Druid extended spontaneous summoning

[Jermz]

Hi all - first post on the sub-forum. I must say, I'm very appreciative of the help that is given out here and hope that in the future I can post my own substantial and helpful replies. In the meantime, I've got a question of my own.

I'm currently playing a 5th level human druid in a relatively low-magic campaign. The players, who I've been playing with for many years, are decidedly low-op. I'm probably the highest optimizer, and several times I've held myself back so as not to outshine the party - such as not running my druid with an animal companion (ostensibly this is for flavor purposes until I find one that I 'like'). This is to the extent that ToB is considered overpowered (please, let's not devolve this into you know what kind of discussion...). We also tend to stick to mostly core, and a few splatbooks depending on DM approval.

As for my druid, his feats are Spell Focus Conjuration, Augmented Summoning and Extend Spell. Now that I've hit level 5, I've been coming into my own, especially when summoning hippogriffs. My main query, finally, is how to combine the druid's spontaneous casting with extend spell metamagic. Summoning already takes an entire round to cast, so I'm not exactly sure how this would work.

In addition, it looks as if SF: Conjuration is a kind of feat tax, since there don't seem to be very many spells from this school which target an opponent.

This is my first time playing a druid, and currently, even with these limitations (no animal companion, two feats that are barely used), I find that I wholly outshine my party and can solve pretty much any problem that we have to overcome. Granted, we don't have any other T1 characters in our party, so outshining them isn't too difficult.

Thanks for reading.

J

[Nightly]

Extend spell would effectively double the duration of your summons, much like ashbound and extended summoning, at the cost of being a spell slot higher.
For example, being a lvl 5 druid you have access to 3rd level spells and SNAIII, however you could only extend SNAII. So, doubled duration, but you lose a 3rd lvl spell slot.

Spell Focus: Conj is not going to be useful compared to the augmented summoning. But it's not like you really need many powerful feats to make a druid work.

As for helping tone your druid down compared to your party is focus on fluff/rp. Depending on your race and backstoryy there's usually some sort of feats that you can throw at it.
Initiate of Nature is cool if your not trying to be god, it allows you to turn/rebuke animals like a cleric as well as giving you acces to some more spells. Overall there are a lot of feats you can take and none are required, except for maybe natural spell at level 6.
The biggest thing is just watching how you play. Let your team work their roles and support them, throw down bfc, trip/grapple, etc.

[Riston]

From srd:
A cleric spontaneously casting a cure or inflict spell can cast a metamagic version of it instead. Extra time is also required in this case. Casting a 1-action metamagic spell spontaneously is a full-round action, and a spell with a longer casting time takes an extra full-round action to cast.

There is no mention of druid there, but it's probably within RAI.

[Jermz]

Thanks for the quick reply. I know the effects of Extend Spell, but was wondering how it interacted with spontaneous summoning. Seems like based on Riston's quote, it would take two rounds to extend a spontaneous summons. Doesn't really seem worth it, to be honest. I think it's probably better to have two animals and get flanking and more attacks than have one animal which hangs around for longer.

For the meantime, I've basically been using Extend Spell to churn out goodberries during downtime, refreshing them every few days. I'm not too worried about outshining the group, as they all seem to be quite content in their niches (non-optimized bruiser Cleric DMPC, Dwarf Monk, Bard 1/Sorc 4 mainly focusing in illusions and Rogue 3/Sorc 2). There's definitely potential there, but as I've said, none of them really want to make especially powerful characters. In combat, the cleric and monk tend to charge in, while I deal with BFC and summons. The other two help out with invisibility spells and ranged sneak attack.

With regards to animal companions, I've been thinking of swapping my non-existent one for an ACF, though none of the ACFs which swap out animal companions seem to be particularly fitting to my druid. Do you guys have any suggestions?

Thanks

J

[eggynack]

With regards to animal companions, I've been thinking of swapping my non-existent one for an ACF, though none of the ACFs which swap out animal companions seem to be particularly fitting to my druid. Do you guys have any suggestions?

Depends on what would be fitting for your druid, I think. Given your penchant for summoning, the best option is likely the first shifter druid substitution level, beast spirit, from races of eberron, but it's likely that you are not a shifter, and thus lacking in access to that possibility. There's also elemental companion, from complete mage, which does what it says on the tin, and urban companion (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20070228a), which gives you a familiar of sorts.

[Jermz]

Yeah, I've seen those ACFs, eggynack. None of them seem very thematically fitting for my character. I was thinking more along the lines of some house-rules that you guys might propose and not necessarily something that can be found in source material.

Would a trade of Animal Companion in exchange for the Rapid Summoning variant found in UA be a fair one? Seems like it would leave the druid worse off than before, but as I've said, I don't necessarily mind toning down the power level.

[eggynack]

Yeah, I've seen those ACFs, eggynack. None of them seem very thematically fitting for my character. I was thinking more along the lines of some house-rules that you guys might propose and not necessarily something that can be found in source material.

Would a trade of Animal Companion in exchange for the Rapid Summoning variant found in UA be a fair one? Seems like it would leave the druid worse off than before, but as I've said, I don't necessarily mind toning down the power level.
Y'know, beast spirit does already grant rapid summoning. It might not apparently be the best thematic fit from an immediate flavor perspective, but what the ACF really promotes, more than some savage druid, is a character more focused around casting and summoning. That's made extra true once you pull a few moonspeaker levels into it. Might be worth changing race, if possible. As for rapid summoning, if you go by the law of broad equivalences, trading the animal companion for the urban companion, which is better than a familiar, and trading the familiar for rapid summoning, then it is indeed a fair trade.

[Jermz]

Thanks for the reply, eggynack.

Retconning probably won't work out, as there's significant backstory invested in the druid and the group, as well as the dynamics between the characters. In addition, it seems that the rapid summoning from beast spirit only comes online at level 12, though there's a bevvy of nifty benefits. Maybe I can work something out with the DM.

What about exchanging the Animal Companion for doubling the duration of summoning spells? Would that be skewed in favor of the spells?

[eggynack]

What about exchanging the Animal Companion for doubling the duration of summoning spells? Would that be skewed in favor of the spells?
That'd probably actually be worse than the rapid summoning thing, especially as you move up in level, and summons just naturally tend to last the whole encounter. I'd just get ashbound instead, if possible. It's also worth note that, if you do somehow end up on the shifter druid path against all odds, moonspeaker also grants this ability.

[Jermz]

Yeah, that pretty much makes sense. Most combats and encounters don't last 10 rounds, at my current level. I'll speak to the DM about Ashbound, though I'm not too sure it works out from a flavor perspective, as I've been thinking of picking up some levels of a magic user for Arcane Hierophant (yes, I know that I'm past the optimal levels for entry). He tends not to like mixing in feats from other campaign worlds, though recently he's been amenable, so maybe I can work something out.

The most appealing idea for me is the exchange of the AC for Rapid Summoning, straight-up and simple.

[Darrin]

Maybe Sudden Extend (Complete Arcane) might work better instead? It doesn't increase the casting time or spell level. Most people advise against this because the 1/day just isn't often enough, but I actually prefer the 1/day to having to muck around with higher spell slots and increased casting times.

You might want to check out Golden Desert Honey (Complete Mage p. 136). When used as a material component for a summoning spell with a casting time of 1 round, it reduces the casting time to 1 standard action. 300 GP each dose, so not cheap, but this lets you summon creatures on the same turn in an emergency. Spontaneous + Extend Spell... I'm not sure about the order of operations, but maybe you can convince your DM that 300 GP to reduce a full-round to a standard, and then spontaneous metamagic knocks it back up to a full-round again... isn't that a pretty fair deal for 300 GP?

Also, see if you can get your hands on a Ring of the Beast. This causes SNA to count as if it were one level higher... so SNA II acts like SNA III. Or rather, when you want to cast SNA III, you cast SNA II instead.

Something else you could try... Conjure Ice Beast is a Conjuration (Creation) spell, which means you can use Possibility Dust (100 GP, Complete Mage) to Extend it without using metamagic. You lose the special qualities/attacks, but if all you're looking for is a beatstick (or in this case an icestick) to soak up damage or wail on meatbags, you can pick from either the SM or SNA list, and throw on some cold-based special attacks as well.

If I can afford it, I like to make sure my druids carry around some Fairy Dust as well, to Extend transmutation spells (Extended creeping cold is *filthy*.)