Better Summoner

[SpicyBoi_Nezu]

I decided for my next low-level campaign to play as an Archivist, one that specializes in summoning and buffing/support spells. As of now, he is level 2, and I plan on getting the spontaneous summoning feat as soon as possible. I have the first few levels (Up to level 8) sort of planned out, but I was wondering about the best Prestige class options. I was looking at thaumaturgist, the main things that I want are full casting, and helping in some way with my summoning.

The concept for him, is that he is an Archivist that plans on traveling the world, acquiring as many spells as he can, be it by trading scrolls, delving into ancient ruins, or spending too much time in the local castle's grand library. Obviously for the first few levels, he will be using his knowledge devotion and dark knowledge to deal some damage with his crossbow while casting a few buffing spells on the fighter. It's the higher levels that are worrying me.

I currently have
https://www.enworld.org/threads/summoning-handbook-aka-the-summoners-guide-for-d-d-3-5-summoning_handbook.471385/
https://www.myth-weavers.com/wiki/index.php/3.5_Archivist_Handbook

That I'm basing most of my research on when it comes to feats, classes, and items. My Dm has told me that we will have an obscene amount of gold, but not too many places to spend it, so I thought that crafting further down the line might be useful.

To recap, I need to know what the best Prestige class for this build is, and which spells would help me achive this. Maybe even some advice on which items are the best things to save up for in the lower levels.

[The Viscount]

I'll strongly recommend you look at Malconvoker. It does lose you a level of casting up front, but if you aren't evil it's one of the best summoning classes.

[Zombulian]

If you’re looking into crafting with Archivist, the Runecaster is a great PrC to look at. Saintheart has a nice handbook for them.

Also if you’re going to grab Spontaneous Summoning, may as well get Greenbound Summoning too right?

[Tvtyrant]

For getting every spell ever: Two levels of Chameleon will let you "discover" a new spell every day by taking Extra Spell with the floating feat.

Summoning: If you want to focus on summon monster use Malconvoker, if Summon Nature's Ally use Thaumaturgist or Moonspeaker. SNA has Greenbound Summoning and Rashemi Elemental to buff it, SM has doubling up with Malconvoker and Fiendish Summoning Specialist.

Fiendish Summoning Specialist (with a tolerant DM) is totally nuts. For instance the Ultroloth is CR13 so falls within SM9, and nets you a pile of high dc SLAs.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Archivist actually gets decent class features through its 11th level, so you could just take more Archivist for lack of better options.

A single level of Sacred Exorcist gets you Turn Undead, which can power divine feats. Boatloads of gold means a pile of Nightsticks (LM), which means tons of DMM: Persistent spells. You probably want to be good aligned anyway for access to sanctified spells.

Contemplative 1 and 6 get you domains, and Seeker of the Misty Isle 1 gets you the Travel domain. Ruathar (RotW) can get you Survival as a class skill to meet prerequisites.

Hexer in Masters of the Wild (3.0 but easily converted) is a very strong class that only an Adept or Archivist can easily qualify for. Granted it has a race requirement that you may not meet, but it's one of the best classes to finish out your build with if you're nongood.

Paragnostic Apostle (CC) is pretty good, but only for as many levels as there are decent abilities for you to pick. Spatial Awareness buffs Elation (BoED), which you can DMM: Persist on the whole party. Mind Over Matter buffs (Greater) Mage/Luminous Armor, which you can combine with Imbued Summoning (PH2).

Divine Oracle 4 gets evasion and uncanny dodge, you can get its feat prerequisite for 2,000 gp by visiting the Frog God's Fane in CS.


Invisible Spell in Cityscape can be used to make your summoned creatures permanently invisible, but you don't necessarily want to use metamagic if you're spontaneously casting unless you get Rapid Metamagic. Be sure to get Ashbound (ECS), Greenbound Summoning (LEoF), and a Ring of the Beast (CC).

[Akkristor]

Instead of Spontaneous Summoning, look at the feat 'Initiate of Obad-Hai'.

You have to be able to cast 3rd level spells, but the benefit is written as such:
Benefit: You can "lose" a prepared spell to spontaneously cast any summon nature's ally spell of the same level or lower, just as a druid, in addition to cure spells.


Now, for a normal cleric who can already convert into healing spells, it's quite obvious that it allows you to spontaneously cast SNA as well.

However, for an Archivist who can't already spontaneously cast cure spells, the wording of the feat gives you that ability too. 100% NOT RAI, but is RAW.


SNA's big summons are all beatsticks, as opposed to the toolkits of SM, and my personal favorites are the Elementals. And you can make the elementals much beefier with Augment Elemental and Rashemi Elemental Summoning.

A level of Sacred Exorcist for Turn Undead lets you do Divine Metamagic cheese, and don't forget Ring of the Beast to summon from higher level lists.


At high levels you can burn a 8th level spell to cast a Rapid Twin Empowered Summon Nature's Ally VII (Rapid +1 spell adjustment, Twin negated from Divine Metamagic, and Empower from a Rod). This can summon 1 creature from VIII's list, 3d3 from the VII list, or 3d4+3 from the VI list.

3d4+3 Huge Elementals as a standard action (Thanks, Rapid Spell). With Augment Summoning, Augment Elemental, Rashemi Elemental Summoning, and maybe a Ring of Mighty Summons, they'll have hundreds of HP each, and you can summon Air elementals for (3d4+3)d3 15d6 Cone of Colds.

There is also a magical location, Worldmeet Glade, that gives +4 STR and CON to all your summons again, which stacks with Augment Summoning and Augment Elemental.


Useful PRCs include Thaumaturge (Free Extend Spell on all your summons, Stacks with Extend), and Paragnostic Apostle (Free fast healing).
Also useful feat is the Ashbound feat, which gives +3 Luck bonus on attack rolls and doubles the duration (stacks with Extend and Thaumaturge).


If you are allowed Dungeon Magazine content, the War Magic feat will let you learn "Summon the Pack and Herd". It summons 25 creatures PER CASTER LEVEL from the SNAII list (which Ring of the Beast bumps to the III list).

Also from Dragon Magazine is the "ELemental Guardian" spell, which summons a Lesser Elemental Wierd. It has a duration of 1 day per caster level, but is limited to it's summoning location.

Also don't forget to grab the Summon Elemental Reserve feat when you can, the free Elementals are more useful than their stat blocs would seem. They make great flanking buddies and can essentially replace your 'attack' and lets you summon easily vs. chaff mobs, or just summon an Air Elemental to get something off a high shelf.

[Thurbane]

Here's a list (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?568337) of "other" Summoning spells I compiled a while back. Many of them are available for an Archivist to scribe into their prayer book:


Cool, thanks. Won't be including KoK, Dragon or similar sources at the moment.

Does this list look complete?


Abyssal Army
Aerial Summoning Dance
Armageddon
Call of the Twilight Defender
Creeping Doom
Doom of the Seas
Dragon Ally
Dragon Ally, Greater
Dragon Ally, Lesser
Elemental Swarm
Eyes of the King
Fierce Pride of the Beastlands
Gatorswarm
Heavenly Host
Hellish Horde
Hunters of Hades
Insect Plague
Luminous Assassin
Luminous Assassin, Greater
Luminous Assassin, Lesser
Mephit Mob
Mount
Phantom Bear
Phantom Wolf
Plague of Rats
Regal Procession
Spider Plague
Summon Aspect of Bahamut
Summon Babau Demon
Summon Bearded Devil
Summon Blood Elemental
Summon Bralani Eladrin
Summon Clockwork Mender Swarm
Summon Desert Ally I
Summon Desert Ally II
Summon Desert Ally III
Summon Desert Ally IV
Summon Desert Ally IX
Summon Desert Ally V
Summon Desert Ally VI
Summon Desert Ally VII
Summon Desert Ally VIII
Summon Devoted Roc
Summon Dire Hawk
Summon Elemental Monolith
Summon Elementite Swarm
Summon Elysian Thrush
Summon Giants
Summon Golem
Summon Greater Elemental
Summon Hound Archon
Summon Marked Homunculus
Summon Mirror Mephit
Summon Pest Swarm
Summon Swarm
Summon Undead I
Summon Undead II
Summon Undead III
Summon Undead IV
Summon Undead V
Summon Warforged Champion
Vipergout


Other stuff:

Child of Winter:

1st Level - Monstrous centipede, Medium, Monstrous scorpion, Small , Monstrous spider, Small. 2nd Level - Giant ant, worker , Monstrous centipede, Large; Monstrous scorpion, Medium; Monstrous spider, Medium; Spider swarm. 3rd Level - Giant ant, queen , Giant ant, soldier ; Monstrous centipede, Huge ; Monstrous spider, Large. 4th Level - Giant praying mantis; Giant wasp ; Locust swarm; Monstrous scorpion, Large. 5th Level - Centipede swarm,; Carrion crawler; Giant stag beetle. 6th Level - Monstrous centipede, Gargantuan; Monstrous scorpion, Huge. 7th Level - Hellwasp swarm; Monstrous spider, Gargantuan. 8th Level - Monstrous centipede, Colossal; Monstrous scorpion, Gargantuan. 9th Level - Monstrous scorpion, Colossal; Monstrous spider, Colossal.

Rashemi Elemental Summoning:

When casting a spell that summons air or earth elementals, you may choose to summon an orglash or thomil instead.

Wild Soul (Summon Seelie Ally):

2nd (Summon Monster IV) Seelie: Blink dog, Pegasus, Senmurv (Fiend Folio), Unicorn; Unseelie: Aranea, Howler, Redcap, young (Monster Manual III); Shadar-kai (Fiend Folio); 4th (Summon Monster V) Seelie: Nixie, Satyr (with pipes), Unseelie: Joy stealer (Monster Manual IV), Shadow mastiff, 6th (Summon Monster VI) Seelie: Pixie (can't cast Otto's irresistible dance; with sleep arrows, but not memory loss arrows), Shimmerling swarm (Monster Manual III), Unseelie: Displacer beast, Winter wolf, 8th (Summon Monster VII) Seelie: Lillend, Leskylor (Book of Exalted Deeds), Unseelie: Annis, Will-o'-wisp, 10th (Summon Monster VIII); Seelie: Bearhound (Monster Manual III), Leskylor, three-headed (Book of Exalted Deeds); Unseelie: Redcap, elder (Monster Manual III), Rejkar (Monster Manual III)

[Tvtyrant]

Item stuff: Ring of Mighty Summons maximizes summon HP but cuts time in half, which you want by level 10. Combat usually only goes 5 rounds.

Ring of the Beast lets you cast Summon Nature's Ally as if it were a level higher, to a maximum of your highest slot. So SNAIII becomes SNAIV if you can cast 4th level spells, saves a summoner from from using their highest spell slots.

At spell levels 2-3 Summon Undead is the best summoning spell, and it is on par through level 5 due to summoning insubstantial undead (ie it beats anything lacking magic or magic weapons.)

At spell levels 4-7 SNA is the best summoning sect. If you have greenbound summoning it wins from level 1-7.

Spell level 8-9 Malconvokers make Summon Monster the best, otherwise Summon Elemental Monolith is the best late game summon.

Summoning with level 1 spells is bad. They don't last long enough to matter and they do very little when they are summoned. Their basic power is to turn spell slots into trap springing monkeys.