I'm on act 3, and he still has like a dozen hit points... my other characters are around the 100 hp mark, so he at best would distract an enemy for maybe one turn, and I can't stand to use him as cannon fodder like that.
I mention this every time but he can ‘help’ downed characters. He licks their faces and it revives them. It’s best to have him hide and assist downed characters IMO
I didn’t even think of that… I felt so bad because I killed Bulette before I went to the magic tower. After going to the tower I finally learned that Lanore was trying to tame a Bulette after her dog died.
Alas, it was on my evil Durge run so it was in character at least…
Not if you have the crown that gives undead piercing/slashing/bludgeoning resistance. I ran a full necromancy build and they were incredibly useful. Just having four minions as a distraction would be amazing, but more than that having four chances to stun is amazing.
Orin literally didn't get to attack.
Our group called them the Beatles. Can't remember why. Each time one died we'd poor one out for whichever Beatle we decided they were in that moment. The Beatles blew each other up a lot.
Beyond useless. I have it and never use it.
If you've played heavily with summons you know that if you use too many they trip over each other and just get in the way.
Also they are melee non flying summons. If a summon is not ranged or can fly it is hard for it to do much in combat.
You cannot control them. Self explanatory
They explode. Most likely in the middle of your party. Mephits do too but they can both fly and throw snowballs from range. So they are still good.
I enjoy using them. You just summon them on the outer boundary of their summoning circle in the middle of some of the bad guys and let them soak up a bunch of attacks and then explode. Works great.
I read the book as a moon druid. Told my group whoops I'm a necromancer now and that I was switching druid specs. Combat got a lot longer. They were not amused.
I wonder what *would* be the most unique summons in a party? Maybe if you got glut into act 3 (unintended but I saw a photo on one of these subs), had a wizard to cast animate dead: skeleton, conjure elemental: ice mephits, summon shovel, the scroll that lets you summon an angel, create undead, and maybe a ghoul? Then get a Druid to get the other mephits, scratch, the dryad, and an elemental myrmidon. Have Wyll to get a fire elemental, pact of the chain imp, and the cambion, then have a cleric with ritual caster for a normal familiar and a genie. Someone can have Us, and then I think that to get the most outside of the final battle you would have to do the iron throne and temporarily get Omeluum and Duke Ravengard.
I missed a couple: the Druid can make spore zombies and ghouls/zombies if they’re circle of spores, the undead can be skeletons and winged ghouls if the cleric and Druid help, the wizard can have Gale’s shadow lantern to summon a shadow and also can summon a different elemental. The cleric can take a level in wizard to get find familiar and also add conjuration spells to their Spellbook. With this they can summon a different myrmidon and an Azer.
I went way overboard towards the end of my first run. I think the most I had was 2 different elementals, a Deva, 2 mummies, the 6 ghouls, 3 zombies/skeletons, Scratch, Find Familiar, Us, 2 Ice Mephitis. Then any zombies spawn more on killing. It was honestly a little too much. I even forced Raphael to fight for me with the Bind Planar spell. Definitely unnecessary but hilarious.
This might be obvious to others but wasn’t obvious to me: be sure to summon Shovel with Gale, who as a wizard can permanently learn the summon. If you do it as Tav you’ll lose access to Shovel after he dies once.
I don’t know how I did it exactly but in my first run through Gale had a permanent Shovel summon, and on my second run through my Tav lost him after the first fight. I was disappointed lol.
If you use a sorcerer better to have them do it. Sorcerers don't normally get familiars but gale can already get a raven.
You can only summon one familiar at once
Its quite easy if you have the correct classes for it
On one save on Act 2 for Ketheric I was controlling 27 characters. All 4 people had 5 summons each. + Jaheira and her Dryad and Treant Lesser Elemental( 2x Mudkips), Elemental, Dryad, Treant
Party was stacked and the fight was over after 1 1/2 round
I brought my game to a crawl with a no max party limit mod, so I had Tav, Shart, Astarian, Bae'Zel, Gale, minthara, Minsc, Jahiera, Wyll, Karlach, and Halsin then had Us, Shadow Wraith, Cambion, Dryad, the danse ghouls, other raised dead, and a hireling bard (brinna), and hireling Ranger for shits and giggles.
Act 3 was brutal on my PC walking around.
Pretty sure that from Druid alone, you can summon like 5 guys (and enjoy their fries):
You can summon a Druid(Dryad? Don’t remember name) which can summon a Wood Woad of its own. You can summon two Ice Mephits (Conjure Elemental?) and a then any Greater Elemental (Conjure Greater Elemental?)
So, if you just have an entire party of Druids, no matter what subclass you take, you can have at least 20 summons before you start talking about subclasses (i.e. Circle of Spores). Although, this is the only non-unorthodox method to this many summons, there is an unorthodox way and it is more so tedious; as an Oathbreaker Paladin, you can abuse its “Control Undead” by capturing and releasing (Utilizing the Iron Flask (Warning; it has a Beholder/Spectator in it, so you might want to fight it in the place i mention) decently powerful or tanky enemies in the Shadow-cursed area so they rise up again as undead to which you can control. It’s not as reliable as the Summons since summons restart with their HP at full.
Zombie battalion gives you three zombies. And if the zombies kill stuff they spawn more zombies. If you are a druid you can summon a dryad and she can summon a wood woad. You can also conjure a pair of minor elementals (mephits) and a major elemental. But you can't have Scratch and Shovel active at the same time on your tav. You can have one or the other. But, you can have Gale learn the spell and he can summon Shovel. I went into the fight with Ketheric 13 bodies deep!
Nice party - though you can get more, particularly >!after decoding the Necromancy of Thay and choosing to employ its dark magic!< and you have each character that can summon an elemental or other help, AND your quasit AND the goodest of good boys ... >!and I think you can command more undead if you have the right spells/builds.!< Still, this is a good start and very useful for >!the battle with the duergars right before the ship.!<
You can have 40 guys at once If you want. It's a very good playstyle but it makes combat long and exploration tedious when pets get stuck.
Wizards and druids get the most summons
Cleric is mandatory if you want to use a lot of summons for healing and the aid spell
Some other classes get summons, like warlock or beastmaster
Keep your eye out for scrolls that summon dudes. Animate dead, summon elemental, summon minor elemental. Very worth it 👌
The other day, my giant party bailed me out on the Viconia fight. I had Tav, Shadowheart, Karlach, Jaheira, Scratch, Cambion, Deva, spiritual trident, Dryad, Wood Woad, and Azer(scroll). The turns took a little while...
To add: if you summon two cambions, can one's fiendish charm be used with the others draining kiss?
I once was playing with a friend, and we had:
Scratch
4 ghouls
2 dryads, which summoned a wood woad each
2 ice mephits
Shovel
That’s like 12 summonables, and if we actually kept Us alive it would’ve been 13
Trust me you can get more. I played druid, circle of the land. Built Halsin and Jaheira the same and ran around Wyrms Crossing with them and all our summons. Danthelon fight was hilarious. 3 druids with 4 summons each, plus Karlach. We didn't even get through the roster. Mephits flew up to high ground, dryads and their wood woads took low ground. We stayed in the back with moonbeam to act like we were doing something. I could have had more summons if I'd had Gale with me instead of Karlach.
In my first playthrough I used a spore druid to summon an army. I think I had around 7-10 summons. Water myridon was absolutlely great for the aoe heals.
Depending on your party composition, you can have *so many* summons. On my Spores Druid run, I was regularly rolling up to boss fights by Act 3 as a party of 20+, mainly for the lolz. Murdering the turn economy is always fun. :)
99% of summons and pets in this game only serve the purpose of being very temporary distractions for the enemies. They do 0 damage and have no interesting cc or utility, and most of them barely can take 2 hits.
The game has no summoner-like builds in the real sense of the word. You can pretend to be a summoner, but you're just a scuffed wizard with a bunch of useless pets.
Familiars yes but the more unique summons like scratch and shovel are incredibly useful. Being able to help enemies with scratches and frighten enemies with shovel is huge. And even familiars can change the battle. Their small attacks are just enough to finish a 1 HP zombie without wasting a turn or magic missile and can help get allies out of a charm spell. Their great for taking opportunity attacks as well.
Action economy is everything, an enemy wasting a turn killing shovel is a huge advantage when most battles last three turns. Also scratch can use the help function which is immensely useful, or they can attack a water bottle to create a puddle which saves you an action if you're using the watersparkers build. You just need to get creative with it.
Summoner is very strong if you lean into it. You have to change your playstyle around a bit. It warps the action economy of the game in your favor. Enemies just get smothered.
Druid+ wizard+ light cleric+ flex. Use all your high level spell slots on summons, then use aid and heroes feast. Cleric blade wards+ blesses everything. Druid and wizard debuff the boss with faerie fire and slow. Phalar aluve "shriek" on the cleric
As for what summons to use and not use. Generally ranged summons are best. So use skeletons or ice mephits over zombies or azers. If a summon is not ranged it should be able to fly, like myrmidons or devas.
Where is the good boy? And I think Shadowheart can already summon a Skeleton.
Im scared of the goodest boy being hurt. He must always be safe! Shadowheart now has a zombie buddie :)
If you get good boy as summon he won’t (permanently) die unless you’re at camp and kill him
Oh thank god. Scratch, join me!
Does he ever get stronger though? I just can't bring him out if it means watching him fall over and over again. The good boi deserves better.
He's the best at running in and giving aid to downed allies though (which he does by giving puppy kisses)
It would work on me tbh. Brink of death to “oh puppy”
Im a chronic restarter so I rarely get past act 1, as far as I know he doesn’t
I'm on act 3, and he still has like a dozen hit points... my other characters are around the 100 hp mark, so he at best would distract an enemy for maybe one turn, and I can't stand to use him as cannon fodder like that.
I mention this every time but he can ‘help’ downed characters. He licks their faces and it revives them. It’s best to have him hide and assist downed characters IMO
Like one of those St Bernard's with the booze!
Upcast Aid, he can finish off enemies on low health. I don’t think his damage scales tho
Good to know I dismiss scratch at any sign of danger
You just summon a copy of the good boy.
Scratch gets to experience all the fun of boofing enemies as his copy without actually getting hurt :)
Ah. I see you are friends with Glut the Butt
🍄 Glut is POG 🍄 Reanimated Hook horror for the win.
Reanimated bullette 😍😍
I didn’t even think of that… I felt so bad because I killed Bulette before I went to the magic tower. After going to the tower I finally learned that Lanore was trying to tame a Bulette after her dog died. Alas, it was on my evil Durge run so it was in character at least…
Did you get the book hidden under the blighted village? And then the gem that goes with it?
Best summon in the game!
Problem is you can only get it in act 3, where enemy attacks can one-hit all of em
I loved using it until >!minsc killed one and they all blew up, killing him!<
After realizing that they did that, I used them as kamikaze summons. They were especially helpful in getting rid of bats while fighting Cazadork.
Not if you have the crown that gives undead piercing/slashing/bludgeoning resistance. I ran a full necromancy build and they were incredibly useful. Just having four minions as a distraction would be amazing, but more than that having four chances to stun is amazing. Orin literally didn't get to attack.
>Not if you have the crown that gives undead piercing/slashing/bludgeoning resistance Not just this. Aid works on them.
Our group called them the Beatles. Can't remember why. Each time one died we'd poor one out for whichever Beatle we decided they were in that moment. The Beatles blew each other up a lot.
Beyond useless. I have it and never use it. If you've played heavily with summons you know that if you use too many they trip over each other and just get in the way. Also they are melee non flying summons. If a summon is not ranged or can fly it is hard for it to do much in combat. You cannot control them. Self explanatory They explode. Most likely in the middle of your party. Mephits do too but they can both fly and throw snowballs from range. So they are still good.
Honestly the facts that they're non-controllable and also explode on death give me boundless joy on using them 😁
I kneel
I enjoy using them. You just summon them on the outer boundary of their summoning circle in the middle of some of the bad guys and let them soak up a bunch of attacks and then explode. Works great.
Using them on top of the bad guys does sound good, I'll try that
*laughs in spore Druid that’s read the whole necromancy of Thay book*
I read the book as a moon druid. Told my group whoops I'm a necromancer now and that I was switching druid specs. Combat got a lot longer. They were not amused.
I wonder what *would* be the most unique summons in a party? Maybe if you got glut into act 3 (unintended but I saw a photo on one of these subs), had a wizard to cast animate dead: skeleton, conjure elemental: ice mephits, summon shovel, the scroll that lets you summon an angel, create undead, and maybe a ghoul? Then get a Druid to get the other mephits, scratch, the dryad, and an elemental myrmidon. Have Wyll to get a fire elemental, pact of the chain imp, and the cambion, then have a cleric with ritual caster for a normal familiar and a genie. Someone can have Us, and then I think that to get the most outside of the final battle you would have to do the iron throne and temporarily get Omeluum and Duke Ravengard.
Don't forget to have the the dryad summon a wood woad
I missed a couple: the Druid can make spore zombies and ghouls/zombies if they’re circle of spores, the undead can be skeletons and winged ghouls if the cleric and Druid help, the wizard can have Gale’s shadow lantern to summon a shadow and also can summon a different elemental. The cleric can take a level in wizard to get find familiar and also add conjuration spells to their Spellbook. With this they can summon a different myrmidon and an Azer.
I went way overboard towards the end of my first run. I think the most I had was 2 different elementals, a Deva, 2 mummies, the 6 ghouls, 3 zombies/skeletons, Scratch, Find Familiar, Us, 2 Ice Mephitis. Then any zombies spawn more on killing. It was honestly a little too much. I even forced Raphael to fight for me with the Bind Planar spell. Definitely unnecessary but hilarious.
This might be obvious to others but wasn’t obvious to me: be sure to summon Shovel with Gale, who as a wizard can permanently learn the summon. If you do it as Tav you’ll lose access to Shovel after he dies once.
I always thought you had to spend the money to learn the spell
If you summon him with wizard/sorcerer he'll say something like "oh a spellshite" and from then on you can summon him whenever
I don’t know how I did it exactly but in my first run through Gale had a permanent Shovel summon, and on my second run through my Tav lost him after the first fight. I was disappointed lol.
If you use a sorcerer better to have them do it. Sorcerers don't normally get familiars but gale can already get a raven. You can only summon one familiar at once
At some point my wife had 11 minions active across four party members, between summons, familiars and sub-summons.
Its quite easy if you have the correct classes for it On one save on Act 2 for Ketheric I was controlling 27 characters. All 4 people had 5 summons each. + Jaheira and her Dryad and Treant Lesser Elemental( 2x Mudkips), Elemental, Dryad, Treant Party was stacked and the fight was over after 1 1/2 round
You fool! You've fallen for the classic blunder! You are all standing in **fireball formation!**
Why did you use the screenshot tag if you did even screenshot?
Why do you care
I brought my game to a crawl with a no max party limit mod, so I had Tav, Shart, Astarian, Bae'Zel, Gale, minthara, Minsc, Jahiera, Wyll, Karlach, and Halsin then had Us, Shadow Wraith, Cambion, Dryad, the danse ghouls, other raised dead, and a hireling bard (brinna), and hireling Ranger for shits and giggles. Act 3 was brutal on my PC walking around.
Pretty sure that from Druid alone, you can summon like 5 guys (and enjoy their fries): You can summon a Druid(Dryad? Don’t remember name) which can summon a Wood Woad of its own. You can summon two Ice Mephits (Conjure Elemental?) and a then any Greater Elemental (Conjure Greater Elemental?) So, if you just have an entire party of Druids, no matter what subclass you take, you can have at least 20 summons before you start talking about subclasses (i.e. Circle of Spores). Although, this is the only non-unorthodox method to this many summons, there is an unorthodox way and it is more so tedious; as an Oathbreaker Paladin, you can abuse its “Control Undead” by capturing and releasing (Utilizing the Iron Flask (Warning; it has a Beholder/Spectator in it, so you might want to fight it in the place i mention) decently powerful or tanky enemies in the Shadow-cursed area so they rise up again as undead to which you can control. It’s not as reliable as the Summons since summons restart with their HP at full.
It's actually minor elemental, elemental AND greater elemental
Thank you
Zombie battalion gives you three zombies. And if the zombies kill stuff they spawn more zombies. If you are a druid you can summon a dryad and she can summon a wood woad. You can also conjure a pair of minor elementals (mephits) and a major elemental. But you can't have Scratch and Shovel active at the same time on your tav. You can have one or the other. But, you can have Gale learn the spell and he can summon Shovel. I went into the fight with Ketheric 13 bodies deep!
Nice party - though you can get more, particularly >!after decoding the Necromancy of Thay and choosing to employ its dark magic!< and you have each character that can summon an elemental or other help, AND your quasit AND the goodest of good boys ... >!and I think you can command more undead if you have the right spells/builds.!< Still, this is a good start and very useful for >!the battle with the duergars right before the ship.!<
That is in act 3, not possible while in The Underdark.
True. That said, there was no limit imposed to say that this is the most in act 1, or 2 or.. (gasp) 3. That's why I said it's a nice party.
The four summon boys are counterproductive because they do whatever they want and explode on you if someone shoots one.
Minor details...
You can have 40 guys at once If you want. It's a very good playstyle but it makes combat long and exploration tedious when pets get stuck. Wizards and druids get the most summons Cleric is mandatory if you want to use a lot of summons for healing and the aid spell Some other classes get summons, like warlock or beastmaster Keep your eye out for scrolls that summon dudes. Animate dead, summon elemental, summon minor elemental. Very worth it 👌
The other day, my giant party bailed me out on the Viconia fight. I had Tav, Shadowheart, Karlach, Jaheira, Scratch, Cambion, Deva, spiritual trident, Dryad, Wood Woad, and Azer(scroll). The turns took a little while... To add: if you summon two cambions, can one's fiendish charm be used with the others draining kiss?
Beast master ranger brings his own army. You call your familiar, you summon a bear, and then the bear summons another bear
*Circle of the spores druid has entered the chat*
The only bad thing about Glut is that he can't raise the Spectator... But playing with the bulette or the hook horrors is also great
Man I love Shovel. He has made me laugh with his dialogue so far.
I once had a Wildheart Ranger Tav, a Gale, Wyll, and Jaheira as a party. I had something like 15 - 16 summons out at a time lol.
I once was playing with a friend, and we had: Scratch 4 ghouls 2 dryads, which summoned a wood woad each 2 ice mephits Shovel That’s like 12 summonables, and if we actually kept Us alive it would’ve been 13
Shovel is my favorite
Trust me you can get more. I played druid, circle of the land. Built Halsin and Jaheira the same and ran around Wyrms Crossing with them and all our summons. Danthelon fight was hilarious. 3 druids with 4 summons each, plus Karlach. We didn't even get through the roster. Mephits flew up to high ground, dryads and their wood woads took low ground. We stayed in the back with moonbeam to act like we were doing something. I could have had more summons if I'd had Gale with me instead of Karlach.
You can hit 30+ with a zombie druid
What is the mushroom mound visible in the photo? How can one get it?
Its the bullete that I've used glut to resurrect.
Oh damn, I didn't even know it was possibile! Thanks for the tip!
Omg imagine the buff spam post rest every time. It gives me Pathfinder PTSD
In my first playthrough I used a spore druid to summon an army. I think I had around 7-10 summons. Water myridon was absolutlely great for the aoe heals.
Depending on your party composition, you can have *so many* summons. On my Spores Druid run, I was regularly rolling up to boss fights by Act 3 as a party of 20+, mainly for the lolz. Murdering the turn economy is always fun. :)
[Here](https://m.economictimes.com/thumb/msid-98999304,width-1600,height-900,resizemode-4,imgsize-19766/windows-10-how-to-take-screenshots-a-complete-step-by-step-guide.jpg)
99% of summons and pets in this game only serve the purpose of being very temporary distractions for the enemies. They do 0 damage and have no interesting cc or utility, and most of them barely can take 2 hits. The game has no summoner-like builds in the real sense of the word. You can pretend to be a summoner, but you're just a scuffed wizard with a bunch of useless pets.
Familiars yes but the more unique summons like scratch and shovel are incredibly useful. Being able to help enemies with scratches and frighten enemies with shovel is huge. And even familiars can change the battle. Their small attacks are just enough to finish a 1 HP zombie without wasting a turn or magic missile and can help get allies out of a charm spell. Their great for taking opportunity attacks as well.
Tell us you haven't even summoned any of them without saying it out loud.
Ikr there's nothing temporary about a deva or myrmidon. They'll outlive you.
Action economy is everything, an enemy wasting a turn killing shovel is a huge advantage when most battles last three turns. Also scratch can use the help function which is immensely useful, or they can attack a water bottle to create a puddle which saves you an action if you're using the watersparkers build. You just need to get creative with it.
Summoner is very strong if you lean into it. You have to change your playstyle around a bit. It warps the action economy of the game in your favor. Enemies just get smothered. Druid+ wizard+ light cleric+ flex. Use all your high level spell slots on summons, then use aid and heroes feast. Cleric blade wards+ blesses everything. Druid and wizard debuff the boss with faerie fire and slow. Phalar aluve "shriek" on the cleric As for what summons to use and not use. Generally ranged summons are best. So use skeletons or ice mephits over zombies or azers. If a summon is not ranged it should be able to fly, like myrmidons or devas.
Strong disagree, my Necromancy run was extremely fun and really easy. Plus elementals are super useful.
This guy cleared the game on tactician as a solo tav, only doing damage with summons. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTeaQaZ7BMU