Summon Monster: More than one

[Vlaid]

I was just idling chatting in IRC about this earlier and it was suggested I make a thread for it.

Would it be possible to summon more than one creature with a single summon spell? Maybe even do something like being able to summon numerous amounts of weaker creatures with a higher level summon spell in place of the single big beefy monster you would normally summon?

Just an idea.

[Aethereal]

Interesting idea. I am not sure if it can work in NWN due to possible mechanical limitations. However, it does sound similar to Summon Creature in its 2nd edition AD&D incarnation where it would call forth 1D# of creatures to the caster's aid.

It would also be interesting to see Summon Creature function almost like wild magic where the creatures being called are not set by a theme and selected randomly from across the planes / a table of possible creatures.

Of course, the second idea is probably too complicated not to mention the issues of balance and doesn't make sense for anything except a particularly crazy wizard or sorcerers with cross-planar bloodlines etc.

[prestonhunt]

In the referred conversation, we'd discussed that any summon spell be allowed to summon EITHER 1 summon of the appropriate level, or a number of level 1 summons equal to the appropriate level.

So, for example on Summon V, you could either summon a single level V summon, or 5 level I summons.

[Ebok]

It is a cool idea.

[Egon the Monkey]

Could work with a reagent that changes the theme to "L1 summons, numerous". Depending on the base theme, that could be pretty nasty.

[Ebok]

There were Druid spells that actually had this effect at one point. It's been forever since 3e PnP for me, but I do recall mass summoning spells. They didn't quite summon five Is per one V. It was more like, mass summon I was a level 4 spell that summoned 2-3 level 1's 2level 2's etc. Each tier of summon it created a ladder of this pattern.

Balancing could become a serious issue for some summoning themes. Looking at Animal Domain, using a summon III spell to bring in three mountain lion's is so much stronger then just the single III. Sneakattack piles on, for example. Or a summon IV earth elemental, would be like summon wall in tunnels--you cannot run around them and beating through four to get around would take a long time.

Just some thoughts.

[Meldread]

I'd support this.  Having played a sorcerer in the past whose only offensive capability was summoning...

My suggestion is to have it work based on the following:

1.  The Summoning Theme.  Some themes are blatantly more powerful than others.  Some of them even have extremely weak low level summons but extremely powerful high level summons.  This suggestion could help balance some of the kinks out.

2.  The level of the summoner.  The higher level you are; the more summons you'd get.

3.  The Summoning Spell used (Summon Creature I, Summon Creature II, etc.).

For example, let's take the ooze summoning theme.  It is a very useful and powerful theme, but the first level summons are completely immobile.  Summon Creature I:  Ooze becomes much more useful when you can summon 1d4 of them at level 3, 1d6 of them at level 5, 1d8 of them at level 7, 1d10 of them at level 9, etc.

Of course, none of this factors in summoning points...

[Ebok]

You're talking about using a first level slot to give you level based graduated number of summons? That's super sexy and way broken. lol. It would also cause massive over-summoning, and to be quite honest, summoners are powerful already.