Quill's Summoner: The Channeler Class [2014]

[tardy kite]

A master of conjuration who would sooner empower its Minion than itself, drawing in strength from all planes adjecent to the Material.

https://www.gmbinder.com/share/-O5rX-LRgJrbDS4OzMMJ

This is the first draft, I've been working on it on and off for a while, but I just know there's glaring balance issues and whatnot that have slipped under my radar. I'd really appreciate any and all feedback so I could work on it more!

Especially the post-10th level stuff I'm just not too good at, because I don't play at those levels very much

Out of the box I'm scared that the player character itself is just going to be a bit boring as a result of how much attention is poured into the Minion. They're a half-caster in light armour and get very little to do besides just commanding their minion to act, which is mostly intentional because I want the minion(s) to be as powerful as a player character in combat, but I don't know if it will be fun to do that. A lot of the Aspects (basically Invocations) used to grant benefits to both the Channeler and the Minion but I changed them to mostly benefit the Minion and I'm wondering if I should walk that back.

[uncut thicket]

I think there's a space for A summoner class the docus more on the companion. What you could look at, is to give the caster utility ability though, doing the things outside of combat that the minion can't

Thing with summoner, is that different people probably have a different vision for how they want the summoner/minion balance to be. Ranger is one end of the scale, yours is on the other end and then there's a lot of homebrew between those two.

Arcane fusion should probably be explicit about. 'You must atune to an item needing atunement, before you can merge it into your minion'

If the intention is that the channeler shouldn't effectively get extra atunememt slot.

[tardy kite]

Yes, that's great, thank you!

[tardy kite]

And that's a really good idea too. I'm sure there's plenty of untapped potential for that somewhere - the minions themselves are super combat-oriented

[stable cypress]

So, I’ve only just skimmed what you have here, but my baseline impression is positive. I’ve actually designed a summoner class as well, and it can be really tricky to balance. You took it in a pretty different direction than I did, which I find interesting.

As for your concern about the PC feeling bored or not useful, I think that is primarily an issue with the fact that you designed the minion to function off your action. So you can’t use the minion and cast a spell or make an attack or whatever in the same turn. Moving the minion to a bonus action would solve that issue, but it would also require redesigning and rebalancing the class from the ground up, since that would be totally different

[tardy kite]

Yeah, thanks for the feedback! I've tried to instead give the PC a ton of bonus actions to choose from in the form of the Occult Orders that are packed into the "invocations" at the end of the class, but most of those still just further empower the Minion. I did have "frail fellow protected by forces greater than itself" in mind when I started on this class so I definitely want to keep that thematically.

Maybe starting at level 5 the minion can make a single attack if the channeler casts a spell? I'll try to work something like that into the class

[stable cypress]

The unfortunate truth is "frail fellow protected by forces greater than itself" is an insteresting story telling device, but isn't very fun in mechanics or gameplay. Especially in D&D. The system just isn't designed to allow someone to be individually weak. That's a big part of the reason why 5e doesn't really have dedicated "healers" or support/buff characters. The fundamental design of 5e expects every creature to be mostly self sufficient and capable of holding their own in combat

[uncut thicket]

I think it does have a niche appeal to some players, which I think is fine if the ambition is to make the channeler to be the best possible summoner homebrew within that niche.

[stable cypress]

Sure, I do agree that it will appeal to some players. Heck, I'm one of them. That's why I made a summoner class too. But what players think they want, and what they will actually enjoy using can sometimes be 2 different things

[tardy kite]

I really liked Pathfinder's Summoner Unchained the one time I tried it. But that was only really possible as a separate entity from the main character because the strongest cantrip I could find to take as Summoner in PF1E did like 1d3 acid damage. I'm contemplating other avenues to allow the Minion itself to retain its power level but still give the Channeler room to act, but so far all my brain is settling on is is just halving all damage the Channeler itself deals while the Minion is out, or giving them a super-tight spell list full of custom spells and making them unable to use any other spells while their Minion is out.

I already know that's not very good and trying to replicate the Eidolon and Summoner from PF1e would never really work in dnd5e...

I'm not sure if the Channeler is really "individually weak" as they're in full control of the Minion - the Minion is a part of that character, can only exist because of it, and it shouldn't count as two separate characters when calculating CR. I'll try to see if I can sneak in some out-of-combat utility abilities for the Channeler. I think leaning more heavily into ritual spells is also appropriate for them.

[ripe vault]

I was gonna say this class looks really good in terms of balancing, the only thing thats a bit iffy is the 15th level feature (Planar Gatekeeper
At 15th level, your mastery over conjuration allows you to manipulate space to your heart's content. As a bonus action, you can twist space around a creature you can see within 90 feet. The target must succeed on a Charisma saving throw (the target can choose to fail) or be teleported to an unoccupied space of your choice that you can see within range. The chosen space must be on a surface or in a liquid that can support the target without the target having to squeeze.) This feels like it should be limited to only be usable a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus. or maybe that + some other modifier that scales like your charisma modifier.

[tardy kite]

Oh yeah good call! I was just kind of rushing through the later levels, I'll be sure to add the rest limitation, thanks for the feedback!