[3.5] Summoning Trouble

[Gorbash]

Here's the deal. Two of my PCs are summoners - one is a Conjurer/Master Specialist, the other one a Druid (who's thinking about getting Augment Summoning). There are 5 of them in the group + Animal Companion. So if both of them start summoniong (and Conjurer can do it in 1 standard action 3/day thanks to Rapid Spell and School Metamagic), that's potential of 8-16 creatures on their side, which is, needless to say, too much. Especially in the boss fights.
What's the solution for this? So far, I don't allow them both to summon at the same time (that is, basically, one summon per combat), but that doesn't seem too elegant.

Maybe houserule that only 4 summoned creatures are allowed at one time? Any other suggestions?

Looking back, I shouldn't have let that wizard play a summoner, but too late for that now.

[Tempest Fennac]

I'd say you should only let them have up to 1 summoned creature each. Another idea is more enemies, but this would make everyone else feel useless, and it's not always practical from real-life time or plot perspectives.

[Xenogears]

So is your complaint that the extra creatures make them too powerful or that the extra creatures take up too much time in combat? Either way maybe you could have some fights in more enclosed spaces where summoning more than one or two creatures would be extremely detrimental or impossible.

[Mushroom Ninja]

Give their enemies AoE to nuke the minions.

[Kaiyanwang]

What level are they?

Have they always time to summon a lor of allies, or can be challenged in some way to avoid this?

Said this, AOE and things like blasphemy could work (blasphemy too much, works even on players )

[Person_Man]

Give their enemies AoE to nuke the minions.

Agreed. Send them on a quest through the nation of evil dragonborn or whatnot, where everyone has a breath weapon and class levels.

Also, fight in confined spaces, such as your classic dungeon. That limits the number of spaces that they can summon into.

[woodenbandman]

Attack them during the 1 full round that they are summoning.

[Glyphic]

A good dispell can work wonders on summoned hordes.

[Dyllan]

Or if you really want to be evil, throw an Incantrix against them.

Incantrix gets an ability to take over ongoing spell effects... for instance, summons.

They summon 2 creatures a round (one each), the Incantrix steals the more powerful of the two and turns it against the weaker.

Now I wish my players were overusing summons...

[Gorbash]

So is your complaint that the extra creatures make them too powerful or that the extra creatures take up too much time in combat?

Both. If one side has potential 16 actions on their side, they'd win.

What level are they?

13th.

Have they always time to summon a lor of allies, or can be challenged in some way to avoid this?

They summon them in combat.

Agreed. Send them on a quest through the nation of evil dragonborn or whatnot, where everyone has a breath weapon and class levels.

I'm not really looking for an in-game solution, since I'm running Savage Tide AP, so I'm limited with what I can change. And that wouldn't be a good solution anyways, since their summons are pretty tough. They're either celestial/fiendish with SR and augmented HP or Elementals, so they usually have 90-150 HP.

Attack them during the 1 full round that they are summoning.

Like I said in my previous post, the Wizard can do it in one standard action, and even if I attack the druid all the time when he's summoning, I might as well forbid him that spell, since eventually he'll just stop trying to cast it.

I'm looking for a mechanic-wise solution. Limiting numbers to 4 or something similar.

[Gorbash]

Or if you really want to be evil, throw an Incantrix against them.

Same thing. I can't just keep throwing Incantatrixes at them in every encounter, I'd be ruining the point of a summoning-specialized character, I just want to limit it to a normal degree. Although I might throw one Incantatrix at some point, just to keep them on their toes.

[Person_Man]

There's also Protection from Whatever and Magic Circle Against Whatever. They protect you from summoned enemies and mental control.

[Animefunkmaster]

Time wise:
I give my players time limits to there turn in combat (about a minute to a player tops, same goes for the dm if I can't decide what a combatant will do he does nothing) and generally have them prep rolls before its there turn (so no one is waiting while someone calculates there to hit or spells). This has two impacts, combat is run quicker then some games I have been in, and players are forced to think strategically before it is there turn, makeing back up planes and talking to one another (I am not one who thinks talking should take actions in combat).

Power-wise:
I am not familiar with Savage tide so take my advice with a grain of salt... maybe two grains.

You can adjust anything in savage tide, your the dm. You control the terrain and the monsters. If combat is getting tough and an enemy is surrounded by minions or otherwise, it seems like a logical conclusion to withdraw from combat to a place where you aren't hopelessly flanked our outnumbered or if you can fly straight up, some place that will give you the advantage. If the summons start getting in the way of the other characters, the PCs will surely start to discuss their strategies better.

Mechanic Wise solution:
Limit the number of times they can cast a summoning spell per encounter.

If they are throwing hordes at you, then they probably aren't using the full power of the spell and just summoning smaller minions with higher level spells. Add some extra encounters (not just extra mooks in a fight, a whole new encounter), dispel magic, battlefield control, otherwise I would let the players have there fun.

[Adumbration]

Same thing. I can't just keep throwing Incantatrixes at them in every encounter, I'd be ruining the point of a summoning-specialized character, I just want to limit it to a normal degree. Although I might throw one Incantatrix at some point, just to keep them on their toes.

You know, limiting them at all is ruining the point of summoning-specialized characters. You should either talk with them, ask if one of them wants to play the character differently - or a different character altogether, or just deal with it.

I've played a full summoner at high levels once - a Malconvoker, to be specific - and it was loads of fun. We couldn't tell which enemies were powerful and which not, so it evened itself out.

[Zherog]

You know, limiting them at all is ruining the point of summoning-specialized characters. You should either talk with them, ask if one of them wants to play the character differently - or a different character altogether, or just deal with it.

I agree, completely.

What you're proposing really isn't any different from having two melee combatants in the same group, and limiting them so that only one can take a full attack action every round. Or having a wizard and a sorcerer, and only allowing one to use an area of effect spell per round.

However, just criticizing you doesn't really help to solve your problem. So, in addition to the above, I'll mention that there's a lot of good solutions in this thread, and you should be able to mix and match to get good results.

1. Protection against/magic circle spells -- remember that protection against X (evil, for example) can be made into a potion, and only has a value of 50 gp. So giving one or two to an occasional enemy doesn't really affect any treasure value from the encounter.
2. Incantrix -- as you said, throwing one at your players is a great change of pace.
3. Area effect spells -- In a lot of situations, these sorts of spells aren't very productive. But this is a case where it can be.
4. Confined areas -- It's been a while since I read Savage Tide. At level 13-ish, are you at the Isle of Dread, or beyond that point? Regardless, there's always opportunities to tweak a room slightly to make it smaller. Put up a wall with a secret door, for example. Or just make it smaller.
5. Banishment 2 HD per caster level can simply be removed from the combat by casting this spell. On a smaller scale, you can use dismissal.
6. Forbiddance Bad guys who have time to prepare, especially in important chambers, will likely throw this spell up.

One final point. At this point of the Savage Tide AP, the bad guys most certainly know about the players, and are well aware of their tactics. It is not at all unreasonable, then, for them to use forbiddance to protect certain areas, prepare banishment, and pass out potions of protection from evil to mooks. By level 13, your PCs most certainly have a reputation, so you can certainly use that against them from time to time.

And I know I said that was my final point. But I have a final, final point. Remember that planning like this is great, but once in a while you really need to let your PCs shine. I think you understand this, based on comments you keep saying. But I really wanted to emphasis it -- it's OK to plan out ways to handle your PCs; but you also need to plan ways for them to shine with their abilities, even if it means dealing with a bunch of extra summoned creatures once or twice a night.

[seedjar]

I agree with Zherog's assessment re: the enemies in Savage Tide. Having enemies prepared for the PCs' tactics might be unfair under some circumstances, but you seem to have a good excuse. Also, I think Animefunkmaster is on to something with limiting the real play time allowed to each player during combat. If a player doesn't have time to decide what command to give their summons, then let the summoned creatures decide for themselves.
If you're really just concerned about the actions-per-round on the PCs' side, you could maybe introduce some sort of homebrew mechanic that allows the summoners to collaborate and summon large creatures that would otherwise be beyond their individual abilities. Still leaves a bit of an imbalance in terms of power, but it at least speeds up combat.
~Joe

[Bugbeartrap]

What I want to know is how come their summons are so powerful? I'm playing a lvl ten malconvoker and the only thing my critters are really useful for are speed bumps or grapplers. I mean, to actually do some damage in melee I have to waste some actions buffing (until I got a summoners totem.) If you spend that many rounds pumping out creatures, its gonna slow down combat, cuz they have to hack through little chunks of hp and your monsters have to roll high to have a chance to hit. At least thats my experience.

[Dyllan]

Another rule I would suggest to speed thing up. Require the summoners to have stat blocks handy for any creature they're summoning. I don't mean they need to have the book open to the page - I mean a full stat block, with any adjustments for feats or templates already figured in, written out in front of them. They should keep a collection with their character sheet, so that they should NEVER have to look up anything. That really speeds up the play speed with summons. In fact, if they need to look something up for a summon, tell them they aren't able to summon that right now and will have to choose something else.

Also, the normal speed rules... roll attack rolls and damage dice together, things like that.

[Zherog]

Another rule I would suggest to speed thing up. Require the summoners to have stat blocks handy for any creature they're summoning. >>snip<<

Yes, completely agree. This is a big boost to speed that might not be so obvious. I require something similar for druids - I want them to have a character sheet for their most common forms.

[Magnor Criol]

...the bad guys most certainly know about the players, and are well aware of their tactics. It is not at all unreasonable, then, for them to use forbiddance to protect certain areas, prepare banishment, and pass out potions of protection from evil to mooks. By level 13, your PCs most certainly have a reputation, so you can certainly use that against them from time to time.

My thoughts. At this point the enemies can be reasonably expected to know who the PCs are, what they're capable of and how they best like to fight. Assuming they're not a bunch of idiots (and if they're the overarching villains of a campaign, they probably aren't) they will likely start taking counter-measures. like those listed above. These aren't insta-gib buttons against the summoners, as there'll still be ways around them - dispels, killing those who have protection effects first, reserve some summoning slots to spend after the banishment is laid down - but they'll be effective at making the PCs think twice about what they're doing.

PCs should be able to adapt to the enemies' new tactics pretty quickly. And in turn, the enemies should adopt new tactics, and so on and so forth - this has the dual bonus of making the enemies more challenging and more realistic, making the campaign all the more memorable.

[Devils_Advocate]

You could nerf summoning like Complete Psionic nerfed astral construct and only allow a caster to have one functioning summon spell at once, but it doesn't sound like that would help you.

You could forbid the summoning of multiple creatures from a lower-level list. Or maybe allow just two creatures from a lower-level list instead of 1d3; that would cap the number of summoned creatures at 4 if they only summon in the first round, or if you combine it with the above modification.

[d13]

I never read/played that module, so I'm not sure my point is relevant, but anyway...

A. Have them roll a Concentration check (DC 20 + Adjusted Spell Level (After Metamagics or something like that) every round, to prevent one of the summonings of leaving because of (lack of concentration/jealousy (?)/whatever).

B. Rule that, no matter what, you simply CAN'T have more than one summoning spell active per character.

C, D and the rest. Everything already said, about Dispelling, Dismissing, Magic Circle Against, etc, etc, etc.

[VirOath]

I'm looking at this from a more tactical standpoint. Normally it is the PCs that are outnumbered and have to come up with ways of negating the advantages of numbers. This normally involves limiting the number of mobs that can melee them through tactical positioning, long range attacks, nukes, CC and other effects.

But with you, the tables have been turned onto the NPCs.

So have the enemies prepared. There is only so many squares that they can be attacked from with melee mobs, tactical positioning and proper use of terrain can limit that further (Use blocking terrain to limit angles of attack, or even spells to make it with Wall of Force and such). Fight in confined areas to limit the usefulness of numbers further.

Use Crowd Control. Hit summoned mobs with spells like Grease or Web (just examples, there are plenty of choices.) to break them up into manageable numbers. Use the down time to deal with others or nuke them. Or even CC the party and do a mob up of the summons.

Use defensive Martial characters. Phalanx formations or other defensive maneuvers again limits who can melee, what they can melee, provides cover for ranged and pushes people into a meat grinder while the protected casters deal with the party. There is a good reason why the Red Wizards Of Thay have warriors in their pockets.

Also, look at what they summon. Elementals and extraplanars can be easily locked down and dismissed, natural fliers rarely have the mobility to work well indoors and underground. Larger creatures need lots of room to act, if the space is too confined they would be taking penalities to attacks and defense.

Provide magic items and spells to help them deal with the more problematic summons. Just as PCs would use Disruptive Weapons Of Speed against undead, look at the strengths and pitfalls of common summons and provide defenses against them.

And there are more. It's less about negating the players directly, or tossing more enemies at them, it's about giving the enemies the tools and options to deal with larger groups of weaker creatures. And since it's not a single one trick pony that completely negates the character, but rather tactics and planning, they can change their tactics to adapt, and it will always be varied. Players are at their strongest when THEY can dictate the terms of combat, turn the tables back at them. (And they should have gained a bit of renown by now, so people know what they are commonly known for doing XD)

And since these fights may actually be 'harder' you can up the treasure a bit if you want. You are likely making the mobs more wealthy, and wealth always helps the martial characters in a party.

[Greg]

Surprise round with grapplers.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Make liberal use of the spell Hallow/Unhallow, with a Protection from Good/Evil/Law/Chaos on it. Make it cover at least the second half of any dungeon crawl, along with boss fights that don't have minions or AoEs of their own. Everyone within the area will be under the effects of the attached spell, PCs and enemies alike. If it's a Protection from Good, only evil-aligned summoned creatures will be able to attack anything, etc. Keep in mind that any summoning spell has the same alignment as the creatures summoned, so summoning evil creatures is an evil act and can lead to an evil alignment. Mechanically this makes perfect sense, considering they would want to ward their lairs against potentially hostile outsiders, plus it gives them a bonus on saves and AC against opponents of the warded alignment. They would still be able to use their summoning spells, it just wouldn't be very useful in later battles, plus the Druid probably wouldn't want to take Augment Summoning after realizing this.

[hamishspence]

it does, however, rank pretty low on the Corrupt Act scale. Apparently, summoning one pit fiend, is less evil than robbing one poor box.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

it does, however, rank pretty low on the Corrupt Act scale. Apparently, summoning one pit fiend, is less evil than robbing one poor box.

But if there's a Paladin or a Cleric of a good-aligned deity in the party, they would definitely take issue with even one act so blatantly evil and forbid repeat occurrences.

edit: and that's why you mix it up with Protection from Good/Chaos/Law, plus Druids can't make very good non-neutral summons anyway.

By the way, Conjurers don't even need to use any feats or metamagic to summon as a standard action.

[hamishspence]

depends on the setting: in Faerun, the Chosen of Deneir (and apparently, other Good clerics) in R. A. Salvatore books summon fiends, but as info sources only, using magic to coerce them, on the grounds that using fiends for anything else is too morally risky.

Malconvokers in Complete Scoundrel can summon fiends with no moral repercussions on them, but paladins and clerics might still look askance at them.

[JeenLeen]

There is a spell in Book of Vile Darkness which either make any good summon or any summon evil and work against the summoner, at least if the summoner is good.

A similiar spell exists in Book of Exalted Deeds which has the opposite effect, making fiendish celestial, etc.

I could see an enemy spellcaster having prepared the evil version. Not something to have used all the time, but a good way to scare the party at least once.