Master Summoner - take 2

[yennico]

I like this version much better, but I dislike the following points:

Of Both Worlds: Creatures summoned by a master summoner have the ability to bypass protections that would normally keep them out of an area, such as Protection from Evil or Magic Circle against Evil. The master summoner must make a Caster Level check against the spell for each creature. A success means that the creature is not blocked from entering the area and attacking those protected by the spell.

Now the summoned creatures of a master summoner have three opportunities to enter a protected area:
1. If the summoned monster has a SR the SR applies.
2. The summoner dispells the spell with a targeted dispel magic one one spell spending a spell slot
3. The of both worlds ability.

Each creatured summoned by a master summoner has this ability, each can use the ability once or more per round. The of both world ability is a targeted dispel magic (a greater dispel magic because of lack of a limit) which costs the summoner no action.
The of both worlds ability saves the summoner spell slots and actions.

Is a caster level check an standard action of the spellcaster or does a caster level requires no action?
If you want that the summoned creatures of a master summoner can easier enter a protected area give a small bonus on the SR for entering a protected area only.

Spell Enhanced Summoning: Twice per day, a master summoner may choose to expend an additional spell of 4th level or lower with a range of Touch or Personal when casting a summoning spell. All creatures summoned gain the benefit of the spell as if it had been cast on them. The extra spell is treated as a quickened spell for purposes of maximum number of spells per round (only one quickened spell per round). For example, a master summoner could summon celestial black bears and choose to also expend Mage Armor to give them each the benefit of a Mage Armor spell (+4 AC).

You are mixing different aspects.
1. You change the range of a spell from touch or personal to ranged spell.
2. You change a spell from affecting one person to affect several persons like a mass version of this spell.
3. You give the quicken spell feat for two uses for free

I would allow this ability:
Spell Enhanced Summoning: Twice per day, a master summoner may choose to expend an additional spell of 4th level or lower with a range of Touch or Personal when casting a summoning spell. ONE creature summoned gain the benefit of the spell as if it had been cast on him. The extra spell is treated as a quickened spell for purposes of maximum number of spells per round (only one quickened spell per round). For example, a master summoner could summon celestial black bears and choose to also expend Mage Armor to give one of them the benefit of a Mage Armor spell (+4 AC).

 

[yennico]

Does anyone have any advice on balancing the class so that the character would not loose any caster levels? Is it possible without loosing too many of the class abilities?

I do not own many 3.5 books, so I can not compare your prc with many other pure spellcasting prcs. Some have one ability per level and +1 level of existing spellcasting class
like the loremaster and the red wizard.

IMHO if you change the of both worlds to a special bonus on SR only for resisting the area protection spells and the spell enhanced summoning ability to a quickened one creature affecting spell below level 4 you can give the prc full spellcaster level progression.

 

[farscapesg1]

I see your point on the Of Both Worlds ability. How about allowing a bonus to their SR equal to the caster's Master Summoner level, only for purposes of bypassing these protections? This will remove the redundancy of SR and the spellcaster level check. Doing this, I am tempted to move the ability earlier in the class, so the character would see the improving benefits as they advance in the class.

I'm really not sure why I didn't just think of that earlier This helps simplify the ability a lot. Thanks for pointing this out.

On the Spell Enhanced Summoning ability;
If I change this ability to only affect one creature, and only with 4th level or lower spells, I don't think it warrants being the 10th level ability. At that point, I think Banishment becomes more powerful, considering the character is giving up an extra spell slot during the casting to enhance the creatures.

One idea I had was to reduce the effectiveness of the Summon Monster spell when using this ability. Instead of summoning creatures from the appropriate table for a Summon Monster spell, you would use the tables as if the spell were 1 level lower. For example, a Summon Monster VI spell used with this ability would summon 1 creature from the 5th level table, 1d3 from the 4th level, or 1d4+1 from the 3rd level.

 

[yennico]

I see your point on the Of Both Worlds ability. How about allowing a bonus to their SR equal to the caster's Master Summoner level, only for purposes of bypassing these protections?

Giving a bonus equal the level of a master summoner level has a maximum of +10 (if you grant the master summoner full spellcasting progession).
Most monsters already have a SR, so you are improving the SR of the monster with this ability.
IMHO you should only grant a bonus equal 1/2 the level of a master summoner, because
I dislike giving a high not named bonus.

Doing this, I am tempted to move the ability earlier in the class, so the character would see the improving benefits as they advance in the class.

I would swap these abilities:
Of both worlds with extended summoning.
Extended summoning with greater augmentation.

On the Spell Enhanced Summoning ability;
If I change this ability to only affect one creature, and only with 4th level or lower spells, I don't think it warrants being the 10th level ability. At that point, I think Banishment becomes more powerful, considering the character is giving up an extra spell slot during the casting to enhance the creatures.

I do not know if it is worth being a ability at level 10, but your ability gants the master summoner:
- twice to cast a spell without any using a higher spell slot without the quicken feat.
- to cast a personal or touch spell at range. Normally ranged spell is at least one level higher than a touch or personal spell.

A spell that affects more than one creature is a mass spell. So any ability which grants one spell to more than one creature emulate a mass version of this spell

I give you another reason to think about creating another ability.
With this ability the master summoner can cast a personal spell on another creature (one or more creatures).
Think about a expeditous retreat spell on a summoned horse. This horse now has a speed of 50+30 ft. This summoned horse can now be used as a mount (the mount spell is a conjuration spell level 1). Now a rider with a lance, not neccesary the spellcaster can charge from 160 ft.

One idea I had was to reduce the effectiveness of the Summon Monster spell when using this ability. Instead of summoning creatures from the appropriate table for a Summon Monster spell, you would use the tables as if the spell were 1 level lower. For example, a Summon Monster VI spell used with this ability would summon 1 creature from the 5th level table, 1d3 from the 4th level, or 1d4+1 from the 3rd level.

I do not understand thgis ability, can you please clarifiy it.

 

[Infiniti2000]

I like it, but I see one oddity. Is the 6 ranks requirement for knowledge (planes) a typo? It shouldn't be less than the others, particularly if you require skill focus in it.

 

[yennico]

I like it, but I see one oddity. Is the 6 ranks requirement for knowledge (planes) a typo? It shouldn't be less than the others, particularly if you require skill focus in it.

ooops I should have read the requirements more careful.
I agree that knowledge (planes) should have a higher rank.

One skill should require 9 ranks, so only a level 6 character can enter the prc, because a wizard or a cleric level 5 can cast a summon monster III.

 

[farscapesg1]

Giving a bonus equal the level of a master summoner level has a maximum of +10 (if you grant the master summoner full spellcasting progession).
Most monsters already have a SR, so you are improving the SR of the monster with this ability.
IMHO you should only grant a bonus equal 1/2 the level of a master summoner, because
I dislike giving a high not named bonus.

My problem with this is a Celestial Badger for example. The SR for this creature is 8 (5 + creatures Hit Dice + 2 for Greater Augmentation). At most this would be 13 using your example at 10th level. Yes, you probably would never summon one of these creatures at that level, but if you did there is no way for it to overcome the protections of an opposing 16th level wizard (1d20 + caster level of 16 = 17 minimum). Even at the bonus I was thinking, the creature would have a 18 which could ignore the protections only on a 1 or 2.

Taking a 8th level spell, lets look at the Celestial Dire Bear. The SR for this creature would be 24 (12 + 5 + 2 + 5)with your version (able to bypass protections on a roll of 7 or less) and 29 (12 + 5 + 2 + 10) with my version (able to bypass protections on a roll 12 or less).

So, using your idea, even the highest level of summoning at that point (level 16) would only be able to bypass the protections about 1/3 of the time. Using my bonus it would be about 60% of the time. That still gives a significant chance of failure even for the high-level summoning spells. Not to mention that if I switch abilities around like you mentioned, the +2 to SR from Greater Summoning won't even take effect until 9th level of the class, further reducing this ability.

I give you another reason to think about creating another ability.
With this ability the master summoner can cast a personal spell on another creature (one or more creatures).
Think about a expeditous retreat spell on a summoned horse. This horse now has a speed of 50+30 ft. This summoned horse can now be used as a mount (the mount spell is a conjuration spell level 1). Now a rider with a lance, not neccesary the spellcaster can charge from 160 ft.

First, a horse isn't on any of the the Summon Monster (or even Summon Nature's Ally) lists. Remember that these abilities only work with the Summon Monster spells, not just any summoning or calling subschool spell. Even if a horse was listed as an option on the spells, why would it come with any barding to allow someone to ride it? I realize you were just using it as an example, but it isn't a good one. Instead of using the extra spell slot, why not just cast Phantom Steed which can move up to 240 ft per round (charge from 480 ft) at 12th level and can move over difficult terrain, water, and even air walk at 12th level (or fly at 14th). That seems to be much more dangerous than a normal horse being able to move 80 ft from the use of two spells.

Now, I'm not saying that there may be some problems with the ability, but I'm not sure it is really that awful. Yes, it is strong. You are comparing it to a quickend, mass spell, but there are limitations.
1) The spell only affects those creatures summoned.
2) Summoned creatures are only usuable for a short period of time (2 rounds per level with the extended summoning ability)
3) It is still possible to dispell/dismiss/banish the summoned creatures, resulting in the loss of both spells
4) This is only usable 2 times per day

I do not understand thgis ability, can you please clarifiy it.

It was just an idea. It doesn't remove the concern about getting a quickened, mass version of a spell, just limits what it can be used on. For example, a Summon Monster VI spell can summon 1 creature from the level 6 list, 1d3 from the level 5, or 1d4+1 from the level 4 list. Using the Spell Enhanced Summoning ability, the character would have to treat the Monster Summoning spell as if it was 1 spell level lower. So that Summon Monster VI spell would be treated in all ways as a Summon Monster V spell instead (1 creature from the 5th level list, 1d3 from the 4th, or 1d4+1 from the 3rd). Basically, it just lowers the power of the creatures that the spell is summoning in return for being able to enhance them with another spell.

 

[farscapesg1]

The reason for the lower Knowledge (Planes) was because people on the WOTC messageboards (and I think this board in my first draft) recommended making it available to classes other than just the Wizard. Since Knowledge (Planes) is a cross-class skill they recommended lowering it.

As to the skill ranks, I thought you had to have that number of skill ranks before entering a prestige class. In otherwords, a 5th level character could have a max of 8 (3+5) ranks. Since the class requires 8 ranks, you can't enter it until 6th level.

Did I have this wrong?

 

[yennico]

The reason for the lower Knowledge (Planes) was because people on the WOTC messageboards (and I think this board in my first draft) recommended making it available to classes other than just the Wizard. Since Knowledge (Planes) is a cross-class skill they recommended lowering it.

Knowledge (planes) is a cross-class skill only for sorcerers.
If you want that a sorcerer can enter the prc at equal level of a wizard the maximum required ranks for this skill is 3. For each more required rank the sorcerer has to take two levels sorcerer.
I would change the required ranks to: knowledge (planes): at least 3, and mention that this is because a sorcerer can enter the prc also at level 7.

As to the skill ranks, I thought you had to have that number of skill ranks before entering a prestige class. In otherwords, a 5th level character could have a max of 8 (3+5) ranks. Since the class requires 8 ranks, you can't enter it until 6th level.

Did I have this wrong?

Most prcs can be entered at level 7, so a character has to have 6 class level.

 

[farscapesg1]

Knowledge (planes) is a cross-class skill only for sorcerers.
If you want that a sorcerer can enter the prc at equal level of a wizard the maximum required ranks for this skill is 3. For each more required rank the sorcerer has to take two levels sorcerer.
I would change the required ranks to: knowledge (planes): at least 3, and mention that this is because a sorcerer can enter the prc also at level 7.

Ok, thanks for catching that. I guess the advice was given with the idea of Druids and Rangers in mind, but they don't have access to Summon Monster spells anyways so that shouldn't be a problem. I will raise it up to 8 to match the others.

Most prcs can be entered at level 7, so a character has to have 6 class level.

Unless my calculations are wrong, there are many prestige classes that allow entrance at level 6. Here are a few that I quickly skimmed;

DMG
Arcane Trickster, Dragon Disciple, Red Wizard

Complete Arcane
Blood Magus, Elemental Savant, Mage of the Arcane Order, Mindbender, Wild Mage

At level 5, characters gain the last skill points, spell level, caster level, etc. requirements so upon reaching 6th level they can enter the prestige class.

Now, I have no problem on not allowing entrance to the class until 7th, I just wanted to point out that there are examples of other prestige classes (even in the core rules) that allow entrance as early as 6th.