Unearthed Arcana Unearthed Arcana: That Old Black Magic

Random racial spells.... not my cup of tea but could be fun.

Summoning demons seem like fun spells. Reminds me of the instinctive actions of some 4e summons.

 

[SkidAce]

I would build ritual versions that give more ongoing control with a HD/lvl max at any one time, much like the mecromancer stuff (if I recall correctly).

These, with their lesser control, do seem to be the "I'm in combat, need backup fast" type of spells.

 

[SkidAce]

Lol, now I need to create a mecromancer class.

 

[mellored]

Anyone have a summary of the main template with the various customizations for individual spells?

You can also look at the 4e instinctive action summons for ideas.

You could take an action to command it, or if you didn't, it would do it's own thing.

Generally...
Nature attack enemies.
Elemental attacked anyone.
And demons attacked the summoner and his allies.

I would build ritual versions that give more ongoing control with a HD/lvl max at any one time, much like the mecromancer stuff (if I recall correctly).

These, with their lesser control, do seem to be the "I'm in combat, need backup fast" type of spells.

Gate and Planar Binding already do that.

 

[mellored]

I'm actually a little surprised by the rather dark nature of this Unearthed Arcana article. I'm happy with it, and its approach, because I think summoning demons should be an event, not just an every-battle occurrence. I'm no fan of tieflings, but I think the spells are worth the price of admission alone. It reminds me of the old summon fiend spell from 2nd edition, though these new ones are more focused and the demons don't have a built-in mechanism for requiring a task from the wizard, like they did in 2e.

3 of them require a blood sacrifice to summon.
2 require bribes.
1 doesn't require anything, but you can't control it at all and it rampages for 10 minutes.


Though, begs to question, how many vials of blood can you get out of a kobold?

 

[Ath-kethin]

The 2nd Edition summon fiend spell stated that a summoned creature with Average or better intelligence could claim a service from the wizard who summoned it, and refusal or failure to comply meant becoming the creature's slave on its home plane. Of course, it was an 8th level spell that could call in any tanar'ri, baatezu, or yugoloth, so it was a bit farther-reaching than the new ones. But that's the service I was referring to.

Before we get to the kobold: what is the capacity of a blood vial?

 

[TwoSix]

Random thought: The hezrou requires a certain GP amount of food to be satisfied. Which has the weird implication that the hezrou is sort of a gourmand; it would be as satisfied with a few tins of the fantasy equivalent of caviar as it would be with hundreds of pounds of rotten goat meat! That's certainly not the picture I have of a hezrou, although I do like the mental picture of him picking up the wine bottle the caster has presented and checking the label to make sure it's a worthy offering.

 

[Wednesday Boy]

I want to play an abyssal tiefling wild mage so, so very much! (Or swipe Abyssal Arcana and give it to a gnome or halfling.)

 

[MechaTarrasque]

Random thought: The hezrou requires a certain GP amount of food to be satisfied. Which has the weird implication that the hezrou is sort of a gourmand; it would be as satisfied with a few tins of the fantasy equivalent of caviar as it would be with hundreds of pounds of rotten goat meat! That's certainly not the picture I have of a hezrou, although I do like the mental picture of him picking up the wine bottle the caster has presented and checking the label to make sure it's a worthy offering.

Having the herzou bad mouth the choice would make it worth it: seriously, I don't care how much the wine cost, you don't serve a red with kobold. Philistine! What a waste of a good 1415 Warlock's Keep Best. [The herzou shudders.] I think I have lost the will to kill.....unless you have some three day old mind flayer brains on you, because this wine would accentuate the bold flavor.

 

[Mephista]

I'm a bit surprised no one brought this up, except Wednesday Boy a bit:

The Infernal Tiefling in the core book is designed pretty much exclusively for the fiend warlock. The Aasimar, which is basically a variant tiefling in all but name, is aimed at clerics. In the SCAG, we have variant rules for flying rogue non-magic type, and rules for a lore-bard tiefling. Its clear to me that the Abyssal Tiefling is designed with the same "one variant for every class!" mindset - Wild Magic Sorcerer in this case. That's probably why all those demon spells are suddenly on the Sorcerer spell list - because that's what the demon-y goodness is aiming for. And it explains why we're seeign so many tiefling variants - we'll probably end up with around 8 or so variants for the majority of classes.

As for the demon summoning spells themselves... I'm actually Not A Fan of the design. This format would probably be fine for a wizard, who could flip through his spellbook and pick whatever summon he wants. But for the Sorcerer (or other classes) that have restriced spells known? Its too much to study - there's no reason for a separate spell for each type. By this format, we'd need new spells every time a new demon came out. I'd rather see all the unique aspects for each demon be contained as part of a giant spell, rather than listed separately.

As for the warlock and conjuring magic... summoner/chain warlocks need help as it is, just like the Beastmaster Ranger does. I'd like to wait and see if they fix that up.

 

[RSIxidor]

As for the demon summoning spells themselves... I'm actually Not A Fan of the design. This format would probably be fine for a wizard, who could flip through his spellbook and pick whatever summon he wants. But for the Sorcerer (or other classes) that have restriced spells known? Its too much to study - there's no reason for a separate spell for each type. By this format, we'd need new spells every time a new demon came out. I'd rather see all the unique aspects for each demon be contained as part of a giant spell, rather than listed separately.

I can agree with this, though I love the specific flavor for the specific types of demons. From a game-play perspective, I'd rather them be more like the existing conjuration spells but the flavor is really cool. I guess I'm torn on that.