The Conjurer Wizard - Summons of any worth lategame?

MWO

Hello :-)

I am again analyzing the spells of the wizardly profession. How fares the conjurer?

The opposition school of divination means he can access to most spells and hence most people consider the conjurer to be the most powerful specialist wizard. However, if'd be more intressted in the summoning powers of the wizard.

Per example:

How "good/bad" are the Genie/Efreeti (7th level)?
How "good/bad" are the Spider summoning (4th level)?
How "good/bad" are the various devil-summons (7th-9th level)?

Thanks for your answer! :-)

Lord_Tansheron

"Good" is an extremely subjective term.

There are good things you can do with summons.

There are also things other than summons that may be doing it better.

It's not a good/bad issue, really, as it depends a lot on factors that vary wildly between people.

Personally, the only summons I ever use are Planetars. That's not to say the others aren't worth using, I just find them cumbersome and ineffective for most things. But that is my personal style.

As for Conjurer, I like that specialization more than most others. The spells forbidden to them are easily replaced by other party members, meaning you get a lot of spell slots for free.

ithildurnew

Yeah, wizard summons in BG2/BG2EE are a mixed bag; they were much more useful in BG1 levels generally.

Planetar certainly does pwn, especially since a single Death spell won't get rid of them unlike most other summons. The elemental summons can situationally be good, but druids do it MUCH better and then there's that 15% chance for wizards to lose control of them.

Genie/Efreeti can be situationally awesome or rather useless. You'll probably have to micromanage their abilities to get maximum use out of them.

The most situationally useful are the 'magic eater' summons: nishru and haekeshar.. if they didn't consume item charges their usefulness would go up exponentially vs enemy casters.

Spiders scale with caster lvl, meaning depending on your party/wizard's level and your foes, they can be incredibly powerful or ... useless.

Sense a theme here?

Don't forget Mordy swords! They're pretty darn useful consistently through much of the game.

As for gating in fiends... I seldom use them due to RP reasons (extremely evil act; if it were up to me I'd add a -2 to -4 loss of rep every time such a spell is cast)... depends on whether your game is vanilla or modded. I'll tell you this, if you have aTweaks fiends installed, they are extremely lethal enough that all the usual pains of dealing with them might become more worthwhile.

Conjurers in BG2 aren't quite the monsters they are in 3.5e, but they still are probably the most useful specialists in the game overall; losing Identify and True Sight (and less useful detection spells) can be easily mitigated in several ways. However, apparently a little known feature of the game engine (specialists seem to incur save penalties when casting spells from their specialized school) might tip the balance a bit more towards other schools if you're going for crowd control, save or suck/die spells, or damage.

pvddr

In my experience, Spiders are the most useful mage summon until you hit the highest levels (max-level animate dead and Mord. Swords). When I soloed a sorcerer, I used them extensively and they were enough for most encounters.

I've personally never cared for Efreetis or Genies - even when I have items that do it (like the Efreeti Bottle) I almost never summon them. Devils are also more trouble than they are worth. Planetars, which you get as a high level ability, are the best summons in the game by a wide margin, even better than Elemental Princes.

For non-mage summons, I like Aerial Servant and Fire Elemental. Devas are also great but worse than Planetars.

elminster

Conjurer's are a pretty safe bet. Especially given that they only lose out on divination spells and that Glitterdust (a conjuration spell) is one of the best lower level spells for crowd control.

Edit: Dumb spelling mistake corrected

Alexisisinneed

elminster said:

Conjurer's are a pretty safe bet. Especially given that they only lose out on divination spells and that Glitterfust (a conjuration spell) is one of the best lower level spells for crowd control.

Glitterfust? Huh, must be a spell that only elminster knows. >.>

But on a more serious note. If you plan on playing scs or anything like that plan on having a back up mage of some sort, because losing out on dispel invisibility and True sight is going to make a lot of the battles harder. Plus identify. IDENTIFY!

Lord_Tansheron

Alexisisinneed said:

If you plan on playing scs or anything like that plan on having a back up mage of some sort, because losing out on dispel invisibility and True sight is going to make a lot of the battles harder.

Inquisitor, or a Thief with Detect Illusions. Heck, clerics can cast True Sight, too, as can the Book of Infinite Spells iirc. No big loss if you're running a Conjurer.

Alexisisinneed said:

Plus identify. IDENTIFY!

The goggles, they do... all of it, actually.

elminster

Alexisisinneed said:

elminster said:

Conjurer's are a pretty safe bet. Especially given that they only lose out on divination spells and that Glitterfust (a conjuration spell) is one of the best lower level spells for crowd control.

Glitterfust? Huh, must be a spell that only elminster knows. >.>

The worst part of writing glitterfust is that now my phone seems to think it's a word and was trying to autocorrect glitterdust.

Anywho, since you can pick it up so early in BG1 (its available in Feldpost) it being more effective when cast by a conjurer is pretty sweet.

Alexisisinneed

elminster said:

Alexisisinneed said:

elminster said:

Conjurer's are a pretty safe bet. Especially given that they only lose out on divination spells and that Glitterfust (a conjuration spell) is one of the best lower level spells for crowd control.

Glitterfust? Huh, must be a spell that only elminster knows. >.>

The worst part of writing glitterfust is that now my phone seems to think it's a word and was trying to autocorrect glitterdust.

Anywho, since you can pick it up so early in BG1 (its available in Feldpost) it being more effective when cast by a conjurer is pretty sweet.

I made a big mistake in Icewind dale by choosing that spell for one of my sorcerers power, but in long run it wasn't that well of a choice, but yeah early BG1 is pretty good pick up for a cheap price, but I still don't use it much.

lunar

Conjuration spesific summon spells are a tad weak. Monster summonings are a joke, spiders are good at low levels but can not compete with stronger enemies, wyvern and carrion summons are very luck dependent, they must roll good enough to hit and the enemies should roll bad enough to suffer paralysis/poison. If it happens, they are very useful. If not they are pathetic.

One use of those pathetic summons is to absorb a spell or two from an enemy mage. A chaos spell thrown at your ogrillions but not at your party is a win for sure! In combat they can also try to stall melee, but any opponent worths its salt will butcher them in 1-2 rounds, tops.

Efreet and Djinni can be useful as they have some spells that can give you more blast power. They are not shabby in melee with efreet's fire shield, either. Hakeashar and Nishruu could have been more useful if they did not fall to death spell.

As specialist mage, conjurers force enemies save vs their conjuration spells at a penalty, and they roll with bonus to their own saves when a conjuration spell hits 'em. Unfourtunately, only conjuration spells that allow saves are...umm. Glitterdust and flame arrow. Were symbols conjuration? In this regard a necromancer's finger of death/horrid wilting or wail of the banshee is far, far deadlier than glitterdust.

Demon summoning is only useful when you are low level wild mage and your innocent sleep or charm spell turns into a gate that will summon a fiend that will obliterate all enemies as you make your escape.

Best summoning spells are animate dead, mordenkainens sword, and summon planetar. None are conjuration which is a shame. Druid fire elemental is a beast too, mage elemental summoning is a dud, impossible to cast in combat, frustrating to cast even outside of the combat:druids are better elemental summoners, clerics are better undead summoners (animte dead as a cheap lvl 3 spell!), while conjurers can summon genies...and glittering dusts! :yay:

elminster

lunar said:

Were symbols conjuration?

Yes.

ithildurnew

Oops, forgot Mordy swords aren't conjuration, though they're still castable by conjurers.

Raduziel

One little question:

Is it possible to cast Death Ward in a summon to prevent it from being killed by Death Spell?

elminster

Pretty sure that won't work.

abacus

A favourite tactic of mine...

Minor Sequencer: Web, Web

Followed by

Spell Sequencer: Spider Spawn, Spider Spawn, Spider Spawn

(You could also replace one of the SS spells with Greater Malison if you wanted to be *really* mean.)

Polymorph Self: Spider adds extra giggles...

What was that song by Alice Cooper?

lunar

elminster said:

lunar said:

Were symbols conjuration?

Yes.

I never use symbol spells in my game. Oddly, in regular bg2 when enemy mages favour casting symbol fear and stun in time stops. (Wail of the banshee is another favourite of them) When they cast the symbols they are always abjuration, with the green casting glow and 'manos potentis' sound. I believe that was a different-party friendly version of symbols?

vish

Best Mage summon spells are Planetars, Gate, Mordenkainen's Sword, and Raise Dead @lvl15. Elemental Summoning is probably the best summon in the game. Those other level 6+7 summons really aren't worth casting because the others are so good.

Spells like Spider Spawn and Gate are mostly subjective to where you are in the game atm. Spider Spawn is pretty good, but falls off drastically once you hit level 12 and that's right when you get the Sword Spiders. Gate and similar summons are good for big fights where a power spike is needed, and mostly for fun. Gate is never a bad spell, but it's not a go-to summon.

The reason you choose Conjurer is so you don't lose out on the major spells. You'll lose Divination spells like True Sight, but you keep ADHW, Greater Malison etc. Conjurer is the preferred specialization for Mages from a power gaming perspective. I wouldn't look at it as a Conjurer must be your summon guy. He's just another Mage that has to take at least one Conjuration spell per level.

Pteran

abacus said:

A favourite tactic of mine...

Minor Sequencer: Web, Web

Followed by

Spell Sequencer: Spider Spawn, Spider Spawn, Spider Spawn

(You could also replace one of the SS spells with Greater Malison if you wanted to be *really* mean.)

Polymorph Self: Spider adds extra giggles...

What was that song by Alice Cooper?

This sounds like so much fun! Once your horde of spiders is summoned just have someone cast Haste and watch them go nuts.

ithildurnew

He's just another Mage that has to take at least one Conjuration spell per level.


Actually he doesn't even need to do that in BG, unlike pnp. It's part of the reason why conjurer has been such a clear power gaming choice - essentially you get free slots every level for the price of giving up a handful of spells that are easily mitigated.

The recent notes about specialists forcing save penalties on spells from their school they cast might balance things out a bit.

wraith5641

The second best summon (after devas/planetars) you don't even get from a spell, ironically. The second best summon is the clay golem from the Golem Manual. Those things can tank some pretty tough enemies. Having immunities to slashing and piercing weapons, as well as elemental and magic immunities, makes them literally invincible in a lot of situations. You can have them stand there surrounded by enemies and they won't take a single bit of damage.

Pteran

wraith5641 said:

The second best summon (after devas/planetars) you don't even get from a spell, ironically. The second best summon is the clay golem from the Golem Manual. Those things can tank some pretty tough enemies. Having immunities to slashing and piercing weapons, as well as elemental and magic immunities, makes them literally invincible in a lot of situations. You can have them stand there surrounded by enemies and they won't take a single bit of damage.

Where do you find this manual? It sounds familiar but I can't recall it's location at the moment

wraith5641

@Pteran The Golem Manual is on the first level of Watcher's Keep in one of the libraries to the west. However, this will only allow you to summon flesh golems. You'll need the Clay Golem Page to summon Clay Golems, which is on the fourth level of Watcher's Keep in the room to the west of Lum's machine. It will be in the area that opens after the torches have been lit and it unlocks a door. There should be a couple of minotaur's guarding some safes. It's in one of those safes.

Pteran

Thanks @wraith5641

wraith5641

@Pteran No problem

wraith5641

@Pteran Oh, and Cespenar will add the page for 5000gp. So you won't be able to use the clay golems until ToB, unfortunately.