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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Wofano Wotanto" data-source="post: 9419695" data-attributes="member: 7044704">Sentinel Comics' equivalent to a summoner class is the minion-maker archetype, which seems to work nicely IME.  It can be a little swingy if your opposition is too good or too bad at removing brittle targets, but if you're wise about the abilities you take from your power source and your Red zone choices you should be useful even if you struggle to keep a minion in play.  Minion-maker has a quite good ally-Booster ability baked in that can help other PCs as well as their own minions, and if you prioritize other Boost abilities you can be a solid support character without your minions.  Alternately, taking multi-target or persistent Hinders can make it much harder for enemies to remove your summons while also just making it harder for them to do anything well, which is always useful.If you do manage to get multiple minions in play and keep them alive the enemy is going to be feeling it pretty quick.  You can also trade bonuses to customize them from a small menu of upgrades, optimizing them for your current needs and giving you more versatility.  At the same time, minion mechanics are very simple, with most PC summons only able to take  a single type of action chosen when they're created and resolved with a single die, so they don't slow things down even with 3-4 in play (the most I've ever seen at once outside of Red zone abilities).On the flip side, there are multiple ways for villains (who use asymmetrical rules than the heroes) to be summoners, all of which can be pretty potent if the heroes don't make an effort to keep their numbers under control.  Legion villains have trouble coordinating large numbers of minions but have some unique abilities that let them spawn reactively, put out a pair of large minions without needing to roll dice, or just dump a flood of weak minions in exchange for some self-damage.  Overlords get stronger the more minions they have in play, which can be boon or a bane depending on how fast the heroes scrub them off.  Creators combine summoning with another archetype (potentially including Legion or Overlord to double down on the schtick) and are unique in being able to summon the stronger lieutenants, who are much tougher than mere minions but you only get one per action spent calling them in.  Even non-summoner villains are frequently accompanied by minions bought as part of the GM's scene budget, so heroes need to consider how to deal with numerous weak targets - crowd control is an important part of the game's tactics.Champions/Hero System also did a fair job at balancing their pets and summons (at least in 4th edition, which is where I checked out on keeping up with core changes), although they do have more impact on the effectiveness of the hero and take more table time to process their turns in play.Tiny Supers has been mentioned and does a fair job of things.  Their summoners seem to work best around the 5 trait level IME.  At only 3 their minions feel kind of weak to me, and beyond 5 the synergies you can get by assigning powers to the summons gets alarming while the summoner becomes dangerously fragile by comparison, which is a bit swingy.  They might be better off if there was a requirement for the summoner to invest some fraction (say 50%) of their total traits to themselves once they get to 6 traits so they don't wind up in a "Johnny Socko and His Giant Robot" situation over time.  Conjuring up Godzilla every fight and then going to get a drink isn't actually all that much fun.</blockquote>

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