small army of this "cannon fodder" while your party prepares actions or deals damage from a range. My point is, it is already pretty powerful, and frankly at high level, 1 round per level is a long time. Usually a whole combat...usually more. A 20th level wizard/sorc/druid summons monsters that stay up for 20 rounds. And it can be chain cast as long as you got memmed slots. Making it a week per level may give punch to the lower level caster, but honestly, the lower caster shouldn't get the punch. Not only does this defeat the purpose of familiars and animal companions, but also extrapolating this into higher levels would be insane. (Do you really want the caster bringing 30 Dire tigers along with him on the adventure later on?) You suggested, on the other hand, to limit summoning to summoning circles. This would indeed curb the 1/week per level this the other way if the monsters are not allowed to leave the circle, but...you going to make druids use a summoning circle too? Seem that it would be unfair to put this limit on just the sorc/wizard, but not the cleric/druid. And, by putting the summoning circle on all of them, you would be nerfing the primary offensive power of the druid, whereas, summoning is not necessarily the primarily offensive power of a sorc/wiz. If the monster summoned IS allowed to leave the circle, then what's the point? Might be more realistic from a magic standpoint, I suppose, but from gaming it makes little difference. So too, the idea of saying that you could lose control of your own monster is moot, cause a caster can dispel his own magic with no checker. In fact, as a side note, dispelling magic is the real bane of the summoner, cause a opponent you fight can just area Greater Dispel on all yor summoned creatures and poof them back to where they came from. Even if the checker fails to dispel a few summoned monsters, it still checks on all the buffs you cast up on the summoned monsters to make um tougher. No caster in his right mind would use summoned monsters against another caster. It is just a pointless waste of time. I thought the 3rd edition rules for summoning were markedly better than the 2nd edition rules. The old rules were just plain hard to understand and interpret. This new system is concrete. It takes this long to cast, the monster appears instantly and attacks instantly, it last this long. It may not be "magically realistic" to ya, but in terms of playability and game mechanics, it rocks.
#7 eightbitmage Aug 02, 2005 18:33:53	Perhaps something could be done to combine both the old and the new. Keep the rules as they are, but add the ability to use the summoning circle to summon a number of creatures equal to your hit dice (or twice your hit dice). Also the spell slot could be gone until the creature is unsummoned, giving the mage even more motivation to rid himself of his freeloading Azer.
#8 egoslayer1 Aug 10, 2005 12:37:23	Perhaps a good way to provide the desired flavor is a metamagic feat, Enduring Summoning [Metamagic] Prereq - none Benefit - Summoning spell last indefinitely. When any summoning spell is prepared with this feat, the casting time becomes 10 minutes per level. A spell focus is required, consisting of a summoning circle which is artfully crafted using rare powdered gems, an other exotic materials. This summoning circle requires a craft DC20+ the summoning spell level and 1 week of dedicated work to complete. Once the summoning spell us prepared and cast using the summoning circle, the summoned creature can be forced to stay longer. The duration becomes 1 day per level. For the duration that the summoned creature is here, the spell slot used to summon the creature is unavailable, as the spell is essentially not finished being cast. You can have a maximum of double your HD in summoned creatures whose durations are effected by this feat at any given time. Use of this feat increases the effective spell level by 2, 3 or 4 to taste. A minor XP cost could be added if you're worried about the ability being abused or used excessively. Egoslayer1
#9 fuzzy_logic Aug 26, 2005 21:35:32	I like the idea of week/level summon spells. What if the spell slots didn't regenerate until the day after the summoned creatures were banished/killed/expired, thus reducing the benefit to casting them ahead of time?
#10 arkonth_dup Sep 03, 2005 15:31:59	While I like elements of the current system, your idea also sounds appealing. I think the best solution would be to offer a compromise. Allow summoning spells to be used as normal, for those times your wizard really needs a celestial elephant now, but also allow a long term complicated summoning ritual that brings the benefits and drawbacks that your system offers. To balance this, I suggest the enhanced casting time, and to keep wizards from shelling out tons of spells and getting billions of monsters, place a cost for keeping summoned monsters. I suggest that while a spellcaster holds a creature to the material plane, he must leave whatever spell slot he used to summon them, invested in holding them here. Until the creature is gone he simply loses that spell slot. After the spell expires, if the creatures beak free of his power (he fails the diplomacy checks or intimidate or handle animal or whatever), or decides to stay, they can either leave of their own accord or instead remain without help. This way your scenario in the forest is plausible, but it's not blatantly unbalanced. I also have one more suggestion. Because not all spellcasters are going to have the requisite skills to persuade their summonings to hang around, why not allow the caster half his caster level to his check to represent the magical forces he expends holding the creature to his service and the material plane? That way non-durids can manage to hold their summoned animals, and sour taciturn unfriendly wizards can hold powerful demons to their service.
#11 bill_bisco_average_adventurer Sep 26, 2005 20:26:42	Of course, if this was ever seriously done, I'd bet that WOTC would make a limit of how many Summoned Hit Dice which you could control, and that would seriously annoy me. The Limit on Animate Dead Hit Dice is Silly Enough Already because Skeletons and Zombies are so weak. The way it is currently, you could use feats and items and spells to increase the duration of how long your monsters stay and there's no limit to how many of them you can control.
#12 zombiegleemax Sep 26, 2005 22:07:53	The problem with all these other suggestion is this: Planar ally/planar binding already do it. And it's plenty easy for a mage to screw up summons with lesser planar binding. It's pretty easy for a mage (even a 9th level one) in a bit of a hurry to just chuck his summoning circle together, and fail the spellcraft check, especially if his spellcraft isn't that hot. Sorcerers, I'm looking at you here. As for summons being lame at 1st/2nd level, you're right, they are. In fact, they're probably TOO weak. I would say that adjusting the durations from 1 round/level to 3 rounds+1 round/level would cover it.
#13 zombiegleemax Sep 27, 2005 12:19:17	A variant that someone said here involves using the spell slot until the monster is dismissed or dies. Potentially it gives lower level casters more punch since they can keep summoned allies around for a while. At the same time it prevents higher level casters from running around with "30 dire tigers" since they'd have to have 30 spell slots of the appropriate spell level unusable. If the monster dies, you'll have to rest to regain the spell slot and recast it, a bit of a challenge for lower lvl casters since they can't just throw their summoned monsters in their deaths without consequence; however a higher level caster could keep an extra slot uncast in reserve to re-summon a minion that could potentially die in the course of a mission. Casting from a scroll or wand would simply give the user the original caster's caster level in days for a creature that the original caster could/would summon. So, using a summon monster 3 wand would give you 5-20 days of summoned monster time depending on the wand's creator's original caster level. It gives low lvl casters a minion that lasts a few days as long as they sacrifice or rather "maintain" the casting of the spell, it also keeps higher level casters from summoning a herd of celestial bison since they'd have to keep the summon "maintained". I love this idea. I doubt I will need such a method in the campaign I run however. The party I run has like....4 main tanks, 3 ranged/melee, 1 tumbler/meleer, 2 wizards, 2 clerics; so they don't really need extra beef for all of their melees.
#14 rks Sep 28, 2005 2:56:08	Yes, do both! * Keep the versatile "on the fly"-spells as they are now. * The construction of a summon-circle costs X*1000 gp, where X is maximum spell level (or HD of called creature?) and xp-cost is a 25th as usual. (Falls into Create Wondrous Items or, perhaps, into a new feat). * Make a summoned creature, that has been summoned through a summon-circle, be CALLED instead of summoned, and make the caster pay a small xp-amount for each such called creature, perhaps 1 xp per HD of called creature per day the creature stays.