Conjuration - Idea

#1

Hey!

Thanks for taking your time to read this post. I’m looking for some feedback on this wild idea I have.
I’ve been running some ICRPG games as of late, and a player proposed to run an Alfheim campaign himself. Our group has been granted to freedom to create a character we’d like to play. I’ve resorted to the Magic books, but I cannot really find what I’m looking for, therefore I’d like to check with you guys if any of this sounds balanced.

In Skyrim I loved playing around with conjuration. Therefore I’d like to play a character that (ab)uses conjuration and illusions spells. The illusion part is quite easy and can be easily transfered from D&D and sorts. Conjuration is a bit harder.

The main mechanic I was thinking about:

Conjuration is a school of magic thus I’d have to be casting spells (duh) with these mechanical rules in mind:

  • Basic spells have a duration of 1d4 rounds. Augmenting the spell (via HP cost) can raise this duration to 1d6 / 1d8 / … following the rules described in the ICRPG Magic book.
  • Summoned creatures die instantly if they get hit and I will have to choose to either act myself, or to control a summoned creature
  • Damage is determined like any other weapon (conjured weapons deal 1d6 damage)
  • I will be using the Skyrim conjuration spells as inspiration to work with and my current mastery level in conjuration will set which spells I can use (at the GM’s discretion).

Thoughts, ideas?

#2

Killer plan. I don’t know that I would tweak too much. The only piece I might consider is that if the conjugations are not mere illusions, maybe as the character gains milestones, the conjured creatures end up with half a heart and don’t die immediately. And later, a full heart. There’s nothing worse than summoning a dire wolf on your turn and then having it die one or two turns later when the enemies roll and before your cool summoned creature gets a chance to act.

#3

Are you asking ideas for spells or asking ideas on how we would mechanically permit this in our game if we were a GM?

I would rule as a GM that when you conjure something you, as the player, you have to either determine that you are either going to conjure something under your control or conjure something with its own autonomy but with an objective.
When you conjure under your control, it does your bidding but your use your action to give conjuring(s) under your control an action.
When you conjure a conjuring with autonomy, you give it a one-line objective. The GM decides what the conjuring does on its turn and the GM sticks with the one-line objective for the most part.

When you conjure under your control, an additional conjuring is hard. If you lose consciousness, the conjuring(s) dissipate or drop or whatever relates to a conjuring dying. But, you it only takes an action to roll an INT or CHA to add 1d4 to each conjuring under your control.
When you conjure with an objective, it doesn’t drop if you drop. You can’t extend its existence.

Additionally, I would probably put a limit on conjurings, like you can only have (n) number of conjurings under your control where n is your INT or CHA stat, depending on which you use.

That’s what I would do. I know a lot of GM’s aren’t fans of conjuring because it can make the came bloated and time consuming. I wouldn’t let one of my players play a conjurer.

#4

Exactly! The conjured weapons will be “physical” tho. They won’t deal much damage otherwise.

I quite like that progress line you’re suggesting. Adding it to my notebook.

#5

Your answer sums it up quite nicely. I am indeed looking feedback on the mechanics and balance. All the things you mentioned tick the boxes and gives me some things to consider and think about for when my GM approves of this kind of character.

#6

Pets are always difficult, especially if you have 5+ players as you have to consider the number of actions performed in a single round.

but to make pets fun and time efficient, you have to ask yourself why would someone want to summon a creature if it shares an action with the summoner?

If the summoner can choose between casting a firebolt spell for 1d8 damage to a target, or summoning a Flame Atronach that will do 1d8 damage NEXT round and can die before it even gets a chance to do something where is the profit beyond “its cool to summon?”

If the Flame Atronach lived, and you spend your next action to command it to do 1d8 damage to a target you have done 50% less damage than if you were to of just casted firebolt x2 instead (assuming both hit)

The argument could be made, that the Flame Atronach was able to soak up a hit for the summoner, and that is the profit.

But is that why the PC wanted to summon the Flame Atronach? I’d argue they wanted to summon it to make it shoot a ranged magic attack.

So my suggestion would be that when making summons, the summoned creature has to be able to do something the summoner couldn’t do on their own, or at least do it more efficiently.

If the summoner can do 1d8 damage with firebolt then the Flame Atronach should do 2d8 damage as it costed the summoner a whole turn before they could use it, thus if the Flame Atronach can live 2+ turns there is your profit as it becomes more efficient than if the summoner just spammed firebolt for 3+ turns.

if you have a smaller group of players, like 2-4, then you might be able to get away with keeping the Flame Atronach doing 1d8 damage just like the firebolt, but now the Flame Atronach has its own action separate from the summoner. Though id suggest limiting it to just 1 pet at a time.

Now the profit is more upfront.

Summoner uses action to conjure Flame Atronach, then the Flame Atronach can instantly use its action to do 1d8 damage to an enemy. This is now the same is if the summoner just casted firebolt.

next round, the summoner can cast firebolt and the Flame Atronach can also attack making the profit as if the summoner casted firebolt twice in one turn, something they couldn’t normally do.

so guess I’m just saying make sure you find the profit in casting a summon, because your players will be looking for it. Ask yourself “what makes summoning this creature exciting? what is its purpose?”

if the summon is meant to soak up hits, then give it a decent HP pool, and maybe it provides a DEFENSE bonus to allies CLOSE to it or something. Make it different than the Flame Atronach who is the ranged magic attacker.

Happy Gaming!

#8

James, thanks! These are some very good pointers to take into consideration. Limiting the number of summons is what I was considering as well.

Giving summons benefits sounds tempting. I’ll consult with my buddy to check what he thinks is possible within his game.

#9

I think it’s great that you’re design lightens the load on tracking hits and actions. Are you also going to be conjuring temporary items, like inanimate tools, equipment, or weapons?

The other thing would just be to make sure you and the DM think about the limitations to the kinds of things you can summon, and how you’re able to expand that list. I would focus on things that don’t do damage, but can do things you cannot, such as a giant mole that leaves behind passible tunnels, on an air elemental that can pass through locks and open doors.

Hope you have a lot of fun with this character!

#10

Thanks for the feedback! My party anf GM know I like to fool around with wicked concepts and still be of use to the party. At the start I’d probably just focus on 1 weapon I can conjure and probably one or two illusion spells. That eing said, I’d still have to know the spell to conjure something. How I can learn/discover these is up to the GM.

In my own game the GM is playing an alchemist who likes experimenting. At the end of each session I have had him roll some dice to determine if he discovers a new formula and what it does. Maybe he and I can come up with a way to do so for illusions/conjurations.

#11

As usual I’ll Disagree with some of the premise…but depends on goals.

4 rounds is a ton of time.

To keep GM bandwidth low, I’d make it a very flexible power/spell. But it is one effect at a time, and a recast whenever you want the effect to change.

Easy roll if just light and sound/distraction.
Normal roll if item affects yourself or others in a utilitarian way,
hard roll if it does damage.

Then effort is not duration but applicability.
Say a summoned sword, 1d6 effort, every round it’s maintained. Perhaps a similar D8 effort against a single target.
D10 is used for big or forceful illusions. (Single victim hallucinations) as in ripping their own tongues out. Or stuffing rocks in their ears. But I personally would sacrifice the d10 and d 12 possibilities for a weird cover all magical multi tool.

Or the summoned Flame Atronock has to roll to hit to do D8 effort.

In essence,
D4 = auto effort as long as spell is maintained.
D6 = auto effort from a hard roll summon
D8 = no auto effort from normal roll
D10= just a single target self damage spell, hard roll.

Your creativity will settle on a few ready use spells, let those be augmented through advancement.

So what might the D4 spell do?
Add d4 to an Allies attack or effort? Or your own…
(Summon a wasp the size of a large fist to harass a target.) Ally chooses if it helps their attack roll or their damage roll.

Or It might create an illusionary fog against your enemies…you and friends become hard to hit. (Keeping your GM from having to roll a d4 lowering their to hit.)

Soooo, You can only maintain one ilusión or summoned item, but get giant flexibility. You explore creativity within limits, You and GM are not having to roll timers over and over.

#12

I like the kind of character that you want to make! However, I think the fantasy you present here is a tad too bland? It just feel like you can pretty much do anything without a downside? Please correct me if I’m wrong!

My suggestion would be to make it a roguish fantasy: if the enemy is aware that this is only an illusion, you don’t deal more than 1D4 damage to them. Now, you have an incentive to keep your spells for yourself, especially around other wizards that could detect your craft, except when you really need it!

What do you think?

#13

This is actually very good advice.
I was planning on 1 conjuration at a time, maybe 2 that could come with mastery.

The easy-normal-hard roll difference is something I like as well. Makes for harder choices on my side and avoiding potentially unbalanced situations.

#14

Good point! We already use the “pay HP to cast spell” mechanic from the magic book (HP cost = spell level x spell power, but we do have level 0 spells to make it less taxing for new players).

I’ll check with my buddy what he thinks works for him as alternate/additional downsides.

#15

You can also check my Burn die idea! 8D