Help me build a conjurer/summoner

[Gaiden]

I am going for something along the lines of the FF series and/or the MtG books.

I was thinking something along the lines of making use of planar ally/planar binding spells. The thing is, taking 10 minutes to call planar creatures that would effectively function like Ifrit, Shiva, Odin, Leviathon, or Craw Wurm, Juggernaut, or Force of Nature is not going to work in combat situatioins and casting it ahead of time doesn't give the fell I am going for. I was thinking of calling said creatures and then setting something up where I could call upon them again with only a standard action - like with refuge. However, I don't know of anything that works across planes.

Suggestions?

The other question os character design. If I wanted to be able to summon both Hades and neoBahamut I am thinking that a cleric is a bad idea (unless of a neutral deity) because of the swing in alignment between spells. My guess is that sorcerer is most appropriate for this type of build but I was thinking any of the major spellcasters could accomplish what I am going after (if designed correctly).

Suggestions?

 

[yennico]

Here is a thread about summoners in general.

 

[Impeesa]

I've thought about this long and hard. It seems to me the best way to simulate the FF-style summoner is actually rather roundabout. Take a Warmage (arcane blaster type from Complete Arcane), and give him Spell Thematics [Summoned Creatures]. Cone of Cold isn't just shooting from you hand, you flicker out of existance and for a brief moment, there's a big white dragon in your place breathing all over.

From here, the fun part is getting the conventional summoning spells on your spell list to round out the more typical D&D summoner aspect. Better still is getting healing spells on your list, so you can describe celestials appearing to fortify your allies. How to actually accomplish this is left as an exercise to the reader (there are ways, but they're kind of ugly).

--Impeesa--

 

[yennico]

How to actually accomplish this is left as an exercise to the reader (there are ways, but they're kind of ugly).

Healing spells for an Arcane Spellcaster ? warmageX/cleric1 One of his domains should be luck.

 

[Impeesa]

But those would just be cleric spells. The most common way to do it is through prestige classes like Rainbow Servant, which adds some domains to your arcane spell list (and the warmage automatically 'knows' everything on his class list, since it's normally very limited).

--Impeesa--

 

[Gaiden]

Some good suggestions so far but not what I am really going after. The idea of spell thematics certainly would get the description there but it just doesn't sit well with me. From a roleplaying perspective I am going after the whole contacting the outsider and requesting its aid for future battles.

Conveniently some of the creatures are actually on the summon list. One thing I was toying with was using the option where summon spells summon specific creatures. So if you summoned fiendish wolves - you summon from the same pack every time. Or if you summon lantern archons - they are always the same lantern archons, etc. This would get the feel of the summoner from FF series and the feats (augment summoning, ashbound, etc. would be more pertinent then).