DM -- how to deal with a summoner build (3.5)

[Geki]

Hey,

I'm currently DM'ing a campaign with five level seven players. The group is pretty lop-sided towards magic users (we have a cleric, a druid and a spirit shaman) and the fact that two of them are built towards summoning is getting to be a pain in the arse.

The spirit shaman literally does nothing but summon. He has a ring of the beast that ups his Summon Nature's Ally one level whenever he uses it, and the only spell he uses except for SNA is obscuring mist, in case ranged characters target him. I've been playing around with different ways of disrupting his summoning (archers with readied actions, spellcasters pimped out with spells that interfere with spellcasting) but he simply runs away or gets into cover and then pumps out summon after summon. By the sixth or seventh round combat is a bloated, unmanageable, boring mess. I've had to up the difficulty of the fights to keep NPC's viable against his tigers and dire wolves, but this is making straight combat very difficult for the non-magic users and they're getting torn apart in melee.

I'm basically looking for ways of countering his summons and making sure everyone else gets a look-in in combat, because right now it's all about him and it's tedious for EVERYONE, including me.

[Flickerdart]

AoE spells are great for wiping the field of irritating mooks (though BFC is a close second for making the irrelevant - drop a Web and what good are they?). Most of the stuff from SNAV has HP in the 60s or lower, so two or three Fireballs should be enough.

Why does your combat last that long, though? Usually things should be over in 3-4 rounds. I recommend using enemies that can do more damage and maybe don't have such high defenses.

[Octopus Jack]

Talk to him out of the game, tell him that the amount his summoning is bogging down combat at the moment and ask him if he doesn't mind easing up on it a little.

Alternatively you could compromise and edit the way summoning works, say only allow one summoned creature out at a time but increase the duration of the spell and make that creature more powerful or customizable or something that will still keep the player happy whilst not allowing him to spam critters everywhere.

[Spuddles]

His summons last what, 7 rounds, 10 rounds? Just have enemies tactically retreat and let his spells wear out. Drop a black tentacles or solid fog to cover their retreat.

Summoned animals have low AC and relatively low HP. Let him fill the battlefield with enemies, then open up with some AoE damage and a brute monster with reach and cleave. His summons have what, 50-60 HP? A CL8 blast does 25-30 damage on a failed save; 10-15 if they make it. A stone giant does about 20 damage per hit, and will hit a summoned creature with both iteratives (except for ones).

Flying monsters will also avoid a lot of his summons.



AoE spells are great for wiping the field of irritating mooks (though BFC is a close second for making the irrelevant - drop a Web and what good are they?). Most of the stuff from SNAV has HP in the 60s or lower, so two or three Fireballs should be enough.

Why does your combat last that long, though? Usually things should be over in 3-4 rounds. I recommend using enemies that can do more damage and maybe don't have such high defenses.

Forcing str checks from a dozen monsters will likely slow combat down even more. No save (or just save once) battlefield control might be better- walls, pits, solid fogs. A handful of fireballs should work fine, though. Blasting is only bad if you're expecting to have more than one combat.

[Saintheart]

What's the alignment of the animals the Spirit Shaman is summoning? Protection from Good/Evil/Chaos/Law keeps out summoned creatures without a save, and it's a level one spell. Magic Circle Against X does the same.

[Geki]

A couple of the last fights have been really long. I set up a mountain pass with goliath sniper archers, and that fight took a good three hours because of the difficulty of reaching and killing the archers. The last fight was a coup against the lord of a city, and to make it more coup-like I had some of his men betray him and gave control of them over to the players. The lord was level 12, so he took a long time to kill, and he had a cleric buddy loaded up with anti-magic spells to deal with the summoner. Unfortunately the summoner ran away (he always does) and just summoned from far back, and so the secondary summoner -- who's nowhere near as annoying -- ended up taking the brunt of the anti-magic spells.

EDIT -- unfortunately he's true neutral. I had considered using the protection against x spells against him, but until his alignment shifts, it's not feasible.

The AOE spells are a good idea. The problem with taking a big combat brute is that is screws over the two semi-melee characters, the Hexblade and the rogue/swordsage who've been marginalised as a result of the summoning shenanigans.

[Spuddles]

If the battle field fills with summons, just retreat, wait a minute, and now you have a couple opponents without spell slots.

I would go with AoE spam. Hexblade has charisma to saves vs. spells and the rogue has evasion.

[nedz]

I found that when using summoners against the party: after a while the players worked out that they could just ignore the summoned creatures and go for the casters. So highly mobile mooks with high tumble skills are what you need. If the summoned monsters are large: tight terrain will cause them to block each other. A log jam of tigers should be hilarious.

[eggynack]

Unfortunately he's true neutral. I had considered using the protection against x spells against him, but until his alignment shifts, it's not feasible.

Why is that a problem? Magic circle against evil states that, " no nongood summoned creatures can enter the area." Neutral, being a subset of nongood, would be very much affected. In fact, if all of his summons are neutral, as tends to be the case for SNA, any magic circle would work.

[Geki]

Why is that a problem? Magic circle against evil states that, " no nongood summoned creatures can enter the area." Neutral, being a subset of nongood, would be very much affected. In fact, if all of his summons are neutral, as tends to be the case for SNA, any magic circle would work.

That is great to know. I'm also going to stock up NPC's with scrolls of silence and slow. And maybe build two ninja/assassins to shadow step to him and stab him up.

[Harlot]

I'm running a game with the exact same problem and found that the solution was to have them meet intelligent foes that go for the spellcaster and not his summoned creatures.

Use the elements (and terrain) against him; strong winds, hailstorms etc will force concentration checks and has the advantage of annihilating his Obscuring Mist:


A strong wind (21+ mph) disperses the fog in 1 round.

And yes, I agree on the AoE point of view which takes care of both monsters and mist:
A fireball, flame strike, or similar spell burns away the fog in the explosive or fiery spell’s area. A wall of fire burns away the fog in the area into which it deals damage

[Geki]

Yeah, it seems fireball is the way to go. I didn't actually think anything except wind got rid of obscuring mist, but now that I know that, I'll be packing a lot more NPC wizards to fling fireballs at him. Concentration checks, no mist, and damage to his summons. I'm also going to start breaking the session up from 2-3 big fights to several smaller, easier fights so that he wastes his summons early and has to think of other ways to deal.

[Diarmuid]

Are you making sure he's having to use a Full Round Action to cast the summons and that his Ring of the Beast does not allow him to boost the SNA level beyond the highest level of spell he could normally cast?

Enemies with Spellcraft should be able to identify what's being cast and direct their cronies/buddies to interrupt the SNA if possible.

Dispel Magic will also get rid of summoned creatures and has a decent AoE.

[Perseus]

If there is 1 to 2 players at the game then summons work as normal.

However when there is more PCs, then a PC may only have one summon at a time. Whenever you cast another summon spell it doesn't make a new creature but extends the duration of your previous summon. When you cast the second summon you can instead change your creature instead of extending the duration but you can only have one. SNA and SM are considered the same spell for these rules.

When using a higher level summon spell to summon a lower level monster you don't gain the 2d4 of them or whatever it is. The duration of the spell is extended by 2d4 rounds.

Greenbound summoning is banned.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Talk to him out of the game, tell him that the amount his summoning is bogging down combat at the moment and ask him if he doesn't mind easing up on it a little.
I can't agree strongly enough with this.