What' is your favorite summoned creature?

DJKajuru

Please explain why!

deltago

Woodland beings. nice spell list.
followed by spiders. cast web have spiders attack. profit.

Tresset

That would be Devas and Planetars. You can't summon a solar. They are supposed to be mightier than the other two. I hear they also can instantly create any type of arrow of slaying that they want for shooting with their bows.

I do like a lot of the extraplanars available for summon. Especially the elemental princes and hakeshars. I'll vote after I'm sure.

jcdenton11

As a cleric, I loved my wall of skeletons in the original version, they absorbed chain lightning like a champ and slowed the game to a crawl at times, but they were loyal to a fault.

Jalily

Cat familiar.

No mechanical reason; I just like cats.

SCARY_WIZARD

The dryad. "Alright, you cast mass cure, [DRUID] can cast mass cure, the other healer can cast mass cure...now, whittle those remaining negatives off!"

bbear

Each summon has its own use. I'll comment on the usability of each category:

-Animals/Humanoids: Meat shields to distract the enemies in the early/mid-game. If you have all 3 wands of summoning, they are effective even until at the end of ToB.

-Spiders/Ettercaps: Early/Mid-game summons. Spiders combo well w/ the web spell. They will literally tear apart enemies stuck in web. The poison bonus is a bless in early/mid-game. They become obsolete after Spellhold.

-Undead: I believe skeletons have resistance against missile and piercing damage and are immune to cold. The big skeleton at lvl 15 has a natural 85% MR, making them very resilient against enemy mages/clerics (make sure they have cast death spell on weaker summons first).

-Extraplanars: Some are good and some are terrible.
1) Only clerics/druids should summon elementals because the mage versions stun the mage for 3 rounds and have some chance of attacking the caster. I believe the minor elemental is immune to normal weapons and the regular elementals are immune to +1 weapons (but not the ones summoned by staffs).
2) Invisible stalkers are ok and they are immune to normal weapons.
3) Haskshar (and the lesser form) should be summon with EXTREME caution. Magic is ineffective against them, but they will destroy the magical items equipped by the enemies!
4) Djnni/Efreet. They are annoying summons. If they are about to die, there is a good chance they will transform into smoke. After about 1 turn, they will be reborn and become hostile. Death spell cant kill them after their rebirth.

-Demons: Unless you get pissed off by the pesky nobles, dont bother summoning these creatures.

-Mordenkain's Sword: Excellent summons. Good against fighters since they are 100% physical and elemental resistance. Watch out for enemy cleric/mage's charm and domination spells. Also, they are capable of killing demons and mindflayers.

-Golems (golem manual): Clay golem can only be hurt by blunt weapons. Iron golem is pretty good.

-Deva/Planetars/Elemental Princes: They are overkill summons. Godly against almost anything (watch out for imprisonment. If deva/planetar is imprisoned, it still exists in the area and you cant summon another one.)

Overall, I recommend spiders in early games, mordy sword and big skeleton in mid to end game. Deva/Planetar if you need the extra help.

CoM_Solaufein

Demons of dread and darkness.

Wilbur

I don't really use summons, but I guess Solar is my favorite

Madhax

I love the HLA summons, since they have a variety of abilities to use. I hardly use low-level summons, not for any power concern but simply because they bore me.

Close second is the Woodland Beings summoning.

Kushu

I'm a big fan of Mord Swords. They've saved my keister countless times.
In one runthrough of BG2, Charname was a wildmage and later in the game, I made a habit of casting Pro.Evil 10ft, Chaos Shielding and Reckless Dweomering the 9th level Gate spell to call in Pit Fiends.
It worked fairly well!

Wowo

In BG:EE I love the ghast(s) that I get from animate dead, as soon as that paralysation lands its game over. It has really trivialised quite a few Mage fights.

The dryad is excellent too and I tend to fill up my level 4 slots with this as its just too handy to have mass cure available and a host of disables auto cast.

Djimmy

I use all of them. It depends on the situation. That means that I like all of them. I like them hasted. Here is the place to say how impressed by the summoned creatures in BG I am. Ogres with their strength, Hobgoblins with their arrows(poison!), Undead with their immunities and resistances, spiders with their poison and teleport, Nymphs with their charming spells... you got the idea. And they can be buffed. Just awesome.