Any advice for playing a summoner?

[Judman]

Odds are I won't be, as that'd involve a great change in my present social circumstances, but I've been enjoying a nostalgia dive into palladium recently, and I recalled being fascinated by circle mages, but never really sure how playing one would actually work in game?

Anyone have any success as a summoner PC?

Any good stories of treading the line as a "good guy" who consorts with demons?

What worked?

[Veknironth]

Well, I don't recommend playing a summoner as a PC, especially not as a principled or scrupulous character. For starters, the circle magic is more of a static defense thing. Which doesn't lend itself well to adventuring. They can be very useful for protection, if you know what you'll be up against. They also can be useful for setting up ambushes, as long as you know when your quarry will be at an exact spot. But those are difficult to set up and require a lot of patience that the rest of the group might it have..

Now summoning other creatures opens up a wide array of opportunities. You can play all sorts of stuff as long as you have the ingredients to summon them: demons, deevils, monsters, seraph, etc.. Unless, that is, the GM plays them as possibly antagonist NPCs who constantly try to interpret your commands in ways to thwart you. But that also could be fun. However, a "good" character is likely going to have to do some strong mental gymnastics to rationalize magical slavery.

-Vek
"But haven't we all wanted to run a supernatural being and ruin a game?"

[GoliathReturns]

I'm going to echo everything Vek said, and then double it again.

People complain that a diabolist is difficult to play as an adventurer, and that's got NOTHING on the complexities of a summoner adventurer. The only way they are actually viable is either
A) for the GM to make a bunch of house rules making things easier, faster, and cheaper
B) don't adventure as a circle-mage, but using some other skill set, and only bust out the circles when back in town

1) Wealth- take the wealth you gain adventuring, and drop 60% (or more) off for components, true names, new circles, more components, etc etc.
2) time- while a diabolist can have wards ready, and slap them into a phrase to activate, a summoner needs TIME. Setting up a circle, doing the rituals to activate, battle of wills for summoned beings, making sure they don't get eaten (or worse) by said summoned beings, giving carefully-worded-instructions to those summoned beings so they can't find a loophole to justify eating you.. all of it takes time. It's not a 30 seconds and we're ready.
3) cost. I mentioned cost before, but have you actually looked up some of the prices for stuff? It ain't cheap. The circle master is, as written, for someone that's wealthier than nobles in a lot of places. Sure, some might be able to be reclaimed, but not all of it. And sometimes, you're literally destroying components as part of the circle. Even a protection circle: superior.. say we made it only a 3 ft diameter.. that's about 9.4 foot perimeter. That's about 75 ounces of silver, for a circle 3mm thick. That's more than 2300 gold in cost, for one of the most basic of circles. And that's just doing the math for the perimeter, and doesn't include the lines and cross. Doing it in quartz might be cheaper, but it's a lot bulkier to lug around. Need to burn some faerie wings? That's 20k gold. Each. But hey, buy a pair and save 5k! Need to learn a new power circle? 70k, minimum. Even summoning lesser demons and deevils can get expensive. I mean, ballpark 100-150 per goat (m&a breaks it down to parts, hide, meat, horns, but doesn't have a live animal price). How many thousands of butterflies will you need wings from, foe powder to make a healing circle?
4) hauling around the various supplies. Are dungeon delving, or are you being a goatherd? How many wagons are you going to have, to carry around cages of animals, and the food for them? How about handling the various animals? You'll need doves, poisonous snakes, lambs, goats, rats, butterflies.. pounds and pounds of gold and silver. Several different precious gems. Chalk, charcoal, colored paints and pigments.. mangled scorpions and spiders,


Those four things make this class almost impossible to play, as an adventurer, following the rules as written.

--
GS

[kiralon]

I have only had somewhat success when it was a 1 on 1 game tailored for the summoner (just like the diabolist), and they were good so only used circles that weren't bad and it was fun. Not recommended for new players or dm's however, and not recommended for groups

[Library Ogre]

Mages sing songs; they know the words and can bust out their verse at a moment's notice.
Diabolists write poetry; they know the language, but have to carefully put the words together to say what they want to say.
Summoners direct plays; they know their budget, they get the necessary props, but it is still going to take time to do and relies on everyone doing what you tell them.

Summoners work best when your group is relatively localized... they work great if you're all living and adventuring around a city, but they have a lot more trouble if you're crossing the Old Kingdom on foot. On the other hand, until you get Power Circles, you don't need to have a circle on a daily basis; summon your servant and free them every month or two, and you are more likely to avoid being eaten.

If you engage in a battle of wills, try to send creatures to do things they like to do. Don't stress their loyalty, because it isn't to you.

Try to summon things that agree with you, and try to avoid the battle of wills.... sure, it is cheap and easy to summon a lesser demon or deevil (two, maybe three goats), but if you're a good guy, summon an angel and ask it to do what you need it to do. They're also less likely to kill you, unless you summon them for evil. True elementals don't have much in the way of morals, and don't get too grumpy until you keep them for a while (though warlocks might!)

A poor summoner's best friend is the gargoyle. The circle to summon one is drawn in mud, and it requires the sacrifice of a lizard. Gurgoyles make good, sorta-human-sized muscle. You tell them to beat someone up, they like that. Tell a gargoylite to steal things for you, they like that too.

Talk to your GM about how much you can recover from circles, especially if you are mobile. If you can scrape up that gold to summon another angel, later, it saves money.

[Starmage21]

You can make any circle travel-accommodating by inscribing it on a wagon or cart.
At level 1, you cant control anything with your summoning circles. Use the Summon Elemental Forces circle to throw some powerful spells around until level 2. Its not horribly expensive to draw, but you'll probably get a lot of use out of this for awhile.
At level 2+ you'll get through combats by having a combat minion around to do your fighting for you. I highly recommend gargoyles. You can draw a new Gargoyle Summoning Circle pretty much anywhere you can find the requisite lizard sacrifice. Its super cheap. They also suck at The Battle of Wills so theyre relatively easy to control from a game mechanic standpoint. If your DM ascribes a noncompliant personality, theyre cheap to trade out!

[GoliathReturns]

You can make any circle travel-accommodating by inscribing it on a wagon or cart.
At level 1, you cant control anything with your summoning circles. Use the Summon Elemental Forces circle to throw some powerful spells around until level 2. Its not horribly expensive to draw, but you'll probably get a lot of use out of this for awhile.
At level 2+ you'll get through combats by having a combat minion around to do your fighting for you. I highly recommend gargoyles. You can draw a new Gargoyle Summoning Circle pretty much anywhere you can find the requisite lizard sacrifice. Its super cheap. They also suck at The Battle of Wills so theyre relatively easy to control from a game mechanic standpoint. If your DM ascribes a noncompliant personality, theyre cheap to trade out!

1A) one spell per minute
1B) simultaneously existing spells is capped at summoner level. Immediate spells still count towards the limit
1C) spells are at your caster level, but double duration and radius of effect.

Effectively, once per MINUTE you could cast a call lightning or fireball, for 1d6, but if you cast any spells with duration, you're not casting anything else.

Not super useful for a level 1. You'd actually have better luck wading into combat. This is actually more useful at higher levels.

The first use is going to be the kicker- 150 PPE. Not all summoner characters can do that at level 1. After that, it's only 5 PPE, but that first time is expensive.

There's also the factor of the cost of the wagon or cart. And the animal to haul it. They're not cheap. To the point a level 1 character probably won't have one.
The party MIGHT come together to buy it, but if that's the case, are they going to be happy with it not being used for any cargo, but staying ready to use for the summoner to cast one spell per round?

2A) 100 PPE. That ain't cheap. Even for a 2nd or 3rd level summoner.
2B) even a gargoylite, the weakest version, has a MINIMUM +3 on its save, with a decent chance of even higher (ME 3d6+1). A gurgoyle might be easier, at only +1, but it still has an ME of 3d6. Gargoyle the same.
(Personally, I think there's a mistake in the gurgoyle and Gargoyle stats, as they're the only types that don't have a blanket bonus on all saves, but, it has never been changed). And that's assuming you don't give them any reason to have a bonus in breaking free after you have them.

********
Summoning ANIMALS to fight might actually be a lot easier (and safer). Serpents, since it can be regular snakes or even worms of taut, could be much more beneficial. Ghoul and Nasu would also be easy.

*******
Again, the summoner is difficult to play, especially in early levels, and as an adventuring OCC. It can be rewarding, and it's certainly doable, but it takes a LOT of penny pinching and careful planning.

--
GS

[Starmage21]

Re #1: I may be misremembering, but Summon Elemental Forces is a summoning circle that has the four really nasty high level Elemental spells (Tornado, Earthquake, etc)? You can use that at level 1. I am not thinking of the Power Circle that gives you some spells. You wouldnt start with a power circle anyway. This may alter your view on #1C. You're basically a travelling WMD.

Re: #2A: You're literally not using your PPE for anything else. Borrow some from other party members if you rolled low at char-gen! Once its active, you can re-use it for 5 PPE if its what you've got inscribed on the wagon.

Re #2B: Battle of Wills is best 3 of 5. So you've got some wiggle room here. The higher your ME, the better.

[GoliathReturns]

Re #1: I may be misremembering, but Summon Elemental Forces is a summoning circle that has the four really nasty high level Elemental spells (Tornado, Earthquake, etc)? You can use that at level 1. I am not thinking of the Power Circle that gives you some spells. You wouldnt start with a power circle anyway. This may alter your view on #1C. You're basically a travelling WMD.

Re: #2A: You're literally not using your PPE for anything else. Borrow some from other party members if you rolled low at char-gen! Once its active, you can re-use it for 5 PPE if its what you've got inscribed on the wagon.

Re #2B: Battle of Wills is best 3 of 5. So you've got some wiggle room here. The higher your ME, the better.

1- oh, there's some nice spells, I agree. But, taking even the two spells you name (high level spells indeed), even with your double duration, they're only going to last 2 rounds at level 1. And depending on the range you're targeting, there's a good chance both would also harm your allies (Tornado especially). And while they'll create a mess that your allies will also have to deal with. But, even with them lasting 2 rounds, you're not doing anything else for the additional 30 seconds in the minute. You can only cast the one spell per MINUTE. Overall, while it CAN be devastating, it's very situation dependent, and you have limited flexibility with it.

1(addendum)- in regards to being a travelling WMD, this is going to vary greatly on your GM. Oh, sure. You COULD level a city. But are you going to get away with it? How long do you think it'll be before there's consequences? How well will you survive when there's a bounty put on you by the Western Empire, for damage done in one of their cities? What happens when there's other magic users nearby that are able to interfere with the magic, and then immediately take you down? Remember, a lot of places have laws about magic use in cities, especially circle magic. Once they see you having a wagon or cart that has it inscribed, it'll be confiscated until you leave (or longer), or you're going to be under some strict surveillance and rules.

2a- a summoner has, using average dice rolls, 115.5 at level 1. Round that to 116 for math. Which means they would need to soak up 34 PPE from the party. Sure, that's the first use only, after that it's cheap and easy. Unless it gets deactivated somehow.


--
GS

[Starmage21]

Just because you CAN be a WMD doesnt mean you SHOULD

That said, i've also heard in passing anecdotes that you could also inscribe your circle on a rug/carpet and roll it up and pack it away until needed. I didnt have any luck justifying that to my GM at the time when I tried it myself, but I was trying to use a protection circle that requires silver dust that is bound in wax. I would imagine that some of the more expensive circles that have inscription materials that could be woven in you could get away with justifying that. The same limitation of having it on a wagon would apply here too though.

[GoliathReturns]

Just because you CAN be a WMD doesnt mean you SHOULD

That said, i've also heard in passing anecdotes that you could also inscribe your circle on a rug/carpet and roll it up and pack it away until needed. I didnt have any luck justifying that to my GM at the time when I tried it myself, but I was trying to use a protection circle that requires silver dust that is bound in wax. I would imagine that some of the more expensive circles that have inscription materials that could be woven in you could get away with justifying that. The same limitation of having it on a wagon would apply here too though.

I've actually used that one, many times, as a player (and even a few as a GM for NPCs).

The big trick on this one is what the actual components are, and if you can justify a way for them to be that way.

For example, a circle that is to be made of iron filings (even with adhesive), is really hard to pull off. A circle that is to be made of silver, on the other hand, can be woven in.

The biggest downside is going to be cost. The amount of silver thread you would need is going to be extensive, and you'll need to make sure that whoeever is producing the thread is using ACTUAL silver, not just something that produces a silver look. And then, getting it woven into a rug. Massive expense. But, well worth it.

Sure, it's not easy to transport, but the difficulty of transporting one is about the same as the difficulty of transporting 10. Just paint numbers on the underside of each rug (which will be the outside when rolled up) so you know which one to grab and roll out.

I will say, as a GM and player, I've always felt that these circles have to be completely deactivated to be rolled back up, as the magic would keep everything in place, so you have to use the full PPE expense to activate them each time.

--
GS