Talk:Advanced Summoning (3.5e Feat)

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Revision as of 08:14, 18 December 2015 by Sulacu (talk | contribs) (Added rating.)
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Ratings[edit]

RatedNeutral.png Sulacu is neutral on this article and rated it 2 of 4.
I love summoning, and I wanna like this, but I would definitely add a minimum character level here. While summoning peters out greatly at high levels, which certainly justifies the power boost and the interesting options this feat allows, certain 2nd or 3rd tier summons are too strong to be allowed 2 levels prior:

A 1st level druid that gets this right away can summon things like black bears and dire bats, and calling in a dire wolf at 3rd level pretty much equates to winning the fight. Not the fault of this feat, mind you; it's just that the power level of core summoning is too erratic to justify this kind of straight power boost.

RatedLike.png Leziad likes this article and rated it 3 of 4.
Perfectly okay with this. Summon Monster isn't as strong as the great contender in conjuration like planar binding, planar allies and spirit binding. This feat do make it more interesting and convenient however.
RatedOppose.png Ghostwheel opposes this article and rated it 0 of 4.
First, I think this should be VH due to the power and versatility summons can have and the spell-like abilities that they in turn can cast. Second, I can't agree with giving people higher-level spells (effectively) than they should be able to cast at their level.


Summon Monster is like 99% shit though. I cannot see this as being VH with the vanilla series of spell. --Leziad (talk) 08:39, 20 February 2015 (UTC)
A. That's not true, a good 35+% of summon monster spells are incredibly strong in the right situation, and you can choose just the right creature for the situation upon casting it every time.
B. 99% of sorcerer/wizard spells are shit in combat. That doesn't make them shit classes. --Ghostwheel (talk) 09:01, 20 February 2015 (UTC)
Reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaally?...
You're opposing me on the grounds that you don't like the concept of summoning, cause that argument there. It applies to any and all summoning of any creature which might have SLAs! This is completely separate from the fact that you think summoning is strong because of THAT. That's not why summoning is good, and without optimizing it actually it pretty underwhelming off the bat. -- Eiji-kun (talk) 09:17, 20 February 2015 (UTC)
Strawman much? Let me give you an example:
With just this feat, you use Summon Monster III, and get an Artaaglith (Ghostwalk). Now, for the price of a level 3 spell, you get access to Animate Dead, Cause Fear (no one cares about this one), Death Knell (again, useless), Desecrate, and Stinking Cloud (!!) all at your CL if you're a wizard.
And this is just one example. There's a plethora of spell-likes you can access with Summon Monster, and with the pure amount of utility a single spell gives you (rivalling or even exceeding that of Shadow Conjuration/Evocation), I think it's solidly a strong spell.
I'm not opposed to the concept of summoning. I think it's fine (slightly weak, but fine) in VH games with how strong its versatility is, as well as how much support it has from various feats and PrCs. This makes a decent option a whole spell level stronger, which, according to the D&D rules, doubles its power. --Ghostwheel (talk) 09:37, 20 February 2015 (UTC)
Whoa, first of all, Ghostwalk is a crazy book. You probably shouldn't draw anything from Ghostwalk.
That aside, is Artaaglith on the summoning list? Must have been something from Ghostwalk, the aforementioned book of crazy. Sorry to poo poo your sources, but can you find something not from Ghostwalk?
That aside, that doesn't change the fact that I haven't changed any spell lists (the virtual Summon Monster 10 aside). The argument is still coming from the fact that "summoning itself gives you strength". -- Eiji-kun (talk) 09:44, 20 February 2015 (UTC)
First... sorcerer and wizards aren't shit at combat, glitterdust alone is most effect than what most level 15 can do. Also your Artaaglith's animate dead won't be all that good... given it will animate the monster under it control and it itself only last one round per level. Also ghostwalk is full of broken poo anyway. It like saying, a feat that advance animal companion is BAD because magebred ghost tiger and fleshraker exist. --Leziad (talk) 09:53, 20 February 2015 (UTC)
As for stinking cloud you cast a spell as a 1 round action, whitch itself last for 1 round per level to cast a spell that you could cast with a nonscaling DC that is worse than yours. Why not just cast stinking cloud yourself, or say wall of smoke? Or other useful VH spell? Sure one might argue it allow you to get off more spells, but the cost is prohebitive (more spll slots, worst DCs AND a 1 round action down the drain). --Leziad (talk) 09:56, 20 February 2015 (UTC)
I'm sympathetic to people ignoring interactions with homebrew that isn't theirs, but I think it's harder to ignore WotC published interractions in the way you want Eiji. Not that it's relevant in this case, because Ghost's example isn't even right. The monster entry on page 158 specifically calls out summon monster VI (or 6) as being needed to call it. I suspect it was an honest mistaking of VI with IV (because roman numerals are dumb). With this feat, you get to do it with summon monster V at level 9, and I pretty much don't care at that point even if I would care at 5. But if he were right, and you didn't have that note on the bottom, then I'd agree that he had a bit of a point. - Tarkisflux Talk 17:46, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

(RESET INDENT) So it is Tarkis. Funny, cause I had just finished checking my copy of Ghostwalk and being more shocked that Ghostwheel was worried about Stinking Cloud, when the thing has 5th level cleric casting, a much more dangerous thing. But I got the numbers mixed too, 6th makes a LOT more sense and is actually in line with what is expected of the summon monster line. I know Ghostwalk is home to some crazy stuff, so I didn't question an apparently broken thing within it. To be fair to Ghostwalk, it's not a mere splatbook but is actually a niche setting, so having unusually cheap and easy ghosting and similar abilities makes sense there, even if it's not at all balanced outside of it.

That puts my mind at ease. -- Eiji-kun (talk) 19:06, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Well Tarkis while I agree with you on the most part, sometimes there just broken things. By example would it be fair to rate a feat that grant an animal companion an oppose because the fleshraker exist? If we consider the basic summons, advanced summoning is balanced (according to me at least) and there may be borderline broken option in supplement but you would only pull those in VH games anyway, so it has little to do with the balance of advanced summoning. Much like a ranger won't pull a magebred ghost tiger in a moderate game a summoner with advanced summoning probably shouldn't pull a Soul Archon (I made this one up because I don't have any example of broken summon monster creature) in a high game. --Leziad (talk) 01:20, 21 February 2015 (UTC)