Let’s dive a little into design theory today.

I’m building a Summoner Class (Name TBD) for Shadowdark RPG. I’m trying to come up with something a little different from the standard Dungeons & Dragons/OSR Conjuration/Summoning menu of spells. I’m not going to do a full tier list here, but just work out some spells.

One of the beautiful things about Shadowdark is the spell lists are usually short and sweet for any given class with Priests having six per Tier and Wizards having twelve per Tier. It makes it very easy to randomize for scrolls and NPCs on the fly. When I’m creating new class spell lists, I try to work toward having six, eight, ten, or twelve depending on how powerful the spells as well as what they are most closely related to.

I picture this particular Summoner being similar to Warlocks in World of Warcraft.

I enjoyed World of Warcraft until about nine or ten years ago. It still inspires me today. I keep the WoW TTRPG and Warcraft TTRPG from the old D&D 3.5 days close at hand for reference purposes. The main difference for the character class I’m designing is to avoid having the firepower of a Wizard or the healing abilities of the Priest. If a new class can outshine one of the base four, why would we ever make a Fighter, Wizard, Thief, or Priest? We have to be careful with new classes. This is also different than making subclasses for 5E because they will be unique to Shadowdark.

The first thing our Summoner is going to need is a stalwart companion that can be summoned consistently. I picture this being a sort of maid or butler, or maybe a personal assistant to the Warlock. Why make that a spell on the list at all, though? Let’s make it a class feature and reduce the overall number of spells.

Shadowdark classes tend to have two main features: combat and exploration. If the first one is the exploration feature in this case, what would the combative one be? Our squishy skeletal, amorphous blob, energy thing- our Phantasmagorical Phamiliar (*I’m keeping that one! Copyright 2024 Jeff’s Game Box.) counts as the exploration because it will hold the torch and not fight then what would our Summoner do to protect themselves?

Maybe we take a page out of the WoW, Diablo, or Final Fantasy and call down showers of fire, giant meteors, or fireball spitting hydras. But that’s what we have spells for. Is this where we break D&D tradition and make a spell thrower that wields a sword? What about summoning a different little buddy to fight for the Summoner instead of our Phantasmagorical Phriend? Let’s try that.

Okay, so now we have “A” mode and “B” mode companions, let’s make spells.

The two companions are like two different sides of the same coin. It almost reminds me a little bit of the old Everquest days with the companions. They were easy going until you aggro’d one.

I like to categorize my spells a bit for each tier. Summoning spells to me are one of three categories in and of themselves- static, random, or freeform. Static summons are spells where we summon the exact same thing every time and know what’s going to pop out every casting. Ex- Summon Woodchuck. It’s the same critter every time.

Then we have the more dynamic summons. First there’s the random summoning. Summon Small, Furry Woodland Animal might look like 1 = Squirrel, 2 = Chipmunk, 3 = Woodchuck, 4 = Platypus, 5 = bunny etc. Finally, there’s freeform casting where the Summoner describes the animal he wants within a given set of parameters for the Tier. (Can’t be bigger than a bread box, can’t do more than 1d6 damage, and mustn’t fly.) Freeform creatures can stretch the imagination, though. We could end up with an 8-legged, furry, bunny-eared reptile with the facial features and tail of a beaver. Good thing there are usually some restrictions.

There should also be some spell that summons multiples of creatures. Summon 1d6 wood nymphs, or maybe a whole fluffle of bunny rabbits. (*Yes, that’s a thing.) The higher the Tier, maybe the greater the number of summoned creatures, or fewer to keep them under control.

That reminds me, we haven’t discussed control. I’m planning to make all of the spell summoned creatures Focus spells to maintain control. The GM has enough to do without keeping track of all twelve summoned bunny rabbits. The Summoner player controls all of his spell summoned creatures and the character must maintain Focus on the spell to keep track of every bunny.

So, Example Summoner Tier 1 looks like:

  1. Summoning 1. Summons a single named 1 HD or lower creature. (Roll 1d12.)
  2. Summon Beast of Burden brings forth an alien oxen to move stuff for the caster.
  3. Freeform Fighter 1. Summons a single creature to taller or longer than 6 feet,
  4. Next, we need a spell to enhance our non-combat friend.
  5. Then we need some way to defend the summoned creatures. Summon armor/weapon for the creature.
  6. Light can be cast once per hour by the Phantasmagorical Phriend.
  7. We should have a way for the Summoner to heal their creations.
  8. Finally, we need to have that a spell to drop a comet of ice down on the BBEG’s head.

That’s a good start. More tomorrow.