Creative and clever ways you've buffed your summons?

comebackhome

Aside from using the aoe buffs like bless and chant to give your summons that extra punch in a fight probably more trivial for normal games since you can run through anything using summons at all - but for scs no reload challenges I found giving sword spiders improved haste turns them into machines especially with the no poison save and so many apr.

What have you done that's turned just an average critter into a creature of destruction?

Abi_Dalzim

Mordenkainen's swords are immune to all damage besides magic damage - but that can be quickly rectified with a casting of Protection from Magic Energy, rendering them invulnerable to anything short of Death Spell or Imprisonment. I wonder if Death Ward could stop the former...

CrevsDaak

I'm not sure how the new Enchant Weapon spell works, but I think you could cast it on summons to enhance their attacks. Protection from Evil '15 on your party and summons is very good when an enemy Wizard summons Demons, because it lets the summon get free damage on the Fiend while you focus on the Mage.

Also, you can have infinite summons by summoning with a Project Image. I love having Nalia's PI gate in around 10 Fire Elementals from the Staff of Fire.

semiticgoddess

Abi_Dalzim said:

Mordenkainen's swords are immune to all damage besides magic damage - but that can be quickly rectified with a casting of Protection from Magic Energy, rendering them invulnerable to anything short of Death Spell or Imprisonment. I wonder if Death Ward could stop the former...

Nope. The only way to block Death Spell is with (1) Spell Immunity: Necromancy, (2) a Spell Revisions-style spell deflection spell, or (3) being a non-summoned critter (like an NPC or gated critter) who either has magic resistance or more than 8 levels. Death Spell uses a special kind of instant death opcode (replace creature or remove creature) that the game uses to bypass immunity to instant death effects.

Champion's Strength and Enchanted Weapon can let a Carrion Crawler paralyze high-end foes like demons.

Protection from Evil can be used on your own demons to make sure they don't attack each other.

comebackhome

semiticgod said:

Abi_Dalzim said:

Champion's Strength and Enchanted Weapon can let a Carrion Crawler paralyze high-end foes like demons.

How?

semiticgoddess

comebackhome said:

semiticgod said:

Champion's Strength and Enchanted Weapon can let a Carrion Crawler paralyze high-end foes like demons.

How?

Champion's Strength improves THAC0 (by 8 at level 15, counting STR bonuses) and Enchanted Weapon makes the Carrion Crawlers' attacks strike as +3 weapons. They already have 3 or 4 APR, so those spells are enough to make them quite strong.

They still are very vulnerable, with rather poor HP and miserable AC, so they can't handle much pressure on their own.

Aasim

semiticgod said:

) a Spell Revisions-style spell deflection spell

Not for Death spell. But Mordys will die instantly (with SR) if you hit them by Dispel Magic.

comebackhome

I don't know if this one is blatantly obvious but the flesh golem manual you get from watchers keep. Improved haste + enchant weapon turns the golem into an absolute killing machine.

Kamigoroshi

Skald music gives a +4 heavy metal bonus to headbanging summons.