The Gaming Den

So I've analysed the summoning charts long and hard, and what I've come up with is... they're useless. Only the Summon Monster II and III lists are any good, because level 1 monsters only stay for a round and generally can't do anything at all, and past 3, the monster CR just dips horrifically.

My initial solution was to make it so that any given Summon spell simply summoned a level-appropriate creature; so, the caster's CR-2. Unfortunately, what we end up with is people using 1st level spells to summon CR 15 monsters. Which, if we were to make a class that had a supernatural ability, would be fine. But for a class that uses spell slots... not so much.

So here is (more or less) a fix for Summoning spells.

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There are four types of Summoning spells, as listed below.

Summon Non-Living - Summons Undead or Constructs.
Summon Monster - Summons Elementals, Magical Beasts, or Outsiders.
Summon Nature's Ally - Summons Animals, Fey, or Plants.
Summon Dungeon-Crawler - Summons Aberrations, Oozes, or Vermin.

That means, according to this list, Dragons, Giants, Humanoids, and Monstrous Humanoids can't be Summoned normally. While I'm not necessarily opposed to such spells, I didn't want to make more than four of what is essentially the same spell for different spell lists. Besides, Dragons are broken.

The spells themselves remain mostly the same, but the charts are replaced with simple math. Regardless of which spell you cast, the spell level and appropriate creatures to be summoned are listed below.

Summon 1 - Summons one monster with a CR no higher than 1/3.
Summon 2 - Summons up to two monsters with a total CR no higher than 1.
Summon 3 - Summons up to three monsters with a total CR no higher than 3.
Summon 4 - Summons up to four monsters with a total CR no higher than 5.
Summon 5 - Summons up to five monsters with a total CR no higher than 7.
Summon 6 - Summons up to six monsters with a total CR no higher than 9.
Summon 7 - Summons up to seven monsters with a total CR no higher than 11.
Summon 8 - Summons up to eight monsters with a total CR no higher than 13.
Summon 9 - Summons up to nine monsters with a total CR no higher than the caster's caster level -2.

The reason the spell levels from 1-8 have a set cap is because the monster summoned should be cohort appropriate at the time the spell becomes available, rather than always, to avoid the aforementioned level 1 spell that does the same as a level 9. On the flipside, there are no 'core' spells higher than ninth level, so from that point on (even though there really isn't a game at that point), the highest level spell should scale with you.

Also, the brief mention of higher level spells than 9 bring me to my next idea - phantom spell levels.

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Nobody wants a Persistent Time Stop, but that's easy enough to fix through booting Divine Metamagic in the pants. That's not what we're here for. I want my 19th level PC's (assuming we actually could play at that level) to be able to do something extra with their Shapeshift or Weird or what-have-you. Rather than introduce 10th level spells (the very idea makes me cringe), how about we introduce 10th level spell slots.

The idea behind this is that these spell slots don't exist for any reason except to put more metamagic behind an already existing spell. The spell progression would be the same, so we might have a Silent Wail of the Banshee, or even a Quickened Acid Fog. I don't think this idea would ever actually see use, but assuming that we designed a way to continue that far, would it be feasible?

Let me know.

ZER0 wrote:we might have a Silent Wail of the Banshee

ZER0 wrote:Silent Wail of the Banshee

ZER0 wrote:Silent Wail

ZER0 wrote:Silent

ZER0 wrote:Wail

Hilarious. I like the summoning stuff, though generally, letting people simply dive through the books to decide who they're tagging in for this encounter this minute is a bad idea. Fixed lists are your friend for this type of thing, it's just that the creatures on those lists are usually shit.

As for 10th level spell slots... I don't particularly care either way. I mean, it's not ramping the power up to crazy new levels (and is occurring when the game has fallen apart), but by the same token it doesn't add anything to the game experience. *shrug*

Summarized fixed lists. Only. Honestly, a new player playing as a druid has a hard enough time figuring out what any of the creatures DO, which of them are appropriate, and how to control them once in play.

For level 1 summons, see the Summoner. 24-hour summon at level 1, Sudden Extend at level 2.