Summoner tips

[Dr.Shwarc]

I'm going to try a full-summoner or necromancer build to see how it'll going, but there's one problem. There's lots of different summoning spells, but I didn't find any way to check summoned creatures spells and skills. It's especially relevant for the situations when your own summon can fear all your party. Or lightning blast your glass cannon rogue.
So, is there a way to obtain summoned creature's info?

[Conquista]

maybe summon them out of combat and inspect them, but no idea if that works

[corisai]

Summons aren't doing to deal any kind of damage (few exception and they're mostly summons from items), their role is to be cannon fodder.

[Stink Bug]

They generally have their appropriate PnP stats, which you can look up on the https://www.d20pfsrd.com/


Also If you have access to the WotR discord, under the pinned messaged of “mod dev technical” you’ll see a download link to the wrath blueprint dump; with enough searching you can find the blueprints (viewable in notepad btw) of your summons of concern, which includes stats and abilities among everything else.

Discord link: https://discord.gg/wotr

[Dr.Shwarc]

Originally posted by Stink Bug:

They generally have their appropriate PnP stats, which you can look up on the https://www.d20pfsrd.com/


Also If you have access to the WotR discord, under the pinned messaged of “mod dev technical” you’ll see a download link to the wrath blueprint dump; with enough searching you can find the blueprints (viewable in notepad btw) of your summons of concern, which includes stats and abilities among everything else.

Discord link: https://discord.gg/wotr

Yhanks. Need to add idea to quality of life improvements

[Frostfeather]

Use ToyBox and enable the option to control your summons. That will greatly reduce the friendly fire, and make your life much easier in general.

[Balekai]

You can also use Toybox to inspect summoned summons in party window, by enabling view of all allied npcs rather than just immediate party members/pets. you can see their abilities, current buffs etc. with enough snooping.

[Abrusio]

Originally posted by night4:

Use ToyBox and enable the option to control your summons. That will greatly reduce the friendly fire, and make your life much easier in general.

I second this.

Without direct control, summons are just plain awful. Most of the time, the most use you can get out of a summon is if they stand still and do nothing, taking a few hits or prevent a charge. AI for summons is just that abysmal.

[GrandMajora]

Originally posted by Dr.Shwarc:

I'm going to try a full-summoner or necromancer build to see how it'll going, but there's one problem. There's lots of different summoning spells, but I didn't find any way to check summoned creatures spells and skills. It's especially relevant for the situations when your own summon can fear all your party. Or lightning blast your glass cannon rogue.
So, is there a way to obtain summoned creature's info?

Unlike Baldur's Gate, you do not have the ability to control your own summons. They will act completely independently of your party, with the only exception being they will follow you around the map when not actively engaged in combat.

[Aliceskysareblue]

low level summons are meatshields and distractions high level ones are much more useful, the tankard of free spirit is a persional favoirte, it gets incrediably useful over time.

put the book of dreams on your summons also ascended summons make them more useful I wouldnt rely on them though

[corisai]

Originally posted by night4:

Use ToyBox and enable the option to control your summons. That will greatly reduce the friendly fire, and make your life much easier in general.

Don't forget that is a pure cheating and against table-top games rules. Default Summon Monster do not allow you to control summoned monsters.

And even then - monsters summoned by spells are too weak. If you're going to became Lich then damage-dealing necromancy spells are much better.

[Frostfeather]

Originally posted by corisai:

Don't forget that is a pure cheating and against table-top games rules. Default Summon Monster do not allow you to control summoned monsters.

And even then - monsters summoned by spells are too weak. If you're going to became Lich then damage-dealing necromancy spells are much better.

Literally half the game doesn't follow tabletop and never will. Obsessing over tabletop to the point of having a more frustrating game experience is just silly.

[Stink Bug]

Originally posted by corisai:

Originally posted by night4:

Use ToyBox and enable the option to control your summons. That will greatly reduce the friendly fire, and make your life much easier in general.

Don't forget that is a pure cheating and against table-top games rules. Default Summon Monster do not allow you to control summoned monsters.

From the pathfinder SRD for summon monster:

This spell summons an extraplanar creature (typically an outsider, elemental, or magical beast native to another plane). It appears where you designate and acts immediately, on your turn. It attacks your opponents to the best of its ability. If you can communicate with the creature, you can direct it not to attack, to attack particular enemies, or to perform other actions. The spell conjures one of the creatures from the 1st Level list on Table: Summon Monster. You choose which kind of creature to summon, and you can choose a different one each time you cast the spell.

Since there's no language learning in this game, it would be limited to anything that speaks common... which is every friendly-fire capable outsider summon.

[corisai]

Originally posted by Stink Bug:

Since there's no language learning in this game, it would be limited to anything that speaks common... which is every friendly-fire capable outsider summon.

1) Many creatures we can summon (beasts, vermins...) lack Intelligence so you're unable to communicate with them.
2) It's up to DM - are we able to communicate with sentient creature or not (compared with several other abilities like familiar when rules allow you to control creature directly).

[Stink Bug]

Originally posted by corisai:

Originally posted by Stink Bug:

Since there's no language learning in this game, it would be limited to anything that speaks common... which is every friendly-fire capable outsider summon.

1) Many creatures we can summon (beasts, vermins...) lack Intelligence so you're unable to communicate with them.
2) It's up to DM - are we able to communicate with sentient creature or not (compared with several other abilities like familiar when rules allow you to control creature directly).

Why wouldn't you be able to communicate with a sentient creature that speaks common? If a DM disallows that they're going against the written rules in the summon monster spell: "If you can communicate with the creature, you can direct it not to attack, to attack particular enemies, or to perform other actions". And spells like Animate Dead outright state they are under your control.

I don't know how the code for Toybox's controllable summons works, but the Wyvern statues in Kingmaker prove Owlcat can make summons controllable on a creature by creature basis. It could even provide a reason to implement the Speak with Animals spell/ability, although they might've felt they would have had to add dialogue to animals throughout the game a la Larian.

[corisai]

Originally posted by Stink Bug:

Why wouldn't you be able to communicate with a sentient creature that speaks common?

Turn are limited to 6 secs :)
Communication like "hold ground" "attack archer" "wait until they charge" as free action is fine.
Communication like "cast your lighting bolt to hit few zombies and necromancer behind them" is not.

And OP want to specifically target spell-like abilities of summoned monsters from "cheap" summon spells. That's breaking the rules.

Originally posted by Stink Bug:

It could even provide a reason to implement the Speak with Animals spell/ability, although they might've felt they would have had to add dialogue to animals throughout the game a la Larian.

So you're fine to skip move or even full turn to give complex orders to your summons? :)