The power of the pets

DragonKing

Based around what I've seen around the web, it seems that a large vocal consensus is that animate dead is the best summoned spell (not counting the Diva and Planetar) in the mages arsenal especially at level 15. I question this though...

From my perspective, this is far from true. I personally believe the best mage summoning spell is MordenKainen's Sword. I've used both spells in many similar situations in the same area and found that MKS, just out shined the 9HD skeleton warrior.

Only thing Skeleton warriors has going for it is the duration and the 90% magic resist, and o watch it still get wrecked by eye tyrants and illithid/mindflyers, and umber hulks. I unleashed 2 MKS, and those two made about half the illithid dungeon their bitch.

While MKS does have the downside of capable of being charmed, which makes no sense, but hey its a floating Sword so who am I to complain? Havig a cleric use chaotic command literally eliminates one of its very few weakeness.

I've also come across almost no character that is immune to MKS damage, it even hurts demi liches, when its not imprisoned.... Yet, I've ran into things that are immune go the skeleton warrior damage. I've even seen MKS hurt things with decent magic resist.

As far as immunities go,what is MKS not immune to? I with the occasional death spell or imprisonment, the things ita immune to just seems to keep grow. I just now learned that it is immune to fire giant. Things that killed Skeleton warrior in a few hits MKS boxes with!

If MKS had the same duration as animate dead, I'd probably never use... OK thata a lie. I would still use animate dead because of its swarming potential alone.

But who thought it was a good idea to not allow summons to transition to the next area?

Edit,
Forget to add that a pro for skeleton warrior is you can control where it gets summoned.

Abi_Dalzim

The sword and the skeleton both have their strengths and weaknesses. I think the duration is a major consideration, myself, since the sword's THACO isn't brilliant, so without haste and other buffs it may not kill the enemy before disappearing. In general, I use it as a meatshield given its immunity to physical attacks. If I need the summons to kill, I'll either use skeletons, elementals, or aerial servants. All this assuming that Deva/Planatar is unavailable, of course.

Lord_Tansheron

All things considered, it's mostly a tie. As @Abi_Dalzim said, both have their strength and weaknesses, which come into play against different types of enemies. Swords are weak to magic damage, but laugh their hilts off at physical attacks. Skellies stand in a magical inferno, but get eaten by blows to the bones.

I'm sure you could pick either one and do absolutely fine. If you want to refine your strategy, switch as needed based on what you're about to fight.

Personally I play it safe and just avoid all summons altogether. ¬_¬

elminster

Ehh you can pick up animate dead a lot quicker. In the EE games even the pre-level 15 skeletal warriors are pretty powerful. I probably wouldn't use a mage to summon them unless I had no cleric though. But to each their own

Yannir

Mordy swords die instantly to ADHW, and even 2 Magic Missiles can kill it, since it has really bad hp. Ofc only mages can do this stuff, so against other things they are a pretty safe bet. The duration is a major downside though. Summoning the sword against a clay golem is hilarious, btw.

Abi_Dalzim

elminster said:

Ehh you can pick up animate dead a lot quicker. In the EE games even the pre-level 15 skeletal warriors are pretty powerful. I probably wouldn't use a mage to summon them unless I had no cleric though. But to each their own

Use a bard to summon them, so you get the tough ones early.