Summoner PrC [PEACH] (Update:June 26th)

[squishycube]

Note to mods: I bumped this thread, could it please be moved to homebrew? Thank you.
The Summoner
http://www.quibuscms.net/img/summoner.jpg
Image is copyright Thomas M. Baxa
For your reading convenience, this class is also available as an OpenOffice 2.0 document (http://www.quibuscms.net/summoner.odt) and an M$ Word document (http://www.quibuscms.net/summoner.doc)

Summoners thrive on summoning creatures to fight for them. A Summoner gives up versatility to become a supreme master of summoning. Whether it's because of a "better they get hurt than me" mentality, curiosity of extraplanar beings or otherwise, no one summons like a Summoner.

Alignment: Any
Hit Die: d4

Requirements
To qualify to become a summoner, a character must fulfill all the following criteria.
Spellcasting: Ability to cast Summon Nature's Ally III or Summon Monster III
Skills: Knowledge (Nature) or Knowledge (The Planes) 8 ranks
Feat: Spellfocus (Conjuration)

Class Skills:
The Summoners class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are
Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Handle Animal (Cha)*, Knowledge (Arcana) (Int)+, Knowledge (History) (Int)+, Knowledge (Nature) (Int)*, Knowledge (The Planes) and Spellcraft (Int).
* This is only a class skill for summoners who use Summon Nature's Ally
+ This is only a class skill for summoners who us Summon Monster

Skill Points at Each Level
2 + Int modifier.

Table: Summoner
{table]Lvl|BAB|Fort|Ref|Will|Special|Spellcasting
1st|+0|+0|+0|+2|Advanced Summons|+1 level of existing class
2nd|+1|+0|+0|+3|Strong Summons +2|+1 level of existing class
3rd|+1|+1|+1|+3||+1 level of existing class
4th|+2|+1|+1|+4||+1 level of existing class
5th|+2|+1|+1|+4|Magical Summons|+1 level of existing class
6th|+3|+2|+2|+5||+1 level of existing class
7th|+3|+2|+2|+5||+1 level of existing class
8th|+4|+2|+2|+6|Aligned Summons|+1 level of existing class
9th|+4|+3|+3|+6||+1 level of existing class
10th|+5|+3|+3|+7|Strong Summons +4|+1 level of existing class[/table]

Class Features
All the following are class features of the Summoner.

Weapon and Armor Proficiency
Summoners gain no proficiency with any weapon or armor.

Spells per Day/Spells Known
When a new summoner level is gained, the character gains new spells per day (and spells known, if applicable) as if she had also gained a level in a spellcasting class she belonged to before she added the prestige class. She does not, however, gain any other benefit a character of that class would have gained. This essentially means that she adds the level of summoner to the level of some other spellcasting class the character has, then determines spells per day, spells known, and caster level accordingly.

Advanced Summons
From first level onwards, once per day the summoner may add up to one half her summoner level to any one creature she summons' HD as bonus HD (minimum 1).

Strong Summons (Su)
At second level a summoner learns how to summon stronger creatures. All creatures summoned by the summoner get a +2 insight bonus to strength and constitution, or strength and dexterity, or constitution and dexterity. This choice can be made for each summoned creature. Note that the bonus to strength and constitution granted by the Augment Summoning feat cannot be altered to benefit dexterity.
At tenth level this bonus increases to +4.

Magical Summons (Ex)
From fifth level onwards a summoner's summons' natural attacks are treated as magic weapons for the purpose of dealing damage to creatures with damage reduction.

Aligned Summons (Ex)
From eighth level onwards a summoner's summons' natural attacks are treated as either lawful, chaotic, good or evil weapons for the purpose of dealing damage to creatures with damage reduction, depending on the summoners alignment.
The summoner chooses the alignment when she attains this ability, this choice cannot be reversed, unless the summoner's alignment changes so that the chosen alignment opposes her own. In this case the summoner gets to choose a new alignment for the attacks of her summons.
A summoner can’t cast align the attacks of her summons with an alignment opposed to her own or her deity’s (if she has one). For example, a neutral good summoner cannot have summons with evil attacks.

Notes/Variants
If a DM feels this class is too powerful, he can limit the Summoner so she can only learn summoning spells.
This class was designed to work well in combination with the Conjurer variants in Unearthed Arcana and Augment Summoning (it even requires the same feat as Augment Summoning).
This class was intended to be entered from 6th level onward (that is, the 6th llevel could be a Summoner level).

[TimeWizard]

I like the flavor of this a lot, and coincidentally, it lines up with my recent urge to play a modded Final Fantasy Summoner (thats Ifrit and Shiva, not Aeons to you FF neophytes). Some basic balance issues can be found here.

D6- doesn't really apply; in your own words the summoner's motto is "let him get hurt instead of me". The d4 is meant for people who think twice before saying the word melee out loud.

Full base progression- VERY BIG NO. Nobody gets a full base class progression, ever. It may seem even when compared to a druids abilities, but it's completely broken in terms of wizards.

Advanced summon doesn't make sense the way you explain it... If Jozan has SM4 and SM3, he can cast SM3, instead using the spell slot SM4, and get +2 HD? Why not just use SM4 the way it was meant to be used? That feels like a DM headache just waiting.

Ally just says "Only druid's make use of this class". Seriously, the class looks like it was a Druid PrC, that didn't fully translate over to Arcanists and Clerics. Maybe clerics could give up spontaneous healing for spontaneous summoning, and wizards could trade their familiar in for stronger monsters.

Other than that, I like the diffrence of skill requirements for druids compared to mages.

[squishycube]

- d6. Well, the most likely classes I thought that would be a bit harsh on druids and clerics: they wouldn't get any use out of their own combat abilities as soon as they have a few levels in this class. I don't think its needed as a balance measure either..
- Full Base. I assume you mean full caster progression. I don't see the point of lowering that all. They need that caster levels to summon creatures that are worth it on their level. In my "Balance Considerations" I mentioned that I was considering giving them only summoning spells, this seemed a bit over the top though.
- Advanced Summon. *you get one use for free* the increased caster level is only if you want additional uses per day. Wether or not this is useful is entirely up to the summoner. I suppose it could be useful in some cases and very unuseful in others.
- Ally. Actually its not geared towards druids at all: they already have an animal companion, and they only get +2 bonus HD for their animal companions. I might remove this ability entirely, it doesn't seem to add a lot.


-------------------------------
Ignore the above, as it is almost entirely outdated. I did a major overhaul of the class and I'm keeping this comment for archiving purposes only.

[I_Got_This_Name]

Full base progression- VERY BIG NO. Nobody gets a full base class progression, ever. It may seem even when compared to a druids abilities, but it's completely broken in terms of wizards.

Loremaster (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/prestigeClasses/loremaster.htm).

Now that we've established a level of abilities balanced alongside full casting progression, we can compare this class to it.

Prerequisites: I might make these a bit more difficult. Nothing to up the level, just to make the class a bit more out-of-the-way.

D4 hit die: Keep it this way.

Skills: Might want to balance the skill list by giving two skills to those who get in by Summon Monster, to match the two for Summon Nature's Ally. You could move Diplomacy on to Summon Monster only, or add Knowledge (Arcana)

Advanced Summoning: This seems a little powerful, so the 1/day limit is good, and hard to work. Still, it caps out at 5 bonus hit dice to the summon, so it's not too bad. It is a lot of work to calculate the summons in advance, though. Also, if you're summoning a group, it says it only affects one; maybe make it so that it can boost an entire group, but less individually than the big boost?

Also, this ability does nothing at the level you put it in; D&D says to always round down. You could note it as +1 hit die, +2 hit dice, +3 hit dice, and so on at every odd level, or say "minimum 1" in it.

Strong Summons: Good.

Aligned and Magical summons: Good.

The main problem I can see with it, other than advanced summoning, is that it has too few abilities; it's just a primary caster whose summons have higher stats and more hit dice. It doesn't get anything cool.

[Chris the Pontifex]

I agree with TPAM, never mind the adjustments I propsed earlier.

just one thing: Aligned and Magical summons seem to be the wrong way around. x/Magic DR appears fairly early in the game while x/[Alignment] DR appears much later. Also the similair monk abilities come in reversed order

[squishycube]

...
Prerequisites: I might make these a bit more difficult. Nothing to up the level, just to make the class a bit more out-of-the-way.
Agreed, suggestions? I'd prefer not to require random things and not use them in the class though.

...
Skills: Might want to balance the skill list by giving two skills to those who get in by Summon Monster, to match the two for Summon Nature's Ally. You could move Diplomacy on to Summon Monster only, or add Knowledge (Arcana)
I hadn't really noticed this, changed!

Advanced Summoning: ... It is a lot of work to calculate the summons in advance, though. Also, if you're summoning a group, it says it only affects one; maybe make it so that it can boost an entire group, but less individually than the big boost?

Also, this ability does nothing at the level you put it in; D&D says to always round down. You could note it as +1 hit die, +2 hit dice, +3 hit dice, and so on at every odd level, or say "minimum 1" in it.
I've done some calculations and the HD bonus of this ability comes down an improvement of about 1/2 of the improvement between two spell levels.
Its indeed a lot of work to calculate the advancing. When I played a summoning druid, I kept a list of all the creatures I could summon, including their stats (I had the Augment Summoning feat, and hogging the MM wasn't a good idea anyway.) You gotta sacrifice something for the coolest class feature, eh?
I made it so the ability affects only one creature to avoid cheese.
What about this:
A Summoner can choose to spread out the bonus HD amongst multiple summoned creatures, if she summons more than one creature at once.
This would lead to even more bookkeeping pain though...

I see the ability does nothing at level one, I overlooked this when I shuffled the abilities around. I'll do something about this in the next version.

Strong Summons: Good.

Aligned and Magical summons: Good.
Thank you :-)

The main problem I can see with it, other than advanced summoning, is that it has too few abilities; it's just a primary caster whose summons have higher stats and more hit dice. It doesn't get anything cool.
Well, the main reason for this is that often 'cool' suff is also powerful. And I didn't have a lot of space in that regard considering the full caster progression.

I am considering to change Strong Summons to something not atainable by feats though.
Chris proposed something where the summons got the casters casting ability modifier on AC and damage as an insight bonus. (or another bonus, I'm not sure. )

I'm intending to use something like this in the next version.

Also, I was thinking about a class feature that would let the summoner add a template to his summons, but there really aren't very much templates that would work. (Pretty much none, except fiendish and celestial)


ChristhePontifex
Aligned and Magical summons seem to be the wrong way around.
Doh... Changed.

[squishycube]

*bump* to get the thread moved to homebrew and maybe get some more input.