So....How many summons can you have?

[Inardesco]

Currently I have a druid, lvl 7, with 4 summons running behind him;
* Minor Elemental x2
* Dryad + Wood Woad

So how many can that single druid get? I know theres a 5th lvl spell summon aswell.

And then I haven't even started with the necromancy bits yet.

I suppose having both scratch and shovel would add another 2? And then the major elemental spell adding a 3rd? And find familiar, so 9 summons in one go without necromancy?

[Unfriendly Fire]

I don't think you can have Scratch and Shovel out at the same time, unfortunately.

But, My main PC can summon 4 ghouls, use a scroll of lesser elemental, and a scroll of greater elemental at the same time. Summon Us and Shovel at the same time, and just my PC alone can summon 8 entities.

Gale learned the Deva scroll for me, and summons a myrmidon from a lv 6 summon spell, and the Deva out, plus a lesser elemental scroll, and that's three for Gale. Same thing on Shadowheart. Then my other player(Minthara right now) Gets just a lesser and a great elemental.

So that's 8+3+3+2. So my playthrough has 16 summons on average out at any one time, but the ghouls I mentioned in the beginning are squishy, you don't control them, and they explode when they die. So if they die near a player character, that's bad.

[Inardesco]

Originally posted by Unfriendly Fire:

I don't think you can have Scratch and Shovel out at the same time, unfortunately.

But, My main PC can summon 4 ghouls, use a scroll of lesser elemental, and a scroll of greater elemental at the same time. Summon Us and Shovel at the same time, and just my PC alone can summon 8 entities.

Gale learned the Deva scroll for me, and summons a myrmidon from a lv 6 summon spell, and the Deva out, plus a lesser elemental scroll, and that's three for Gale. Same thing on Shadowheart. Then my other player(Minthara right now) Gets just a lesser and a great elemental.

So that's 8+3+3+2. So my playthrough has 16 summons on average out at any one time, but the ghouls I mentioned in the beginning are squishy, you don't control them, and they explode when they die. So if they die near a player character, that's bad.

I suppose you could do more with the book of Thay? Or is that including the summons from that one?

[seeker1]

The reality is there is a summoning limit per spell, but there is no cap for total summons. You can summon as many beings as you have spells/abilities/items for. And many spells are multi-summon, like Danse Macabre summons 4 ghouls.

Practical limits will start to come into play here. Your pathfinding for all your summons gets worse and worse the more you have out there ... not that it ever starts out that great. Be careful of the summons that are AI-controlled ... those can be very unpredictable and sometimes attack friendlies. Certain kinds of summons, i.e. beastmaster pets, tend to very notoriously get stuck in various parts of the map. Etc.

Then you've got some kinds of necromantic magic, where if a zombie kills another creature, THAT one rises up as ANOTHER zombie, increasing your #'s.

[A Disembodied Intelligence]

Originally posted by Unfriendly Fire:

I don't think you can have Scratch and Shovel out at the same time, unfortunately.

But, My main PC can summon 4 ghouls, use a scroll of lesser elemental, and a scroll of greater elemental at the same time. Summon Us and Shovel at the same time, and just my PC alone can summon 8 entities.

Gale learned the Deva scroll for me, and summons a myrmidon from a lv 6 summon spell, and the Deva out, plus a lesser elemental scroll, and that's three for Gale. Same thing on Shadowheart. Then my other player(Minthara right now) Gets just a lesser and a great elemental.

So that's 8+3+3+2. So my playthrough has 16 summons on average out at any one time, but the ghouls I mentioned in the beginning are squishy, you don't control them, and they explode when they die. So if they die near a player character, that's bad.

If you have a Necromancer (at I think level 6) in your party, then you get +1 to every undead you summon.

So you could animate dead with a level 4 spellslot to summon 4 zombies instead of 3.
And Summon 5 ghouls due to Thay instead of 4.
Meaning just from Thay and one spell you have 9 summons for your Necromancer.
Then you add in things like Shovel, Us, and the Deva.
And a Necromancer can easily have 12 summons out before the zombies start making more temporary ones in battle lol.

It's wild.

[Gwonbush]

So lets say we've got a necromancer wizard with the Deva Scroll scribed and 3 spore druids, along with the Crypt Lord's Ring and the Infernal Rapier. One of them has done full Necromancy of Thay. Two of the Druids took Ritual Caster so they could cast Find Familiar.

We now have 4 ghouls (Danse Macabre), 4 familiars (Shovel, Scratch, two crows), 8 Ice Mephits (Conjure Minor Elemental), 4 Water Myrmidons (Conjure Elemental upcast), 1 Deva, 1 Cambion (infernal Rapier), 2 Ancient Servants (one from Create Undead on Wizard, one from a Druid using it from Crypt Lord's Ring), 6 Flying Ghouls (3 from the wizard, 1 each from the druids), 3 Dryads (Summon Woodland Being), 3 Wood Woads (Fallen Lover from the Dryads) and 1 Us. Not counting the base 4 party members, this army would have an additional 37 members, bringing the squad up to 41 strong.

Theoretically, you could get 2 more by switching 2 druids to necromancers, but that would take 6 more corpses to get that result, requiring 14 corpses for the army instead of 8. One of the spore druids could also be a Land druid with the Circle of Bones, and you'd drop a Flying Ghoul with a skeleton.

You may have noticed that the Necromancer Wizard is casting 4 level 6 spells with this combination, despite only having 1 level 6 spell slot. They'd use Freecast for one, recharge their level 6 slot with the Spellcrux Amulet for another, and use an Arcane Battery from either Staff of Spellpower or Markoheshkir for yet another level 6 casting.

Edit: I forgot to count the extra undead from Necromancer, add an additional 2 to bring it to 43 with a necromancer and 3 druids, and 4 necromancers get up to 49.

[A Disembodied Intelligence]

Originally posted by Gwonbush:

So lets say we've got a necromancer wizard with the Deva Scroll scribed and 3 spore druids, along with the Crypt Lord's Ring and the Infernal Rapier. One of them has done full Necromancy of Thay. Two of the Druids took Ritual Caster so they could cast Find Familiar.

We now have 4 ghouls (Danse Macabre), 4 familiars (Shovel, Scratch, two crows), 8 Ice Mephits (Conjure Minor Elemental), 4 Water Myrmidons (Conjure Elemental upcast), 1 Deva, 1 Cambion (infernal Rapier), 2 Ancient Servants (one from Create Undead on Wizard, one from a Druid using it from Crypt Lord's Ring), 6 Flying Ghouls (3 from the wizard, 1 each from the druids), 3 Dryads (Summon Woodland Being), 3 Wood Woads (Fallen Lover from the Dryads) and 1 Us. Not counting the base 4 party members, this army would have an additional 37 members, bringing the squad up to 41 strong.

If you have the Necromancer be the one who's done Thay then you get 5 Ghouls instead of 4.

[Inardesco]

Originally posted by Gwonbush:

Edit: I forgot to count the extra undead from Necromancer, add an additional 2 to bring it to 43 with a necromancer and 3 druids, and 4 necromancers get up to 49.

Sheesh.

I suppose that does mean you have to go full lvl 12 wizard or druid to get that 6th level spell slot right?

So no multiclassing options.

[SonofaGlitch]

Jeez. They'll allow 41 player controlled entities but balance the whole game around a 4 man party?

I just don't get this logic, personally. I'd rather have a stronger entity limit and a larger base party, personally. Even a 5-man band would be better than only 4.

[Inardesco]

Originally posted by SonofaGlitch:

Jeez. They'll allow 41 player controlled entities but balance the whole game around a 4 man party?

I just don't get this logic, personally. I'd rather have a stronger entity limit and a larger base party, personally. Even a 5-man band would be better than only 4.

Some of these options aren't amazing late game. Ritual Find Familiar summons a 1 or 2 hp creature. That aint going to do a lot against many enemies post lvl 3.

[seeker1]

Originally posted by SonofaGlitch:

Jeez. They'll allow 41 player controlled entities but balance the whole game around a 4 man party?

I just don't get this logic, personally. I'd rather have a stronger entity limit and a larger base party, personally. Even a 5-man band would be better than only 4.

You and me both, friend. However, instead of complaining on the forums, I just go get Party Limit Begone, and problem solved. Now I can play the game the way I want to.

[Inardesco]

Even with just the 7 summons I have now, it has become fairly...uhm...trivial when fights were difficult in my first playthrough.