i have a couple kids and when i was a teenager (well late, late teens anyway) Pokemon and Digimon were all the rage. to me it always seemed like they were doing more harm then good, teaching kids to get others to fight their battles and what not.
am i the only one that views summoners as just a way for RPGers to make their own Pokemon?
i just can't get my head around Summoners as a serious class and will never allow them in my game.
so if someone has a more serious view of summoners so i can take them seriously i'd like to hear it:)
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house rule it so they can only summon something by saying the magic words.. You know the "Blah blah blah I choose you." after having to do it a dozen times or so maybe they will go another route.
the only issue i have with the whole, getting others to fight for you, dont look at the damage my druids animal companion can do, or the tiger mount some foolish gm let me have once.
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I see it more as using teamwork to play to everyone's strengths. You wouldn't say that the wizard is allowing the tank to fight his battles for him when the tank gets into melee and the wizard doesn't - or that the wizard is fighting the tank's battles when he casts Communal Spider Climb to get everyone on top of that cliff.
Some people are good at the literal fighting, some are better at other challenges. The neat thing about the summoner (or any combat pet) is that it allows a player to specialize in a more extreme manner without feeling bored or not contributing in certain situations.
This allows for interesting character concepts. My current campaign has a summoner who is a cultured academic and doesn't carry a weapon. The eidolon is the bodyguard while the summoner is the researcher/diplomat/arcane troubleshooter. In a previous game, we had a summoner with a very childlike mindset who didn't really understand combat - her eidolon had to protect her (though she sometimes cast spells to help her "friend"). These are realistic relationships.
house rule it so they can only summon something by saying the magic words.. You know the "Blah blah blah I choose you." after having to do it a dozen times or so maybe they will go another route.
Or they'll be real pokemon fans and love it.
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to me it always seemed like they were doing more harm then good, teaching kids to get others to fight their battles and what not.
To play devil's advocate, Pokemon also teaches kids the value of teamwork to overcome challenges. My 10 year-old trainer character isn't going to be able to push twenty-ton boulders on his own, but by befriending a burly Pokemon and training it to push things he can bypass obstacles that would normally be impassable on his own. In this way, games like Pokemon and Digimon teach the value of people managing and leadership skills.
In the real world, leadership and cooperation skills are infinitely more valuable than "fighting your own battles" and acting alone. Few careers have their employees working alone in a bubble of isolation.
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to me it always seemed like they were doing more harm then good, teaching kids to get others to fight their battles and what not.To play devil's advocate, Pokemon also teaches kids the value of teamwork to overcome challenges. My 10 year-old trainer character isn't going to be able to push twenty-ton boulders on his own, but by befriending a burly Pokemon and training it to push things he can bypass obstacles that would normally be impassable on his own. In this way, games like Pokemon and Digimon teach the value of people managing and leadership skills.
In the real world, leadership and cooperation skills are infinitely more valuable than "fighting your own battles" and acting alone. Few careers have their employees working alone in a bubble of isolation.
To drive your point even farther, especially in the original Red, Blue, Yellow, Gold, Silver, and Platium versions your rival is a person who does just that, use his pokemon as tools and nothing more. Where as you are shown as a person who loves and cares for his pokemon and the Prof. is always chiming in how it is your love and friendship with your pokemon that allows you to defeat everyone.
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I dodged the Pokemon aspects of childhood, so Summoners for me feel more like Yuna from Final Fantazy X. The relatively unimpressive spellcaster who can bring in a seriously big gun.
Interesting anecdotes in this thread. I think I'll keep watch.
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Huh. I absolutely loathe the summoner class with a passion, but I can't say the "pokemon effect" has ever been one of the reasons.
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I dodged the Pokemon aspects of childhood, so Summoners for me feel more like Yuna from Final Fantazy X. The relatively unimpressive spellcaster who can bring in a seriously big gun.
Interesting anecdotes in this thread. I think I'll keep watch.
Exactly this.
Not to mention, not everyone wants to constantly play the super-awesome person who is world-shatteringly powerful on their own. There are a lot of people who like to play characters that, on their own, aren't that impressive but have the power to call in aid. I don't mind being the nobody while my pet(summons) is the centerpiece of attention.
The whole individualist mentality has been carried to such an extreme that it is almost a caricature of itself at this point. Perhaps its time we stop teaching the mindset of 'I must fight my own battles'.
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you can't get your head around summoning creatures to do your bidding?
it is an extremely common trope used by villains the spectrum over.
I'd hardly ban it because it reminds you of a tv show
I rather enjoyed Pokemon as a kid, and think I'd still enjoy the games to this day. They were very simple RPGs (in the loosest sense of the word) that originally got me into the role playing genre.
That said, I don't allow the summoner class for a plethora of other reasons... The Summoner and the Gunslinger are the two classes that are banned most frequently. Whatever your reason, you're not alone in your rejection of the summoner class.
All good stuff, i agree working together is a valuable lesson but that is learned through the natural adventuring party dynamic.
there have been some decent summoner NPCs in a couple adventures (the summoner in the Harrowing is my favorite)
they are also a huge pain in combat, if someone presents a good summoner i might allow it with a few ground rules on the number of creatures summoned in one combat
i think my main problem is i mostly play with my wife, kids and my daughters friends, 10 year olds can make any class cartoonish i suppose
Pokemon always tried to push the whole friendship angle, but it felled very forced, and, as far as I'm concerned, was very much an informed attribute of pokemon trainers. "Show, don't tell" seems to be an adage that the devs of the game missed.
I recall an old Billy and Mandy episode in which one character is watching what is essentially Pokemon on his TV. The young human child is facing down against some huge monstrosity, with a big t-rex-looking-thing at his side. Fight start, he commands his t-rex creature to use some fancy sounding attack, and one blinding beam attack later, his opponent is a pile of ash. The child then shouts "Friendship helped us win this battle!" That's how it always came across for me.
Then there's the whole aspect of, y'know, making creature fight each other, and I'm not talking just beaks and spurs here. They're bring to bear claws, fangs, and stingers, and pumping one another full of poison and voltage. Great stuff.
''The Summoner and the Gunslinger are the two classes that are banned most frequently.''
I heard this many times before, but I never really understood why.
Considering that we don't include some of the class annoying archetypes (master summoner, synthesist) and some ridiculous broken eidolons, what's the fuss all about?
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Well a few thoughts of my own,
I would say that summoner itself doesn't really propagate teamwork completely, in fact characters who typically use summoned or additional creatures in party aren't the ideal party at least from my eyes. This is mostly because of easier management of encounters and less exposure of characters to it. Why would for example such character expose themselves to anything besides letting his meatshield do the job for him? In out of game context, he loses nothing essentially.
In a way, summoners and summoning mages feel a lot like doing the job without the risk of failure or dying. It can be hard to challenge such characters and relatively boring to look at.
Gunslingers seem a pretty okay class, but often don't mesh up good with current campaign settings in which you are playing at. Older AP's might get stomped by such characters tho, because often enough campaigns aren't designed with such classes in mind. It requires more effort from a GM then a player to create such character.
Malag
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Personally, I never even thought of Pokemon in connection to summoners until I saw this thread. My immediate thought was to make a summoner based on the Shin Megami Tensei games (specifically the Demi-Fiend from Nocturne), which I think suit the flavor of Pathfinder better. Because there's a bit of overlap with the goetic demons, I'm taking inspiration some of the vestige fluff from the binders in 3.5 Tome of Magic as well. After reading the iconic summoner story and reading various comments by James Jacobs, I think the designer's intention is for summoner to have a bit of an occult vibe.
What immediately grabbed my attention about the summoner class is the freedom with the fluff. In fact, I would say there is almost too much freedom, especially when you get into synthesists. This freedom makes it especially easy for some people to get too caught up in their eidolon and how it interacts with their summoner that they forget to figure out how their character and eidolon work in a party. The core problem is nothing special to summoner; in my experience, people tend to ignore party considerations anyways. The problem is just more noticeable and aggravated on a summoner.
Summoner is definitely an advanced class, in that it requires a experienced, conscientious player to work well in a group. A summoner player needs to play efficiently and take short turns and know their characters (b/c the eidolon is basically a second character) inside-and-out. They also can't just hide in a corner with their eidolon and never interact with anyone.
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I never missed the Pokemon connection because our summoner never let us. He quite cheerfully self enforced your "I choose you _____" rule(his summon was an unpronounceable Lovecraftian horror btw). It was a blast though, wouldn't change a thing.
To drive your point even farther, especially in the original Red, Blue, Yellow, Gold, Silver, and Platium versions your rival is a person who does just that, use his pokemon as tools and nothing more. Where as you are shown as a person who loves and cares for his pokemon and the Prof. is always chiming in how it is your love and friendship with your pokemon that allows you to defeat everyone.
BS, you beat your rival because you learn the value of grinding...I mean, training.
To drive your point even farther, especially in the original Red, Blue, Yellow, Gold, Silver, and Platium versions your rival is a person who does just that, use his pokemon as tools and nothing more. Where as you are shown as a person who loves and cares for his pokemon and the Prof. is always chiming in how it is your love and friendship with your pokemon that allows you to defeat everyone.BS, you beat your rival because you learn the value of grinding...I mean, training.
And more over, you get to kill his pokemon with the Power of Friendship!
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I personally enjoy playing characters that operate in a team rather than those that operate as an individual. For this reason, I really enjoy playing support classes. I really hate it when people think the summoner is worthy of a ban, but won't care if someone plays a conjuration focused wizard, which, from most aspects, are mechanically more powerful than summoners. I feel it's because a lot of DMs are afraid giving PCs the ability to summon allies to their side for whatever reason. Summoners give immense amounts of role playing opportunities, and it irks me that a misaimed fear of giving players the ability to call for backup causes many people to stamp it out.
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Summoner is a classic fantasy archetype. The summoning of creatures to serve you in battle is fun conceptually and tactically. The only reason to not allow it is if you can't handle it as a DM or you have a player that can't handle it (slows the game down, does no research on creatures, etc).
It has nothing to do with Pokémon. I guess that is some strange generational viewpoint.
The Summoner allows me to RP the nasty Nyarlathotep cultist that I am not allowed to RP in Call of C'thulhu....
The more interesting question, to me, is what would happen if Summoners were the only magic-users in a setting. How would magic be integrated into society? What traditions would grow from it? How would it impact warfare? And so on and so forth. With adults involved, it certainly doesn't have to become Pokemon.
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You think of Pokemon?
My immediate thought when I hear "summoner" is Rydia.
Even my roommate, who has bought every "generation" of Pokemon game didn't play his summoner as a pokemon trainer.
We all bring parts of ourselves to the game, maybe this is just a part of you.
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The more interesting question, to me, is what would happen if Summoners were the only magic-users in a setting. How would magic be integrated into society? What traditions would grow from it? How would it impact warfare? And so on and so forth. With adults involved, it certainly doesn't have to become Pokemon.
Manual Labor would be preformed by beasts summoned for such a purpose. War would be fought mostly the same but having a battalion of summoned creatures as fodder would save some lives.
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i have a couple kids and when i was a teenager (well late, late teens anyway) Pokemon and Digimon were all the rage. to me it always seemed like they were doing more harm then good, teaching kids to get others to fight their battles and what not.
You are SERIOUSLY overthinking this. That's as crazy as the 'FPS games are murder training' nonsense people spew. If stuff like that was true, I'd be a Hall of Fame caliber NFL quarterback by now ...
(Or the 'D&D makes you a satanist' bull, for that matter.)
A game is just a game. Take a chillaxative.
OTOH, it makes me think more of Magic: The Gathering if I want to draw parallels.
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The more interesting question, to me, is what would happen if Summoners were the only magic-users in a setting. How would magic be integrated into society? What traditions would grow from it? How would it impact warfare? And so on and so forth. With adults involved, it certainly doesn't have to become Pokemon.Manual Labor would be preformed by beasts summoned for such a purpose. War would be fought mostly the same but having a battalion of summoned creatures as fodder would save some lives.
And locking eyes with someone would engage a social contract for your bound beasts to be called forth and beat the snot out of each other.
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So your problem with summoners is that they're too flavorfully versatile to fit the tone of your campaign?
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i have a couple kids and when i was a teenager (well late, late teens anyway) Pokemon and Digimon were all the rage. to me it always seemed like they were doing more harm then good, teaching kids to get others to fight their battles and what not.
Anybody who thinks this obviously never watched either show.
Both shows, and especially Digimon, pushed the characters to face their problems head on instead of running away from them, but also the value of teamwork and friendship (not friendship in a "friendship can do anything!" angle though that was certainly there too, but the "Companionship is a healthy thing all human beings need! Find some friends ya dork!" angle).
I was never a huge fan of the Pokemon show but I watched a LOT of Digimon. And what sticks with you isn't the fighting monsters (though they're cool), it's all the personal problems the kids had that they had to face. Tai's insecurity and guilt over nearly killing his sister, Izzy being distraught after learning he was adopted, Matt and Tai's equal/opposite reactions to their parent's divorce, and how they cling together because they rarely see each other any more because of it.
I never got the impression that the lesson was "Get other people to fight your battles" because that wasn't the lesson it was trying to get across.
Was the show corny and goofy? Hell yes.
Harmful? I can't see how.
And holy jeez don't even get me started on the stuff in Tamers.
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Season 3 had Renamon, though, so it is by definition 100% pure awesomesauce.
Season 3 had Renamon, though, so it is by definition 100% pure awesomesauce.
I never said it wasn't. Tamers is hands down the best series.
So ... Renamon ... Monk/Psion (with all the Crystal powers)/Psychic Fist?
So ... Renamon ... Monk/Psion (with all the Crystal powers)/Psychic Fist?
Nevermind summoner. It would be cool to play as a psionic monk skinwalker.
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Only caught bits of digimon and all I really remember is the girl who really wanted that bond when she found out about them, one really good one started to fight with/protect forming a friendship. Then he was killed sending her off the deep end from the pain turning her into the big bad of the season.
Never be Leomon. First rule. Leomon dies.
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Only caught bits of digimon and all I really remember is the girl who really wanted that bond when she found out about them, one really good one started to fight with/protect forming a friendship. Then he was killed sending her off the deep end from the pain turning her into the big bad of the season.
Good ol' Tamers.
Scarring children for a generation.
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I personally think of Pandora Hearts when I think of the summoner class. Contractors make a pact for power with a creature from the Abyss. When the Chain (Eidolon) is summoned an dial appears on the contractor's chest, similar to the symbol on a summoner's forehead. A Chain also can look like anything and have various abilities.
Oh... I'm the only one who thinks of that? Alright... I'll be going now...
Pokemon always tried to push the whole friendship angle, but it felled very forced
Because if they didn't, then it would just be enforcing the "dog fighting" or "cock fighting" angle of the show. Which is really all it is. Disgusting.
Pokemon always tried to push the whole friendship angle, but it felled very forcedBecause if they didn't, then it would just be enforcing the "dog fighting" or "cock fighting" angle of the show. Which is really all it is. Disgusting.
essentially, pokemon are gladiators
the red and white spheres called pokeballs, are akin to cages, the pokemon are expected to serve a master, usually in the form of a combat minion for their master's amusement, like a gladiator
the thing is, unlike gladiators, pokemon get free medical care, and free food. pokemon trainers, get free rooms at any pokemon hospital, which invalidates the concept of hotels
pokemon are expected to fight other pokemon, like christians fighting lions. Gym Leaders, are special slavemasters licensed by the gladitorial league to give badges to slavemasters whom can defeat them in bloody combat.
it is literally, train, raise, and breed, your own animal gladiators, which is essentially the same as dog fighting or cock fighting. the friendship in the anime is cover up how gruesome the sport is, especially in the manga and the handheld games.
humans are basically, taking far superior creatures, capturing them by force with red and white spheres that double as cages, using them as slaves and forcing them to fight for their own entertainment
the pathfinder summoner alleviates this by making the 'eidolon' a conjured fragment of the summoner's personality brought to life. imagine if you could bring your imaginary friend to life any time you wanted, and they were extremely subservient to your will, because they were another side of you. it's much less morbid than dog fighting.
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If these creatures were really so "superior" they wouldn't have let me catch them in a brightly colored ball.
The moment when I've captured the god-like creator of your entire classification of creature in a tiny ball and made him serve my will is the moment I've earned the right to grab my friends and do this dance over the shattered remains of your pride and supposed superiority.
If these creatures were really so "superior" they wouldn't have let me catch them in a brightly colored ball.
The moment when I've captured the god-like creator of your entire classification of creature in a tiny ball and made him serve my will is the moment I've earned the right to grab my friends and do this dance over the shattered remains of your pride and supposed superiority.
they are superior on a physical level due to having special abilities that humans lack. but humans tend to compensate through a form of invulnerability.
if pokemon existed in reality the way they did on the show, the human race would be completely extinct, but on the show, trainers are invincible after 10 or less years of incubation, meaning humans stop aging and gain immunity to the effects of the beings they command
because they evolved to gain absurd defenses, the only reason they can tame a pokemon, is because they aged long enough for the invulnerability to kick in.
they aren't completely superior, but on a few levels, they have a few drastic advantages over humans. if pikachu used a weak thundershock on a hyper realistic ash, Ash would be dead and fried in a matter of seconds.
because of this, the only reason humans can tame pokemon, is because they are freaking immortal after their 10th birthday, sometimes earlier.
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You think of Pokemon?
My immediate thought when I hear "summoner" is Rydia.Even my roommate, who has bought every "generation" of Pokemon game didn't play his summoner as a pokemon trainer.
We all bring parts of ourselves to the game, maybe this is just a part of you.
"Rydia the Tattooed Rady"?
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Only caught bits of digimon and all I really remember is the girl who really wanted that bond when she found out about them, one really good one started to fight with/protect forming a friendship. Then he was killed sending her off the deep end from the pain turning her into the big bad of the season.Never be Leomon. First rule. Leomon dies.
Does he wear a red shirt?
Does he wear a red shirt?Only caught bits of digimon and all I really remember is the girl who really wanted that bond when she found out about them, one really good one started to fight with/protect forming a friendship. Then he was killed sending her off the deep end from the pain turning her into the big bad of the season.Never be Leomon. First rule. Leomon dies.
He wears no shirt, he is a big beefy lion man.
But Leomon and Leomon related things always result in death in the Digimon universe(s).
IIRC nothing that A.) Is a Leomon, B.) A Digimon Leomon digivolves into, or C.) Could conceivably digivolve INTO Leomon has yet been alive at the end of a given series. I haven't watched anything past the first half of Frontier though so I could be wrong.
I'm pretty sure it's purposeful and a running joke (if kind of a morbid one...) in all the series' but like everything in Tamers it was deconstructed into something utterly soul crushing to watch because the guy they hired for Tamers is a sadistic man known for writing very creepy, borderline horror anime.