Summoning

[weckar]

HI there.
Thus far, I have always banned summoning at my table because the few times I did allow it it severely slowed down combat to the point where it was simply unbearable. Now I have a player who says they will walk if they can't make a summoner. Is there maybe a way to streamline summoning in combat, so you don't have to run each creature's turn individually?

[Andezzar]

there is no RAW alternative.

What's so problematic dealing with 5 PC creatures istead of 4? Do you also ban Leadership and never have allied NPCs in a fight?

[weckar]

5 creatures isn't so bad. But it never stays at just one creature, now does it?
There is also the issue of "who controls the creature in combat, the player or the DM". This has led to its own share of arguments.

[Crake]

The player is threatening to walk because he can't use summons? Really?

That said, summons shouldnt slow down combat that much, unless he has like, augment summoning, or greenbound, or ashbound. Basically, anything that alters his summons will slow it down, but vanilla summons, he can just open up the SRD and use the flat numbers there, which shouldnt slow things down much.

edit: Also, since the summons are under the direct command of the summoner, unless the summoner is hindered from giving orders in some way, or the summons are controlled via some effect by someone else, then just let the players directly control the summons. It saves you effort, and they probably have a better idea of what they want the summon to do than you do.

[eggynack]

there is no RAW alternative.

What's so problematic dealing with 5 PC creatures istead of 4? Do you also ban Leadership and never have allied NPCs in a fight?
I've gotta figure that the problem has less to do with summoning one creature, and more to do with spending every turn accruing actions upon actions, overwhelming opponents with great masses of meat, sometimes even throwing out multiple creatures in a turn, because that is often the right move. It can eat up a lot of time, on occasion. As is, I would try to figure out where your current way of doing combat is inefficient, and streamlining the process on that end.

[weckar]

eggynack has the right idea. It often resulted in having basically double the number of entities to deal with, which has an equal effect on turn length.

[Yanisa]

My DM always lets me roll before my turn, and I often plan out my actions during the round. Things can and will change, but I try to predict what could happen, kinda like chess. Which is also fitting of an high int wizard. Other options are rolling once per monster regardless of how many attacks he has, or once per attack type, due different bonuses. Or once for all monsters, but that seems rather unfair.
Besides that ensure that he has his summon stats on paper, ready for use, including all bonuses. Preferable double to share with the DM. Also if he tries to do complicated things, take in account the intelligence of the creature and the players ability to communicate with said summons.
And lastly, do let your player know why you ban summons and that even if you allow it he should be respect of the time he takes per turn.



In my case I try to be really nice to DM, she gave me a staff of the archmage at like level 7, and due her homebrew rules I can recharge it really easily. So since then each combat has a casting of Summon Monster IX, but I try not to exploit it too much before she takes my staff away. But still a large amount of summons can easily eat a lot of time, hence why I do pre-rolling and pre-turn tactics. I also limit myself to one summon monster spell active, to avoid endless spamming.

[Sir Chuckles]

Give him stipulations that alleviate your problems while allowing him the freedom to what he wants.

I recommend demanding that he always know what he's going to summon before his turn, and for him to have that creature's page open and/or bookmarked and ready to go, with a pad of paper ready to count it's HP.

Next, if he's an augmenter, which he probably his, tell him to have mythweaver sheets or a steno pad with the relevant modified stats.

That's what I tell my summoners and morphers to do.

[Cloud]

Andezzar, I don't know anyone that allows leadership in full, ever. Also the problem isn't one summon in a 4 person party, it's using various feats and alternate features to make the summon spell a standard action, so you cast a normal one and quicken one. While you're a Malconvoker. For 4 summons. Every round. Which you're adding stats to and a template. With a party of perhaps 6 people with an animal companion and familiar already.

As for ways to make it quicker, the advice in the thread so far. Not relevant for most players but I have a friend that loves the summoning archtype, and it's basically gotten to the point he's memorised the stat blocks. Not that I recommend going to that extreme, but the player should have the stat block at hand, including any adjustments from feats or whatever.

[Chronos]

When I played a druid, I knew I was going to be summoning a lot. So I made sure that I had, for all of my summons, a mini (Thank you, OOTS kickstarter!) and pre-written stats (including Augment Summoning). Yes, this took a lot of paper, and yes, it was a lot of preparation work, but to not do it would have been rude to everyone at the table. I also made sure to study the grappling rules thoroughly so I wouldn't have to look anything up (because an awful lot of summons have grappling tricks). If summoning is so important to this player of yours, he needs to be willing to make similar preparations.

[Andezzar]

When I played a druid, I knew I was going to be summoning a lot. So I made sure that I had, for all of my summons, a mini (Thank you, OOTS kickstarter!) and pre-written stats (including Augment Summoning). Yes, this took a lot of paper, and yes, it was a lot of preparation work, but to not do it would have been rude to everyone at the table. I also made sure to study the grappling rules thoroughly so I wouldn't have to look anything up (because an awful lot of summons have grappling tricks). If summoning is so important to this player of yours, he needs to be willing to make similar preparations.Except for the minis, I think that is what a summoner should do. For the minis I think a couple of placeholders of various sizes would be enough.

Generally any player should know what his character can do. It's just a bit more work for casters in general and summoners in particular.

[Brookshw]

That's quite the player.

Personally I ask my players to restrict themselves to a couple of big things rather than hordes of filler so it doesn't bring everything to a crawl for the rest of the group. Is he willing compromise here at all so the rest of the group stays reasonably engaged? Your position doesn't seem like your so much opposed to a summoner as you want to keep everyone having fun, a very fair position that I hope they can respect.

[LordBlades]

I am the guy that does the most summoning in my group and I can usually get my turn +3-4 other creatures worth of turns in the space it takes an average player (in my group) to resolve 1 slighly complicayed spell or 3-4 melee attacks, so summoning doesn't have to take up that much time. As a summoner you have to accept that you will need to work harder than everybody else. A few tips (what I do):

-use the others' turns to plan ahead. When your turn comes know what will you summon and what will each creature you bring to the table do.
-have accessible stats for your summons. It's tiresome for everyone if you have to figure out mid combat whether your char's abilities add +7 attack and +12 damage to a standard monster or viceversa. Build the stats beforehand in excel or the like and print them out.

As a GM, easiest way IMO is timed turns. Run a few combats, time the turns of every player and average them out. If the summoner consistently has the longest turns (by a lot), tell him you'll impose a time limit.

[KorbeltheReader]

I play a conjurer with lots of summoning, and it's expected that I have a token for my summons ready and all of their stats -- including any buffs and Augment Summoning -- ready before I summon. I would think that would help with one of the things that slows down combat. It isn't too much to ask.

For the other (too many summons), can you just ask him not to have out more than 2 at a time? Would he do it? If not, you could change the duration line on summon monster to: Concentration (up to 1 round/level). He can still pick up feats and prc levels to up his concentration to 3 or 4 things at a time, but it's a lot more costly.

[Lokd0wn]

All of the advice that has been given is good. Especially insisting (not asking) that summons have their relevant stats written down. The last character I played was a Druid with Greenbound Summoning and I had a mini character sheet for a combat, flying and utility form for each spell level I could cast. You can even point your player to the various summoning handbooks which will tell them the most optimal choices in relation to different criteria.

With all that said, don't let a player try to force you into something you're not comfortable with. You're the person that's running the game and sometimes that means putting your foot down. If they're actually sincere about walking away from your game due to this then perhaps the game is better off without them?

[Andezzar]

For the other (too many summons), can you just ask him not to have out more than 2 at a time? Would he do it? If not, you could change the duration line on summon monster to: Concentration (up to 1 round/level). He can still pick up feats and prc levels to up his concentration to 3 or 4 things at a time, but it's a lot more costly.I wouldn't want to play a summoner with that houserule. It means the caster can summon a monster and cannot do anything worthwhile (concentration takes the standard action away) until the monster is gone.

[squiggit]

A few ground rules you should lay down
-Have his monsters chosen ahead of time. If he starts hunting through books for a summon veto the spell there.

-Control the minions yourself (this is RAW) or if you let him control them (dunno why you would though. Seems like an unnecessary power boost) you can fiat their initiative right after his so he can take all his turns at once.


I wouldn't want to play a summoner with that houserule. It means the caster can summon a monster and cannot do anything worthwhile (concentration takes the standard action away) until the monster is gone.

4e ha summoning like that and no one takes their summoning powers because casting a spell to then use a standard action to do things is really lame and defeats the whole point of minionmancy

[KorbeltheReader]

I wouldn't want to play a summoner with that houserule. It means the caster can summon a monster and cannot do anything worthwhile (concentration takes the standard action away) until the monster is gone.

You can get around it with a number of tactics from sonorous hum to the feat Extraordinary Concentration to the swift concentration skill trick to certain prc abilities. If you really wanted to summon multiple things or summon something and still act, you could, but there's a higher cost, and it increases for every additional summon.

[Andezzar]

-Control the minions yourself (this is RAW) or if you let him control them (dunno why you would though. Seems like an unnecessary power boost) you can fiat their initiative right after his so he can take all his turns at once. That is not RAW:
It appears where you designate and acts immediately, on your turn. It attacks your opponents to the best of its ability. If you can communicate with the creature, you can direct it not to attack, to attack particular enemies, or to perform other actions.So while you could indeed control the minions (as they are NPCs) it wouldn't be much of a buff if you didn't. Even under your control they would have to act to the best of their abilities. Unless the summoner cannot communicate with them he can still order them to do other things. Who does the rolling is pretty much irrelevant IMHO.

[squiggit]

That is not RAW:So while you could indeed control the minions (as they are NPCs) it wouldn't be much of a buff if you didn't. Even under your control they would have to act to the best of their abilities. Unless the summoner cannot communicate with them he can still order them to do other things. Who does the rolling is pretty much irrelevant IMHO.

It's important because more often than not I see DMs allowing the player to control their summons like a hive mind on their own. Putting their actions in the DM's hands limits that potential. It's certainly not a big nerf, but like I said I don't see why you'd want to give summoning any boost in the first place .

[Chronos]

In my group, summoners control their own summoned creatures for the sake of simplicity, but we make some effort to make their actions reasonable. For instance, a summoned animal whose current target dies will shift to fighting whatever other enemy is nearest, not necessarily the one that the intelligent spellcaster would consider the highest priority (though of course you can exert some measure of control by placing the summon intelligently when you cast it).

[Cloud]

...Just on 4e, actually summons don't need to be sustained. You can take actions to direct them to do things (normally a standard action, but various summons also have move or minor options), and if you don't spend any actions on them, they still get instinctive reactions, which for most rip the enemy face off monsters, is, rip their face off. Summoning is actually rather good in 4e and the main down side is that if you specialise in it, they're only daily powers. ...Also the rest of a Wizard's daily powers are earth shattering, but getting off topic.

I don't see a problem with allowing a player to use summoning magic, just, yeah, they need the stats all there and down and ready to go, and they need to be rather competent at the game and pay attention between turns so they can get through their turn quickly. Maybe limit him to no more than two summons out at a time, assuming he's not using the d3 or 1d4 + 1 options.

[Vogonjeltz]

edit: Also, since the summons are under the direct command of the summoner, unless the summoner is hindered from giving orders in some way, or the summons are controlled via some effect by someone else, then just let the players directly control the summons. It saves you effort, and they probably have a better idea of what they want the summon to do than you do.

Summons aren't under the control of the player, they are under control of the DM.


It appears where you designate and acts immediately, on your turn. It attacks your opponents to the best of its ability. If you can communicate with the creature, you can direct it not to attack, to attack particular enemies, or to perform other actions.

That's DM decision making until the caster gives an instruction (assuming the caster speaks a language the creature understands).

So yeah, characters based entirely on summoning monsters can rapidly get out of hand when they last many turns.

If the player wants to do this you as DM have two options:

1) Force them to be organized. They make up quick reference sheets for every monster they can summon so you don't have to waste time looking these things up. Generally this means tracking HP, AC, Saves, Attack Bonus and movement speed. Almost nothing else will matter in most scenarios.

2) Wing it. If the player won't make life easy, just guesstimate when the minion hits/is hit kills things/dies.

[Bullet06320]

I like the idea of have minis ready, we usually just use spare dice at my table(we are not big into the minis in my group)

I always keep the stats of my most commonly summoned critters handy on index cards with all adjustments ready to go, and plan what I'm gonna do during other peoples turns, and I have seperate d20's and damage dice prepared for each critter placed on their cards, so I don't have to search for the right dice, just declare what im doing, grab the dice and roll(I take my summoning seriously)

as others have stated already, having things ready to go before its his turn is probly the best route to go for summoning to streamline it during combat

I do similar when I play necromancers with my minions

[Tvtyrant]

The other option is to get them a single better summon. The Summoner from Pathfinder does this, and something like an Aeon from FF or a pumped up Astral Construct would work well. Less time taken up and doesn't lose all of its potency.

But please don't just limit them to one summon without some extra benefit. That is the saddest part about some D&D video games.

[Spore]

You should use enemies that know how to deal with large groups of mooks. Mundane enemies use explosives, arcane ones Fireball the crap outta those d4+2 earth elementals. Incentivise the player to decrease the amount of creatures on the table by attacking with aoe damage. And tell him if he can't issue his commands in less than time x, his summons do nothing but go for the full defense action since no one told them to do something.


But please don't just limit them to one summon without some extra benefit. That is the saddest part about some D&D video games

Not one but imho, one set of spells active of each type should be okay. One summon monster X, one nature's ally X, one create undead, one planar binding. That's still a crap-ton of creatures but then go to rule like above.

Sure you are a smart and cunning hero but if you're too slow you can't issue specific commands to 10+ individual creatures. Combat doesn't slow down because of you. I like the rule of issuing a command in the language of the summon and letting the DM decide what the creatures do.

[ericgrau]

Require the player to have the stats printed or copied ahead of time or he can't use that summon. If he has augment summoning or another such ability, then the adjusted stats must already be written in.

Let the player control the monster to make things go faster, however make it clear that a summon's only option is to attack foes. For other goals the player must have a way of communicating with the summon. I would let the player strategize and so on and even use special attacks for the sack of simplicity. Maybe the monster wouldn't have thought of it, but maybe it would, or maybe it would have thought of something the player didn't. As long as it's an attack or special attack or flanking or healing the wounded or whatever tactical attack related action, I'd let it slide for the sake of simplicity. If the player wants to send a creature down a hallway to scout or to trigger traps OTOH, he better be able to talk with it.

I think that should about cover it. Rolling attacks and damage ahead of time can help too, as long as your group is honest. If a player is indecisive with or without summons, you might say after 10 seconds of zero words "you're holding your action, we'll get back to you after the next guy".

[Slipperychicken]

Require the player to have the stats printed or copied ahead of time or he can't use that summon. If he has augment summoning or another such ability, then the adjusted stats must already be written in.


[...]

I think that should about cover it. Rolling attacks and damage ahead of time can help too, as long as your group is honest. If a player is indecisive with or without summons, you might say after 10 seconds of zero words "you're holding your action, we'll get back to you after the next guy".

My group did both of these when I played a Summoner, and I wholeheartedly support them. Basically, if a player doesn't select an action within a few seconds of his turn coming up, we say the PC hesitated and didn't act that round.

Also, it is so easy to pull up all the statblocks you need before the game starts. Or write them on a notecard or something. Then you can track damage and conditions and damage on a separate sheet of paper so you can re-use the statblock. Basically have a row for each summon (labelled "eagle 1" or "earth elemental 4", or something like that), and write down each one's health total when they take damage, and any conditions which effect them next to that.