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IU love skeletal warriors too, but Mordy's Swords are sweet!

Barkskin, Improved Invisibility and Improved Haste on mountain bears...:speech:

all that on a skeleton warrior
and your bear is a steak

Don't know about you but every time I cast animate dead I get ONE skeleton warrior and when I summon bears, I get TWO mountain bears. Your One skeleton warrior is a chew toy:laugh:

that is rather luck of the draw i gues sometimes u get 2 sometimes u get 1
and if your lucky 3

I prefer skeletons over bears, but thats just personal preference as bears are so slow and i can't be bothered casting haste on them lol (yes, I know I'm lazy )

I use summons a lot, especially as I am playing through with no real tank character in my party at the moment. Summons make good walls and bad doors lol. I rarely use the ones you have to use protection from evil on as its just so much hassle and I keep forgetting lol so I tend to go more for undead summon spells and spider spawn. Making a bunch of spiders appear behind enemy spellcasters is a brilliant diversion while my spellcasters then set to work on getting rid of all their protection spells Meanwhile, the skeletons keep their fighters busy til I get around to casting web, fireball, cloudkill, horrid wilting once the enemy defences are down.

I never use bears either, because of their low speed and lack of staying power. I'd even forgotten you get two of them. That could make for an interesting combo, though - stick barkskin/improved invis on one bear, and improved haste the other. Then you've got a tanking bear with tolerable AC, and an attack bear with six attacks @ 18/100 Str.

I've never used bears before, so perhaps this time through I will try them. I assume the references are to the powerful version at level 5 or 6? I notice that their duration is only a few turns - compared to skeletons who last for hours.

Bears are not that bad, they're just slow -as skeletons are. The thing is, skeletons have the boost of magic resistance, which makes them FORMIDABLE opponents when soloing (and many enemies try to solo your party with magic, including liches, who are often tempted to fire spells stupidly at your skeletons.).

Also, skeletons have a better Thac0 and that makes all the difference too. Aerial servants are nice replacements for skeletons if you wish not to use them, but the come far too late.

So I'd vote for skelly as the better summon avaiable in the game.

Right two Bear Arms

Bears can take a beating, but it is the Skellies that work for me - you only get 1 of the warriors, whereas the mere skeletons, you sometimes get 2.
the MR means that you can send SWs into places where area effects are triggered or against an area-effect using opponent - furthermore if you like reading that the damage has no effect, they can also take on certain creatures without suffering damage. mind-flayers get a bit frustrated...

however, another worthwhile summons is woodland beings - those gals get mass heal - so use that to heal the party and then let the green girls loose.

if you summon 4 warriors and add a woodland being to heal them, you have a good attack force. protected from evil, haste/imp.haste and invisible - takes the enemy by storm. close the door and wait...

well if there is a door why use summons?

just trigger a fireball in it with some cloudkills
and wait a few minutes take a cup a tea or coffee and come back..
and god i love those cloudkills combined with fireballs


way quicker than summons and it requires less spells

@DaVenom, but that is considered cheese, while summoning is completely inside the game allowances and it wont disallow you to fight. The Cloudkill+fireball combo is nice, but it spoils the game - IMO.

i know but sometimes cheese is fun and lazy

and summons can be quite cheesy too

fight a lich and send all low level summons in it 1 by 1
when he's running out of good spells waste him
that's kinda cheesy too if u ask me

It is so messed up how so many enemies in this game are too stupid to open a door. I have used that cheesy tactic before when I felt really evil:mischief: . I have also done the 1 at a time summons on mages. Every once in a while it is satisfiying but in all it is cheese and not much fun.

I can't believe this is even a post. I played through with a high level druid and won every battle worth mentioning with summons. I love my mountain bears and the earth elementals arent' to shabby either. I wish I had animate dead but I'm not complaining. The shear number of creatures you can summon with a druid is overwhelming compared to what you can do with a mage. I also which I had planetars and I might complain about that but I would gladly trade it for creeping doom and natures beauty.However, the point is that a good summoner can turn any fight around. just watch out for enemies that have death spell.

I think moutain bears are overrated yes they have much hp and such
major damage
but they just sucks vs most spells
that makes that very useless if u ask me
charm animal and such
bah
mountain bears suck

Are you kidding? None of my mountain bears have ever been charmed, period. In fact their resistant to charming because nobody whose even worth the summon has a charm animal spell. its absurd. Not to mention if I am fighting spell casters then I've already thrown creeping doom and they're currently ready to trade their right nut for a can of raid. Yeah mountain bears might suck if you're totally inept at using them but that goes for just about everything in this game.

Which brings me to another point, why would you be concerned about magic users in the first place? Assuming you have a powerful fighter and a spellcaster with death ward, then there should be absolutely no mage in game that poses a threat. My favorite thing to do while fighting a lich or any other powerful spell user is just to send in my barbarian and leave him there. There are very few things as amusing as beginning a fight with a high level mage, leaving for a cigarette, and coming back to see them trying to fist-fight your character who is completely ignoring them.

@ snoopy...

yeah, I kind of noticed that with my berserker, too. I gave him the boots of speed and have him go berserk and he seems impervious to everything. As for the bears...try summoning them behind enemy lines when there are fighters nearby...

you can use the Horn of Valhalla to summon beserkers can't you?

handy that.

yeah but only one and he's like level seven. Its really less than impressive.