(first of all: greetings from a newbie)

there are a lot of summoning spells (+ some items) which allow to increase your party ..., but what are the best ?

in good old BGI they are very useful as blockers, mmh in all D&D PC games
in IWD/HOW or BGII you are restricted to a max of 5 (?), they are still good for blocking, but on high level encounters, most of them last very short

my experiences are so far:
--IWD--
- Beserkers (cast from Horn of B., item) are very effective in early game
- (4th lv. priest) summoned insects are very good, one type has high ACs, one type can stun the highest levelled foes
- (5th lv. priest) summoned animals (bears not wolves) helped very much (high tac0)

it seems to me that the mage's summoning spells are restricted to blocking,
contrary to the high level, elementals get bashed very fast

--BGII--
- summoned air elemental (item), VERY resistent
- (7th lv mage) hakeashar, very resistent and mage-annoying

obviously i missed some tacticts concerning summoned monsters

ty for replies

L.

I love the shambling mounds that druids can eventually summon. They last forever and can do some real damage. I cas pondering getting rid of my druid until I got these.



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Gaelic

I have the bard for the horn of berzerkers and the viola of shadow monsters (summon shadow 2 or 3, i think) and it is very, very helpfull. For summoning, there is an annoying limit of 6. I think the 3rd level shades are very worthwhile as well as the fire elementals. Mostly, good for blocking. The monster summon 6 is pretty cool too. Though i was a bit disappointed when it only summoned 2 wights; but those wights paralized tough lizardmen.
With 4 people in the party, and spells like mold touch and horrid wilting; lots of summoned creatures and webs are a necessity. http://www.tgeweb.com/cgi-bin/ubb/no...miles/wink.gif

Greetings. I prefer the MS VII spell

Aside from doing some damage and sucking up damage, most summonings aren't good for much else. Druids have the best summonings, pretty much. Stalkers (aka shambling mounds) last 8 hours, game time and have high resists (90% blunt, 50% slash, pierce, 100% fire). These resists allow them to survive much longer... and you can fire AE happily while they keep the enemy busy. Throw out a few spells like entangle, web, and send in the mounds... keeps things nicely busy while you AE nuke the area.

Elementals are also nice, again due to their duration. However, they are not as effective as the shambling mounds. Druid ones are best, as they get more hp than the mage ones. A druid summoned force of 4 stalkers and some elementals can last quite a long time and do some serious damage... just make sure the enemies focus upon the stalkers, not the elementals.

Ideally, you want a bard with war chant of sith around, for the resist, ac, and healing effects. Taking the time to have the bard heal the mounds back up to full health will allow you to use them for a long time, typically they'll last long enough to clear the entire map.

Both stalkers and the good bard songs are from HoW though.