What is a Summoner?

[Nayru Al-Saiduq]

Aside from being a miserable little pile of secrets, of course. But enough memes, HAVE AT YOU!

Seriously though, anyone who knows jack about site history is aware of the many, many, MANY attempts at evoking a 'summoning' approach to gameplay that have been thrown around over the years. I myself have always been a big fan of the concept and probably spammed the most of them over time, and from a flavor perspective I think we've seen some pretty cool concepts. Certainly for anyone who's seen an evil necromancer raise hundreds of skeletons to dispose of their foes or played Persona enough to dig the evoker/Persona vibe, there's a certain allure to the concept.

But at the same time, the practical issues with summoning have held the idea back from being reality. To put it simply, most of the 'generic' summoner concepts simply don't work very well in RP - being able to summon 300 skeletons on command looks friggin' cool, but doesn't really involve YOU doing much, and there are balance concerns too. Kisaragi may be pretty good with a sword, but without mass AOE she has literally no way of handling that many skeletons and never will, whereas Don or Kenshin can just blow them all away with wind magic and murder the summoner. Oh wait, the summoner can fight back? Then they're even MORE busted and no one can really fight them. They can't fight back? Well crap, now you're just useless because Mila cast one spell. The concept just tends to lend itself to broken roleplay and hard counters that aren't really any fun to RP.

So instead, I'd like to propose a question to y'all, not just to the mods specifically but to everyone who is interested in the concept: what does summoning mean to you? Is it disposable minions? Being able to make friends? The bonds formed with a unique summon? Are you more interested in having your summons fight for you, or with you? Do you just want the Sacred Stones' Summoner class or something more creative? Would Zach having a troll skeleton named Mr Bones follow him everywhere be hilarious or just hilarious? You don't have to answer all those questions, lol, just bringing up some possible things to think about.

[Shara Tiinedra]

To me it comes down to both. Summoning beasts that you may have no real bond with, but have managed to tame with your own magic and will perhaps. Summoning hordes of mooks is cool too, and good for bad guy stuff (or good guy stuff, if you wanna go that route)

To me, though, the Persona style of summoning will always be the kind that I admire the most. Not so much how the MC goes about it, being able to summon ANYTHING, but more the...personal connection that the other protags have. The summons/Persona reflect their inner selves and evolve in form and power in tandem with their evolution as characters. Or even just being able to become bros with your summoned thing, I suppose similar to how a relationship between Magic Weapon and Wielder could be.

And while that is -my- personal answer, I still have the rper standpoint as well. Whether I am more interested in having my summon fight for me or with me...depends on the character.

[Gar]

The way I think about it is summoners do stem from a dark magic class. So while the character may not be an evil person overall, I imagine there would at least be some type of moral dilemma with the whole process of summoning. Perhaps they feel as if they should let the dead rest in piece instead of forcing them to walk the land as hero fodder. Or maybe whatever unique summon they had is unwillingly bound to the character, more slave than best buddy. Regardless of the type of summoning it seems to me like there should be some quality to it that would make a grandmother say "Well that doesn't sound very nice."

RP Combat wise I think it could go one of two ways. A character can make a lame loser summon that any person worth their salt can destroy as little more than an afterthought. Then the summoner could still be able to use powerful dark magic spells. The other way would to make a big bad summon that can put up a legitimate fight, but doing so would leave the summoner too drained to cast other spells. Unfortunately, the first one kinda makes druid obsolete.

It also seems like if the caster wanted to have a legion of undead it would be more of a necromancer class. It would be a good raid boss character but pretty overpowered for any typical character. That's my two cents, I always thought the summoner class was legit so I'd be happy to see a couple running around.

[Vincent]

I imagine it to be a single creature companion. The extent of its capabilities and ferocity would grow with the mage as well as mod limitations. I imagine they'd be tied to a single tome/staff to define them though. Perhaps as a sort of replacement even. If the summoner wants to use the spell themselves they would need to purchase it a second time.

[Argus]

Once again, I agree with Vincent.