summons to use against a highly protected party

[King of Nowhere]

The whole summoning line of spells has become completely useless in my campaign.
the adventurers are now high level and heavily equipped, they all have an AC above 40 (or even 50), they all have at least +20 to any saving throw, and at least resistance 20 against almost any elemental damage. plus freedom of movement and a few extra immunities.

i would like to use summoned monsters for variety, but those that I see cannot hit their AC, cannot affect them with their abilities and cannot overcome their damage reductions with breath weapons or other quirks.
So I'm coming here for advice of summoned monsters that may be able to hurt them. Possibly available with summon monster VII or less, though summon nature's ally is also on the table. And nothing too heavily optimized.

So far I see the elephant/celestial elephant; trample deals bludgeoning damage with saving throw for half, so it is able to ignore their AC and their elemental resistances. Anything else?
Thanks

[zlefin]

not surprising regular summoning spells are useless against a well optimized party.
if nothing else, the aid another action can be stacked to try to enable one foe to hit.
while FoM stops grapple, some of the other combat maneuvers may be useable depending on what else they've guarded against, disarm, bull rush, grabbing items, sunder
I'll take a look thru options for summon 7 and see if I can recommend anything.

Avorals would at least do a bit of damage with magic missile.
bone devil spamming dimensional anchor and wall of ice
summons spamming dispel magic would be helpful, even if they just use the form to disable magic items for a few rounds.

[Falontani]

If their touch ac is low summon undead has allips, which are a nightmare to face in swarms.
Devils/demons have summoning spell likes that summon specific creatures with an x% chance, with equivalent spell levels for them. Allow certain mages to use these.
Druid summoners can wreck using greenspawn? summoning.
Those air elementals with cone of cold could be interesting.

Finally in ua there are alternate summoning rules for summoning themed enemies. This summoning guide (http://minmaxforum.com/index.php?topic=6320.0) is my go to for evil aligned summoning cr equivalents. If you use the alternate summoning rules remember advancement on certain summoned creatures could make something like a Vasathaunt from Mm3 from a weak creature posing maybe halflings a threat, to a grappling machine that will crunch most adventurers not built for it beneath their heel..

From third party there is Crossbreeding Flesh and Blood which is a useful guide for creating oddities that may surprise your party.

[ExLibrisMortis]

Hmm. Astral constructs can be very nasty: natural invisibility is present on Menu C (available to 7th-level astral constructs, costing 13 pp, equivalent to a 7th-level spell), and it's not subject to invisibility purge. True seeing isn't mentioned, but you can argue that since it's natural coloration is "invisible", that's what true seeing sees, i.e. it doesn't. Another good AC ability is concussion blast, which deals 4d6 force damage as a free action once per round (you can give up damage dice to hit extra targets within 15', on a one-for-one basis), ignores concealment and cover (sadly not SR/PR), and can target objects. Could be an interesting way to snap ropes, break lanterns, and generally be a nuisance.

A human psion 6/constructor 9 with Boost Construct, Linked Power, Metapower, Overchannel, Practiced Manifester, Psicrystal Affinity, Psicrystal Containment, Psionic Meditation, and Talented (CR 15, so an appropriate enemy for a high-power party) can summon eight of these on turn 2: Overchanneled synchronicity link astral construct augmented to 4 level 7 constructs (lose two focus, 18 pp), refocus with move + swift (lose 5 pp), manifest the same again, use standard action for something else, like hiding.

The constructs would have four menu C options each, allowing a loadout of Concussion Blast, Natural Invisibility, Pounce, Extra Attack, Improved Fly, Improved Slam, and Trip. At that point, the full attack looks something like this: flying invisible 80' charge for +22/+22/+22 for 2d6+12 bludgeoning damage each plus trip, and a concussion blast each turn (there are also eight Large creatures with 101 hp each that the party needs to chew through).

A higher-levelled enemy, or an enemy with more ML-boosting tricks and items, could creature level 9 astral constructs, which are like the level 7s, except that they are Huge, have 144 hp, and could add Extra Brawn, for a charge of +30/+30/+30 for 3d6+21 per hit. You need an extra four manifester levels to pull it off, but you do get to summon eight of these on turn 2, so with one round of prep, it's pretty brutal. If you can get seven more manifester levels, you don't need Overchannel + Talented anymore, so you can do it four times per turn, though it'll cost you 93 power points to get 16 constructs on turn two :smalltongue:.

If you don't like concussion blast (for example, if the party has SR), you can add a tail slap instead, or Muscle and Improved Brawn (extra +2 attack/+5 damage).

Of course, then you get into Dual-Plane summons, where you get all these menu abilities on 1d4+1 summoned monsters, but that's a bit harder to pull of.

[Silva Stormrage]

This might help http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?255219-The-Summoner-s-Desk-Reference-D-amp-D-3-5

Look for good SLA's. Bone Devils with readied actions to create walls of ice to block attacks spammed dispel magic to remove buffs or avorals to spam magic missiles have been mentioned already. However, there still are others like Silence or Hallow (As an SLA it becomes a standard action to cast and you can add various spells to the hallow effect that can apply to the entire party at once).

Another option is storm/air elementals + Rashemi Elemental Summoning. Giving Huge Storm Elementals 15d6 Cone of Colds adds up even if they pass their saving throws. Their 24d6 burst damage may be. Works the best if you dispel their energy resistances.

If they are getting their immunities/resistances from items, well Sunder is always an option. Earth Elementals (Especially with Psuedonatural template applied from binder summoning or otherwise) are great if they can earth glide into position and ambush the party in a surprise round.

Only thing that confuses me is that you request nothing "Too optimized" but your party members seem to have 50+ AC 20+ saving throws and are buff stacking like crazy at levels 10-13. That seems pretty optimized to me. What level is your party and what optimization level are you aiming for?

[Eldariel]

Summon SLA bots. Good abilities include:
- Wall of X/Solid Fog/Similars. Readied actions with these can be brutal, can segment the battlefield and care little or less for enemy stats. Lost actions aplenty. Shaping the battlefield in general is the best thing to do if you can't affect the enemy directly; Oread [Fiend Folio] from SNAVI has Move Earth, Earthquake, etc. to totally rearrange the whole fighting location for example.

- Dispel Magic. Targeted Dispel Magic can disable magic items for a duration. Many PCs get their stuff from magic items. Summon Dispel-bots to begin spamming Dispel Magic on magic items; many of them have low caster levels so as long as there's e.g. a Wizard with Arcane Sight and high Spellcraft (so a level 11 Wizard or so) directing fire at the most important items with low caster level, even a simple Avoral (CL8), Babau (CL7) or Ferumach [Fiend Folio] (CL9 3/day) can shut down e.g. Ring of Protection +5 (CL5).

- Telekinesis. Throw enough things at anybody and they might just be hurt. Throwing 12 +5 Arrows (from Greater Magic Weapon) a turn with a Vrock's Telekinesis can be pretty efficient. Even if they're fishing for 20s, throw enough dice and you'll get there. Put some mean carrier on said arrows (say, Minor Creation some Black Lotus Extract, or if they're Poison-immune like they probably are, something supernatural; Searing Spell Empowered Elemental Admixtured Born of Three Thunders Energy Substitioned into Fire Flame Arrow for example) and profit. Alternatively, you can e.g. ready an action to throw an object in front of a moving character to stop them. Telekinesis can also be used to do combat maneuvers including Trip, which doesn't care about BAB and thus becomes a straight stat check so anyone without focus on Strength is probably fair game for e.g. a Vrock and their +3.

- Simple Blast effects. Storm Elemental [Monster Manual III] does tons of electric and sonic; if you can temporarily lower PC resistances (say, Dispelling, Disjunction or similar), they can deliver quite the beating and you can summon hordes. Or you can go for big ones and try to simply punch through the resistances. Same with any creature capable of casting damage spells, really. Huge Storm Elemental hits for 16d6 electricity (and 8d6 sonic + 8d4 electricity), which averages 56 damage or 28 on the successful save; so it's hitting for ~10 through (and healing other storm elementals) even if there's Energy Resistance 20 in play and all saves are made. Rashemi Elemental Summoning adds Cone of Cold to Air/Storm Elementals for 15d6 Cold (Ref half, so average 26.5 on a successful save); a bunch of Storm Elementals can keep spamming these two abilities on cooldown for steady, reliable damage and a constant stream of saves.

- Save-or-X spam. You can get a lot of actions from summons so something like Artaaglith Demon [Ghostwalk] or Piscoloth Yugoloth [Fiend Folio] to spam Stinking Cloud for example (hell, lowly Dretch can do this) and the characters will have to deal with the effect and probably eventually fail their save; natural 1 always fails and some effects are quite hard to be immune to. If anyone's Mind Blank happens to get Dispelled, SNAIX can summon a Pixie to cast Otto's Irresistible Dance on them. Irresistible so it just works and the character is out of action provoking AoOs for 1d4+1 rounds.

- Buffing. You can get stuff like Polymorph, Haste, Elation, etc. out of summons. While low level spells, they can be used to good effect even on higher levels and having a dedicated buff bot that casts a buff a turn can conserve action economy. Buffing summons can also work; an Outsider can be Polymorphed into a Leonal for example.

- Healing. Hollyphant, Unicorn, etc. make for great heal sticks that stick around to heal every round. Trading your own actions for healing isn't really worth it but if you trade one action for a ton of healing actions, that can be a different story.

- Automatic effects. Vrocks' Spores do automatic damage for example, as does their Dance of Ruin (summon 3 with Maximized SMIX, put them behind some obstacle/protect them, go to town). Summon Desert Ally [Sandstorm] (Druid or Sandshaper Wizard-or-Sorc) has a breath weapon that does automatic untyped damage also (halved on a save but no Evasion = automatic damage) - 6d6 for SDAVI Gargantuan Dustform Centipede of which you can get 3 for example (for 18d6/2 = 32 untyped damage on breath with a successful save). Conjure Ice Beast has the Frost Aura but any amount of resistance renders that moot. Adaru Demon [Monster Manual 5] has an automatic aura of penalties for non-evil and bonuses for evil creatures, Souleater [Magic of Incarnum] has a negative level aura (if the PCs lack immunity, this is really brutal), etc. A ton of things can spam Magic Missile, which barring SR, magic immunity or Shield, is just doing damage. Starting from SMIII (Musteval Guardinal [Book of Exalted Deeds] has it as will) and going up to Night Hag on SMIX. Mostly Guardinals though and as they're good, well, you might have to do some finangling.

- Touch Attacks. The mentioned Allips, but also Shadows, Lantern Archons, etc. can do a decent job with touch attacks if the characters have a high AC but lower touch AC. Lantern Archon does straight damage while the others do stat damage so obviously Lantern Archons are the way to go if the PCs have immunities to stat damage/drain. Sporebat has Enervation Ray (Su so it ignores SR), Gulthir Demon [Monster Manual 5, Summon Monster VI] has Ray of Enfeeblement (though there may again be immunity afoot; if not, it's brutal), etc.

- Some creatures (Warden Archon, Couatl at least) have True Strike so they will hit if they get a turn. Not that they probably hurt that much but the hit will probably be there. You can of course provide Scrolls/Potions/buffs for the summons as well.

- Simple bodyblocking, aid another (as mentioned), etc.



But summons can also be buffed to a decent degree. In addition to Augment Summoning, there's Imbued Summoning [PHBII] to include a rider effect (e.g. Haste is a perennial favourite), Greenbound Summoning [Lost Empires of Faerun] for massive stat increases to Druid Summons, Rashemi Elemental Summoning [Unapproachable East] for even better blastelementals, Ashbound [Eberron Campaign Settings] for a +3 Luck bonus to hit, etc. Firre Eladrin would provide Bardic Music. If you've got an NE Druid with Greenbound Summoning, Augment Summoning & Ashbound, your Roc (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/roc.htm) from SNAVIII will have +10 Str & +3 Luck to hit and you can summon 3 with a Rod of Maximize Spell. They all have +29/+29 claws (though you could of course Chain Greater Magic Fang to give them further +5 on all their natural weapons) and then you can Animal Growth them into Colossal Rocs for +8 Str; these Rocs would be Colossal and have +34 to hit (-8 from size) and do 3d6+26 damage per hit. Of course they have the Dive attack option, which doubles all damage and counts as a charge for +36 to hit, 6d6+52 damage each. And you have three of these.

From SNAVII list, go with Dire Tiger. With the three feats it would have +28 to hit (+30 on charge) and +33 with Greater Magic Fang, +36 with Animal Growth on top of it (+38 on a charge with 2x Claw + Bite + Rake for very respectable damage each). Alternatively, Dire Bear from SNAVI list has merely 1 less to everything and you can summon 1d3 (maximized with a Rod for 3). SNAVII could also be a Tyrannosaurus (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/dinosaur.htm#tyrannosaurus) to a rather similar effect for style points, but it obviously has less attacks and isn't that impressive if the enemy can't be grappled. Still, the fact that it's a Tyrannosaurus should count for something. You could also use an elemental but as fewer of your buffs are applicable, they aren't quite as good. Still, with simple Augment Summoning and Greater Magic Fang, a Greater Earth Elemental can be hitting at +30 with Ashbound making it +33. Elementals also have the Push/Whirlwind/Vortex abilities, which can be nice though their interaction with Freedom of Movement might not be favourable. Remember the other combat modifiers too; large creatures might rather easily get higher ground for +1 and if you're summoning a bunch of things, they can start in a flanking position for an additional +2. This way your Dire Bears can potentially get into the +40ish range, which might suffice to make them a threat.

EDIT#2: Oops, Animal Growth and Greenbound Summoning are mutually exclusive (Greenbound Summoning removes the Animal type). Well, remove +3 from those numbers. You can still get high enough to hit though; +35-+37 range.

Summon Monster, Summon Desert Ally, Conjure Ice Beast and Summon Undead don't offer combat summons capable of reaching these numbers naturally. It's mostly Summon Nature's Ally (SNAVIII is accessible for Clerics from Animal Domain as well as Wizards/Sorcs with Arcane Disciple, and Druids/Archivists/Shugenjas get it naturally of course) for numbers and others for abilities. Best SDAVII is Elephant for +18 base, +20 with Augment Summoning but it can't be buffed nearly as much as the Druid equivalents due to not being an Animal. Summon Monster list is behind on elementals and the best SMVII fighter is like Celestial Elephant which should just Trample. Summon Undead doesn't even go this high (just pick the incorporeals and use 'em) and Conjure Ice Beast is worse for stats than any of the other lines. Summon Giants [Frostburn] would offer some semi-competitive options for a Disciple of Thym, best of which is probably Fire Giant (just toss it a +5 Greatsword and it can hit stuff).

EDIT: Btw, a Summonish spell that can be used to great effect with caster level boosts is Giant Vermin. If you can boost the character's caster level temporarily to 20, such as via. Ankh of Ascension [Magic Item Compendium] and Beads of Karma [DMG] (for a level 12 caster; more boosts needed for lower levels but that's doable), you can produce Colossal Monstrous Scorpions (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/monstrousScorpion.htm) that natively have +34 to hit on 2 attacks. That's from a level 4 spell, which is pretty nice. If there's a Druid present (it's also on Cleric list), Greater Magic Fang would further make 'em hit at +39/+39/+34 and even simple Bull's Strength works on them (+41/+41/+36). Also the poison and grapple are both really brutal if anyone is vulnerable, but they're quite strong even against immune opponents.

Monstrous Spiders could spam Webs, which are also nice (this also goes for Bebilith, summoned Monstrous Spiders and few others).

[King of Nowhere]

Only thing that confuses me is that you request nothing "Too optimized" but your party members seem to have 50+ AC 20+ saving throws and are buff stacking like crazy at levels 10-13. That seems pretty optimized to me. What level is your party and what optimization level are you aiming for?

Good question.
The thing is, they are not optimized, but they are overly equipped. I run a rich world where everyone is above wbl, so they could stack every single bonus available for sale. the barbarian is wearing a talisman of wisdom +6 for the will save buff alone. To this are added a few homebrew things I made whose major relevance here is that they can mostly ignore the maximum dex to AC from armor.
And as part of the plot, when they stopped a ritual from the high cleric of vecna to become a god, they got blasted with concentrated divine essence and gained a +6 to all stats, plus a few idiosyncratic abilities that are mostly of little combat application.

All that is fine, and it is part of the campaign; after a long while, the party has become some of the most powerful individuals who ever existed. there are a very few enemies who are as exceptional as they are, and serve as bosses. Otherwise, even mid-high level foes can only hope to take them with great numbers.

The party optimization, however, is very basic: only one player has a prestige class, casters are mostly limited to blasting, buffing and save-or-die, ubercharger and trip-reach builds are forbidden.
My players were completely new when i started, and half of them barely know the basic rules, so I don't want to have the game devolve into an arms race of builds that most of the table won't even understand. Similarly, I don't want to surprise them with new stuff every time, I want to give them a sense of coherence and being able to rely on the few resources that they explored more often.
Also, if I have to run an encounter of the party against a couple dozen level 13 foes, I don't want to spend a long time figuring out the action of each snowflake build; I have a sheet of basic builds, I prefer to have a vanilla wizard casting a spell with a simple effect.

Anyway, there are some good suggestions here. i will look them better

[King of Nowhere]

a question: shadows and allips get normal boosts from bardic song, or are they treated differently as incorporeals?
Because if I can stack a bardic song buff on their incorporeal touch, a few of those summons are at least going to keep the party cleric busy with turning or cost him a few mass heal.
and they already fought shadows and allips, so I'm not even pulling some unknown trick on them

[Eldariel]

a question: shadows and allips get normal boosts from bardic song, or are they treated differently as incorporeals?
Because if I can stack a bardic song buff on their incorporeal touch, a few of those summons are at least going to keep the party cleric busy with turning or cost him a few mass heal.
and they already fought shadows and allips, so I'm not even pulling some unknown trick on them

They can't benefit of default Bardic Music due to Undead Type (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/typesSubtypes.htm#undeadType) granting them immunity to mind-affecting effects (including Morale effects) but there's a feat, Requiem [Libris Mortis], that sidesteps this issue. Incorporeality in and of itself is not a problem for Bardic Music. Of course, there are buffs that affect undead creatures in specific such as Desecrate (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/desecrate.htm) (even better if you have an altar, a shrine or something as a Shrunk Item that you can slam down to double the buff or anything you can Polymorph Any Object into one), Nightshades (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/nightshade.htm#nightwing) (basically the same bonus but automatic; Nightwing is only CR14 and eminently Command Undeadable or Rebukable), Adaru Demon (Summon Monster IX sadly), Incorporeal Enhancement [Spell Compendium] (Wizard 3, easily Quickenable for level 13s) grants Incorporeals enhancement bonuses to AC, Attack, HP and Turn Resistance (+2 on CL10, +3 on CL15, +4 on CL20; CL15 is pretty easily doable with items or whatever for Wizard 13s), Undead Torch [Spell Compendium] (Wizard 3) gives Undead +2d6 damage vs. living, Necromantic Might [Libris Mortis] (feat, +2 enhancement to attack rolls), etc.

In short, e.g. having a Nightshade around (or someone with Assume Supernatural Ability Polymorph Any Objected into one, or more simply someone Desecrating the area) and casting Incorporeal Enhancement at CL15 would give Shadows and Allips +5 to pretty much everything. Bardic Music from a Bard with Requiem would add on top of that, of course.

[Malphegor]

Well if they’re mainly armoured up the Slasrath can apprently tear off people’s armour with their charge attack, so that’s one solution for your guy to polymorph their summons

[RoboEmperor]

Summon Elemental Monolith.

Want it by level 13? Illumian + 1 level of Cleric + Shadowcraft Mage. Naenhoon boosted heightened silent image. If you have sonorous hum pre-cast and residual metamagic you can have 2 out.

Alternatively DMM:Heighten Spell cleric with the illusion domain which lets them be shadowcraft mages.