Summoning Monster I-IV?

I tried doing a search but couldn't find a thread on this subject - just a vague reference here and there.

Does anyone know how to get the Summon Monster spell to work? When I summon monster, the monster just sits there and doesn't attack the enemies. Do I have to do the ole' right-click thingy and target an enemy and then use the radial menu to summon a monster to crash on top of the enemy?

I think I tried this using the fungus figurine and that seemed to get the basketball fungus to engage battle.

Also, had anyone ever used a chicken as an animal companion for a ranger? Is this some sort of in-joke by the game developers, i.e. the chicken will not be useful in combat other than as a decoy for attempted attacks.

 

you need be close for the summon for it to act

 

How close is close?

Well, when I casted the spell, I summoned a spider that I placed right next to the hill giant in the Emridy Fields. It just sat there and got whomped by the giant (The bloody (no pun intended) arachnid deserved it!).

 

The whole chicken thing...

...is based upon actual US Army Ranger training. Part of the course involves the candidate being turned loose in the wild with a knife, a compass, a map, and a chicken.

Two go out, but only one comes back.

 

What stats does the chicken have? Could a chicken companion to a 10th level druid take on a bugbear, maybe?

Any vorpal chickens?

 

I hear...

...that they're pretty tough. You'd need something like the 'Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch' to take one of them out.

 

which one?

 

It takes a tough chicken to make a great soup.

Getting it into the pot, that's the problem.

 

The killer chicken??

Heheh - u guys crack me up! Where were u guys when I was going to school??

I wonder if the Special Attack of the chicken is Peck +2 Hit/ +1/level additional damage. lol

 

May I make you to note that many animals that may be summoned are corrupted?
Some are just much more weaker than the real versions and are almost useless.

 

No, they are not. You are wrong. When they are summoned (or called via Animal Companion) they are changed dependent on the Feats/Class level of the caster.

Sure if you simply create one of these creatures then you would be correct. But when you Summon them or call them as Animal Companions then they are changed depending on your class level/Feats.

Once again, I have to say simply looking at the Columns in the Protos.tab does not explain how creatures are appearing in game.

I did a lot of tests with a Druid calling Animal Companions and what you actually get in game does NOT correspond to what is listed in the Protos.tab file.

- Livonya

 

One tough chicken...

...can take a lot of fireball damage.

 

I don't want to be polemic, but summoned creatures should NOT be differents from the "wild" versions, except if the spellcaster has the Agument Summoning feat (or whatever). Druid's caster level should influence the animal companion only, not the monsters.
Anyway, I was complaying about the fact that celestial animals doens't have increased ability scores, Damage reduction 10/magic, elemental damage resistance, magic resistance and other details that REALLY are importants. Not to talk about archorn lantern that is totally unuseful when he should be a bit stronger (a highly defensive creature to distract opponents and take time in fights) than the one in the game. I don't know if this may be fixed from the protos or if this is just too much hard coded, but still it is one of the many things that I tried to do when I edited the protos to bring ToEE more closer to p&p 3.5.
You may already take a look to them, and I can send you the description of celestial attribute and of archorn lantern so that you may understand why the original is balanced, the ToEE is crappy.