Conjuration, so easy an Orc could do it! [Pathfinder]

[13ones]

I've made it known in the past I generally find Conjuration uninspired and kind of boring. The idea of 'summon fog, summon wall, summon monster, win fight' just bothers me. There is so much magic can accomplish but just conjuring someone better at combat than you and waving him in the direction of the fight while you sip a hard drink seems almost boring. It is so easy to make a conjuring Wizard or Sorcerer that literally the WORST casting race IN THE GAME can pull it off with as much success as anyone else?

"How?Why?" Simple. In Pathfinder to be good at Conjuring you literally need three feats. SF:Conjuration, Augment Summoning, and Superior Summoning. Those three feats make you better at action economy than anyone else in the game. By level 6 (level 4 if PFS rules and a Wizard). Let me show you "Draz Smashfist"



Male Orc Wizardr 4
CN Medium humanoid (Orc)
Init +7; Senses Perception +4
Arcane School: Conjuration

DEFENSE

AC 20, touch 14, flat-footed 15 (+4 armor, +3 Dex, +2 shield)
hp 25
Fort +3, Ref +5, Will +4
OFFENSE

Speed 30 ft.
Melee Gauntlet+1 (1d3)
Ranged dagger +4 (1d4/19–20)
Spell Book (Contains all prepared spells, and all 0-Level spells except Enchantment and Necromancy)

2nd — Summon Monster 2, Create Pit, Invisibility, Communal Mount (aka Summon: Wall of Horseflesh)
1st — Mage Armor, Grease, Burning Hands, Vanish, Enlarge Person, Shield.



TACTICS

Before Combat Draz casts mage armor on himself.

During Combat, Draz floods the battlefield with pits and summoned monsters.

Base Statistics

Without mage armor, Draz's statistics are AC 15, flat-footed 10.
STATISTICS

Str 11, Dex 16, Con 12, Int 16, Wis 8, Cha 8
Base Atk +2; CMB +2; CMD 15
Feats: Spell Focus[Conjuration], Alertness(From Familiar), Augment Summoning, Superior Summoning
Skills Escape Artist +7, Intimidate +0, Knowledge Arcana +8, Knowledge Religion +7, Knowledge Planes +7, Knowledge Nature +7, Knowledge Local +7, Knowledge Dungeoneering +7 Perception +4, Spell Craft +10, Linguistics +7.
Languages Common, Orc, Draconic, Celestial, Infernal, Abyssal
SQ arcane bond (familiar, Green Sting scorpion named Abathur )

I dislike conjuration because of how simple it is. How uninspired it can be. I don't know how many conjuration wizards I've played with over the years that have just shut off their brain and summoned monsters.

I'm not saying that summoning is bad. Hell, I really enjoy summoning once and awhile. It's just in my mind when the race least optimized for casting can pull out a really effective caster like it is no one's business and EVENTUALLY (right now he can't compete with a properly optimized summoner but only just barely. With eventual magic items and gear he can catch up..and be arguably better due to his higher CMB) be on par with other summoners.

I'm sorry if this seems ranty but I've been tinkering with the build and when I actually managed to pull him off in a one off game over the long weekend I just found it mind boggling that it works.

[Zanos]

Good conjuration builds place BFC in intelligent places so that your party members can fight the enemies on the terms of your party, not their terms. I like to avoid summoning because it makes the melee PCs feel redundant sometimes. Summoning a flanking buddy is good practice though.

Summoning is one aspect of conjuration. I don't really know why you find it uninspired. Any school can really be broken down into a few minor things that it does. Necromancy is just debuff debuff debuff animate dead, evocation is just damage damage damage, etc. If anything you have to be very precise with conjuration when you aren't summoning because poorly placed BFC effects can be worse for your party than the enemy.

[13ones]

Well I just suppose I find more inspiration and creativity in those other schools. Necromancy you have to chain debuffs together in order to make your other ones work. It's all about spell order and priority with Necromancy. Evocation is not just about damage because Evocation also has some very potent control spells such as Resilient Sphere, Force Cage, Cold spells with Rime metamagics, the possibility for kill-control combos such as an Admixture Dazing Wall of Fire. Enchantment is like Necromancy in that it requires spell orders and combinations to be really effective.Illusion is easily the most creative and controlling school with Phantasms, Shadows, and Images.

I just suppose I've played with so many "Wall, Monster, Fog, Pit, Win" Wizards that I find conjuration uninspired. And the fact anyone can do it. Like to be a really effective Evoker you pretty much have to be an Elf. You want to be good with Necromancy? Dhampir says hello.

*shrug*

[Dimcair]

Summon Monster is one of the most creative forms of casting imho.


(If it is good for a table is very open for discussion)

The necromancer casts the same spells over and over again to debuff. A blaster casts his fireball/etc. over and over again.
Save or Suck/Die and TOTHEFACE.

Now if you have the ability to summon a 1/2/3/4/5 HD monster. Which one? Howmany? Where do you put it? What is it supposed to do? Can you buff it? Can it Buff sb else? Can it cast even more Battlefield control? Should it be good at grappling? Should it be good at tripping? Should it just do DPS?

Aside from these tactical options you are given, you also need to manage its HP, know its abilities, saves, attacks etc etc.

I think it is neither simple nor uninspired, but maybe I fail to recognize the genius and complexity (?) in casting fireball or a debuff?

[jedipotter]

"How?Why?" Simple. In Pathfinder to be good at Conjuring you literally need three feats. SF:Conjuration, Augment Summoning, and Superior Summoning. Those three feats make you better at action economy than anyone else in the game. By level 6 (level 4 if PFS rules and a Wizard). Let me show you "Draz Smashfist"



It might be your game. I can't see Draz being ''better'' then everyone else. Group encounters say 15 golbins. On the first round of combat Draz summons two fiendish wolves. The rest of the group attacks the goblins. Round 2, you order your wolves to attack and drop two goblins in a pit. The rest of the group attacks too. Round three you drop another goblin in a pit, and the group and the wolves kill the rest. Then they kill the goblins in the pits.

An ok encounter, by-the-book it was ''challenging'' , but in game play not so much. And Draz used all of his 2nd level spells for the whole day. So unless your in a 15 minute day game, now Draz has to adventure for the next 12 hours or so with no second level spells.

But a good DM would up the encounters a bit, if the group was having too east of a time by-the-book. Make that 12 Svirfneblin and chances are none of them will fall in your pits. Not to mention foes that are flying.

[Psyren]

Summoning the right creature means you're not shutting off your brain - quite the opposite actually. And because summoning takes so long you have to be very careful.

Summoning is also easy to deal with. An Abjurer can pretty soundly wreck your day, an enchanter can steal your minions, an illusionist can fool them while an evoker or necromancer can just kill them.

As an Orc, personally I would go with Transmuter and use my powers to be a melee monster, and get some use out of that great Strength score. (Though of course I would probably go Scarred Witch Doctor instead of Wizard.)

[Urpriest]

It might be your game. I can't see Draz being ''better'' then everyone else. Group encounters say 15 golbins. On the first round of combat Draz summons two fiendish wolves. The rest of the group attacks the goblins. Round 2, you order your wolves to attack and drop two goblins in a pit. The rest of the group attacks too. Round three you drop another goblin in a pit, and the group and the wolves kill the rest. Then they kill the goblins in the pits.

An ok encounter, by-the-book it was ''challenging'' , but in game play not so much. And Draz used all of his 2nd level spells for the whole day. So unless your in a 15 minute day game, now Draz has to adventure for the next 12 hours or so with no second level spells.

But a good DM would up the encounters a bit, if the group was having too east of a time by-the-book. Make that 12 Svirfneblin and chances are none of them will fall in your pits. Not to mention foes that are flying.

Well, 15 goblins is a little inaccurate. DMs aren't going to be throwing more than 12 monsters at you at once, since that's firmly in the "no XP because the individuals are too weak to be a meaningful challenge" category.

That said, even in PF summoning isn't exactly the sexiest strategy at this low level, and I feel like Draz doesn't really contradict that.

[Jack_Simth]

Well, 15 goblins is a little inaccurate. DMs aren't going to be throwing more than 12 monsters at you at once, since that's firmly in the "no XP because the individuals are too weak to be a meaningful challenge" category.

That said, even in PF summoning isn't exactly the sexiest strategy at this low level, and I feel like Draz doesn't really contradict that.

Pathfinder does XP differently than 3.5.

In 3.5, that CR-1 critter at level 12 isn't going to give you any XP, no matter how many of them there are (unless it's an ad-hock XP reward), as 3.5 XP is based on level vs. CR.
In Pathfinder, that CR-1 critter at level 12 is going to give you 400 xp to divvy up among the party members, as XP rewards for critters are flat based on the critter's CR.

[Psyren]

Pathfinder does XP differently than 3.5.

In 3.5, that CR-1 critter at level 12 isn't going to give you any XP, no matter how many of them there are (unless it's an ad-hock XP reward), as 3.5 XP is based on level vs. CR.
In Pathfinder, that CR-1 critter at level 12 is going to give you 400 xp to divvy up among the party members, as XP rewards for critters are flat based on the critter's CR.

^ Yep. Not that you have to track it anyway, since XP isn't used for anything except leveling, so the DM can simply say "okay guys, you level up now."

[Corvino]

Summoning creatures is generally a broken mechanic because it multiplies the most important resources in the game - action economy and control. It effectively adds targets that a foe should (?must) deal with without additional healing burden and multiplies the area your party threaten, limiting movement to an exent. And that's without your summons doing damage.

Summons aside Conjuration is good. Pits target reflex, so high dex or rogue-types have decent defenses. Walls add control, but Evocation also has a lot of walls. One of the most powerful aspects of it (apart from summons, alright?) is the flexibility a single school is allowed to have.

TL;DR - Summoning is broken. The rest of the school is good but not overpowered.

[Psyren]

I don't think it's broken - there are several easily available tactics against summoning that handily negate the action advantage. For starters, summoning tends to take a long time and requires resources from the caster to become efficient - without these resources, most summon spells take a long time to cast and are easily interfered with. For example, a 3.5 summoner may need both Rapid Spell and Quicken Spell in order for a summon to appear and fully act on the same turn as the spell was cast. Rather, what is broken are tools like DMM Quicken + Nightsticks that bypass/trivialize these controls. Second, summons themselves tend to be weaker than the threats you will face at a given CR, particularly if you are "down-summoning" to get 1d4 on the field. Third, the counters tend to work against multiple summons at once, such as Dismissal or Dispel Magic, not to mention the expedient of normal AoE attacks like fireball, entangle or web - again, summons tend to be weaker and so they are more susceptible to area threats.

It is even possible to prepare the battlefield ahead of time so that summoning for one or both sides is impossible (e.g. Forbiddance, Dimensional Lock) - or simply with traps that make large numbers of assailants impractical. Doing so will cause the dedicated conjurer to be at a significant disadvantage.