Author Topic: Repost: Legal 3.5 Summonable Monster List  (Read 7680 times)

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Akalsaris

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Repost: Legal 3.5 Summonable Monster List
« on: November 25, 2009, 11:55:08 PM »
Note: this is not my work, but rather the work of mxyzplk from 339.  I'm reposting this with his permission, in part as preparation for a summoning & planar binding compilation resource I hope to start on soon.  Please visit mxyzplk's web page at Geek Related, which I follow pretty regularly, though unfortunately his current game session would spoil a PF adventure path I'm currently playing through.

Repost: Legal 3.5 Summonable Monster List

Page 1:
[spoiler]
So I have been referencing the following classic threads:

Mastering the Summoned Monster: http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=565674
The 3.5 Summon Monster List: http://forums.gleemax.com/wotc_archive/http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=221737
Summoner's Guide: http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?p=13017329
Mastering the Malconvoker: http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.ph
« Last Edit: November 25, 2009, 11:59:20 PM by Akalsaris »

Akalsaris

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Re: Repost: Legal 3.5 Summonable Monster List
« Reply #1 on: November 25, 2009, 11:58:39 PM »

Akalsaris

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Re: Repost: Legal 3.5 Summonable Monster List
« Reply #2 on: November 26, 2009, 12:03:02 AM »

Akalsaris

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Re: Repost: Legal 3.5 Summonable Monster List
« Reply #3 on: November 26, 2009, 12:11:47 AM »
Post 12: Brief play report[spoiler]

I haven't forgotten the thread, I promise.

So I've been playing my summoner, and have just hit my first level of Malconvoker at L7. Here's a bit of "actual play"
experience with all these summons. (Actually, the session summaries are on the Web, along with my character sheet at each level, if you want to check them out.)

At low level with SMI, the fiendish monstrous spider, fiendish monstrous crab, and fiendish sea snake were winners. Even at this low of a level the SM1s suck as meleers, so the web, grab, and poison are the wins. We went up against a quasit while I was L1 and the spider entangling it helped a lot.

With SMII, the Varoot Nerra has gotten a good workout - the Mirror Image and the travel-through-mirrors trick let you do a lot (the whole party is carrying a mirror on their belt so that I can send them reinforcements at a moment's notice). The crab, spider, and snake are still good here but more the crab - the save DCs are too low for usefulness on those abilities. The kaorti's nice too, with color spray and ray of enfeeblement; I had Webbed two ogres that were still a'coming until the kaorti messed them up. I used the howler wasps a couple times but they're easy to kill. Although I guess that's not bad; many summons end up never getting attacked at all, these are intimidating enough that our opponents actually bothered.

SMIII - man, the celestial bison. I was alone and caught in a room with four cultists that wanted to kill me. The bison kicked all of their asses. I use the fiendish ape when space is at a premium. All the things with poison etc - the DCs are just too low. I used the celestial hippogriff once when we had a flying opponent so a party fighter could have a mount (and we used it for fast evac when we lost the fight). I'll probably use the coure eladrin next time I need some auto-hit on something incorporeal or otherwise tricky (magic missile - I gave up evocation).

I've used the Summon Swarms too, but all these Fort save DCs of 14 or less are basically worthless quickly after the spell's available. Augment Summoning helps a little.

I'll report in what I experience with the IVs and Vs soon. Also, I will finish out the higher level summons in the thread - it just takes a while. [/spoiler]

Post 13: Best Summon Monster VI!

[spoiler]I return!

Best Summon Monster VI's

This is a good level for SM. There's 35 different critters here, though many are choices. Also, you're going to need to keep an eye on all the resistances and SR here. At these levels (11+), most opponents will have a variety of specials and spell-likes and/or be hell on wheels in combat. Cloud giant (AC 25, +22/+17/+12/4d6+18), stone golem (AC 26, +18/+18/2d10+9), and hezrou (SR 21, chaos hammer and confusion DC 19, reverse gravity DC 22) are common CR 11 combatants. So don't match melee against melee or magic against magic. Either of those two meleers will chop any SMVI up in one round. SRs and saves are also high. So what you have to do is know your enemy (max out those Knowledge skills) and select summons to match their weaknesses.

The equinal guardinal has some nice spell-likes. Slow, wall of stone, dispel magic. Its whinny can deafen folks but the save DC is low (16, but 18 if Augmented). Backed up by 10 DR and 18 SR, it's a solid choice.

The inferno spider is also really good. Now, it requires a ritual - 2 days research, 100 gp in opal dust - to learn to summon it. But it looks from the writeup like this is a one time requirement. It's got the most hp of any SM VI (119) and a +14 to hit with poison that's DC 21. And fire shield, and a ranged touch web that entangles and flames. Of course if the opponent has fire resistance it's worthless, but if they don't it's hell on wheels.

The chaos beast is a one trick pony but it's a nice trick. Its attack requires a DC 15 Fort save (DC 17 if Augmented) or else you melt into goo - you're confused, can't use equipment, and lose 1 Wis/rnd till you become a chaos beast. A DC 15 Cha check lets you retain your shape for a minute, so many opponents may not succumb to it in the short term - but if you can afflict one or two baddies and extract, it'll keep the bad guys unhappy for a while. Although you may end up having to fight a bunch of chaos beasts, so make sure you're using it on something tougher.

Need a blocker? The Gargantuan fiendish monstrous centipede is the only celestial/fiendish critter at this level with DR 10, and it has a +27 grapple and poison that's DC 17 for 1d8 Dex, DC 19 if Augmented. An it's 20' square with 15' reach! I call it "Wall of Chitin."

The elementite swarms are nice - 2d6 a round plus nauseate saves - and the water swarm has a killer trick of "drown". Anyone in the swarm can't hold their breath and must immediately start to make drowning Con checks - so DC 10 + 1/round and if they fail they die. And the nauseate save DCs are Con-based so Augment gets them up to 15-17. Choose these and leave the normal elementals behind.

The amnizu is a great alternate pick. Though the xill has the highest SR in the field, 21, it can't do much. The amnizu has 3 quickened fireballs, is immune to fire, DR 10/SR 18, and has a stupefying touch that is a Will DC 19 or 2d4 Int damage. That's instant death for most dumb critters and a problem for spellcasters. Summon one "behind the lines" and let it touch enemy casters while dropping a fireball per round at ground zero. Truly, as a summoner you want to be LE or Lawful and take Malconvoker to fake the Evil part. The various FCII options are just too nice to pass up.

The artaaglith can desecrate, animate dead, and also casts as a full L5 cleric with the evil and undeath domains. So that's 20 HD of zombies, and as much pre-thought as you can put into the spell selection will pay off.

You then have a hard choice between the chain devil, pain devil, or green abishai. The abishai has its one save-or-lose Wrack at DC 17 (more if you can buff its Cha), and lots of attacks and other spell-likes. The pain devil is better on pretty much all counts (hp, to hit, damage, DR, spell-likes) than the chain devil *unless* you're able to cart around and distribute 4 chains for the chain devil to animate, in which case it gets like 8 attacks by my reading.

The Corruptor of Fate (yugoloth) has a unique trick - attackers have to roll twice for attacks and damage and take the worst result. It also has a curse on touch and a corrupting gaze attack. It's perfect to lay about with the debuffs during a boss fight.

The bralani eladrin has its uses - it flies, has good arrow attacks, and can blur, mirror image, and wind wall. So it's a nice option when you can pin down non-flying opponents and whip damage into them - it's hard to hurt.

The sillit nerra has the big advantage of the earlier ones- reflective SR 18. Pop it into the midst of the party and reflect all those fireballs, lightning bolts, etc. at the caster. It can mislead and change self to help with that. And mirror image, mirror jump, and shard spray for 5d6 are nice. (My adventuring party each carries a silver mirror on their belt for this reason. Nerra nerra who's got the nerra?)

All the rest are forgettable. Except for the centipede all the celestial/fiendish stuff is blah - the elasmosaurus is good in aquatic environments and you have a number of improved grab options (polar bear, dire lion, giant constrictor). And the dire lion has one of the highest melee attack bonuses.

The Janni gets the award for the biggest ***** of the lot. Summon it for easy combat practice.

The winged warrior formian has some OK ranged attacks with Str damage, but nothing to write home about.

The storm elemental still blows (no pun intended) for the same reason its lower CR cousins do.

The only reason to summon the mud slaad is to nibble on a prisoner to give them turn-into-a-mud-slaad disease. It might help your Intimidate checks. Or at least be entertaining. [/spoiler]

Post 14: Best Summon Monster VIIs
[spoiler]
Best Summon Monster VIIs

This is an interesting level. There appears to be some quality overlap with SM VI, so if you don't need the absolute highest attack bonuses etc. you may want to go with multiple VI's in some cases. Anyway, there's 32 total summons here (you can only get 26 max since some are choices).

DR makes a lot of difference - your monsters' range from 0 to 10 - and you need to watch out for opponents with similar DR or the means to bypass it. 10/+1 is a lot unless the opponent has n/+1 DR as well, in which case you'd be better served by summoning something with loads of hit points. Because so many things at this level have DR or magic weapons, that means your celestial/fiendish options pretty much lose their DR a lot of the time.

Also, SR is probably the other area where the summons actually surpass your fellow party members in something. They're not going to ahve as high to hit, do as much damage, or have as many spells, but they are spell-resistant. Find ways to leverage that - illusions and whatnot can draw bad magic to something with a high SR that you don't care if it dis anyway.

The movanic deva deservers a huge mention here because it can raise dead! As well as remove poison, curses, disease, etc. Finally, an on-call cleric. Unfortunately due to long casting times it can't use its atonement, commune, or divination for you. Sad. Well, that's what Planar Binding is for.

The bone devil is also a good one. It's good in combat, sure, with a fear aura and high DC poison, but it can do dimensional anchor (very helpful at these levels - I hate it when the bad guy teleports away), major image, and wall of ice as well. Very solid DR and SR as well.

And the elementals are finally good for something. They have the highest to-hit bonus at this level. In fact, the Huge earth elemental, when Augmented, has two slams at +21 to hit for 2d10+11 each! (Careful, air and fire use weapon finesse so don't benefit from Augmentation on the to hit.) If you just need something to go toe to toe it's a good summon; even an adult dragon isn't gonna just ignore one. 5/- DR and hit points in the 170s augmented. They have no SR, however, so may go 'poof' when confronted by casters.

Another interesting melee combatant is the ferumach rilmani. It's like a normal fighter (medium, uses gear), which means you probably have a lot of buffing options. It can come in, cast phantom steed, and then use its powerful charge and ride-by attack. And a fear aura. And a 30 AC/20 SR.

The piscoloth yugoloth has the carrion crawler action going on - 8 paralyzing tentacle attacks. Each is only Fort DC 16 and, sloppily, they didn't mention what the DC is based on - it's logically Con and so Augmentation could get it to 18 but RAW you're stuck at 16. But just like with the crawler, if you have to make enough saves eventually you fail.

You have a couple options for mass distance damage. There's the straightforward arrow demon, which if it uses rapid shot and its symmetric archery tricks at the same time gets 6 arrow attacks (+12/+12/+12/+12/+7/+7) for 2d6+6 each - that's quite some hurt on non-super ACs. You have to pick it or the babau demon, which is an unremarkable combatant but has dispel magic at will, which is useful. The avoral does too though, so you don't lose that by ditching the babau.

For ranged attacks vs high ACs, the solamith demon is interesting. It tears off 5-hp chunks of itself and tosses 'em doing basically 4d6 20'r fireballs (half of the damage is untyped, however). It has fast healing 5 so that's sustainable; it can tear off more hp at a time for larger bursts or max damage. And there's a save but it's Ref DC 23.

And speaking of the avoral guardinal, it has at-will empowered magic missiles - 4 missiles, (d4+1)*1.5 damage apiece. That's an average of 21 points with very few ways of avoiding it. And it's got some lightning bolts and hold persons to toss in too. It has 10/evil or silver DR and 25 SR. There's almost no reason to ever use the justice archon instead except when its "justice strike" would be perfect. This ability means that when the archon hits it does damage like the opponent's, including specials like level drain or whatnot. That's a real special case though, use the guardinal mostly. And there's no reason to use the asura; one holy smite doesn't merit a whole summon.

Now you have one big four-way choice - the huge fiendish monstrous scorpion, the pack fiend, the souleater, and the huge fiendish monstrous crab. Go with the crab. No, seriously. The pack fiend is just a bleh meleer and the souleater, besides a negative level aura that's likely to get your allies, is poor. And the crab has improved grab with a huge grapple check. Grappling is as useful at high levels as it is at low levels (heck, maybe more). Sneak attack!

Don't bother with:
  • red slaad
  • fiendish/celestial anything besides the crab, unless you need to sucker in a ship of Japanese whalers with a tasty looking baleen whale
  • djinni, unless you need a permanent 20 cubic feet of vegetable matter and the powers of a 13th level fricking wizard can't get it some other way
  • invisible stalker
  • armadon formian - it's OK but just not competitive
  • storm elemental
  • blue abishai - one point of Wrack DC isn't worth it. Summon a batch of greens instead. You have to choose between this and the bone devil, and it's bone devil hands down.
  • steel devil - though you want to choose this over the fiendish megaraptor for your list, as that sucks even worse, this is basically a middling combatant that can haste. Meh. Summon something better and haste it yourself.
  • [/spoiler]

    Post 15: A Depressing Play Update


Gnorman

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Re: Repost: Legal 3.5 Summonable Monster List
« Reply #4 on: November 27, 2009, 05:15:34 AM »
Hooray! These should definitely be here for posterity.

If it wasn't for mxyzplk's Malconvoker cheat sheets, I never would have been inspired to start my guide. Dude knows his stuff.

Brainpiercing

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Re: Repost: Legal 3.5 Summonable Monster List
« Reply #5 on: November 27, 2009, 07:06:07 AM »
This is pretty nice, I have to say. Thanks for the effort of reposting (and of course to the original contributor).

Endarire

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Re: Repost: Legal 3.5 Summonable Monster List
« Reply #6 on: November 27, 2009, 05:57:02 PM »
This should be a Handbook thread.
Hood - My first answer to all your build questions; past, present, and future.

Speaking of which:
Don't even need TO for this.  Any decent Hood build, especially one with Celerity, one-rounds [Azathoth, the most powerful greater deity from d20 Cthulu].
Does it bug anyone else that we've reached the point where characters who can obliterate a greater deity in one round are considered "decent?"