'Tanking' - Combat role and usefulness

[Zincorium]

This is a continuation of a side argument first began in the bard mechanical usefulness thread, and since it was off topic I'm restarting it here.

Essentially, my argument is that the role of 'tanking', which in my mind involves dealing consistent, reasonably high damage and attempting to take the damage that would otherwise go towards other party members, is a valid and useful tactic in most combat situations.

Part of what I'm attempting to convey is that unless your game has no roleplaying aspects whatsoever, you do not need to rely specifically on special abilities to gain a monster's attention, such as the Knight class ability. Ordinary behavior and proper roleplaying should be able to accomplish this.

For unintelligent monsters, those with an intelligence of 8 or less, say, are going to have trouble formulating the strategem of 'attack the casters first no matter what', unless they are golems and the like which are specifically programmed to do so. While they may see unarmored characters as easy prey, this applies not only to wizards and sorcerors but to all lightly armored or unarmored characters, bard, monk, rogue, commoner, etc. Unless the characters are dressed in a completely obvious and stereotypical manner, you have to have some ability to deductively reason to recognize possible spellcasters before any actual casting commences, and if a monster is very stupid, even afterwards.

For intelligent monsters, or programmed ones, they have to be able to recognize based on behavior which characters are casters, have the knowledge to understand what a caster is, and the experience to realize that casters present a bigger threat than other characters. Remove even one of those aspects, and the monster simply does not have a good reason to focus on the casters, and it is metagaming on the DMs part to have them do so if they have better reason to attack another character.

A heavily armed and armored character presents a definite threat to any intelligent creature, one they can clearly see. Once combat is joined and the heavily armored character charges forward from the rest and begins swinging a sword/axe/mace and leaving wounds on the monster, even monsters with an intelligence of - will react instinctively to protect themselves. They are focusing heavily on that character now. Unless or until a caster deals damage to the creature in a way that it is clear the caster is the one who did so (rays would betray the caster as an aggressor, fireball would not unless they noticed the tiny ball of fire coming from the mage's hand and connected that with the resulting blast), or if intelligent they recognize spellcasting when they see it out of their peripheral vision or hear it, it makes far more sense to confront the immediate threat.

By presenting oneself clearly as a threat, causing significant injury, and being loud and visible so that a monster's attention is focused on you from the beginning, a character should have made the monster believe them to be the most immediate threat to their survival and thus retaliate solely against you.

Now, as a party role, a tank serves the valuable function of keeping monsters some distance away, giving the casters and support characters mobility and freedom from attacks of opportunity, and reducing the likelihood of attacks being directed towards those characters with low armor class and hit points who are affected more lethally by those attacks. This is a good thing, as a wizard without all their spells up is not going to be nearly as effective when surrounded in melee.

Additionally, the high constant damage output of the tank, as opposed to the extremely high bursts that the caster puts out, are good for softening up or finishing off enemies. It's less wasteful of resources to spend one fireball spell and let the great cleaving tank remove all the weakened enemies from the battlefield than have to spend two turns and two spells accomplishing the same goal. Thus, if the former is reasonable, it becomes the better option.

Anyway, this is gonna probably provoke a lot of both thoughtful and thoughtless responses, like it did in the other thread, so have at it.

Tell me why tanks are useless.

[Tellah]

Now, as a party role, a tank serves the valuable function of keeping monsters some distance away, giving the casters and support characters mobility and freedom from attacks of opportunity, and reducing the likelihood of attacks being directed towards those characters with low armor class and hit points who are affected more lethally by those attacks. This is a good thing, as a wizard without all their spells up is not going to be nearly as effective when surrounded in melee.

The problem is that in DnD, tanking classes don't have the ability to keep monsters at bay. Crowd-control is the domain of the caster, not the melee fighter. The best a melee class can hope to do is to get in an attack of opportunity as the offending creature runs past--assuming, of course, that only a slender minority of battles occurs in 5-foot-wide tunnels.

[oriong]

It seems like you pretty much ignored his arguements against what you're just talking about.

Also worth noting that you don't need 5' corridors, you just need a corridor whose width is 5' less than x2 the monster's spacing.

[Zincorium]

The problem is that in DnD, tanking classes don't have the ability to keep monsters at bay. Crowd-control is the domain of the caster, not the melee fighter. The best a melee class can hope to do is to get in an attack of opportunity as the offending creature runs past--assuming, of course, that only a slender minority of battles occurs in 5-foot-wide tunnels.

Well, why is the monster running past? Everyone I've talked to assume that it constantly happens regardless of the situation. Also, the feat stand still from the XPH works wonders, and since it's non-psionic pretty much an tank can take it.

That the person designated as a tank is supposedly always ignored seems illogical, for the reasons above. I don't accept it unless you can prove that all monsters, all the time, have the special supernatural ability Ignore imminent and obvious threat listed in their stat blocks.

[Person_Man]

I've played plenty of Tanks in my day. It's a fun and common role to play. But they are by no means a party critical niche. Why?

Summon Monster/Nature's Ally. On Round 1 (or sooner, with Quicken or Celerity) any full caster can create a reasonable tank (or group of mini-impedements) wherever they like, and then it gets to make a full attack. Summoned monsters are rarely as powerful as PC Tanks. But you really don't need a PC that deals a lot of melee damage. You just need something(s) to stand in the way until one of the full casters pulls out the right spell(s) to win combat. While its impractical to Summon something for a few rounds at low levels just to watch it disappear, at mid-levels most parties can reasonably go without a Tank, and most spellcasters will have left over spell slots at the end of the day.

Occasionally, your DM will throw marathon combat at you. And that's reasonable to expect. But that's why wands exist. So unless you're playing the World's Largest Dungeon, PC tanks are a lot like Bards or Trapfinders. Useful, but not really that important.

[alchemy.freak]

As i play the tank in my party, i just want to add something

the tank does not have to hold every single one of the little goblins at bay, but his job is to hurl himself into the fray, not to just wait for the creatures to come and attack the mage.

quite frankly i would think my party would be at a severe disadvantage without me, (im a paladin by the way) a rogue, a sorcerer and a bard (the other members of my party, unfortunately our cleric had to quit playing) would have a hard time against a strong hardy meele type oponent, like Golems. maybe a tank will not hold off every little thing, but i can identify the hardest opponents and keep the heat from them off of our casters

also worth noting: while agreeing that battles do not frequently occur in narrow tunnels, there is a very narrow space that exists in many dungeons,
it's called a door

[oriong]

I've played plenty of Tanks in my day. It's a fun and common role to play. But they are by no means a party critical niche. Why?

Summon Monster/Nature's Ally. On Round 1 (or sooner, with Quicken or Celerity) any full caster can create a reasonable tank (or group of mini-impedements) wherever they like.

You're forgetting both spells have a 1 full round casting time, meaning you can't pull them off on round one, and you certainly can't quicken them (not that you would want to, a quickened summon monster spell would be utterly worthless for your level)

[Rigeld2]

Well, why is the monster running past? Everyone I've talked to assume that it constantly happens regardless of the situation. Also, the feat stand still from the XPH works wonders, and since it's non-psionic pretty much an tank can take it.

That the person designated as a tank is supposedly always ignored seems illogical, for the reasons above. I don't accept it unless you can prove that all monsters, all the time, have the special supernatural ability Ignore imminent and obvious threat listed in their stat blocks.

The tank isnt always ignored, but, and this is my main point, theres nothing the tank can do to keep the baddy from going around him. If the baddy decides that the softies in back are hurting/punishing him more than the tank is, there isnt one single thing that the tank can do to keep him from turning his attention away from the tank.

Tank: Ha! Take that vile fiend!
Vile Fiend: Hm. That smarted a bit. But the spell your friend just cast on made me more vulnerable to magic - I must stop him from exploiting that.
Tank: But... I'm attacking you! You cant ignore me! HIYAH!
Vile Fiend: Blarg. Die softie.
Softie: Hrrk-

The only real options tanks have for battlefield control (which is whats required for what you want them to do) are Trips and Grapples. Neither is that great if your build is optimized for damage, and if youre not optimized for damage, then youre not a "tank". Youre a battlefield controller.

[greenknight]

You're forgetting both spells have a 1 full round casting time, meaning you can't pull them off on round one, and you certainly can't quicken them (not that you would want to, a quickened summon monster spell would be utterly worthless for your level)

From the SRD:

QUICKEN SPELL [METAMAGIC]
Benefit: Casting a quickened spell is a free action. You can perform another action, even casting another spell, in the same round as you cast a quickened spell. You may cast only one quickened spell per round. A spell whose casting time is more than 1 full round action cannot be quickened. A quickened spell uses up a spell slot four levels higher than the spell’s actual level. Casting a quickened spell doesn’t provoke an attack of opportunity.

Special: This feat can’t be applied to any spell cast spontaneously (including sorcerer spells, bard spells, and cleric or druid spells cast spontaneously), since applying a metamagic feat to a spontaneously cast spell automatically increases the casting time to a full-round action.

This means you certainly can quicken a Summon spell. And if you have a Rod of Metamagic: Quicken, it becomes both easy and practical to do so.

With regard to tanks, if you use Zincorium's initial description of someone who can both absorb and deal out significant damage, then they certainly have a useful role. However, it should be noted that particularly at higher levels, this kind of "tank" would usually be a Cleric or Druid, not the Fighter or Barbarian who would normally occupy this role at lower levels. The reason is that spells typically have greater damage output, and in many cases higher level spells effectively remove the foe entirely (and in some cases, like the Dominate spells, convert that foe to an ally). The problem for the non spellcasters is that higher level foes can bypass them relatively easily (through flight, magic or just plain long reach and fast movement), and most higher CR foes are intelligent enough to do just that. After all, the Fighter or Barbarian has high HP, relatively high AC (usually), and does relatively low damage compared to the spellcasters. Why waste time on them when there's a relatively high damage, low AC, low HP Wizard in the party as well?

[oriong]

Okay, a change I didn't notice. Not really relevant though. Because if you're quickening your summon monster spells to make a 'tank' you're shooting yourself in the foot. It'll fail and miserably so.

[Rigeld2]

Okay, a change I didn't notice. Not really relevant though. Because if you're quickening your summon monster spells to make a 'tank' you're shooting yourself in the foot. It'll fail and miserably so.

Why? Using a rod to do it gets you your max level summon, and summoned monsters really arent that bad at all.

[Dervag]

Why would Quickened Summon Monster __ be a bad idea?

I think the "tanks are obsolete" crowd here is right- based on the way that 3rd Edition makes casters powerful, tanks have a serious problem confronting enemies and forcing them to attack the tank. The fighter's effectiveness is like the Maginot Line's effectiveness. A fighter is devastating against enemies that choose to attack it (either out of lack of imagination or out of lack of options), but vulnerable to being bypassed by powerful, versatile, or resourceful enemies.

As long as combat occurs in close quarters and indoors, the fighter can remain fairly effective, because close quarters make him hard to bypass. But 'close quarters and indoors' represents only a modest subset of all possible encounters.

[oriong]

For the cost of the rod (and the opportunity cost of other spells) yes it is a lot worse than just having a fighter in the party. Even a Summon Nature's Ally 9 is a lot worse than a 17th level fighter, and unlike the summon you don't have to pop the fighter back in (and waste a 9th level spell slot) every combat you want a defender.

[Dervag]

On the other hand, Rod of Metamagic: Quickening can be used to do a lot of other things (like quickening whatever spell the user wants to cast, and not just summoning spells). So it has value other than for enhancing a Summon Monster spell.

Moreover, from the high-level caster's perspective, the 'tank' doesn't necessarily have to last very long to have the desired effect. As long as the summoned monster can last more than a round or two, it will be sufficient for that battle. Of course, having to summon a monster every time would be something of a waste compared to having a fighter handy. But just as the 'tank' role is not useful in all combats, having a summoned monster to perform as a tank is not necessary in all combats.

[NullAshton]

If tanks are obsolete, then how come nearly every party I've seen has a tank in some form or fashion?

[martyboy74]

They're simple and fun, and more casters don't play well enough not to need one?

[greenknight]

For the cost of the rod (and the opportunity cost of other spells) yes it is a lot worse than just having a fighter in the party. Even a Summon Nature's Ally 9 is a lot worse than a 17th level fighter, and unlike the summon you don't have to pop the fighter back in (and waste a 9th level spell slot) every combat you want a defender.

The rod is expensive, but it has it's uses. And remember, my argument is not that the Tank is useless, but that the role of the Tank at higher levels is much better served by a Cleric or Druid. Clerics have good hitpoints, can wear any armor and use most shields proficiently (any shield, provided they are willing to burn a Feat on Tower Shield proficiency). They don't really need any buffs to work in the Tank role, although there are a few good ones they could use if the going gets tough (Divine Power and Righteous Might get frequent mention, and they are that good).

In some ways, Druids are even better with their animal companion (useful for most things the Fighter / Barbarian types are used for), Wild Shape and summoning spells. They can attack their enemies from the rear with summoned creatures, or use those creatures as a wall if they need to. Likewise, their animal companion can hold off attackers or go on the attack depending on the situation. And they even get a little bit of healing when they Wild Shape (which usually comes with significant ability score boosts as well).

Neither the Druid nor the Cleric really needs to summon creatures to their aid to be an effective Tank, although doing so may well assist them in that role. On the other hand, single classed Fighters and Barbarians don't really have much in the way of options to summon allies (except for a few magical items), and at higher levels, their usefulness as a Tank is very limited.

[The Great Skenardo]

And for foes that are immune to magic or have an incredibly high SR? (I.E high-level dragons, golems of all kinds, some fiends etc?)

[greenknight]

And for foes that are immune to magic or have an incredibly high SR? (I.E high-level dragons, golems of all kinds, some fiends etc?)

Well, let's see. For foes who are immune to magic, the Cleric casts Divine Power + Righteous Might, and casts the occasional Cure spell when necessary. The Druid uses his or her Animal Companion, Summon Nature's Ally, and Wild Shapes.

Against high SR, the same tactics can work, but you also have a few spells (particularly in the splatbooks) which don't allow SR to come into play. For example, a Druid (and some Clerics) could use Fire Seeds (no SR, no Save for the main target).

[alchemy.freak]

Another thing of note, Don't wizards, sorcerers, and indeed all spell casters need to sleep once in a while, for eight hours. but a fighter, or other such class does not need to sleep the full eight hours, yes there may be a penalty for exhaustion, but an exhausted fighter is 100 times more effective than a wizard with no or limited spells. a fighter can fight from sun up to sun down, but a wizard (or any other caster) will probably run out of effective spells long before a fighter will stop attacking the enemy.

Also about the inability to engage multiple opponents, have any of you read the PHB 2 there are a lot of things in there like bounding leap that can attack multiple enemies in one turn.

Further more, many tanks have Ride as a class skill, and Paladins get magical mounts, this serves the purpose of greatly magnifying the usefull ness of the character. it is not exactly a rule that the paladin must be mounted at all times with his special mount, and at higher levels he can ride more powerful beasts than a horse, and even if he is not mounted on it a dire lion makes a pretty effective combatant. Paladins can also take a feat to add the celestial template to their mount, further increasing their combat effectiveness.

to sum up, simple tanks are good, but tanks with the right feat choices, class skills and items are even better

[Dausuul]

From the SRD:

QUICKEN SPELL [METAMAGIC]
Benefit: Casting a quickened spell is a free action. You can perform another action, even casting another spell, in the same round as you cast a quickened spell. You may cast only one quickened spell per round. A spell whose casting time is more than 1 full round action cannot be quickened. A quickened spell uses up a spell slot four levels higher than the spell’s actual level. Casting a quickened spell doesn’t provoke an attack of opportunity.

...

This means you certainly can quicken a Summon spell. And if you have a Rod of Metamagic: Quicken, it becomes both easy and practical to do so.

No, you can't. Summon spells have a casting time of 1 round. This is not the same as a full-round action. A full-round action starts and ends on your turn. An action that takes 1 round starts at the start of your turn, continues through an entire initiative cycle, and ends at the start of your next turn. This is one of the big weaknesses of summon spells; your enemies have a whole round to target you with their attacks and disrupt your concentration, where with a normal spell (or even a metamagicked sorceror spell) they would have to use a readied attack or an AoO.

A spell with a casting time of 1 round takes longer than a full-round action and therefore cannot be Quickened.

(Was it unbelievably dumb to use the terms "full-round action" and "action that takes 1 round" to mean two different things? Was it bound to lead to confusion? Yes, yes it was. But them's the Rules As Written.)

[Wolf53226]

And for foes that are immune to magic or have an incredibly high SR? (I.E high-level dragons, golems of all kinds, some fiends etc?)

And what, would a fighter do against said dragon, since the dragon can EASILY go around the fighter, and has too high of a a combination in HP and AC to need to worry about the fighter?

Golems are best handled by Solid Fog, and then to be ignored.

Fiends, well it really depends on what fiend it is.

[Bloodred]

As I always end-up pointing out:

Casters can do anything pretty much, but if you're dedicating spells to doing one thing, thats less spells to do other things.

In short:

Sure you can summon a creature to fight for you every combat, but that'll make you run out of spells VERY fast.

Also,

Unless you have just had experiences with very BADLY put-together fighter-types I would like to point out that many monsters and NPCs can tear through a summons in a few if not a single well-placed attack(I know alot of mine can).

A well put-together Fighter is harder to make then well put-together Caster IMHO.

Fighters require a good head for numbers: When to power attack, combat expertise, where to 5' step, who/why/where/when to cleave onto, when to charge/trip/grapple/bull rush. ETC.

Casters simply require imagination for good application because most of their spells have no real variables(A fire ball is still a 40' circle regardless of the situation and requires not math or mental planning to make it so).

Thats not to say that casters are EASY to play well, just easier then Fighters(Dispite common belief).

Oh, and if a Fighter is well built: He can stop nearly any baddy he wants to stop, although he might not be dealing alot of damage in the process... But hey, you have to make sacrifices right?? Cant do everything in one combat round.

[TheOOB]

It's really hard to get past a well built fighter with improved trip, stand still, and combat reflexes.

One of the primary roles of tanks which is often ignored is damage. Arcane and Divine casters have better things to use their magic for them damage, skill monkeys damage comes in bursts and is not always reliable, but a good tank can provide a consistantly high amount of damage with little to no resource cost, in fact, in many parties I played in the tank character did more damage then both the next two characters combined on an average round.

[Douglas]

Regarding using Quicken Spell with Summon Monster: A spell whose casting time is more than 1 full round action cannot be quickened. All versions of Summon Monster have a casting time of one round. There is a difference, and one round is longer than one full round action, so Summon spells cannot be quickened.

The difference between a full round action and one round is this: a full round action consumes both your move and standard action for the round but is resolved immediately. A full attack is the most common example. Casting a spell that takes one round consumes both move and standard actions just as full round actions do, but is not resolved until the beginning of your next turn. It does not reduce your available actions for the next round, but it does not have any effect until then and your opponents have that entire round to potentially force you to lose the spell. For an attack to interrupt a spell cast as a full round action, the attack must be readied. A spell that takes one round to cast can be interrupted by any attack, readied or not, that hits the caster before his next turn.

Edit: The problem with typing up a full explanation - multiple people beat you to the punch.

[greenknight]

Summon spells have a casting time of 1 round. This is not the same as a full-round action.

Again, from the SRD:

CASTING TIME
Most spells have a casting time of 1 standard action. Others take 1 round or more, while a few require only a free action.

A spell that takes 1 round to cast is a full-round action.

Emphasis mine.

[Douglas]

That defines only the action used, not the casting time.

[Dausuul]

Again, from the SRD:

CASTING TIME
Most spells have a casting time of 1 standard action. Others take 1 round or more, while a few require only a free action.

A spell that takes 1 round to cast is a full-round action.

Emphasis mine.

I'll see your Casting Time and raise you an Actions In Combat:

CAST A SPELL

A spell that takes 1 round to cast is a full-round action. It comes into effect just before the beginning of your turn in the round after you began casting the spell. You then act normally after the spell is completed.

A spell that takes 1 minute to cast comes into effect just before your turn 1 minute later (and for each of those 10 rounds, you are casting a spell as a full-round action). These actions must be consecutive and uninterrupted, or the spell automatically fails.

When you begin a spell that takes 1 round or longer to cast, you must continue the invocations, gestures, and concentration from one round to just before your turn in the next round (at least). If you lose concentration after starting the spell and before it is complete, you lose the spell.

You only provoke attacks of opportunity when you begin casting a spell, even though you might continue casting for at least one full round. While casting a spell, you don’t threaten any squares around you.
This action is otherwise identical to the cast a spell action described under Standard Actions.

CASTING A METAMAGIC SPELL

Sorcerers and bards must take more time to cast a metamagic spell (one enhanced by a metamagic feat) than a regular spell. If a spell’s normal casting time is 1 standard action, casting a metamagic version of the spell is a full-round action for a sorcerer or bard. Note that this isn’t the same as a spell with a 1-round casting time—the spell takes effect in the same round that you begin casting, and you aren’t required to continue the invocations, gestures, and concentration until your next turn. For spells with a longer casting time, it takes an extra full-round action to cast the metamagic spell.

[Raum]

Part of what I'm attempting to convey is that unless your game has no roleplaying aspects whatsoever, you do not need to rely specifically on special abilities to gain a monster's attention, such as the Knight class ability. Ordinary behavior and proper roleplaying should be able to accomplish this.

Well...yes and no. One of the worst aspects of 3.x is simply that it's become too detailed. And, by implication (if not explicitly), the simple fact a feat or ability allows you to do something has the corrolary of not being able to do it without the feat or ability. Otherwise why ever take said feat / ability?! One of the worst examples is the Diplomacy skill...why did they feel the need to create mechanics for it at all?! We used to roleplay diplomacy instead of buying ranks in a skill. Enough ranting.

I do agree role playing games should allow (even require) role playing to affect gameplay. And as long as the DM reads the rules losely enugh to allow it, it will work...but only in limited situations.

For unintelligent monsters, those with an intelligence of 8 or less, <SNIP>

Unintelligent opponents are probably the only situations this will work with...and (unless terrain can be leveraged) only against single opponents without extraneous goals. A rust monster will head straight towards the biggest pile of metal and the fighter can probably get a single dire wolf to concentrate on himself, but a bulette will attack the nearest edible PC choosing the easiest target first and a stirge will probably attack the least armored target. This doesn't even include flying creatures or those with area attacks - neither of which is more likely to target the fighter than another character.

For intelligent monsters, or programmed ones, they have to be able to recognize based on behavior which characters are casters, have the knowledge to understand what a caster is, and the experience to realize that casters present a bigger threat than other characters.

If they aren't intelligent enough to make an educated guess of who the caster is, they may simply attack the first to cast a spell. Or the least armored. We are figuring average or better intelligence after all, why should it be difficult to evaluate potential threats?

Remove even one of those aspects, and the monster simply does not have a good reason to focus on the casters, and it is metagaming on the DMs part to have them do so if they have better reason to attack another character.

In my experience, most DMs do a bit of metagaming...in the PCs favor. Otherwise any group of opponents intelligent enough and organized enough to use group tactics will concentrate attacks on a single target...probably resulting in said target's death. If your opponents are intelligent it usually takes a metagaming DM for them to either spread attacks around or concentrate attacks on "tanks".

A heavily armed and armored character presents a definite threat to any intelligent creature, one they can clearly see. Once combat is joined and the heavily armored character charges forward from the rest and begins swinging a sword/axe/mace and leaving wounds on the monster, even monsters with an intelligence of - will react instinctively to protect themselves. They are focusing heavily on that character now. Unless or until a caster deals damage to the creature in a way that it is clear the caster is the one who did so (rays would betray the caster as an aggressor, fireball would not unless they noticed the tiny ball of fire coming from the mage's hand and connected that with the resulting blast), or if intelligent they recognize spellcasting when they see it out of their peripheral vision or hear it, it makes far more sense to confront the immediate threat.

Why does a slowly moving stack of metal become a threat? Any creature with even average mobility can stay out of his reach. If the creature flies or has other movement capabilities it's even worse, the tank can't keep the opponent to single attacks by forcing it to move. As for finding a caster, unless the caster is using both Silence Spell and Still Spell it's fairly obvious.

[greenknight]

Casters can do anything pretty much, but if you're dedicating spells to doing one thing, thats less spells to do other things.

Sure. Unless the character is a Cleric or Druid, in which case they can spontaneously convert spells to another purpose. Bards and Sorcerers can do something similar, but that cuts down on their spells known.

Sure you can summon a creature to fight for you every combat, but that'll make you run out of spells VERY fast.

Why would it do that? Typically, a party will have no more than 4 or 5 combat encounters per day, and at mid to high levels they have far more than 4 or 5 spell slots per day. Granted, lower level summons do become pretty near useless at those levels (except as scouts/flankers etc), but still it's not likely casting one summoning spell per encounter is going to make much difference to the available spell slots.

I would like to point out that many monsters and NPCs can tear through a summons in a few if not a single well-placed attack(I know alot of mine can).

With the Augment Summoning feat, they do get tougher. And if you summon 1d4+1 (by going down a couple of levels) creatures, you can get a lot of value for money from a summons. And if you use the splatbooks, you can get some very powerful summons (eg Summon Elemental Monolith, from Complete Arcane, could get you an Earth Elemental with over 400 hp, an attack bonus of +40 and two slam attacks worth 6d8+16 each, not counting the bonus from Augment Summoning). That's not really likely to go down vs 1 or 2 attacks.

Casters simply require imagination for good application because most of their spells have no real variables(A fire ball is still a 40' circle regardless of the situation and requires not math or mental planning to make it so).

It's been said before - at higher levels, many casters will concentrate on spells which bypass hitpoints, and may even convert a foe to an ally. Fireball's a great mass damage spell, but often damage isn't the best way to deal with a foe.