Summon Monster concentration?

[Seharvepernfan]

I'm considering changing summon monster spells to be concentration. This keeps people from spamming them, keeps the fighter relevant, and increases the duration of lower level summon monster spells (1 round at 1st level? who uses that).

Thoughts?

[Zanos]

If you go through with it, remember to clarify that similar spells like summon nature's ally and summon undead are similarly adjusted.

The problem I see with this might be that its a bit too hard of a nerf. Summon Monster spells are strong for a variety of reasons, but if having one out cost me all my actions, I don't think I would ever cast one of them.

[eggynack]

Yeah, summoning spells are good, but I don't think they're so good that they justify a nerf of this scale. More to the point, the main purpose of summoning spells is to add actions, so if you do this then you really ditch most of the viability of the line. Not all of it, cause there's still the odd bit of utility, but definitely a lot of it. If you want to limit the amount of spamming that occurs, just do that directly by saying, "you can only have one of this class of spell up at one time." If you also still want to increase the viability of low level summons for whatever reason, then just give the spells a duration like "concentration+rounds/level". And, if that's too excessive, then maybe add in some maximum quantity of rounds that can be added through concentration, like two/level.

[ZamielVanWeber]

I would recommend instead making so one summon spell can be active at a time. It let's the Summon lines stay useful but spamming is inpossible.

[Novawurmson]

Spheres of Power did something similar, except you can use daily resources to maintain your summons without concentration. The summons are fully customizable, but their HP is continuous throughout the day - march it into traps, and the damage sticks.

It's a neat system. May or may not have what you're looking for.

[noob]

"Summon Monster concentration? "
It works: there is spells for concentrating for cheap action cost and thus lowering the action cost of summon monster.(you can stack that with some feats and also you can persist it turning it into a 24 hours duration spell)
But at low level it will make the spell extremely awful before you cheat concentration action economy.

[nedz]

There are ways of maintaining concentration for free. E.g. you have just bumped Spirit Shaman up a notch.

[Tvtyrant]

If you limit summons to 1 at a time I hope you are upgrading the CR of the summons. At level 17 you summon horribly out of place CR11 critters, who are only good in groups.

[Pluto!]

I don't hate the idea of concentration for spell durations, but I don't think Summons are worth singling out - they're not the best battlefield control or disabling spells, so they'll probably just be set aside in favor of other powerful options like walls or clouds.