Does shambler have any use?

[zmasterofjersey]

Title kinda says it all.

Link

A 9th level druid spell that summons 3-6 shambling mounds to help, seems kinda weak to me.

Even with the 7day-7month duration, still kinda weak.

[Kaww]

It may have it's uses - it is situational, just like anything not broken.

I think DMs use it more than players. Plus if you know that you will have a free day every week, why not - it's a free moving, buffable, meatshield good for one week...

[jguy]

Well considering nearly every other summon creature spell is a 1 round action and that one gets you 1d4+2 as a standard isn't too bad. Great fodder for a long time too. Even better if you have someone hurling around lightning bolts and such.

[Ernir]

As a combat spell? It's crap.

As a spell you cast every day for six days before a big fight with a blue dragon, slightly less so, I suppose. Speedbumps can come in handy.

[Toliudar]

Yeah, I'd see it as useful as a preparatory spell for a battle where more meat shields will be useful. But if you're already a 17th level druid, the number of situations in which a few lumps of non-flying meat will be useful starts to go down dramatically.

Good for guarding the grove while you're off and about, I suppose.

[Wulfram]

For the cost of one spell a week, you can have around 126 shambling mounds guarding your home.

For the cost of one spell a day, you can have about 900 shambling mounds guarding your home

Might get a bit smelly

[Killer Angel]

Even with the 7day-7month duration, still kinda weak.

As combat spell, is useless, but indeed the duration gives it some goodness.
Practically, you're andventuring with ALL your spell slots AND some free shambler summoned a couple of days ago.
It's a bonus.

[Mushroom Ninja]

1. The day before a BBEG fight, cast shambler twice, summoning 2d4+4 shambling Mounds

2. The day of a the big fight: Slap some thunderheads down on those suckers.

3. ??? (something involving shambling mounds with huge-ass CON scores)

4. Profit

[bigstipidfighte]

Don't forget a Persistent Call Lightning let's you rain down 3d6 points of electricity all day, while you travel. There might be better ways (an elemental plane/demiplane of electricty?) to do nigh infinite lightning damage, bu this one is cool. Being able to spontaneously do 3d6 smites all day is amusing.

[Keld Denar]

Energy Sub (Electric) Persisted Creeping Cold? Chain it with a rod? Their Con would be OVER 9000!!!!!!!!!!!

Too bad you couldn't attach a template to the Shambers. Something with a Con based saving throw would be deadly. Um...yea, make a DC 24895 Fort save or X. Oh, you failed? Why am I not surprised?

[JeminiZero]

Energy Sub (Electric) Persisted Creeping Cold? Chain it with a rod? Their Con would be OVER 9000!!!!!!!!!!!

Energy Wall comes to mind. Lasts as long as the manifester concentrates. Since its only a level 3 power, you could get it in an item or something.

Too bad you couldn't attach a template to the Shambers. Something with a Con based saving throw would be deadly. Um...yea, make a DC 24895 Fort save or X. Oh, you failed? Why am I not surprised?

Use Fusion, Shapechange/Greater Metamorphosis and a lot imagination?

[Greenish]

Don't forget a Persistent Call Lightning let's you rain down 3d6 points of electricity all day, while you travel.

That doesn't actually work. The amount of lightning bolts you can call down with a single casting is dependent on your CL (and caps at 10), not on the duration of the spell.

[Darklord Xavez]

1. For the week before a big fight, cast shambler as often as possible (or just once if you're adventuring) per day. (On the first day, cast it at night, at almost midnight)

2. Have a spellcaster in the party who has lightning bolt and sculpt spell. Creating a wand of sculpted lightning bolts (20-foot radius) also works.

3. During the fight, send in the shamblers to bog down the BBEG while the caster spams lightning bolts sculpted for the 20-foot burst to both deal damage and to buff the shamblers.

4. Sucess!
-Xavez

[Lysander]

It's powerful because it lets you create long lasting small armies, or really long lasting stationary armies. An army creation spell with no material component is bound to be high level to compensate. A swim speed means your infantry can also be your navy. Shambling Mounds are also pretty smart (7 Int is human range), relatively powerful (most people are far lower than level 6), and can be sent off on pretty much any kind of mission, en masse or individually.

[Frosty]

Can any consumable or magic spell give the Shamblers a Breath weapon? If you buf their Con into the hundreds, it can get nasty.

[Zhalath]

I'm sure there's a spell in one of those dragon splatbooks (Draconomicon, Dragon Magic) that gives you a breath weapon. I've seen it, but I can't put a name on any of them.

I dunno, throwing up some walls of shambling mounds sounds like fun, especially if you have to fight a big horde or something. It also seems like a good spell for the DM, like, to have some evil druid who keeps sending hordes of shamblers at you.

[Jack_Simth]

They make wonderful walls if you happen to also pick up the Storm Bolt reserve feat from Complete Mage. Unless, you know, the DM rules that it's a non-stacking bonus.

[Randel]

Hmm, they have 21 str. If you summon a whole mess of them and give them pickaxes or something then maybe they can bust holes in walls or otherwise cause damage to whatever terrain the BBEG is around. Have them dig tunnels, destroy the supports for the lair, or toss rubble around to hamper enemies.

Or, equip them with other stuff to use.

If you have a similarly leveled sorcerer or wizard on your team and they have Explosive Runes then they can print out a whole bunch of exploding papers and give them to the shambling mounds. Then the mound can read the papers to activate it when they are wherever they need to detonate. (not sure if they could activate all of the runes at the same time). Bonus points if you can change the energy type so the runes blast out electricity damage. Make suicide-bomber shambling mounds who actually heal themselves while roasting anything they come into contact with.

Get chains for all the mounds to pull to drag stuff around.

Give them battering rams and order them to charge into buildings or enemies.

Give them shovels and have them divert a river to flood wherever you need them, this also gives them their fire resistance bonus if they flood the place they will be fighting.

Have them demolish villages, tear down forests, or dig up graves if you need to do so for some reason.

Have then dig for gold... hey, its worth a shot.

Don't know if they can survive in salt water but they should be able to swim... maybe have them dredge up stuff from the bottom of a lake or hunt fish and put them in a basket for you.

If you feel like it and have some days worth of spells to burn, find one of the dungeons you already cleared out, create a bunch of seven months shambler guards, seed the place with some coins and minor magic items, and tell people there is ancient treasure there. Shove a whole mess of shamblers in one room along with some sort of long-term electricity effect. Then come back occasionally to see if this nets you any treasure from dead adventurers. Be careful because this may shift you to some evil alignment which could interfere with your druid powers.

Bard: Did you just use up around twenty 9th level spells so you could fill that dungeon we finished at 1st level with CR 6 shambling mounds with the intention of having them brutally kill low-level adventurers (who are probably just like we were about two months ago) so we can collect the money from their corpses?

Druid: Yeah.

Bard: Okay, that might explain why the anthropomorphic personification of True Neutral Nature just manifest a big floating head thats been following you around all week. Glowering and scowling at you while its green eyes emit waves of hatred towards you for all hours of the day forever.

Druid: I know, frankly I don't know why. I was just putting that dungeon back the way we left it essentially.

[shadow_archmagi]

You could use the CROSSBREEDING rulebook to make shambling dragonmounds.