How do you make summons work?

[TwoTonTuna]

So I remember playing Kingmaker, and that the AI back then strongly tended to focus-fire on the nearest threat to them. This worked for both summons and for enemies, meaning that summons could actually play a role even if they couldn't hit anything.

In WotR though, I noticed that the summons have weird targeting priority. They will seemingly choose a target at random instead of the nearest threat. What makes their roles as meatshields even worse is that plenty of monsters tend to focus on the squishiest member of your part even if it means running through a dozen attacks of opportunity.

This would be nice... if my summons actually had the capacity to hit anything in the first place.

I really wanted to recreate my old summon-spam build that I used in Kingmaker, but I just cannot find a role for summons. They can't hit anything, they can't draw aggro, and they can't block enemy pathing.

Any summoners out there who could give advice? Like what classes you get, what summons you use, what feats/talents you pair them with?

[TwoTonTuna]

As an update: I stopped treating summons as a core spell for either tanking or damage, and started treating them as a 'physical damage' spell.

First I inspect the enemies I'm up against. If they have high resists but low AC, I summon monsters. if they have high AC but low resists, i hit them with damage/control spells.

Downside of summons:

1) they take a full round to cast, meaning they will only begin moving the next round. really bad when you get ambushed or you get out of a scripted dialogue scene and into a fight.
2) you can't predict what they will target. they might go for the high-AC tank in front of your party, or they might go for the low-AC archer sniping from the back.
*each summon might have different AI logic behind them, but i haven't spent enough time studying their behavior to note said differences. would be cool if certain summons attack the nearest target, while other summons seek the lowest-AC target.
3) non-herald callers/inquisitors will need to slot two feats (spell focus: conjuration + augmented summons) so summons get +4 str/con. that's +2 attack that summons sorely need if they want to hit anything above 30 AC. this will either mean you waste one feat on conjuration, or you focus on conjuration spells while picking a mythic feat slot to grant the conjuration bonuses to a school of your choice

upside of summons:
1) you can pre-cast them before a big fight, and you can even lug them around if you get metamagic:extend.
2) a mob of summons can provide decent cover while you close in for melee touch spells. if enemies prioritize target a PC character, your party can hunker down and heal/defend while the summons continue dealing damage.

[Raikon]

Im not entirely sure of what your looking for in this thread. I have had several play throughs of summoning archetypes, but I dont know what your looking for.

Monster tactician is a really fun class, and has some spare room to multi class. Like a 17 tactcitian/3 zen archer. I have soloed with this build on core just fine.

Beast tamer bard, doesnt seem to be as strong, I tried this out with an azata theme, hoping to buff aivu as well, but aivu isnt included in the song, and I abondened the character as a failure.

[Cyrus]

Wrong on all aspects as someone who mains summons. Firstly base summons are crap as they do not scale unless you pick 1 of 3 specifically sub classes. Summoner was strong in kingmaker and monster tactian was crap. In this game its reverse.

1) my summons last 24 hours. You can summons multiple copies of the same, and you can use heightened magic it. Try casting summons dire wolf as mythic cl 18 angel. Those will destroy every mob alone.

2) cast all of them before combat to make a private army. I had 50 summons up at same time with my Mc alone. Using daeron to over heal all your summons increasing their hp by up to 250.

3) use your aoe buffs before combat.

4) augment summons is ludicrous op.

Give reg impossible domIn for 5% Dr bubble, + order of good claw, + aura of devas + soci and you got a God tier army

Clarification for reader. Meta magic does not increase their stats, from my understanding it summons more of them, not tested it extensively

[TwoTonTuna]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Cyrus:

Wrong on all aspects as someone who mains summons. Firstly base summons are crap as they do not scale unless you pick 1 of 3 specifically sub classes. Summoner was strong in kingmaker and monster tactian was crap. In this game its reverse.

1) my summons last 24 hours. You can summons multiple copies of the same, and you can use heightened magic it. Try casting summons dire wolf as mythic cl 18 angel. Those will destroy every mob alone.

2) cast all of them before combat to make a private army. I had 50 summons up at same time with my Mc alone. Using daeron to over heal all your summons increasing their hp by up to 250.

3) use your aoe buffs before combat.

4) augment summons is ludicrous op.

Give reg impossible domIn for 5% Dr bubble, + order of good claw, + aura of devas + soci and you got a God tier army

Clarification for reader. Meta magic does not increase their stats, from my understanding it summons more of them, not tested it extensively

Huh. An army of 24-hour monsters definitely sound much better than 24-second ones. Could you provide more details on how you make this possible? I don't understand what mythic cl18 angel means

[hilburnashua]

I am very curious as to what effect Heighten Magic has on summons. It shouldn't do anything at all, not even summon extra monsters.

CL18 Angel means he is a 18 lvl caster with the Angel Mythic. If the character is a Inquisitor Monster Tactician archtype they can summon a limited number of creatures per day but the summons last 1 minute per caster level. So, with Greater Enduring Spell it should last all day, maybe, not sure that Greater Enduring Spell works with SLE (spell-like effects). Outside of Monster Tactician & Greater Enduring Spell I don't know how you would get a summons to last 24 hours, (outside of Legend Path) unless there is some trick with Angel Path. I also have no idea what there is in the Angel path that would make summons extra powerful.

Although I am curious if the summons will zone with the character. I know that the Treant created through Changestaff won't (or didn't last time I played).

I don't know what he means by Order of Good Claw or 5% Dr bubble or +soci. Aura of devas I think means the Destructive Aura from Destruction Domain. Which is a powerful, but very risky, ability.

Augment summons being ludicrously OP? Ok, that just makes me laugh. +4 to a summon's Str and Con is pretty much nothing.

[Malaficus Shaikan]

I dont use them until i get extented meta feat.
Likewise once i get the mythic versions of making my spells last for a while i start using them.
Tho i woudnt recommand it.
So many frame drops.

You can build an army, buff it and watch everything die.
But summon doesnt get usefull until higher levels.
Early on summons are.....
While how hard is it to kill a wolf?
If you can kill it easly your enemies can too.

[TwoTonTuna]

update two on making summons work: i'm finding the lich's repurpose a superior option to monster summons.

1) repurposed undead are permanent. you can leave a map for days on end, and they will still be there when you come back. conversely, you can rest up and start repurposing new undead to add to your mini-army.

2) repurposed undead scale to the opponents you fight. it's useful from the moment you get it at mythic 3 to the moment you hit level 20.

3) you do not need feats or specializations to make it work. so long as you have access to level 5 lich spells, you can specialize in whatever else you want: buffs, damage, control, melee, ranged etc. heck, you can even summon more monsters/undead to help them out.

[Cyrus]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Kodesh:

update two on making summons work: i'm finding the lich's repurpose a superior option to monster summons.

1) repurposed undead are permanent. you can leave a map for days on end, and they will still be there when you come back. conversely, you can rest up and start repurposing new undead to add to your mini-army.

2) repurposed undead scale to the opponents you fight. it's useful from the moment you get it at mythic 3 to the moment you hit level 20.

3) you do not need feats or specializations to make it work. so long as you have access to level 5 lich spells, you can specialize in whatever else you want: buffs, damage, control, melee, ranged etc. heck, you can even summon more monsters/undead to help them out.

That makes sense, will try it on my next lich. I made a mistake on my first lich play through on taking a divine caster, as it is doable in some games, why is lich exclusively arcane is beyond me

[Raikon]

Some summons are better then others though. Summon evil giants, are absolutely terrible. They barely attack, and they are so large, that they get surrounded easy, and they get in the way of eachother. Conversly, the boogeymen are excellent, and they have sneak attack.

The good aligned angel summons are fantastic, and will heal eachother. They also can spam a ranged holy spell, it doesnt do much damage, but if you have 6 of them out, it adds up quickly.

It seems like a complete failure of a run, to focus on summoning, but not actually summon until you are caster level 25. Waiting until you are in the abyss to start playing the playstyle, is undesirable. I would suggest taking a look at beast tamer bard, or monster tactician. Focus on your characters martial abilities, with summons as support.

Summons with a skald/ brown fur transmuter in your party, are devestating. Monster tactican can already solo the game, but those three characters are just scary together. Bard summons natures, so that pairs well with oracles for + saves.

[Odin the Allfather]

....i used no summons so far, but i used my pets....Azata Dragon, Dino etc.....and powerfull transformation on them + all the higher buffs on them....so im running with 4 Dragons which do act proper good so far ;)

[TwoTonTuna]

update three on making summons work: dispel is an absolute must-have, along with 'last stand' mythic ability.

1) a dispel specialist is useful in general, considering many enemies use buffs for bonus AC, concealment, and the like. they are, however, absolutely essential for summons which have crap attack ratings. it might even be useful for a summoner to skip the three talents for summons (spell focus: conjuration, augmented summons, summon specialization) to instead focus on abjuration. yeah, the extra +1 summon and +4 str/con sound nice, but stripping away concealment, haste, reflect, +30 AC and other nonsensical buffs will help your summons--and your team--get more work done.

2) summons disappear when the summoner is knocked unconscious. 'last stand' will prevent a character from getting KOed for two rounds, which is pretty helpful when the squishy summoner gets focused down by the enemy.

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โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Raikon:

It seems like a complete failure of a run, to focus on summoning, but not actually summon until you are caster level 25. Waiting until you are in the abyss to start playing the playstyle, is undesirable. I would suggest taking a look at beast tamer bard, or monster tactician. Focus on your characters martial abilities, with summons as support.

I feel your sentiment about early summons being trash. in chapter 1, they disappear too quickly to be of any practical use. chapter 2 sees them become somewhat useful, as the summons last just long enough to contribute in a fight.

chapter 3 is where i rerolled my summoner into an evoker because of the increasing AC along with the 'assassin' AI where they go straight for the squishies instead of targeting the summons. that, and the annoying number of scripted events which force your party to walk into the middle of enemies that spawn out of nowhere.

that is also the point where i started wondering how people could make summons work without exploits or cheeses.

[Raikon]

No summons arent trash. However, spending a full round summoning summons that last only 6 rounds, thats bad. Really bad. Which is why I suggested the 2 classes that gets them as spell like abilities, as a standard action, for minutes per level.

[TwoTonTuna]

update four: it's easier for summons to draw aggro in real-time combat than turn-based combat

in turn-based combat, your party is forced to stand in place while enemies run through your summons. in real-time combat, you can shoot-and-scoot with your spells--casting and then running away while the summons march forward.

this is critical when spamming summons prior to difficult encounters. cast movespeed buffs on the team, summon a horde of mobs, enter dialogue/cut-scene, then run away as soon as combat starts. keep running until the boss/enemies retarget the summons, then have your archers/casters start pummeling enemies from a distance. disable the ai of the melee party-members so they don't draw aggro on themselves

this allowed me to trivialize the fight i had with a certain god in act-5 as well as servants of a certain goddess attacking my home base in drezen.

[Klutch]

can a druid could be a good summoner in this game?

[gmwaddington]

There's a couple of Angel Mythic spells that could potentially be useful for buffing summons:
Fortress of the Faithful (9th lvl spell: defensive buffs) and Army of Heaven (10th lvl: offensive buffs). They're both area spells with several effects, so they're efficient for group buffing. However, I haven't really experimented with different summoning tactics; your mileage may vary. Note that Angels get a boosted caster level.