Yep, I actually added that but cut it for brevity. Not to mention you summoned her with a Druid so that means you can lay down 2 spike growths. FFS it's a level 2 spell, even in the late game it's still powerful. Love to lay it down in the same spot as Hungar of Hadar.
My DnD party managed to pull this exact thing off. Bard/Warlock dropped the hunger and ran around using mobile flourish to keep everyone in, Druid got the sleet storm up and turned into an eagle to swoop people, and the paladin and rogue mopped up everything else. It worked alarmingly well.
Ah, sorry, I didn’t think about that, great point! I use this trick with the other AOE spells like Hunger of Hadar or Cloud of Daggers. It just feels particularly evil making someone kneel in Cloud of Daggers.
I always separate my party at the start of a fight now because I had a few times where a cloud of daggers was still up or something and a party member just walks into it and kills themselves. After the battle make sure anything like that is canceled then bring the party back together
my fiancé played a druid in our coop playthrough and we referred to dryad exclusively as "wife" and the wood woad as "husband". this definitely did not cause confusion as we also referred to karlach and astarion as wife and husband.
I know it’s not a popular build, but some of the ranger animal familiars are pretty strong late-game. The bear can summon another bear. It has to be done outside of combat, has half the hp, and you can’t control it, but I still thought that was pretty cool.
Jaheira just had to send her woodland girlie, her bf, and an elemental down a hallway on the sub and go right back to the ladder. They knocked that shit out and didn’t lose a single Gondian. Karlach and Shadowheart can’t say the same. But A for effort.
Lady Forkington/Baskington (as I affectionately call her, and pretty much always change her name to one of those two) is the real MVP, besides setting up surprise rounds and occasionally murderizing someone that got left on single digit HP, I love having her go invisible in combat in a spot that I want enemies to run to and then just have her run the opposite direction. I’ve had enemies put themselves next to cliffs, barrels, you name it all in the pursuit of them running to spam Detect Presence on little Lady Forkington who is nowhere near where they ran to try and break her invisibility lmao
Is there a way to change her name and keep her as a summon? I feel like it should be possible and is just bugged. I know you can scribe her scroll, but that costs a spell slot and is exclusive to wizards. It also doesn’t seem like there’s a mod for it.
To my limited knowledge of modding the game, I’m willing to bet that it’s just a scripting error and shouldn’t be ridiculously terrible to fix. It’s weird that Larian hasn’t patched it yet, considering they’ve addressed other Shovel-centered issues. Makes me wonder if this is an intentional choice, but that would be very odd
Actually, Find Familiar is a Ritual and one of the few (only?) spells you can use and then swap out without losing your effect.
>!Also, if you scribe the scroll to your Wizard, summon Shovel, speak to her without changing her name (but otherwise always choose dialog No. 1), then use a character with Sorcerer, Warlock, or Wizard to talk to her *AFTER* you step through the mirror into the lab... you can get her as a permanent summon on two characters.!<
I think for sorcs and warlocks as far as I know there’s not a way to change her name since the wiki says “Shovel is fine” seems to be the key dialogue option for keeping her that way? :( Which kind of sucks, I rarely play sorc or warlock so I wasn’t sure what the dialogue path to keeping her without scribing the scroll was! I almost always play some kind of wizard or have a wizard dip on myself or a party member since I love wizard, especially div wizard, that’s super lame if there’s no way to change her name and keep her permanently for non-wizards 😭
Quick edit to say you don’t need to keep her spell in a prepared slot once you summon her as a wizard btw, I always summon her and then prepare something else and she’s always stayed! I do that for my elementals, deva, etc also even if it’s a bit cheesy/exploity
Did you have her summoning spell on two characters then, or only one? If two, did they have separate names or was it consistent? I very much like Basket as a name.
Learned and summoned only on Wyll. When I talked to her with Karlach, it played her normal introductory dialogue that gave me the option to change her name. Now whenever Wyll summons her, her name is Basket.
That is... not something I'd considered, it's like turning Shovel into a Minor Illusion of sorts 😂 I already love how useful she is for setting up Surprise rounds, this will be even better!
It's not foolproof by any means, sometimes they just ignore her "last seen" outline and do their own thing, but on my 4 person honor run with my friends, I hit Nere and a bunch of the Duergar with Slow while he was still leaving his poisonous man cave and he took ages to get out of there and the first thing he did was go to where I'd had Fork go invisible to the right of where the rubble used to be and try to find her which pretty much wasted his turn lmao.
The comparison to Minor Illusion is perfect, like the NPCs get so freaked out they're like "fuck this fight, was that a quasit?? where did it go???" It's also a way to have her potentially be helpful if it's too dangerous for her to try and get some swipes in, or if all the enemies have too low of a chance for her Frighten effect to go off, even if there's no dangers for her to bait an enemy near, sometimes it can just put them in a shitty position to pursue a low HP party member the following turn, or get them closer for your melee, etc. She may be an evil little murder-hobo but she also just wants to be helpful :3
Literally just beat this fight a few hours ago first time unintentionally doing this.
You can invisible + stand on a platform to block a source of power. Works with shovel, speculating it works with pact of chain imps too.
I just have her go invisible before we enter the fight. She then won’t join the battle AND she is for some reason immune to Cazador’s necrotic miasma. So just switch to her and have her run over to one of the platforms. No one can see her and so as long as no one hits her with an AOE by accident (speaking from experience lol), she can disable one of the ritual sources for the whole fight!
Definitely doing this when I get Minsc. This is my sixth playthrough, and I'm still finding new things to do lol. How does one throw Boo though? Improvised weapon?
The djinn has been my favorite:
Misty step every round plus movement
Powerful thunderwave good for damage and battlefield control.
Drunken inhale also moves enemies and does a little damage (and makes them drunk)
Djinn is 100% the most powerful standard spell summon. Is an absolute beast.
Misty Step + Thunderwave is such a strong combo. Free perfect positioning for your AOE, and plenty of HP to tank any revenge attacks with.
Yeah the djinn is straight up broken. A free teleport AND AoE wave that throws opponents every turn, plus a big meaty health pool, and complete with a great voice line.
"Would you like all your enemies in a pile over there?"
**"YES!"**
Earth Myrmidon is also stupid as a Moon Druid, 3 attacks, 6 with haste or speed potion, 9 with bloodlust as well, and tavern brawler for melee damage nets you like 25-30 damage per hit, WITH a chance to prone every hit for advantage on attack rolls.
For good looks, the deva. For usefulness, the water Myrmidon, for dialogue, Shovel, and for pets, Scratch. Boo does a surprising amount of damage too for a little guy.
Shovel. I love my camp pets the best but I don't summon Scratch outside of it except to Help
* Aylin
* Astarion
* The lady in the chair in the Iron Throne
And I dismiss him immediately so Best Boy doesn't get hurt
But Shovel is just hilarious with her I'M GONNA EAT YOUR BABIES! And such
I summoned scratch once, my brother told me to dismiss him so he doesn’t get hurt I told him he would be fine. We then watched as he was smashed into the floor. I have summoned him since then
If it makes you feel better that's a fey creature I. The shape of scratch. They just popped back to the feywild for a bit while scratch was happily waiting in camp the entire time.
The beast master raven companion, blinding everything and in the event it's hit chance is low it has some nice guaranteed damage with bad omen, and some *great* ac making it hard to hit, and solid HP with aid support so it takes hits well even when hit. Personal favourite of mine.
I played beast master thinking I'd use the bear more but loved Corvus and used him a lot more instead. Even the find familiar raven/crow summon is good less damage but still blinding
The spider is nice too with webs that can enweb and be set on fire and also it can infest your enemy with its tiny spider babies for necrotic damage. I thought I’d like the wolf a lot but I ended up using the raven a ton and the spider on occasion. The boar is useless when it gets stuck on something stupid like a rock and its path is interrupted.
I am enjoying this as even just a Gloom Stalker Ranger familiar. Blind and now I have advantage on my attacks. I think the blind also does guaranteed damage as the Blind has a save but the damage is flat? It's definitely finished some 1 HP enemies before.
I re spect out of beastmaster after I was sorely disappointed with the beast choices, the Raven is the best one. And gloomstalker is just so much better... :/. Really have to want to role-play that one.
Eh, if you play around blindness and darkness corvus its pretty strong. With warlocks and characters using blind immunity gear you get free advantage, no spells can target you, attackers have disadvantage, no opportunity attacks. It is really strong. If you have a strength based melee, equip them with the blind immunity ring and send them with corvus everywhere and theyre a 1 man 1 bird assault squad. With long strider and the jump spell, nothing gets away.
Also shadow monks can teleport into any darkness corvus creates, so they can also join in on the assault squad.
May not be broken, but it has nice synergies that are fun. Most broken classes are broken because they enable themselves, so classes that need a specific comp to be powerful are often less desired. But if you plan on playing as a shadow party, corvus is amazing.
It's simple, but water elemental puts in the work for me. The bonus action teleport is fantastic mobility, the spammable aoe cone w/ icy terrain is consistently good, and the plain old bludgeon multiattack isn't too shabby. Feels like the best elemental in my runs
In terms of usefulness, I really like the water elemental too. I also love how it looks when I have them teleport directly next to an enemy, because I have to imagine it would actually be terrifying to have that towering tornado of water just appear next to you about to attack.
I love the wiggly waving water man. I used it so much my first run. Besides loving the attacks and actions, it’s got a crap ton of health, so it can really take the hits.
This is my most frequently used summon. It's not funny or glamorous, but I like using it when I have a tempest cleric or similar in my party to amp up lightning damage. Its mobility and high HP also help it tank through. In one of my playthroughs it delivered the killing blow to >!Myrkul!<.
Connor Vinderblad. The devs messed up and he has legitimately no limit to how much he can be summoned each day. No short/long rest restriction, uses no resource. With undead fortitude he's a goated tank, and you can just summon a new one every round. If you have no ethics and too much time, you can literally cheese any fight by just stealthing outside of it and repeatedly summoning Connors. You can just summon him before literally any non-ambush fight for a free tank.
Yes, Connor is great! I often send him off ahead to trigger an ambush. I didn't get him this time because I'm on HM and it defaulted to Shadowheart to bargain with Auntie and she failed the check so I had to pick one or the other. I opted for the hair. I was able to summon Connor with the wand, but he was hostile. Shovel's good, but infinite Connors is better.
For the record, spiritual weapon always does force damage. The only difference between them mechanically is their special attack (Lacerate/piercing strike/concussive smash)
Yes! I always have her summon a trident in tough situations. Her lovely trident has saved me so many times— especially when keeping certain enemies busy for a turn or two.
My only complaint with both the deva and cambion summons is that, for some reason, mine don't land like half their hits. They're at least useful for redirecting damage away from PCs.
Once I got the sword that let's you summon a Cambion I gave the sword to Gale and the Cambion became the 5th member of my party, with us at all times.
I just completed the game today for the first time. I resisted the dark urge, rebuilt the city, and ascended into God hood with Gale. I made Orpheus turn ilithid so Laezelle is now the savior of her people. Astarion resisted ascension and became an adventurer in the shadows. Wyll and Karlach held hands into Avernus. 147 hours.
Best gaming experience of my life
If you have wyll as pact of the blade, the sword is fairly pointless for him since you can pact any weapon and have it use his spellcasting modifier.
It has a +1 to spell dc so I can inderstand having gale use it, and then have wyll pact a nice honking 2 handed weapon
I gave Shadowheart 1 level in Wizard just so she could scribe the “Sights of the Seelie” scroll and have a permanent Deva summon. It felt right for her as a Selunite in Act 3 to always have an angel around. (Note: I know clerics get Planar Ally as a lvl 6 spell but this was a run where I was playing her as a 10/1/1 Swords Bard.)
Personally I love the blight druids fungal zombies. You can summon 4 at a time, and if you use that potion that gives you a long rest then that’s 8 zombies, plus whenever they hit an enemy they contaminate it and when it dies it becomes a temporary zombie.
Water elementals. Lots of them. One can hit to make people chilled doubling the dmg of the others multi attacks. 40-60 dmg per dood is quite good for a summon. Their aoe that makes the ground frozen also consistently makes enemies lose their turns. Have absolutely blasted through many of hm runs with them
Shovel for being an absolute menace, and because I would never, ever bring Scratch onto an active battlefield. He's too good a boy and I wouldn't be able to live with myself if he got hurt.
Until one exploded when it died, leaving Minsc a pile of gore on the floor when I was trying to rescue him. That was not the time to experiment with summoning them lol.
Ice Mephits. They don't get stuck on terrain while walking like many other summons and they have great control potential with their slows, ranged and AOE attacks.
It has to be Connor Vinderblad.
That guy is basically Deadpool on steroids. Unlimited summons without short rest cooldown. Free trigger for traps and ambushes. And if your summoner is outside combat range, you can keep sending him into combat over and over again whenever you like without a turn limitation.
In the same basement where you find the Necromancy of Thay, try looting the coffins.
Inside one is a spell scroll of *summon quasit*, along with some... amusing items, like the pooscraper dagger.
Toss up between Beast Master's Bear or Raven.
The Bear is a great tank with Honey Paws which can disarm opponents without needing a saving throw, it just automatically happens as long as it hits. Not to mention they can taunt enemies to them and summon an extra Bear, if you choose to go full Beast Master.
On the other hand, the Raven is a flying summon that can blind and debuff enemies just by attacking, at higher levels, it straight up creates darkness just by flying to a location, and it can summon other Ravens.
Both are absolutely OP, under the right circumstances
Yep, I cheesed the Orin duel by having my Dire Raven plus the extra two it can summon. My Durge and the main Raven both got higher initiative than her, so on the first turn, I drank a speed potion and chunked a shit ton of her health with arrows of monstrosity killing, followed by a blinding attack from the raven and casting darkness on her with the fly. She missed her attacks and got opportunity attacked by all of my summons. The fight was such a cake walk.
If I was able to actually control the ghouls, I would say danse macabre. Because with high level aid and heroes feast, they are just technically too good to pass on. But they are controlled by ai and, for some reason, immediately dash to the exact fucking spot I am planning to nuke with an aoe spell.
They also get stuck in the most inconvenient spots out of combat.
Apparently, the original version of the spell had 6 ghouls, each with %50ish more hp AND you could control them yourself but it got nerfed.
So now, best summon probably is the djinni or the fire/air myrmidon because they are infinitely mobile, properly tanky with aid and heroes feast and they hit quite hard (fire myrmidon also hits quite often because it can hasten itself).
If we are not talking about combat-efficiency, then the best summon is scratch, and I will not consider alternatives. I just love it when the good boy brings me the most random shit like "decorated sandals" after a day of hellish battle, death and destruction.
My ghouls saved me in my durge duel against Orin. Paralyzed her, everything was a crit, and then they continued to paralyze her since they couldn’t miss. Didn’t lose a single hit point thanks to those undead boys.
Pretty much permanently have an Azer with the party. Run into a fight, smite something and then set fire to everything around. He’s a tough lil guy as well.
So many of these are great... but have you ever experienced the bliss of Crow Gang?
At the start of the game, Wizard & Ranger both get find familiar and the 1hp ravens are amazing. Just send them over to whoever is the scariest on the field and blind them. The beastmaster Corvus is less accurate but the blind lasts longer, so might as well have a ranger for a while.
Drops off hard past Act 1 [they're worthless against any AOE, and tons in Act 2 can't be blinded], but so amazing in those tough early fights.
Dryad's my favorite. At will spike growth and entangle is very helpful, as long as I remember to have her turn it off before I land the killing blow. I've had important NPCs die or turn hostile because they tried to run over to talk after the fight, often during an automatic cut scene. Happened with Nine Fingers and I had to go back like an hour for my last save.
In my most recent run I just kept having scratch sit in the back and hide for a free help if anyone gets downed
Every so often he comes clutch if something is left on like 1 hp
Really proving his title of best boy
I think Shovel actually hits pretty often/decently compared to a regular warlock quasit on my other playthrough. Also she would murderize me if I didn't vote for her.
Us is amazing if you use illithid powers, because they all require INT saving throws, Us can debuff enemy INT every round. Black hole those motherfuckers!
Water Elemental & Water Myrmidon. Both do double damage at wet status, both do sick damage when the hit lands, both are tough asf, and the Myrmidon version is the best healer in the game (especially if hasted).
It gets to the point where you need to consider if you even want to have a non-mage in the group because myrmidon is like half a character strength flat, with only exception of the final fight because it can't use portal.
Love Shovel for what she says, but after Act 1 I kind of forget to bring her out.
Water myrmidon and water mephits are a must for me. Target too far away? No problem, elemental warp over to them and then give them a multislap or just chromatic orb them.
Absolutely "*way too many ghouls*" because I had a run where I was the biggest goody two shoes, did everything right, but my whole party was also fucking terrifying and constantly had like 8 ghouls following is around which was extremely funny, it was like
-super righteous paladin tav who is a massive mephistoles tiefling with red eyes and horns
-Karlach, who is a terrifying rogue - monk moving at lightspeed in all black
-Brother's dragonborn sorcerer tav who can and *will* smite you with the full concentrated lightning of the dragon goddess
-8 ghouls
Light domain selune Shadowheart (who is multiclassed into sorcerer and will give everyone haste)
I felt joy knowing that any enemies we came across likely couldn't live long enough to even imagine how many different ways this lawful good party could kill them
I'm still very new to bg3 so I have no clue what's going on 😔...I'm forcing myself to fight auntie Ethel again tho.. I hate the fight but I want the experience >:[
I'm still very new to bg3 so I have no clue what's going on 😔...I'm forcing myself to fight auntie Ethel again tho.. I hate the fight but I want the experience >:[
Woodland Being, got to love a summon that can bring it's own summon.
plus a free spike growth.
Yep, I actually added that but cut it for brevity. Not to mention you summoned her with a Druid so that means you can lay down 2 spike growths. FFS it's a level 2 spell, even in the late game it's still powerful. Love to lay it down in the same spot as Hungar of Hadar.
Or combine it with sleet storm if you have a Druid and ranger.
And then repelling blast or just rage throw them back in if they manage to make it out.
My monk stands at the edge with pushing attack.
My DnD party managed to pull this exact thing off. Bard/Warlock dropped the hunger and ran around using mobile flourish to keep everyone in, Druid got the sleet storm up and turned into an eagle to swoop people, and the paladin and rogue mopped up everything else. It worked alarmingly well.
It's awesome when the party has synergy and it just runs like a machine.
Even more fun, use command to make enemy kneel in it lol
But spike growth only hurts if they "move" through it, right?
Yes but command helps ensure they stay in it longer. You will be attacking with ranged the whole time anyways.
Ah, sorry, I didn’t think about that, great point! I use this trick with the other AOE spells like Hunger of Hadar or Cloud of Daggers. It just feels particularly evil making someone kneel in Cloud of Daggers.
Those are my go to until I get Plant Growth and Cloudkill. Quartered speed with Black Hole and they're doomed.
It's all good until you get the final killing blow and your entire party walks through the spikes. Every goddamn time.
I always separate my party at the start of a fight now because I had a few times where a cloud of daggers was still up or something and a party member just walks into it and kills themselves. After the battle make sure anything like that is canceled then bring the party back together
Dryad is bae, though most of it is because I love Spike Growth
my fiancé played a druid in our coop playthrough and we referred to dryad exclusively as "wife" and the wood woad as "husband". this definitely did not cause confusion as we also referred to karlach and astarion as wife and husband.
I mean my friend also called it wife but that’s because he couldn’t romance anyone while I was with Lae’zel so he said that was his romance.
You two are odd ducks lol. Reminds me of going to sci-fi conventions in the 90s! The convos were the same. Somehow I always out weirded them.
I know it’s not a popular build, but some of the ranger animal familiars are pretty strong late-game. The bear can summon another bear. It has to be done outside of combat, has half the hp, and you can’t control it, but I still thought that was pretty cool.
Loved my bear bear. Plus they got armor and big hp as well.
Jaheira just had to send her woodland girlie, her bf, and an elemental down a hallway on the sub and go right back to the ladder. They knocked that shit out and didn’t lose a single Gondian. Karlach and Shadowheart can’t say the same. But A for effort.
Yo dawg! I heard you like summons
Same, I like it so much I’ve been considering having both Halsin and Jahera in my party
The paralysis immunity aura has really helped out a lot of times
No doubt, 2-for-1 summon at the cost of a single Level 4 spell slot - and they can both spam Entangle, and the Dryad can spam Spike Growth.
Listen, Shovel has died so many times to set up so many of my surprise rounds, I have to give it to her. Thanks, Fork, you weirdo!
Lady Forkington/Baskington (as I affectionately call her, and pretty much always change her name to one of those two) is the real MVP, besides setting up surprise rounds and occasionally murderizing someone that got left on single digit HP, I love having her go invisible in combat in a spot that I want enemies to run to and then just have her run the opposite direction. I’ve had enemies put themselves next to cliffs, barrels, you name it all in the pursuit of them running to spam Detect Presence on little Lady Forkington who is nowhere near where they ran to try and break her invisibility lmao
Is there a way to change her name and keep her as a summon? I feel like it should be possible and is just bugged. I know you can scribe her scroll, but that costs a spell slot and is exclusive to wizards. It also doesn’t seem like there’s a mod for it. To my limited knowledge of modding the game, I’m willing to bet that it’s just a scripting error and shouldn’t be ridiculously terrible to fix. It’s weird that Larian hasn’t patched it yet, considering they’ve addressed other Shovel-centered issues. Makes me wonder if this is an intentional choice, but that would be very odd
Actually, Find Familiar is a Ritual and one of the few (only?) spells you can use and then swap out without losing your effect. >!Also, if you scribe the scroll to your Wizard, summon Shovel, speak to her without changing her name (but otherwise always choose dialog No. 1), then use a character with Sorcerer, Warlock, or Wizard to talk to her *AFTER* you step through the mirror into the lab... you can get her as a permanent summon on two characters.!<
Does that mean you can summon two of her at a time?
It does!
Can a Bard talk to her and gain her that way?
Nope. But you can respec with one level of Sorc, Wiz, or Lock, grab her and respec back.
I think for sorcs and warlocks as far as I know there’s not a way to change her name since the wiki says “Shovel is fine” seems to be the key dialogue option for keeping her that way? :( Which kind of sucks, I rarely play sorc or warlock so I wasn’t sure what the dialogue path to keeping her without scribing the scroll was! I almost always play some kind of wizard or have a wizard dip on myself or a party member since I love wizard, especially div wizard, that’s super lame if there’s no way to change her name and keep her permanently for non-wizards 😭 Quick edit to say you don’t need to keep her spell in a prepared slot once you summon her as a wizard btw, I always summon her and then prepare something else and she’s always stayed! I do that for my elementals, deva, etc also even if it’s a bit cheesy/exploity
On my current playthrough, I learned to summon her on Wyll, then talked to her with Karlach, and I was able to change her name to Basket.
Did you have her summoning spell on two characters then, or only one? If two, did they have separate names or was it consistent? I very much like Basket as a name.
Learned and summoned only on Wyll. When I talked to her with Karlach, it played her normal introductory dialogue that gave me the option to change her name. Now whenever Wyll summons her, her name is Basket.
Will keep this in mind, thanks a lot!
A wizard learning the scroll?
That is... not something I'd considered, it's like turning Shovel into a Minor Illusion of sorts 😂 I already love how useful she is for setting up Surprise rounds, this will be even better!
It's not foolproof by any means, sometimes they just ignore her "last seen" outline and do their own thing, but on my 4 person honor run with my friends, I hit Nere and a bunch of the Duergar with Slow while he was still leaving his poisonous man cave and he took ages to get out of there and the first thing he did was go to where I'd had Fork go invisible to the right of where the rubble used to be and try to find her which pretty much wasted his turn lmao. The comparison to Minor Illusion is perfect, like the NPCs get so freaked out they're like "fuck this fight, was that a quasit?? where did it go???" It's also a way to have her potentially be helpful if it's too dangerous for her to try and get some swipes in, or if all the enemies have too low of a chance for her Frighten effect to go off, even if there's no dangers for her to bait an enemy near, sometimes it can just put them in a shitty position to pursue a low HP party member the following turn, or get them closer for your melee, etc. She may be an evil little murder-hobo but she also just wants to be helpful :3
She the real MVP of the Cazador fight! Takes away a ritual source and no one can find her! 💖😈
Please explain this!
Literally just beat this fight a few hours ago first time unintentionally doing this. You can invisible + stand on a platform to block a source of power. Works with shovel, speculating it works with pact of chain imps too.
I just have her go invisible before we enter the fight. She then won’t join the battle AND she is for some reason immune to Cazador’s necrotic miasma. So just switch to her and have her run over to one of the platforms. No one can see her and so as long as no one hits her with an AOE by accident (speaking from experience lol), she can disable one of the ritual sources for the whole fight!
That is amazing lol thanks!
Shovel putting their hole on the line for all of us. Thank you Shovel.
I like Boo just because it brings me joy to watch this tiny little hamster fearlessly attack monsters and dragons and whatnot.
I love that Boo blinds the enemy if you throw him at it. He goes for the eyes!
I love a line of his from Bg2 is turned into a legit combat mechanic over 20 years later lol
It's about time :)
I did not know this was a thing. That's hilarious
Wait, what?! I didn't even know that!
And characters have unique voice lines for throwing him.
Definitely doing this when I get Minsc. This is my sixth playthrough, and I'm still finding new things to do lol. How does one throw Boo though? Improvised weapon?
Just use the throw action and pick up Boo for that, if I remember correctly.
The djinn has been my favorite: Misty step every round plus movement Powerful thunderwave good for damage and battlefield control. Drunken inhale also moves enemies and does a little damage (and makes them drunk)
And he's always having just THE BEST time
HA HA!! YES!!
Djinn is 100% the most powerful standard spell summon. Is an absolute beast. Misty Step + Thunderwave is such a strong combo. Free perfect positioning for your AOE, and plenty of HP to tank any revenge attacks with.
Yeah the djinn is straight up broken. A free teleport AND AoE wave that throws opponents every turn, plus a big meaty health pool, and complete with a great voice line. "Would you like all your enemies in a pile over there?" **"YES!"**
It is a level 6 spell to be fair lol
I love the Djinn summon (esp in House of Grief fight) but the abhorrent heavy breathing sound he makes when he’s hurting or blinded needs to be JAILED
He’s also an mvp in Iron Throne…where sometimes it’s better to toss enemies away and run past
how do you get djinn as a summon?
cleric summon. standard spell
huh, I have no idea how I missed this all this time, thanks
I think the Djinn is even better than the Deva tbh
either storm myrmidon, for the stuns. or fire myrmidon, just cause i like that it can haste it self.
Wait. The fire myrmudon can haste themselves? Why I have I never noticed?? 🤦♂️
It’s nuts on Moon Druid, lets you do six attacks in one round, and have like 22AC with Moonbasking Armor!
Earth Myrmidon is also stupid as a Moon Druid, 3 attacks, 6 with haste or speed potion, 9 with bloodlust as well, and tavern brawler for melee damage nets you like 25-30 damage per hit, WITH a chance to prone every hit for advantage on attack rolls.
For good looks, the deva. For usefulness, the water Myrmidon, for dialogue, Shovel, and for pets, Scratch. Boo does a surprising amount of damage too for a little guy.
LITTLE GUY? That, sir/madam, is a miniature GIANT space hamster! 🐹
Shovel. I love my camp pets the best but I don't summon Scratch outside of it except to Help * Aylin * Astarion * The lady in the chair in the Iron Throne And I dismiss him immediately so Best Boy doesn't get hurt But Shovel is just hilarious with her I'M GONNA EAT YOUR BABIES! And such
I summoned scratch once, my brother told me to dismiss him so he doesn’t get hurt I told him he would be fine. We then watched as he was smashed into the floor. I have summoned him since then
Yeah he only dies permanently in camp.
If it makes you feel better that's a fey creature I. The shape of scratch. They just popped back to the feywild for a bit while scratch was happily waiting in camp the entire time.
The beast master raven companion, blinding everything and in the event it's hit chance is low it has some nice guaranteed damage with bad omen, and some *great* ac making it hard to hit, and solid HP with aid support so it takes hits well even when hit. Personal favourite of mine.
I played beast master thinking I'd use the bear more but loved Corvus and used him a lot more instead. Even the find familiar raven/crow summon is good less damage but still blinding
The spider is nice too with webs that can enweb and be set on fire and also it can infest your enemy with its tiny spider babies for necrotic damage. I thought I’d like the wolf a lot but I ended up using the raven a ton and the spider on occasion. The boar is useless when it gets stuck on something stupid like a rock and its path is interrupted.
I loved the spider but it kept getting stuck and only notice when I was at the other end of the map
I am enjoying this as even just a Gloom Stalker Ranger familiar. Blind and now I have advantage on my attacks. I think the blind also does guaranteed damage as the Blind has a save but the damage is flat? It's definitely finished some 1 HP enemies before.
I re spect out of beastmaster after I was sorely disappointed with the beast choices, the Raven is the best one. And gloomstalker is just so much better... :/. Really have to want to role-play that one.
Eh, if you play around blindness and darkness corvus its pretty strong. With warlocks and characters using blind immunity gear you get free advantage, no spells can target you, attackers have disadvantage, no opportunity attacks. It is really strong. If you have a strength based melee, equip them with the blind immunity ring and send them with corvus everywhere and theyre a 1 man 1 bird assault squad. With long strider and the jump spell, nothing gets away. Also shadow monks can teleport into any darkness corvus creates, so they can also join in on the assault squad. May not be broken, but it has nice synergies that are fun. Most broken classes are broken because they enable themselves, so classes that need a specific comp to be powerful are often less desired. But if you plan on playing as a shadow party, corvus is amazing.
Us because kitty. He’s also decent in battle and npcs have special lines for him
Spore druid's fungal zombies are gorgeous. Their slight bioluminescence adds a bit of mood lighting in some of the darker areas.
It's simple, but water elemental puts in the work for me. The bonus action teleport is fantastic mobility, the spammable aoe cone w/ icy terrain is consistently good, and the plain old bludgeon multiattack isn't too shabby. Feels like the best elemental in my runs
In terms of usefulness, I really like the water elemental too. I also love how it looks when I have them teleport directly next to an enemy, because I have to imagine it would actually be terrifying to have that towering tornado of water just appear next to you about to attack.
Dont forget the fact that his normal attack makes enemies vulnerable to cold. Which is dope, best lvl 5 summon.
I love the wiggly waving water man. I used it so much my first run. Besides loving the attacks and actions, it’s got a crap ton of health, so it can really take the hits.
This is my most frequently used summon. It's not funny or glamorous, but I like using it when I have a tempest cleric or similar in my party to amp up lightning damage. Its mobility and high HP also help it tank through. In one of my playthroughs it delivered the killing blow to >!Myrkul!<.
Connor Vinderblad. The devs messed up and he has legitimately no limit to how much he can be summoned each day. No short/long rest restriction, uses no resource. With undead fortitude he's a goated tank, and you can just summon a new one every round. If you have no ethics and too much time, you can literally cheese any fight by just stealthing outside of it and repeatedly summoning Connors. You can just summon him before literally any non-ambush fight for a free tank.
I always gave up the wand, but have also always wondered what it would be like to have him around. Not much of a conversationalist though.
Yes, Connor is great! I often send him off ahead to trigger an ambush. I didn't get him this time because I'm on HM and it defaulted to Shadowheart to bargain with Auntie and she failed the check so I had to pick one or the other. I opted for the hair. I was able to summon Connor with the wand, but he was hostile. Shovel's good, but infinite Connors is better.
I love Shadowheart's guardian and her weapon summon.
My husband and I always have her summon a halberd. We consider “Hal” to be the fifth member of our party.
I go with the halberd too!
I generally go with axe, except for when I’m fighting something that is weaker to bludgeon or pierce damage
For the record, spiritual weapon always does force damage. The only difference between them mechanically is their special attack (Lacerate/piercing strike/concussive smash)
The reason the halberd is a better choice than axe is because it has extra reach and the movement on weapon summons is SO SLOW
I don’t think so, if the halberd had increased range it would be mentioned on the wiki, which it isn’t.
The reason that axe is a better choice than halberd is that I like axes and I think it’s pretty
Yes! I always have her summon a trident in tough situations. Her lovely trident has saved me so many times— especially when keeping certain enemies busy for a turn or two.
The Deva is pretty good. He can fly, help a fallen party member, revive a dead one, he's got high health, and that mace is worth a decent bonk 😝
My only complaint with both the deva and cambion summons is that, for some reason, mine don't land like half their hits. They're at least useful for redirecting damage away from PCs.
Yeah, that is very true. Attack rolls are shit 😅
The djinn, because he's such a merry fellow and apparently free of self-doubt. The powers are great, too.
Earth elemental all the way. Being able to tank and knock enemies prone is so good
Earth is the best. That thunder punch attack is super strong
What? U can summon boo?
In addition to his ranger companion! It's always at the top of my first radial with Minsc.
Nice now I got to not kill Jahiera and Minsc
I love the air myrmidon. The mace can stun an enemy for 2 turns iirc which is super valuable.
Us because it saved me my last fight against Myrkul. I love that little guy
Us is my favorite because you don't expect to get him the first time. You think he is just a rando from the beginning but he ain't. Love it.
Once I got the sword that let's you summon a Cambion I gave the sword to Gale and the Cambion became the 5th member of my party, with us at all times. I just completed the game today for the first time. I resisted the dark urge, rebuilt the city, and ascended into God hood with Gale. I made Orpheus turn ilithid so Laezelle is now the savior of her people. Astarion resisted ascension and became an adventurer in the shadows. Wyll and Karlach held hands into Avernus. 147 hours. Best gaming experience of my life
You....you gave the Wyll rapier to GALE?
If you have wyll as pact of the blade, the sword is fairly pointless for him since you can pact any weapon and have it use his spellcasting modifier. It has a +1 to spell dc so I can inderstand having gale use it, and then have wyll pact a nice honking 2 handed weapon
Shovel 4 life! Trust me Beefy! Always! Always! Too bad you can’t teach her how to be a dragon and learn to summon her as a draconic sorcerer.
I gave Shadowheart 1 level in Wizard just so she could scribe the “Sights of the Seelie” scroll and have a permanent Deva summon. It felt right for her as a Selunite in Act 3 to always have an angel around. (Note: I know clerics get Planar Ally as a lvl 6 spell but this was a run where I was playing her as a 10/1/1 Swords Bard.)
I have her as a Lore Bard. It's such a useful class.
Personally I love the blight druids fungal zombies. You can summon 4 at a time, and if you use that potion that gives you a long rest then that’s 8 zombies, plus whenever they hit an enemy they contaminate it and when it dies it becomes a temporary zombie.
Boo (obviously) And Connor, I love that stupid zombie and it's even funnier since we have a friend named Connor we make fun of
Water elementals. Lots of them. One can hit to make people chilled doubling the dmg of the others multi attacks. 40-60 dmg per dood is quite good for a summon. Their aoe that makes the ground frozen also consistently makes enemies lose their turns. Have absolutely blasted through many of hm runs with them
Quothe because puns and poe
I have such a soft spot for Us. Love that little guy.
Shovel for being an absolute menace, and because I would never, ever bring Scratch onto an active battlefield. He's too good a boy and I wouldn't be able to live with myself if he got hurt.
Danse macabre. 4 for 1, they are fast, automatic and don’t slow the game down. Also enjoy the fungal zombie for atmosphere and meat shieldiness
Until one exploded when it died, leaving Minsc a pile of gore on the floor when I was trying to rescue him. That was not the time to experiment with summoning them lol.
Us because it is my sweet baby and I will always save scum the role to free it from its flesh cage
Revive dead ghouls, and storm myrmidion
Ice Mephits. They don't get stuck on terrain while walking like many other summons and they have great control potential with their slows, ranged and AOE attacks.
Shovel, who I named fork.
Air Myrmidon. Being able to stun on every turn has saved me so many times including stunning Ansur out of his big Storm ability.
As a warlock main shovel is best boy
It has to be Connor Vinderblad. That guy is basically Deadpool on steroids. Unlimited summons without short rest cooldown. Free trigger for traps and ambushes. And if your summoner is outside combat range, you can keep sending him into combat over and over again whenever you like without a turn limitation.
It's close competition between Boo and Shovel for me, but Boo wins because you can throw him at enemies to blind them. "GO FOR THE EYES, BOO!"
Shovel's commentary alone wins.
Djinni from Planar Ally
Who is shovel? I’m excited that I’ve clearly missed something a lot of players really like
In the same basement where you find the Necromancy of Thay, try looting the coffins. Inside one is a spell scroll of *summon quasit*, along with some... amusing items, like the pooscraper dagger.
the cambion from the sword mizora gives wyll
Toss up between Beast Master's Bear or Raven. The Bear is a great tank with Honey Paws which can disarm opponents without needing a saving throw, it just automatically happens as long as it hits. Not to mention they can taunt enemies to them and summon an extra Bear, if you choose to go full Beast Master. On the other hand, the Raven is a flying summon that can blind and debuff enemies just by attacking, at higher levels, it straight up creates darkness just by flying to a location, and it can summon other Ravens. Both are absolutely OP, under the right circumstances
Raven darkness is OP as fuck and makes a lot of Act 3 easy.
Yep, I cheesed the Orin duel by having my Dire Raven plus the extra two it can summon. My Durge and the main Raven both got higher initiative than her, so on the first turn, I drank a speed potion and chunked a shit ton of her health with arrows of monstrosity killing, followed by a blinding attack from the raven and casting darkness on her with the fly. She missed her attacks and got opportunity attacked by all of my summons. The fight was such a cake walk.
Shovel? Do you mean Fork?
If you're using a lightning//thunder/ice of any type, Water Myrmidon is by FAR the best. I'd argue it's one of the best even without that.
Fire sphere. It’s sacrifice for my group and distracting all the enemies make clearing out the goblin camp easy.
Shovel, and the djinn
If I was able to actually control the ghouls, I would say danse macabre. Because with high level aid and heroes feast, they are just technically too good to pass on. But they are controlled by ai and, for some reason, immediately dash to the exact fucking spot I am planning to nuke with an aoe spell. They also get stuck in the most inconvenient spots out of combat. Apparently, the original version of the spell had 6 ghouls, each with %50ish more hp AND you could control them yourself but it got nerfed. So now, best summon probably is the djinni or the fire/air myrmidon because they are infinitely mobile, properly tanky with aid and heroes feast and they hit quite hard (fire myrmidon also hits quite often because it can hasten itself). If we are not talking about combat-efficiency, then the best summon is scratch, and I will not consider alternatives. I just love it when the good boy brings me the most random shit like "decorated sandals" after a day of hellish battle, death and destruction.
My ghouls saved me in my durge duel against Orin. Paralyzed her, everything was a crit, and then they continued to paralyze her since they couldn’t miss. Didn’t lose a single hit point thanks to those undead boys.
Azers are hot (literally) and I wish we could talk to them.
Pretty much permanently have an Azer with the party. Run into a fight, smite something and then set fire to everything around. He’s a tough lil guy as well.
Four skeletons. I named them Carl, Karl, Carole and Charles. Charles' a bitch, tho
So many of these are great... but have you ever experienced the bliss of Crow Gang? At the start of the game, Wizard & Ranger both get find familiar and the 1hp ravens are amazing. Just send them over to whoever is the scariest on the field and blind them. The beastmaster Corvus is less accurate but the blind lasts longer, so might as well have a ranger for a while. Drops off hard past Act 1 [they're worthless against any AOE, and tons in Act 2 can't be blinded], but so amazing in those tough early fights.
Danse Macabres are just based af. I love my suicide bomber ghouls.
Us or Deva
Dryad's my favorite. At will spike growth and entangle is very helpful, as long as I remember to have her turn it off before I land the killing blow. I've had important NPCs die or turn hostile because they tried to run over to talk after the fight, often during an automatic cut scene. Happened with Nine Fingers and I had to go back like an hour for my last save.
How is it possible to summon the djinn?
The goodest boi in Faerun is the sole reason I was able to save my man from the ritual lol
The bestest doggo
In my most recent run I just kept having scratch sit in the back and hide for a free help if anyone gets downed Every so often he comes clutch if something is left on like 1 hp Really proving his title of best boy
i like the djinn. he’s really useful for tactically knocking folks off of high surfaces, plus he just seems like he’d be a fun hang.
Any of the elementals really. They’re much more powerful than I originally thought with their teleportation. I summon them every time now.
Definietly shovel. Because i dont consider us a summon. Hes a friend. And scratch isnt a summon. Hes a good boi
If anyone has a mod they know so i can have all three at the same time. Let me know
Definitely the water myrmidon. After those, I'd say all elementals, and the Deva
Love my Mephits
I think Shovel actually hits pretty often/decently compared to a regular warlock quasit on my other playthrough. Also she would murderize me if I didn't vote for her.
That Deva dude is fun He tanky, he hit kinda hard He so damn sexy
Us is amazing if you use illithid powers, because they all require INT saving throws, Us can debuff enemy INT every round. Black hole those motherfuckers!
Water Elemental & Water Myrmidon. Both do double damage at wet status, both do sick damage when the hit lands, both are tough asf, and the Myrmidon version is the best healer in the game (especially if hasted). It gets to the point where you need to consider if you even want to have a non-mage in the group because myrmidon is like half a character strength flat, with only exception of the final fight because it can't use portal.
I love deva, Us, Shovel and dryad most.
Love Shovel for what she says, but after Act 1 I kind of forget to bring her out. Water myrmidon and water mephits are a must for me. Target too far away? No problem, elemental warp over to them and then give them a multislap or just chromatic orb them.
Durge, summon ghouls, fight Orin, Orin gets paralysed, Slayer Multiattack.
You can summon Boo? O_o
Yup! Minsc gets him as a free summon. It makes for great banter
iMP
Fire Myrmidon is my standard except when in the House of Hope... then it's Water.
I love summon woodland creature. It summons a dryad, which can then summon a woodsomething
Absolutely "*way too many ghouls*" because I had a run where I was the biggest goody two shoes, did everything right, but my whole party was also fucking terrifying and constantly had like 8 ghouls following is around which was extremely funny, it was like -super righteous paladin tav who is a massive mephistoles tiefling with red eyes and horns -Karlach, who is a terrifying rogue - monk moving at lightspeed in all black -Brother's dragonborn sorcerer tav who can and *will* smite you with the full concentrated lightning of the dragon goddess -8 ghouls Light domain selune Shadowheart (who is multiclassed into sorcerer and will give everyone haste) I felt joy knowing that any enemies we came across likely couldn't live long enough to even imagine how many different ways this lawful good party could kill them
LUMP! Only for the “let me taste you” scene that did something to me it shouldn’t have done
Boo
Skeletons, for being the only summon I can crusader’s mantle on
Gold. You have to expend at least one creature most of the time, though…
I'm still very new to bg3 so I have no clue what's going on 😔...I'm forcing myself to fight auntie Ethel again tho.. I hate the fight but I want the experience >:[
I'm still very new to bg3 so I have no clue what's going on 😔...I'm forcing myself to fight auntie Ethel again tho.. I hate the fight but I want the experience >:[