The Master Summoner revisited


Homebrew and House Rules


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I've been monkeying around with changing the master summoner to be less marginalizing in play, as well as to allow them to have some interesting uses of their summons.

The Master Summoner revisited.

Additional information can be found in the document.


Great work,
I like it a lot.Always thought uses of summonings should have been restricted to 1 at a time.As a little critique: I think the meta summonings could use an effect that allows the summoned creatures to circumvent Protection from x spells like the eidolon does.
Apart from that its exactly how I think the Master Summoner should have been all along.
The only Metasummoning that I don´t really get is Aura of Mitigation
it does not stack but you can take it multiple times?


Multiple summons with it on the same area don't stack, and when you take it again, it just increases the DR. I will check it out to clear it up later.

And yeah, I was a bit disappointed when the main summoner was more "build a pet! " than doing cool stuff with summons. Thanks!


I don't completely disagree with you, Cheapy; on the one hand, I do like the idea of a Summoner, well, Summoning. On the other hands, the Eidolon IS a summons, just of a different flavor than I think most of the gaming populace anticipated, and while not a bad thing in and of itself it still provides a disparity between expectations and delivery.

If I may make a suggestion - given the school is Conjuration/Summoning, perhaps the Summoner might be treated as the sort specializing in Eidolons, while yours might be called a Grand Conjuror, to differentiate the two and to reflect the mindset that what is 'called' are arcane constructs rather than any actual beings, and thus allow for the two to exist side by side, with room for all sorts of lovely in-game rivalry about who embodies the precepts of the School best?


My disappointment was mostly just the dissonance between what is referred to as summoning, and what it ended up being. You "summon" the same Eidolon, whereas you don't summon the same critters each time :)

This is just an attempt at re-doing the Master Summoner archetype, so I'd like to keep the name the same. If/when I did/do a whole revamp of the summoner, I'll keep your ideas for the distinction in mind!


How did you do that Cheapy?

I mean - what type of file, scalling or page setup it is? What I have to do to get such view in my google docs?


File -> Publish to the Web

Hit yes (or whatever it says), and it'll give you a link like that.


Very nice. I'm a little curious about "Dropped-In Summons" though- is it cracking up the ground to make it difficult terrain? Also, can it be dropped into an occupied space? What happens when it does so?

Part of the reason I'm a bit concerned about this in specific is because in a 3.5 game I was playing in, the party ended an encounter that was 8 levels above us by dropping a several-ton oak tree from 100 feet in the air onto the giant worm creature. The GM was happy we survived (he kept trying to give our suicidal selves chances to escape, but we were being thick until it was too late), but was also very concerned that we were going to repeat that trick on everything we encountered. We then found the rule about Conjuration magic needing a surface for it to work, and all was well in the world.


Dotting


I've added some text saying that the "Entrance" effects are still subject to the normal rules of summoning creatures. So dropped in can't be done on top of a creature, since the location they are summoned would be occupied. I've added some clarifying text!

I remember doing that sort of thing before I understood the rules about conjurations fully. Most notably trying to sink a ship by summoning a whale above it...


Also added Improved Shielding Summons, which grants soft-cover to those around the creature.


Cheapy wrote:
I remember doing that sort of thing before I understood the rules about conjurations fully. Most notably trying to sink a ship by summoning a whale above it...

Summon bigger fish?


Cheapy wrote:
I remember doing that sort of thing before I understood the rules about conjurations fully. Most notably trying to sink a ship by summoning a whale above it...

You could call it Belly-flop Entrance. The deal damage equal to their weakest natural attack(s) and end up prone next to the enemy they were summoned above.


That's Cannonball Entrance :) (Which does specifically change where the summoned creature ends up)


But Cannonball Entrance has to be a horizontal shot. While that's fine when you're firing Arrowhawks(yes, I know PF doesn't have them) at a target, it's not the same visual as saying "Rocks fall, everyone dies." and watching earth elementals rain from the sky.


Added text to cannonball for that. I'll be poking around with what to do about size differences later. I'm not sure these motion-based Entrance effects are a good thing as they cause too many corner cases with the rules.


I wanted to do a feat for summoning spells that would deal energy damage to creatures adjacent to the square where summoned creature arrived (a la Warcraft Inferno/Summon Infernal) based upon the subtype of creature conjured (like fire for devils, lightning for demons, etc.)


Cheapy wrote:

My disappointment was mostly just the dissonance between what is referred to as summoning, and what it ended up being. You "summon" the same Eidolon, whereas you don't summon the same critters each time :)

This is just an attempt at re-doing the Master Summoner archetype, so I'd like to keep the name the same. If/when I did/do a whole revamp of the summoner, I'll keep your ideas for the distinction in mind!

Take and make it yours, my friend.

As for me, I'm stealing your Master Summoner re-write for my campaign, and dubbing it Grand Conjuror, so that the young genius summoner dragon in my campaign now has a rival to argue ethics of conjuration/summoning with, since the rival is a similarly young and runty red with a talent for conjuration in the style you highlighted and no concern for the well-being of her 'constructs' - they are tools to be used at her leisure and discretion.

Also, I like the idea of specialism being tied to the dichotomies amongst the schools; Alteration/Transmutation, Conjuration/Summoning, Enchantment/Charm, Invocation/Evocation, Illusion/Phantasm, etc. This may or may not be inspired by the branched evolution of weapons from Monster Hunter 2, where weapons were paired by families and could change from one path or the other depending on upgrades; sword'n'shield could become dual swords, great swords could become katanas/'long swords', hammers could become hunting horns, lances could become gunlances, and vice versa across the lines.

Liberty's Edge

Does Unraveled Energies use d4s or d6s? Ability description say d4, but the examples say d6.


The examples are wrong and should be 1d4. I will update that in a bit. d6 is so common it must have slipped my mind! Good catch, thanks!

Shadow Lodge

Cannonball entrance made me grin.
I might let my players take the metasummoning's as feats, though I might pair them up as they're not quite worth one feat each, though thats just my opinion.
Any chance you could set this up as a Google doc so we(I) can always find it?


It's already a google docs, just published. Here's a link to the actual document that I edit. No one can edit it, but people can comment if they want!

And yea, some of the effects are weaker than a feat (the Entrance ones), but others are quite good.


Now I am imagining Tactical Summoner archetype that gains bonus teamwork feats that he shares with his Eidolon/all his summons.
Or maybe a feat:

Tactical Summoning
Prerequisites: Any teamwork feat, ability to summon creatures
Benefits: All the creatures summoned by the character gain the same teamwork feats as the character as bonus feats.


I swear I have seen a feat or archetype that did something like that, I'm just not sure where...


Haha! Funny that you mention that.

The inspiration of this revisiting of the Master Summoner was an archetype I made for Rite Publishing that was called the Celestial Commander. They were based off the Master Summoner, but with no Eidolon. Their main class ability was where every day when they prayed for their spells, as they were a divine caster, they could also pray for Teamwork Feats. Anything they summoned that day had the teamwork feats. The archetype obviously had the same marginalizing effect of the Master Summoner (but had a lot more support options to help the party!).

I was never quite happy with the balance of that archetype, although I absolutely love the concept of it. You're a Commander of Good, ordering your troops to fight evil with smarts. Their summons were meant to be fighters, not just meatshields. My main issues were due to the master summoner framework it was built upon.

So that's where this guy came in. Unraveled Energies, Paragon Summons, Infused Accuracy, and Powerful Blows are all highly inspired by the Celestial Commander and his abilities, and Paragon Summons is found exactly the same in the CC. Unraveled Energies is highly similar to the CC's Unleash Glory, except it's if they go away. Unleash Glory was "it sends them away". The CC got an ability called Focused Divine Energy that was an attempt to stop the spamming of the Summon Monster SLA. With the base master summoner, they just can't have more than one Summon Monster use up at a time when the Eidolon was out. This guy didn't have an Eidolon, so instead it was his summons got what was effectively Divine Favor when there was only one use of the SLA out. It was a +1 to hit and damage per 3 levels for all the summons. But the moment you used that SLA again, the creatures lost that bonus to hit and damage. So it was an incentive to not spam the battlefield.

The master summoner revisited can't spam the battlefield, so the Focused Divine Energy became Infused Accuracy and Powerful Blows, which will affect all their summons. I might tweak how often you can take them.

So! Getting back on topic...yes. Giving your summons teamwork feats worked well during playtesting. The issues of the master summoner and being able to flood the battlefield still remained (obviously), but I was very happy with giving the summons teamwork feats. I suspect that if given the chance, I'd update the CC to be more like this guy.


Aha, I knew I'd seen it before! That was a neat PDF.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
TheAntiElite wrote:
I don't completely disagree with you, Cheapy; on the one hand, I do like the idea of a Summoner, well, Summoning.

And there's nothing stopping anyone from playing that way with the standard summoner, although it does help to have a couple levels on your belt.

When I played at first level I kept my eidolon out constantly and that was what I relied on.

In the last module I played in at 4th level I changed my strategy completely... I don't travel with my eidolon out and my main play is with my SLA summons and my summmoner battlefield spells. I keep a use of the Summon Eidolon spell handy as a trump card.


I'm thinking of doing a revision of this. Or finishing it. Depends on your perspective, I guess. Any thoughts on it?


Cheapy wrote:
I'm thinking of doing a revision of this. Or finishing it. Depends on your perspective, I guess. Any thoughts on it?

Limiting the summons to just one I think is abit to much, perhasp limit the SLA to 1 but no limit on spells per day summons.

I myself am a firm believer that Paizo needs to rework the summoner.


The way it currently works is that the SLA summons are limited to one, while summons from spells are not limited. So, got that covered!


Added in a few clarifications!

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