This! This is very true. And players may be satisfied with summon spells if they keep this in mind. However, it's not always great game design for this to be the case. If a summoner has a plan, and that plan is anything but "make enemy waste actions so I come out ahead", then the enemy is simply "wasting" actions and the summoner is losing their plan. All said and done, time and spell slot is spent, but very little is accomplished to move the story forward. It is hard to *proactively* use summons to create a desired situation in this game. Which I think a lot of the pain & disappointment from the playerbase comes from. But taking a summon away from the board already takes so many actions from enemies that it's hard to justify any buff to them. Difficult problem.
@@kryptonianguest1903 From a tactical standpoint, maybe. If you summon in a creature that can meaningfully affect the battlefield and will do so more it is in play longer, then the enemy will want it gone as soon as possible to stop it from using those spells to help you, and the summon is almost certainly easier to remove than the summoner, so the enemy should target the summon. Only if the summon is harder to take out than its summoner, or is basically an ineffectual speed bump (like a melee or ranged creature with a very poor attack) should the enemy ignore it.
My sister is a leshy leaf druid in a campaign I run, Already at level one she got hooked on the idea to summon other leshies and plants like the yellow musk thrall. Its been such a delight seeing make a horde of ghouls not have the ability to get close in a tight corridor because the sunflower leshy she sent in died and now the area is difficult terrain. Not to mention the leshy did quite a bit before it went down.
PINNED CORRECTIONS COMMENTS I forgot to mention how you can flank or utilize Final Sacrifice to get more value out of bulky summons From ErikkuBlade: If you are playing Proficiency Without Level summons become much better as the level gaps matter less From Sfynz: Summoned creatures cannot cast spells higher than the level of the summon spell used on them, its on the Summoned trait rules. Devils are just "cooler" summons i guess? For needing a higher level spell... > Note that this still allows Unicorn to cast 3rd level Heal!
I was also going to added about summoned monsters casting spells. If it tries to Cast a Spell of EQUAL or higher level than the spell that summoned it, it overpowers the summoning magic, causing its own spell to fail and the summon spell to end. (you missed out the equal part in your comment).
TL;DR: Summons are good, but need a lot of work (there is a brilliant online guide) and also at Spell Level 6+ when the scaling becomes harsher they do genuinely start getting worse. They were too conservative and scared of higher level monster abilities
I've abused the hell out of Animate Dead on my Blood Lords Summoner 😂 Summoner may have few spell slots, but the Tandem action economy makes it pretty easy to sustain every turn and I can summon stuff like Priest of Kabriri which comes with 3* 3rd rank Harm which is obviously GOAT when everyone has negative healing. Yesterday between Tandem Movement, Act Together and minion shenanigans I was getting 6 actions worth of value (not counting the 7th to sustain) and felt like I had all my bases covered for whatever the GM could throw at me.
I'm sure you weren't doing it, but a reminder to readers that you can't use Act Together and Tandem Movement in the same round. Sounds like a fun time with that summoned ghoul
@@kevinbarnard355 You can actually! The Tandem trait's only stipulation on further Tandem actions is "you can't use a tandem action to take another tandem action." Act Together has the frequency of "once per round" so you can only do 1 Act Together, but Tandem Movement has nothing limiting its frequency besides not being a part of another Tandem. You could, for example, have a turn that's (Tandem Movement, Tandem Movement, 1 action Act Together -> Demoralise + Strike)
I think the higher level drop off could be addressed with class feats that help summons. Imagine a lvl 10 feat that lets your summons use reactions? Or a 16th lvl feat that lets you summons cast spells +1 rank higher than the spell used to spawn them. These would be late game feats with seemingly simple add-ons that seem insignificant, but aren’t and require a lot of sacrifice to take since these are higher level class feats
Summoned creatures cannot cast spells higher than the level of the summon spell used on them, its on the Summoned trait rules. Devils are just "cooler" summons i guess? For needing a higher level spell.
I never thought summoning spells were frowned upon because they were bad, many are quite good as you point out utility wise. The problem is the bog down the game and make your DM jump through hoops with creature management while your players groan as combat takes way longer.
That... Has not been my experience with them at all. By the same coin summoner and animal companions should be frowned upon. They also have one action split into two
@@SwingRipper fair enough, maybe the dms and parties I get find it difficult to run mechanically without slowing the game down. And my dms hate summoner 😆
The spell cap was already mentioned by Sfynz. Correct me if I'm wrong but Summon Fiend is sustained up to 1 minute, Read Omens is 10 minute cast time. I don't think you can actually access Read Omens with Summon Fiend alone...? So not the best example. Intuitively, it seems Celestials would be some of the best to summon. Because I'd imagine they have ally-targeted abilities that don't depend on spell DCs hmmm...
Coming to this a year late, but it's worth noting that, due to the numbers, summons using offensive spells is a really bad option. A 9th level wizard using Summon Fiend can summon a fifth level fiend with a save DC of 22, since summons use their own DCs. At 9th level, monsters have ~+19 to their save values. So summoning for either beefy bois with lots of resistances or summoning for utility are basically the only decent options, and the beefy lads are middling options at best due to, again, the numbers that reduce their value as actual threats. You mentioned having a summoned skeletal hound grapple a spellcaster... but just off proficiency and level gap, the odds it actually manages to land the grapple are ~1/4. Utility like that only matters if it's semi-reliable.
Would be interesting to have a choice and have two tables. One for utility summoning (like it's right now) and one combat one where it scales better, but you can't use it's spells or something to that degree
I know this would be considered 'boring' by some, but I feel like systems need to be less afraid of restrictions. Why any creature? Why can a person just summon a skeleton out of nowhere? Summons are hard to get right, and having a shorter list of viable summons - like the various wild shape limitations that pathfinder already imposes - would be much better, and would allow better curation of the lore as well. What if I don't want unicorns to exist in my setting, for example? Idk. Just my twopence.
I totally agree that "basic templates" of summonable creatures like form spells would have been more balanced, but there is something iconic to summons being the creatures in the game... I agree that this is a sacred cow that should have been brought out to pasture
A creature that would be the funniest to summon if not for the restriction about casting spells, would be Nyktera with her 1st level heal. Why would you prepare 1st level heals would your 1st level summon be able to cast it for a good morning.
So, what you’re saying is that my Sorcerer, instead of casting spells, should use a crossbow. Sustain. Command. Shoot. (miss) Sustain. Command. Reload.
People underrate summons because a lot of people assess balance against boss fights & expect "Spell = Win Right Now" and also because they heard summons were bad so it became a meme they zealously defend. Could summons stand to be a smidge stronger? Maybe. Do some summon spells fall behind others at some ranks? Sure. Are they bad because the strongest thing you can summon is your level -3 with your highest slot? No. Literally the majority of enemies are APL -2 or lower and monsters tend to have higher stats than players.
I play a bard and I like using summon fey on ocasion. I loved the unicorn. And like to summon a satyr as a band buddy. satyr plays inspire courage and I'll play dirge of doom. And bards have a class feat that gives a free action to sustain a spell at level 16.
Summon Fiend doesn't need to be a higher level since the Summon Trait stops creatures from casting a spell equal to or greater than in level to the spell that summoned it.
How do you do the summoning with the animation? Im not too familiar with how J2BA works, and I’m not interested in going to V11 yet, so the setup you’re using in this video would be pretty ideal
I know Ron has a guide on J2BA I say just search up that name alongside "Pathfinder 2e Animations" (which is the implementation of that animation module inside of PF2)
It's too bad that the errata came out with some of the remaster changes that nerfed all of the zombie undead. That permanent slow they get means a zombie minion only gets one action a turn to use, crippling a lot of otherwise useful features or traits.
Apparently that was RAW before due to a sidebar or something, I will still elect to ignore that as its more fun for my table the other way! (Zombies SHOULD be the most reliable summons imo. It won't break balance, so I'm totally fine with doing that)
Wouldn't it then be a better solution game design wise to make it so that you can always summon creatures of double the spells rank - 3 (Or whatever make sense encounter balance wise) but just add a line of text that says something along the lines of "The creature you summon cannot cast spells of more than 2/3/4 (again, whatever makes sense balance wise) ranks lower than the rank of the summon-spell"? Then your summons can stay relevant number-wise but you also keep players from turning summon spells into better wish spells...
I think that is a very well rounded and good idea! I don't see any flaws with it immediately and I think most of the "abuse cases" are things I am more or less fine with!
@@SwingRipper Nice :) Out of curiosity, what would be such abuse cases you are thinking of? Also, would you personally say that "level of double the spell rank - 3" and "Spells not higher than the summon spells spell rank - 2" are balanced? I am probably gonna add this as a house-rule.
Things like learning which common monsters have overtuned normal abilities (or know Slow) in order to still do mini wish stuff and split slots. Again its nothing too bad from what I can think of but I could see the designers' concerns of "what if a player breaks the game via these spells in 10 years when there are 4x as many creatures" Summons are so open ended that buffing them could present an X factor that could let some really dedicated people start bending the game
@@SwingRipper Back in 3.5 I had a malconvoker who handled the whole 'Bluff check to keep your monsters on your side' thing by summoning almost exclusively infernal animals. Infernal giant weasels have a pretty poor Sense Motive check. Remarkably few opponents can fight at full efficiency with an infernal dire crocodile clamped on to their legs. I don't know if that level of weirdness will happen in Pf2, but if it does, I'll be there for it. I might also contribute to it, if I convert the Werehouse prestige class I made for Pf1. :)
I have seen it as a common sentiment on D&D 5e forums as "those darn players get distracted so often", rarer in the PF2e scene but not unheard of (Also my games are mostly online so our rare in person session still uses Foundry for character sheets)
@@SwingRipper I'm lucky enough to have a group of invested ttrpg veterans (5ish years of 5e, its now been a few months since we switched over to 2e) so I dont have to worry about them perusing Twitter or something mid-game. If they're on their phones, its because they are reading their abilities or the rules for a strategy being discussed
What is your opinion about the variant rule of automatic scaling to summon spells? Is it welcome to be less punishing to use in a unoptimized way, or it would be too broken if you use it correctly?
I think it would probably be fine, Summon spells become one of the best things to do with low level slots, but I think that is the intention of a rule like that! It makes low level summons an obvious correct answer for high level casters and may effectively punish players that won't want to / can't do the research required to use summons optimally... As such I would likely avoid it in my games!
@@SwingRipper do you think you could try to make a video about Summoner and Summoning spells? I've been playing a Summoner who only uses summoning spells and I've been having a blast. (Maybe it's because I'm usually a forever DM and lots of monsters makes my brain go brr)
It *can* work... I just think that pets in general are action sinks and both Summoner and Summon spells will want a large slice of that pie. It just means its very hard to reposition yourself or your eidolon while maintaining a summoned creature. If you can get around that I can see summons being pretty alright
Yeah and I'm one of those people looked at my three post about summons being bad because they don't fulfill that summoner fantasy. Before 8 watch this video. I'm going to guess your going to mention flanking, waist of action on the enemy side and nich summons that heals. I'm going to counter with most summons abilities are useless when in a combat where you want to cast a summon spell that typically requires your highest tier spell slot. Their DC and attack is too low to ever truly matter and very few of them enough health to survive a round or two. This leads to you having to skim for the actual useful summons. Here's another problem. Summons are minions which means they loose out on reactions so if you have a summon that grants an adjacent creature fire resistance as a reaction, welp you can't use it. Summons list is big but actually very small on what summons are useful especially in the latter levels. Pretty sure the dragon spells list is the smallest considering most dragons have a breath attack and dragon rend. Two things that don't do anything at the levels the monsters will be summon.
![Natanael Cano - Amor Eterno [Official Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/EO4prCs6WpM/mqdefault.jpg)
Summoning Spells are especially good with Proficiency Without Level, so something else to consider there
Did not consider variant rules!
the real value of summon spells is the actions your enemies waste on dealing with them
This! This is very true. And players may be satisfied with summon spells if they keep this in mind.
However, it's not always great game design for this to be the case. If a summoner has a plan, and that plan is anything but "make enemy waste actions so I come out ahead", then the enemy is simply "wasting" actions and the summoner is losing their plan. All said and done, time and spell slot is spent, but very little is accomplished to move the story forward.
It is hard to *proactively* use summons to create a desired situation in this game. Which I think a lot of the pain & disappointment from the playerbase comes from. But taking a summon away from the board already takes so many actions from enemies that it's hard to justify any buff to them. Difficult problem.
Also the friends we conjured along the way.
Then the enemies should just ignore them.
@@kryptonianguest1903 From a tactical standpoint, maybe. If you summon in a creature that can meaningfully affect the battlefield and will do so more it is in play longer, then the enemy will want it gone as soon as possible to stop it from using those spells to help you, and the summon is almost certainly easier to remove than the summoner, so the enemy should target the summon.
Only if the summon is harder to take out than its summoner, or is basically an ineffectual speed bump (like a melee or ranged creature with a very poor attack) should the enemy ignore it.
@@lexslate2476 I responded to someone who said that the real value in summons is the actions wasted to eliminate them.
My sister is a leshy leaf druid in a campaign I run, Already at level one she got hooked on the idea to summon other leshies and plants like the yellow musk thrall. Its been such a delight seeing make a horde of ghouls not have the ability to get close in a tight corridor because the sunflower leshy she sent in died and now the area is difficult terrain. Not to mention the leshy did quite a bit before it went down.
PINNED CORRECTIONS COMMENTS
I forgot to mention how you can flank or utilize Final Sacrifice to get more value out of bulky summons
From ErikkuBlade: If you are playing Proficiency Without Level summons become much better as the level gaps matter less
From Sfynz: Summoned creatures cannot cast spells higher than the level of the summon spell used on them, its on the Summoned trait rules. Devils are just "cooler" summons i guess? For needing a higher level spell...
> Note that this still allows Unicorn to cast 3rd level Heal!
I was also going to added about summoned monsters casting spells. If it tries to Cast a Spell of EQUAL or higher level than the spell that summoned it, it overpowers the summoning magic, causing its own spell to fail and the summon spell to end. (you missed out the equal part in your comment).
Wow, you're really pumping out content lately and interesting stuff at that! Hope you can keep it up!
TL;DR: Summons are good, but need a lot of work (there is a brilliant online guide) and also at Spell Level 6+ when the scaling becomes harsher they do genuinely start getting worse. They were too conservative and scared of higher level monster abilities
I can’t blame them. Summons were gamebreaking in 1e and 3.5. And 1e tried to nerf summons.
Dude, your show is awesome! Really appreciate your take. Keep’em coming. 💪
I've abused the hell out of Animate Dead on my Blood Lords Summoner 😂
Summoner may have few spell slots, but the Tandem action economy makes it pretty easy to sustain every turn and I can summon stuff like Priest of Kabriri which comes with 3* 3rd rank Harm which is obviously GOAT when everyone has negative healing.
Yesterday between Tandem Movement, Act Together and minion shenanigans I was getting 6 actions worth of value (not counting the 7th to sustain) and felt like I had all my bases covered for whatever the GM could throw at me.
I'm sure you weren't doing it, but a reminder to readers that you can't use Act Together and Tandem Movement in the same round. Sounds like a fun time with that summoned ghoul
@@kevinbarnard355 You can actually! The Tandem trait's only stipulation on further Tandem actions is "you can't use a tandem action to take another tandem action." Act Together has the frequency of "once per round" so you can only do 1 Act Together, but Tandem Movement has nothing limiting its frequency besides not being a part of another Tandem. You could, for example, have a turn that's (Tandem Movement, Tandem Movement, 1 action Act Together -> Demoralise + Strike)
I think the higher level drop off could be addressed with class feats that help summons.
Imagine a lvl 10 feat that lets your summons use reactions? Or a 16th lvl feat that lets you summons cast spells +1 rank higher than the spell used to spawn them.
These would be late game feats with seemingly simple add-ons that seem insignificant, but aren’t and require a lot of sacrifice to take since these are higher level class feats
Summoned creatures cannot cast spells higher than the level of the summon spell used on them, its on the Summoned trait rules. Devils are just "cooler" summons i guess? For needing a higher level spell.
Ah, missed that... Unicorns are still great, will make a pinned corrections comment
@@SwingRipper Yeah, unicorns are safe.
The main problem with summon spells is the one player taking up more table time.
I never thought summoning spells were frowned upon because they were bad, many are quite good as you point out utility wise. The problem is the bog down the game and make your DM jump through hoops with creature management while your players groan as combat takes way longer.
That... Has not been my experience with them at all. By the same coin summoner and animal companions should be frowned upon. They also have one action split into two
@@SwingRipper fair enough, maybe the dms and parties I get find it difficult to run mechanically without slowing the game down. And my dms hate summoner 😆
The spell cap was already mentioned by Sfynz.
Correct me if I'm wrong but Summon Fiend is sustained up to 1 minute, Read Omens is 10 minute cast time. I don't think you can actually access Read Omens with Summon Fiend alone...? So not the best example.
Intuitively, it seems Celestials would be some of the best to summon. Because I'd imagine they have ally-targeted abilities that don't depend on spell DCs hmmm...
Thanks Sean, cool smart man who keeps answering my questions on the discord, legend
Coming to this a year late, but it's worth noting that, due to the numbers, summons using offensive spells is a really bad option.
A 9th level wizard using Summon Fiend can summon a fifth level fiend with a save DC of 22, since summons use their own DCs. At 9th level, monsters have ~+19 to their save values.
So summoning for either beefy bois with lots of resistances or summoning for utility are basically the only decent options, and the beefy lads are middling options at best due to, again, the numbers that reduce their value as actual threats. You mentioned having a summoned skeletal hound grapple a spellcaster... but just off proficiency and level gap, the odds it actually manages to land the grapple are ~1/4. Utility like that only matters if it's semi-reliable.
Would be interesting to have a choice and have two tables. One for utility summoning (like it's right now) and one combat one where it scales better, but you can't use it's spells or something to that degree
Keep posting new vids, right now my favourite pf2 youtuber🎉
I know this would be considered 'boring' by some, but I feel like systems need to be less afraid of restrictions. Why any creature? Why can a person just summon a skeleton out of nowhere?
Summons are hard to get right, and having a shorter list of viable summons - like the various wild shape limitations that pathfinder already imposes - would be much better, and would allow better curation of the lore as well. What if I don't want unicorns to exist in my setting, for example? Idk. Just my twopence.
I totally agree that "basic templates" of summonable creatures like form spells would have been more balanced, but there is something iconic to summons being the creatures in the game...
I agree that this is a sacred cow that should have been brought out to pasture
my biggest insult to summoning spells is that they should use stat blocks similar to form spells
I think it's time for a summon build, don't you all?
A creature that would be the funniest to summon if not for the restriction about casting spells, would be Nyktera with her 1st level heal. Why would you prepare 1st level heals would your 1st level summon be able to cast it for a good morning.
Summons that grapple can really mess with an encounter
So, what you’re saying is that my Sorcerer, instead of casting spells, should use a crossbow.
Sustain.
Command.
Shoot. (miss)
Sustain.
Command.
Reload.
People underrate summons because a lot of people assess balance against boss fights & expect "Spell = Win Right Now" and also because they heard summons were bad so it became a meme they zealously defend.
Could summons stand to be a smidge stronger? Maybe. Do some summon spells fall behind others at some ranks? Sure. Are they bad because the strongest thing you can summon is your level -3 with your highest slot? No. Literally the majority of enemies are APL -2 or lower and monsters tend to have higher stats than players.
I'm sorry -- i can only subscribe once. Eagerly anticipating 1000.
I play a bard and I like using summon fey on ocasion. I loved the unicorn. And like to summon a satyr as a band buddy. satyr plays inspire courage and I'll play dirge of doom.
And bards have a class feat that gives a free action to sustain a spell at level 16.
Summon Fiend doesn't need to be a higher level since the Summon Trait stops creatures from casting a spell equal to or greater than in level to the spell that summoned it.
Stat Block Notecards, even with access to a phone/tablet, are a way better tool for the Summoner in game
How do you do the summoning with the animation? Im not too familiar with how J2BA works, and I’m not interested in going to V11 yet, so the setup you’re using in this video would be pretty ideal
I know Ron has a guide on J2BA
I say just search up that name alongside "Pathfinder 2e Animations" (which is the implementation of that animation module inside of PF2)
It's too bad that the errata came out with some of the remaster changes that nerfed all of the zombie undead. That permanent slow they get means a zombie minion only gets one action a turn to use, crippling a lot of otherwise useful features or traits.
Apparently that was RAW before due to a sidebar or something, I will still elect to ignore that as its more fun for my table the other way!
(Zombies SHOULD be the most reliable summons imo. It won't break balance, so I'm totally fine with doing that)
Nice cropped cam 👍👍👍
Wouldn't it then be a better solution game design wise to make it so that you can always summon creatures of double the spells rank - 3 (Or whatever make sense encounter balance wise) but just add a line of text that says something along the lines of "The creature you summon cannot cast spells of more than 2/3/4 (again, whatever makes sense balance wise) ranks lower than the rank of the summon-spell"? Then your summons can stay relevant number-wise but you also keep players from turning summon spells into better wish spells...
I think that is a very well rounded and good idea!
I don't see any flaws with it immediately and I think most of the "abuse cases" are things I am more or less fine with!
@@SwingRipper Nice :)
Out of curiosity, what would be such abuse cases you are thinking of?
Also, would you personally say that "level of double the spell rank - 3" and "Spells not higher than the summon spells spell rank - 2" are balanced? I am probably gonna add this as a house-rule.
Things like learning which common monsters have overtuned normal abilities (or know Slow) in order to still do mini wish stuff and split slots.
Again its nothing too bad from what I can think of but I could see the designers' concerns of "what if a player breaks the game via these spells in 10 years when there are 4x as many creatures"
Summons are so open ended that buffing them could present an X factor that could let some really dedicated people start bending the game
No fair. You're a better munchkin than all of us AND you'll be gettung early access? What'll be left for us?
Ok. You're +1 @ 760 now.
I wonder which +1 will matter? :)
Something Something +1s matter
So use 'em like pokemon and pull something with a type advantage against your target, basically.
Basically
@@SwingRipper Back in 3.5 I had a malconvoker who handled the whole 'Bluff check to keep your monsters on your side' thing by summoning almost exclusively infernal animals. Infernal giant weasels have a pretty poor Sense Motive check. Remarkably few opponents can fight at full efficiency with an infernal dire crocodile clamped on to their legs.
I don't know if that level of weirdness will happen in Pf2, but if it does, I'll be there for it.
I might also contribute to it, if I convert the Werehouse prestige class I made for Pf1. :)
GMs ban cell phones at the table? Damn that would be catastrophic for my players, they all rely on the archive and pathbuilder to play
I have seen it as a common sentiment on D&D 5e forums as "those darn players get distracted so often", rarer in the PF2e scene but not unheard of
(Also my games are mostly online so our rare in person session still uses Foundry for character sheets)
@@SwingRipper I'm lucky enough to have a group of invested ttrpg veterans (5ish years of 5e, its now been a few months since we switched over to 2e) so I dont have to worry about them perusing Twitter or something mid-game. If they're on their phones, its because they are reading their abilities or the rules for a strategy being discussed
What is your opinion about the variant rule of automatic scaling to summon spells? Is it welcome to be less punishing to use in a unoptimized way, or it would be too broken if you use it correctly?
I think it would probably be fine, Summon spells become one of the best things to do with low level slots, but I think that is the intention of a rule like that!
It makes low level summons an obvious correct answer for high level casters and may effectively punish players that won't want to / can't do the research required to use summons optimally... As such I would likely avoid it in my games!
Talks about what classes are good for summoning. Doesn't mention Summoner class
Yup lol
(summoner is bad at using summon spells as they already want to devote a good amount of their turn to their eidolon)
@@SwingRipper do you think you could try to make a video about Summoner and Summoning spells? I've been playing a Summoner who only uses summoning spells and I've been having a blast. (Maybe it's because I'm usually a forever DM and lots of monsters makes my brain go brr)
It *can* work... I just think that pets in general are action sinks and both Summoner and Summon spells will want a large slice of that pie.
It just means its very hard to reposition yourself or your eidolon while maintaining a summoned creature. If you can get around that I can see summons being pretty alright
Subscribed hard. Algorithm comment. Good.
If you want to get to 1000, you have to be a scantily clad goblin Vtuber.
I will do what I must ✊😔
WOOOOOOOO
Yeah and I'm one of those people looked at my three post about summons being bad because they don't fulfill that summoner fantasy. Before 8 watch this video. I'm going to guess your going to mention flanking, waist of action on the enemy side and nich summons that heals.
I'm going to counter with most summons abilities are useless when in a combat where you want to cast a summon spell that typically requires your highest tier spell slot.
Their DC and attack is too low to ever truly matter and very few of them enough health to survive a round or two. This leads to you having to skim for the actual useful summons.
Here's another problem. Summons are minions which means they loose out on reactions so if you have a summon that grants an adjacent creature fire resistance as a reaction, welp you can't use it.
Summons list is big but actually very small on what summons are useful especially in the latter levels.
Pretty sure the dragon spells list is the smallest considering most dragons have a breath attack and dragon rend. Two things that don't do anything at the levels the monsters will be summon.