5E: Summons still suck

[Neo Phonelobster Prime]

Given the "tag out warlock for a powerful summoned monster" will be offered alongside the core options, not in place of them, I fail to see that it is impossible to be a reasonable option. I can think of a number of monsters I wouldn't mind trading my character for a couple of rounds, plus it's not my only class feature or even my biggest one.

It's a signature ability, by dint of being unique, but I've still got a full warlock package for when an extra set of claws and hit points isn't called for.

Even if we imagine a swap out that somehow balanced wildly punitive ideas about action costs with some sort of commensurate benefit and ignore the general dangers of overly simplistic concepts of 1:1 action values.

I'd have to ask. In the heat of the moment trying to obey the god of the action economy... did you maybe just completely sacrifice the design space for werewolves and polymorph spells and just hand their function to the less well matched field of summoning instead?

And also. Pop quiz. How much is it worth for a paladin or a rogue or wizard to be able to turn into a werewolf of equal character value?

[merxa]

First. You are side tracking from the bit where you personally nominated yourself and your ideas as the specific bad idea I called stupid.

emphasis is mine

Revolving instead more around relatively avoidable pitfalls like giving out monitor lizards better than the whole party combined.

I don't mind if you have complaints about someone summoning and individually resolving complex actions for 30 different summons a turn using a rules system that doesn't give a shit about streamlining and respecting a players time. But if you think you cannot have a single summon without the summoner trading out their own character actions indefinitely and punitively. YOU ARE STUPID.

So to be clear to anyone reading this. Yes, if you think that and think "The Action Economy" is an excuse for that, I'm calling you stupid, you idiot. But if you think some other thing that you can concisely explain and demonstrate to be meaningfully different, I'm not calling you stupid, you idiot.

so just to clear the air, I know I'm not stupid, I am in fact highly intelligent -- I know it sounds like a stupid thing to say, but I've lived with myself and interacted with enough people to know, with high confidence, that I am above the bell curve.

so yeah, if you want to pretend your comment about 'monitor lizards' that are 'better than the whole party combined' is not a direct reaction to a subclass I wrote which used 'dragons' as an example, I don't know who you are trying to fool, certainly not me, charitably it isn't yourself either, so maybe the peanut gallery? Or when you write 'But if you think you cannot have a single summon without the summoner trading out their own character actions indefinitely and punitively. YOU ARE STUPID', again, who else are you speaking to? I don't recall anyone else who said anything that could relate to these words, but the subclass i wrote does in fact involve having the 'summoner' 'trade out' their own character for the 'single summon', it's just... I don't know, it's like speaking to someone that is a pathological liar, even when confronted with direct evidence they continue to lie and obfuscate, and do whatever else they need to do beyond accepting the truth. Again, I have mostly sympathy for your nPLP, we're just a couple people on a nearly dead website talking about rules for a ttrpg, whats really at stake for us? Is the truth that shameful for you to acknowledge?

Anyway, if you want to critique the subclass I wrote, I'm interested, if you want to propose some mechanics to make your MTP summons an actionable ruleset, I am also interested, but you want to continue to try and gaslight me, I guess I'm not super interested, beyond the bizarre experience of correcting someone who insists the earth is flat or we all live in a simulation, I mean, maybe you know, maybe you're right, but you don't have any evidence and even your own words testify against you.

Why don't you provide some mechanics for 5e summons? How would you propose how someone conjuring a few monsters should work? How about you quote a spell from the 5e players handbook, or one of the later books, and tell us how it doesn't work, and what you would do to make for a better playing session? All this angst and bullshit, I wonder, do you even play ttrpgs? Maybe tell us about the last game you were in that handled summons super well? I don't know, as the sort of whipping boy / underdog here, I have a certain affection for you, and I really want you to say something that is undeniably interesting, but so far, for me, this has been a rather painful exercise in ... rhetorics I guess? What do you want? You want me to recant all things I've written and swear my pedagogical ends to you, become some sycophant and take virtual pilgrimages from here to Kingdom Come singing the gospel of nPLP? (I'd call it the Babel of Gods)

Lets quote more

But if a designer panics, or just gives up because they realize that hey, an extra guy is actually pretty damn good. And their response is to make the formalized options wildly punitive and attempt to make a player pay the full value of having an ally it starts to fall apart rapidly because the semi-formal and informal sources of allies still exist.

It takes a player character befriending a barbarian in a bar and bringing them along on an adventure, once, to make a punitively punished summoner feel very very sad forever. You could have just... not been so harsh with the summoner knowing that one day someone else was also going to bring friends to a fight.

'designer panic' is a nice phrase, it suggests a knee-jerk reaction to stop any option from becoming broken, too powerful, that having such a broken option invalidates them as a designer? Is that right? So is my subclass too powerful? or is not powerful enough? And we should ask that question in relation to 5e as a system, right?

Now, the barbarian in the bar, when does a mechanic come into play? When does the MTP get asked for the bill?

Here's an example from me running, a PC is an artificer (Battle Smith) and they have steel defender as a class feature. The rules are fairly explicit on how they interact with the summons, and foolish me, i'm just playing it as we can right. Another PC has a circle of wildfire druid and also have a class feature summons. Eventually they hit level 7 or 8, and the druid charm monsters a surviving wyvern from a combat, feeds it a good berry and attempts to befriend it essentially. I am a poor sport, so I asked for animal handling checks, and asked for more checks whenever the wyvern took damage or whenever I thought it became spooked, and they went improbably well for the druid. And I relented, justly so I hope, perhaps punitively so, maybe indulgently so. But, now the druid is riding around with a wyvern, perhaps its unreliable if things go badly, but the wyvern is smart enough to throw its lot in with the PCs, especially kind ones. And its hard not to feel for the battle smith, but they also did plenty of damage so maybe it made up for it, but allowing a 4th level spell to create these narrative circumstances is, or should be more explicit.

[Neo Phonelobster Prime]

I am above the bell curve.

That is not a smart way to you say that thing you thought you just said.

so yeah, if you want to pretend your comment about 'monitor lizards' that are 'better than the whole party combined' is not a direct reaction to a subclass I wrote

It was a direct reference to a story I posted somewhere here maybe a decade ago about a game I played in where a GM decided to give out a Monitor Lizard animal companion to my Druid in our level 1 party and how it proceeded to outshine every single member of the party at pretty much every task we encountered due to the brute mechanical force of having bigger numbers on everything.

'But if you think you cannot have a single summon without the summoner trading out their own character actions indefinitely and punitively. YOU ARE STUPID', again, who else are you speaking to?

Not you if you don't think that stupid thing. It's pretty straightforward, it happens all the time on the internet. Someone calls a particular idea stupid, says those who have it are stupid and a dumb fuck who doesn't English comes in angry at being called stupid and insisting they don't believe the stupid idea... but usually also very actively and confusedly trying to defend the stupid idea or sometimes just ANOTHER stupid idea that they cannot tell is different from the original stupid idea.

This is largely why I did that great little gag with the little "you idiot" at the end of both the I am calling you stupid condition AND at the end of the I am NOT calling your stupid alternative. Because some fucker ALWAYS comes in to defend the stupid idea, angry that they've been called stupid and denying that they actually believe it. Because given a simple direct choice, some people cannot even identify that they were given a simple choice let alone actually pick one option even when they've been flat out given the option they claim to want to take.

Here's an example from me running

Do you think you could be more clear about whether or not you think this is a bad thing or not.

Because, you hint at wanting it to be "more explicit" but... this is apparently an example of a thing you did so... that reads a lot like an endorsement of it as a thing you want to do... but you also seem to be saying you threw lots of obstacles and were defeated only by a run of really good luck which just sounds like a GM who doesn't know how to just say no...

...it sounds like a mess. Your example is, what a shock, a rambling incoherent mess. This is why I like to keep examples as brief and generic as possible and not wander off into the weeds so much.

Your druid made a friend. You didn't want them to. But then you let them anyway. Now it makes you feel sad about spell descriptions and formalized summoning. This helps your argument how?

[merxa]

it feels like a lot of anger and hatred, and uh I'm sorry to have antagonized you nPLP. I'm just here to talk about games and rules.

[Foxwarrior]

And also. Pop quiz. How much is it worth for a paladin or a rogue or wizard to be able to turn into a werewolf of equal character value?

Cool question. Hmm, in a game where roles are very significant and you like, sometimes need a rogue to do rogue things or a paladin to do paladin things, being able to trade out one character for one with different protected roles could be worth half a party member (so according to the CR system, +1 level)... In a game where someone as versatile as a 3.5e wizard is regarded as an equal, probably closer to one highest level spell slot would be a fair trade.

[Neo Phonelobster Prime]

So lets say yes there are class roles/specialties.

But then keeping in mind my position on why RPS strengths and weaknesses cannot be "doing a balance".

What is the value then?

[Omegonthesane]

Without wishing to endorse any kind of punitive bullshit for summoners, I feel like the constant reiteration of "but you could get hirelings" or especially "but you could befriend a barbarian" is a bad counterargument.

Generally, you expect the difficulty of the challenges you're intended to face to vaguely scale to how powerful and large the party is before they expend any limited resources to turn a difficult fight into a sure victory.

So if by pure MTP they get a barbarian at the tavern before entering X dungeon, it'd be reasonable to silently add a goblin/kobold/skeleton/Frenchman/dragon/other (delete according to theme of dungeon) or two to the combats the party is expected to complete during said dungeon, and maybe a door blocked by a boulder to make them feel clever for befriending a big strong barbarian capable of completing a Strength task.

If by contrast they paid a couple of guys $1000 each to risk their lives in battle alongside the actual PCs, then you would not do that, because presumably $2000 is a significant share of the party's loot equivalent to instead buying a bunch of health/buff potions or on a Wand of Fireball. Similarly, a Summoner-type PC should be able to expect that if they rock into the adventure expecting to spend spell slots - limited resources - to have more dudes, then that isn't seen as intrinsically a bigger deal than the same amount of spell slots expended on Cure Wounds or buff spells or Fireballs.

Which is ultimately to say that you should just be able to balance encounters around the idea that sometimes, instead of spending a resource for buffs, people can spend a resource for dudes.

As for the value of getting a +5 Dude for the encounter... fuck if I know, especially in a vacuum. Probably less than you'd think from a raw stat comparison if you're spending your first action to get a +5 Dude who starts acting next turn instead of spending it to eliminate an opponent so that they never get to take a turn. Unless hundreds of hours of Darkest Dungeon and Slay the Spire have led me to put too much weight on your opening salvo and not enough on turns 2+.

[Thaluikhain]

I'd have to ask. In the heat of the moment trying to obey the god of the action economy... did you maybe just completely sacrifice the design space for werewolves and polymorph spells and just hand their function to the less well matched field of summoning instead?

Well, wouldn't controlling a separate monster leave you vulnerable to being attacked while the puppet is doing something else? There's a precedent in fiction (at least for villains) that attacking the puppeteer deals with the puppet. If you have to stop the controlling to defend yourself, or if you get distracted by being bopped in the nose, does your puppet stop moving, disappear or throw off your control?

Though, yeah, might still not be distinct enough and best left to enemies.

[Kaelik]

so yeah, if you want to pretend your comment about 'monitor lizards' that are 'better than the whole party combined' is not a direct reaction to a subclass I wrote which used 'dragons' as an example, I don't know who you are trying to fool, certainly not me, charitably it isn't yourself either, so maybe the peanut gallery?

He was referencing a previous post/meme on TGD. I literally recognized it immediately. That doesn't mean everyone else has to, but it does mean that the things you thought you knew that made you super sure he was talking about your class should be reexamined.

Or when you write 'But if you think you cannot have a single summon without the summoner trading out their own character actions indefinitely and punitively. YOU ARE STUPID', again, who else are you speaking to? I don't recall anyone else who said anything that could relate to these words

Again, literally THE FIRST POST of the goddam thread. The thing that started the thread. "Who else are you speaking to?" THE ORIGINAL POSTER WHO SPECIFICALLY SAID THAT SUMMONS NEED TO USE UP THE ACTIONS OF THE SUMMONER!

It seems like you are trying really hard to make it about how PL was talking about you when he was addressing the main point of the thread and you are at best tangentially involved if you support the arguments of another poster he is more directly addressing.

[JonSetanta]

At this point I've lost track of what the continued train of conversation is heading to, and want to return to talk about Summon ideas.

[GnomeWorks]

I've been doing pet classes as part of my approach to my 5e homebrew.

Here are a couple examples: Summoner, Gestalt.

I'm not sure how well either of those contribute to the discussion, but I think they hit on some points that have been brought up, and might be useful fodder for "this is reasonable" or "this is shit" points folk may want to make.

I like the idea of a pet class that can do fuck-huge summons in an FF-like capacity, but I'm not sure I'm sold on the notion that the summoner in such a case would need to disappear. I think it would depend on just how big of a power differential there is. It also feels like those two approaches - summoner disappears, or doesn't - are parts of different kinds of class fantasies.

[Foxwarrior]

What is the value then?

Hmm, somewhere in between I guess... But you can make the balancing easier if you can make the werewolves you turn into super gimmicky. Like if werewolves are only good at leaping 500 feet and then doing some damage to a whole bunch of enemies in an area, turning into a werewolf could be roughly equivalent to casting Fireball and priced to match. Obviously that's too contrived for an actual transformation, but you did say the werewolf is equal in character value and not equal in character versatility. So maybe... as valuable as the Archer being able to learn Dual Swords Melee Combat?

[Neo Phonelobster Prime]

...but you did say the werewolf is equal in character value and not equal in character versatility.

I'm deciding that Werewolf is as versatile as the classes themselves. It basically is a full character build swap and a fully equally powerful and versatile character. Werewolf is not just an over elaborate a super jump spell, it is a substitution of a character on the table (and also then more relevant to the summoner thing).

But there is also another problem to clarify into existence. Its as good and versatile as the classes that it can replace. And the classes and the werewolf have some role specialties. But the role specialties are not totally unique and non-overlapping. SOME of the things some of the classes are good at overlap with each other, and with werewolf, to a varying degrees and that's before even trying to consider when or if those specialties will individually ever be relevant in play.

Also. While this is happening. The Barbarian PC, that was for no reason never in play for getting the werewolf substitution power, suddenly at the beginning of, hell maybe in the middle of, the same session has at the Players demand or because of a last minute Player switch, been substituted with an equal value Ranger PC. And no one knows how long this new state of affairs may last!

[Foxwarrior]

Also. While this is happening. The Barbarian PC, that was for no reason never in play for getting the werewolf substitution power, suddenly at the beginning of, hell maybe in the middle of, the same session has at the Players demand or because of a last minute Player switch, been substituted with an equal value Ranger PC. And no one knows how long this new state of affairs may last!

Ohh, that's good, reminding us that in fact the party can't be described purely by in game balance considerations, and is vulnerable to out of game scheduling. I think that this is more comparable to a per-session werewolf power than to a freely activatable werewolf power though. Like, if the barbarian/ranger player wanted to switch back to playing the barbarian in the middle of the session, the other players/DM would probably express annoyance and maybe even forbid it. So the equivalent for the werewolf would be, like, if the character forcibly transformed into a werewolf on the night of the full moon and stayed that way for a time period, and since nobody else cared about the lunar calendar the werewolf player got to decide whether the adventure was happening on a full moon night.

And yes, in that case I guess the transformation could be technically free? Because they're just choosing whether to play the werewolf or the paladin in any given adventure, so from an encounter balance perspective there's no point to caring about that. If one player wanted five different kinds of transformation that they could choose from for the session depending on their mood, that'd be a bit awkward and other players might be annoyed but I guess it's not a game balance problem either really.

[Neo Phonelobster Prime]

I would suggest that at the design level there can never be a balanced price. From any distant abstracted perspective the transformation may as well be totally worthless, but it is clear that in some specific cases it has value... but also unpredictable and wildly variable value between those specific cases.

And yes it definitely has costs in complexity. Especially the more transformations pile on... but that's complexity of learning the character, not resolving it, because you are still only ever resolving one character in it's place at any time. But it is still a cost... of wildly unpredictable value dependent on the player's ability to learn a character.

And again, external demands. I think respec is a definite function longer term TTRPGs should not even just support but actively build around as a major mechanic that facilitates other functions. But again. In a game with relatively easy access to respec, hell in a game with about as much respec access as 3E...

With some acknowledgement that just picking a different magic sword out of the magic sword golf bag and putting it on your belt IS a partial respec, and a "free" one beyond the actual in game cost of the extra sword, and the cost of the player learning the rules for the extra sword. Where the fighter or knight can change all their vital weapons, armour and gear relatively easily. What value the werewolf?

Indeed if you are worried about the multiple form complexity costs, and at some point you should be. In a game where a wizard respecs daily and if they like completely in countless combinations with different memorized spell selections... what cost is an extra were-shark/Were-bat/were-pangolin?

So if you decide to be better and allow more access to respec than that, if you let players switch out the equivalent of feats, skills, selectable class features, then they will do that, and do it as a byproduct of switching that sword or that spell list, and again... what is left for the were-wolf pricing?

So anyway. I've long since decided that the appropriate price for things of utterly unpredictable value the price should be free/arbitrary and it matters more that the game track and represent them than fuss over the mechanical pit falls of those unpredictable occasions when they deliver their full possible mechanical value.

So my eventual solution is that the "I can werewolf" ability, or at least the respec aspect of it, goes on the same tracked but not measured or balanced list on a character sheet as "Star Trek Trivia", "Member of the Wizard Cult", "I Can Craft Items", "Literacy" and "Son of the King".

[merxa]

I've been doing pet classes as part of my approach to my 5e homebrew.

Here are a couple examples: Summoner, Gestalt.

I'm not sure how well either of those contribute to the discussion, but I think they hit on some points that have been brought up, and might be useful fodder for "this is reasonable" or "this is shit" points folk may want to make.

I like the idea of a pet class that can do fuck-huge summons in an FF-like capacity, but I'm not sure I'm sold on the notion that the summoner in such a case would need to disappear. I think it would depend on just how big of a power differential there is. It also feels like those two approaches - summoner disappears, or doesn't - are parts of different kinds of class fantasies.

I spent some time going over the summoner class -- thanks for posting something substantial here. We made some similar choices, and comparing the two could yield some insights on 5e balance. Superficially, my max summons cr is much higher, especially at later levels, but you don't have any time limits from what I see on the summons, so the CR would be more similar to the schedule established by my 6th level subclass ability that allows for 1/hr summons. Those two schedules are more similar:
Summoner class (level / CR) | warlock summoner pact (level / CR)
6 / 3 | 6 / 4
7 / 4 | 7 / 5
8 / 4 | 8 / 6
9 / 5 | 9 / 6
10 / 6 | 10 / 7
11 / 6 | 11 / 8
12 / 7 | 12 / 9

Mine is still more aggressive, and continues to ride away, and at level 12 I provide an option for CR to equal level. Mathwise my summon CR schedule was 1.5x level with the 1hour summons being half that or .75x level. I'm not great at math so the function of your schedule isn't immediately apparent to me, starting at the level 3 | CR 1 ratio, you begin providing +1,+0,+1,+1,+0,+1,+1,+0 etc, I think that comes out to +~.67 CR per level. It is worth noting your Anima class feature can provide a significant boost to a summons, raising AC, hp, damage, speed, etc, which could conceivably bump a creature by +1 CR, and some strong interactions could bump that even higher, +2, maybe (and I think at most) +3 CR -- the anima adjustment is probably enough to say our scheduling is very similar, at least in some cases.

Our pact size is similar as well, you cap at 6, i cap at 8 (10 if someone really wants to expend a valuable invocation on it). Even our scheduling is similar, in particular you get half your pact by level 2, while my class hits half pact size at level 6. These are very imperfect comparisons because how the summons function has some significant differences. You give the summoner a very large list of potential summons, in some ways summons acts more like polymorph on demand, and encourages swapping out a new creature every level gain. Contrawise, I emphasized the permanency of summons, and provide very little mechanical support on swapping out summons (if anything I placed significant mechanical obstacles to this).

Now how our summons play mechanically is rather different at times. Your action economy uses both bonus actions and concentration. Typically I imagine your summoner has a pet out at all times, and when needed spends a bonus action to establish a link, and then maintains it via concentration during times of interest. Its a bit of a hybrid of the current 5e summoning landscape. I think the most glaring and frustrating mechanical drawback of your class is here, in some situations it can be hard to maintain concentration, and there can be moments where a summon spends a bonus action to get control of its creature, then gets struct and loses concentration, meaning next turn they need to spend another bonus action, and their summons hasn't been able to act. Now if maintaining concentration isn't a problem, then you only need to spend that bonus action once, and afterwards you get free reign, which seems like a good deal (until it isn't). I know you're somewhat following the bonus action for pet actions dynamic, but the idea of some combat going south because i couldn't maintain concentration long enough to use my summons while wasting a bonus action every turn, it seems like a situation you don't want a player to experience, Id recommend modifying this so when a player uses a bonus action they always get at least something instead of sometimes nothing. Requiring concentration also ensure the summoner will practically never cast spells that require concentration.

Now the headline difference, your summoner sticks around and mine disappears (unless at level 5 they expend a valuable invocation for the option to stick around). A lot ink seems to have been spilled over this, but I don't think its all that significant exactly. Because of your concentration / bonus action mechanic, I can imagine plenty of times when your summoner may have wanted the option to vanish while their summon is on the field. Especially because, and correct me if I am missing something obvious, there isn't much for your summoner to do that doesn't involve their summon. The summoner can cast a few cantrips, and gets a very slow spell progression. There's some entries about fighting styles, and it implies people are multiclassing possibly with this class? (and admittedly, your class might be trying to run inside a pokemon setting), but I'm not seeing too much the class can contribute on its own. Cantrips can be significant, it certainly is for warlock eldritch blast spam, but presumably your summoner will be less proficient than that best case scenario. 'Vanishing' from the battlefield isn't always necessarily a bad choice, you're no longer a target and cannot be injured, It also skips over the action economy debate and shouldn't delay turn resolution since you're just running a monster now instead for a few rounds, and not a monster and a caster. And if the PC spends a limited resource to stick around, I continue to ignore action economy and have both the summoner and summon act independently (but on the same initiative), and in the extreme case where a summons becomes essentially permanent, i turn it into a cohort / npc and have it act independently. I do try to limit to 'one summons' with some exceptions, and your class has the same limit, in an extreme situation my subclass summoner could have all at the same time: a true companion that is always around, a summons thats around either a few rounds of combats or an hour, stay on the battlefield, and be concentrating on a summons spell for more creatures, and possibly have some undead from animate dead, which would in total be a rather large force if all those things aligned.

Overall, I think your class isn't powerful enough, I think if you had a better spell progression that would change, whether your class should be a full progression caster, I'm not sure, but I'd probably still start there though. The other issue for me is the way in which you allow versatility encourages the player to go dumpster diving for this or that particular summons, and the wide creature types makes it more likely the summoner might find a combination that's more disruptive than intended or desired. For example, the stone warrior CR 4 (so comes online at 7) is immune to non-magical attacks that aren't made of adamantine, which could conceivably be disruptive at some tables or at a tabling running a particular module.

This isn't to say my class is balanced, perhaps its too powerful, or that my summoner couldn't find a disruptive summons. I try to stepside this problem a little by limiting creature types (skipped a few types in particular like constructs, oozes, plants), and limiting a summoner to only one creature type (which might be a little too limiting, perhaps I should add another invocation that adds a second creature type), and I explicitly let the GM decide what is summoned in a blind summons scenario and otherwise the GM would need to have set the monster down in some sort of encounter. A PC could also go questing for a particular creature, but that still hands it off to the GM to decide (which can of course cause its own problems).

[GnomeWorks]

I spent some time going over the summoner class -- thanks for posting something substantial here.

I appreciate you taking the time to look it over.

Superficially, my max summons cr is much higher, especially at later levels, but you don't have any time limits from what I see on the summons

Correct, the summoner's summoned creature has no time limit. While a summoner could not have a creature out, my presumption regarding how it would be played is that they will always have a summon out in situations where a summon would be relevant. 5e concentration doesn't interact with the action economy in any way, you either are concentrating on something or not, so seemed a reasonable approach.

I'm not great at math so the function of your schedule isn't immediately apparent to me, starting at the level 3 | CR 1 ratio, you begin providing +1,+0,+1,+1,+0,+1,+1,+0 etc, I think that comes out to +~.67 CR per level.

I don't use strict math formulae for my progressions, I typically just eyeball things. In this case, the main drivers were balancing what felt like appropriate CR with a given level, and the desire for high-level summoners to be able to use charizard from the pokemon 5e conversions I wanted to use for this class in my games, as pointed out in one of the sidebars.

It is worth noting your Anima class feature can provide a significant boost to a summons, raising AC, hp, damage, speed, etc, which could conceivably bump a creature by +1 CR, and some strong interactions could bump that even higher, +2, maybe (and I think at most) +3 CR -- the anima adjustment is probably enough to say our scheduling is very similar, at least in some cases.

I highly disagree with your assessment here. While at lower levels, sure, the anima bumps to damage, AC, or HP may be enough to change a given creature's CR, it really doesn't have that much of an impact at higher levels. It still has an effect, of course, and given bounded accuracy the AC bonus is always relevant, but once you get past 5th or so I doubt the summoner can significantly alter a creature enough to jack its CR.

I think the most glaring and frustrating mechanical drawback of your class is here, in some situations it can be hard to maintain concentration, and there can be moments where a summon spends a bonus action to get control of its creature, then gets struct and loses concentration, meaning next turn they need to spend another bonus action, and their summons hasn't been able to act.

This is a good point. As stated, my general assumption is that the summoner will have a creature out and concentrated upon in situations where a summon would be useful, but in situations where control is lost, burning a bonus action to reassert control only for that to have no effect is shitty.

Requiring concentration seemed like a reasonable balance point, but the more I think about it, and some of the other thoughts here regarding just being able to recruit NPCs or animal companions, it may be too punishing. I'll need to ponder on it more.

Requiring concentration also ensure the summoner will practically never cast spells that require concentration.

Most cantrips don't require concentration, so a moot point.

The summoner can cast a few cantrips, and gets a very slow spell progression.

Only one subclass gets an actual spell progression, and it is misleading because I condensed spells from across 9 levels to 6.

There's some entries about fighting styles, and it implies people are multiclassing possibly with this class?

Multiclassing is dumb and a massive lie, I don't use it at my tables. The bit about fighting styles is included because (1) when these projects are complete I intend to release them into the wild, where people are stupid and think multiclassing is functional, and (2) because I am condensing in rules regarding ASIs from a couple different sources.

I'm not seeing too much the class can contribute on its own.

That is the general notion behind my pet classes: the character itself doesn't bring much to the table, necessarily, but is guaranteed to have some kind of interesting pet that might be able to do weird shit, and usually has a stable of them so can pick and choose the right tool for the job.

That said, this thread has made me begin reconsidering that position, and I an contemplating by default giving all my pet classes a minor spell progression.

in an extreme situation my subclass summoner could have all at the same time: a true companion that is always around, a summons thats around either a few rounds of combats or an hour, stay on the battlefield, and be concentrating on a summons spell for more creatures, and possibly have some undead from animate dead, which would in total be a rather large force if all those things aligned.

At the end of the day, I'm not interested in setting things up such where a character can have a bear companion, summon a bunch of bears, and (effectively) turn into a giant bear, all at the same time. Not only is it ridiculous, but it also fucks with the game in ways that are unpleasant, both in terms of mechanics and flow at the table.

Especially in 5e, where bounded accuracy means that just having more low-CR bodies around does have the potential to actually contribute meaningfully to a combat. All of my pet classes are restricted to one pet at a time, with one exception whose gimmick is the ability to have multiple creatures out, and that one is proving to be a bit of a bitch to balance because of it.

Overall, I think your class isn't powerful enough, I think if you had a better spell progression that would change, whether your class should be a full progression caster, I'm not sure, but I'd probably still start there though.

While I am considering making my pet classes partial casters, again largely because of the things brought up in this thread, I see no reason to make them full casters.

The other issue for me is the way in which you allow versatility encourages the player to go dumpster diving for this or that particular summons, and the wide creature types makes it more likely the summoner might find a combination that's more disruptive than intended or desired. For example, the stone warrior CR 4 (so comes online at 7) is immune to non-magical attacks that aren't made of adamantine, which could conceivably be disruptive at some tables or at a tabling running a particular module.

My summoner class is a bad example for this because, in my mind, it is specifically balanced with using 5e pokemon conversions, and nothing else. One of the sidebars even specifically calls out that if you use the class without that in mind, I'm not responsible for whatever stupidity happens. The guidelines I put in for limiting what you can choose as a summon were done admittedly haphazardly because there will always be random low-CR creatures that punch way above their weight class for no good fucking reason, and I'm not going to take responsibility for WotC doing stupid shit.

I explicitly let the GM decide what is summoned in a blind summons scenario and otherwise the GM would need to have set the monster down in some sort of encounter. A PC could also go questing for a particular creature, but that still hands it off to the GM to decide (which can of course cause its own problems).

For a pet class to be effective and fulfill the class fantasy, the character has to be able to just have whatever is thematically appropriate, full stop. Putting that sort of thing in the hands of the GM is asking for trouble, IMO.

[merxa]

For a pet class to be effective and fulfill the class fantasy, the character has to be able to just have whatever is thematically appropriate, full stop. Putting that sort of thing in the hands of the GM is asking for trouble, IMO.

I've seen such trouble go both ways. While I think some people believe or want to believe that if they write good enough rules, it will stop bad GMs from being bad, and while I'm sympathetic to the view that better rules can help GMs avoid certain bad behaviors, I don't believe rule sets can actually stop a GM from being a jerk if that is what they want to do. On the other side, I've also sat down at plenty of tables where a player is abusing some rule set and then it becomes a question of whether the other players gripe about it, if the GM steps in (and how), and/or whether the player voluntarily stops using the exploit.

I think most people know it is much harder to take away something already given then it is to never give it in the first place. I think, mechanically, the subclass as written provides the player with enough authority to get the summons they want, they explicitly start play with their desired summons. Getting new summons in play does require a little back and forth between the player and gm, but I think this is true for ... most play -- how else do you hire some cohorts if the GM doesn't allow there to be cohorts to be hired? How would you buy a magic item if that magic item isn't for sale? But I imagine if I player keeps trying to grab a summon and the GM only gives them CR choices well below their cap... this becomes a sort of out of game discussion, just like it would be if a GM starts denying a cleric daily spells or a paladins smite.

One of the trickier things about a summoner, is that for the class to really feel like it does what it says it does, the player needs to be able to pull monsters out of the bestiary which is largely a GM only space, and many GMs are going to be reflexively protective of their turf, this isn't to say all or even most gms, i'm just suggesting this reaction is more related to human nature then individual views on how to run a game.

One of the larger hurdles of using homebrew, is getting people onboard using it, and usually its a player that finds something and wants to use it, in which case they do need some buy in from the GM and potentially other PCs as well. The headline ability (bring out a creature with a higher CR than your level) could be a very easy no in a lot of home games, but if you give some hooks to the GM as well as the player, that can go a long way to getting approval. No one (well at least few), including the players, want to play d&d and steamroll every challenge so hard that everyone agrees to stop rolling dice as the outcome is certain, and instead players take turns narrating their power fantasy at that moment. Maybe that is super fun the first few times, but if you're playing every week for months...

Thanks for going over your class more, I figured I was not understanding the spell progression. If you do end up revising it, I'd be interesting in knowing the changes made.

[deaddmwalking]

A character (like a druid) that can do wizard things OR turn into a bear will be less powerful than a character (like a wizard) that can do wizard things AND summon a bear. A+B>A or B.

That doesn't mean you can't create a balance point. Wizards can be totally sucky except when they summon something. Then, even though A+B is > either A or B, if A is really, really small and B is really big, A+B is ~B.

Ultimately this is a question of balancing power-levels. Giving a character that is controlling another character an action cost to use that other character is one way to reduce how effective two characters on the field at the same time is. It's possible that you can avoid these costs with a less powerful minion (like the kind you get with the Leadership feat).

As a designer, you need to decide if a character of a particular level ought to be able to summon a creature that is as powerful as themselves, less powerful than themselves, or more powerful than themselves. And depending on what you choose, you'll have to consider the ramifications to characters that don't have summons.

[JonSetanta]

I've been doing pet classes as part of my approach to my 5e homebrew.

Here are a couple examples: Summoner, Gestalt.

I'm not sure how well either of those contribute to the discussion, but I think they hit on some points that have been brought up, and might be useful fodder for "this is reasonable" or "this is shit" points folk may want to make.

I like the idea of a pet class that can do fuck-huge summons in an FF-like capacity, but I'm not sure I'm sold on the notion that the summoner in such a case would need to disappear. I think it would depend on just how big of a power differential there is. It also feels like those two approaches - summoner disappears, or doesn't - are parts of different kinds of class fantasies.

I read the Summoner and found it to be well balanced.

[GnomeWorks]

I read the Summoner and found it to be well balanced.

Thanks, I appreciate the feedback.