I'm putting together a theme for Final Fantasy and I could use some suggestions for how to handle summoning.

For those not initiated, there are two kinds of summoning in FF. The first, which I'll refer to as "calling", summons the monster for one attack, then they vanish again. It's basically like casting a normal spell, but it costs more MP, hits all enemies or all allies, and the spell's power ranges from intermediate to extreme depending on how late in the game you get access to it. For example, Ifrit, an early Fire-based summon, hits each enemy harder than a basic Fire spell but not as hard as its upgraded version, Fira.

The second version, starting with FFX, is what I'm calling "true summoning" -- the party is replaced by the summoned monster, which you gain control of until it runs out of HP, you choose to dismiss it, or it performs its big attack.

At first I'd thought about handling calling by letting the summoner use any magic action, assuming they picked an appropriate summon. So Ifrit would only attack and maybe augment, Carbuncle would only provide defensive actions, and so on. (I was thinking of providing for True Summoning in addition, allowing the PC to call one of their summons to the field once per scene.) But that would break the strong suggestion against letting any one class use all the actions. The PC would have to wait until they had gathered the right summons to handle all situations, sure, but preventing one character from getting overpowered until late in the game isn't the same as creating a balanced character. I'd be willing to make the summoner pay 3 or 4 strain per spell, but again, I'm not sure that's actually balance. I don't want to encourage the PC to just lay out until their do-anything magic can make a pivotal difference.

My second shot was that the summoner could summon one of their creatures per scene, whose personality and powers would sort of define what kind of caster they were for that scene. But I'm not sure how to handle spellcasting in that case. Does the PC have to pay strain costs for the monster's casting? Does the monster use the summoner's skills or their own? Can it only cast spells, or can the monster fight, too? Is the monster a separate entity on the field, or just an option for the summoner? The former seems like it makes the character secondary, a pokemon trainer selecting their combatant from a stable of powerful creatures. The latter doesn't feel much like summoning at all.

So, I'm throwing it out to you guys. Anyone got a clever solution, or a way to limit the summoner that I've overlooked?

A summoned monster that replaces the summoner would be effectively indistinguishable from shapeshifting, so you could use the Shapeshifter and Improved Shapeshifter talents from Realms of Terrinoth (also the Mongrel archetype from the Steampunk chapter of the core book) as a starting point for something akin to "true summoning."

Also, I may be misreading your question, but what's wrong with the Conjure magic action to represent most forms of summoning?

Mainly that summons are powerful magical creatures, so it's not the same as summoning wolves or bears or whatever. Suppose I want to summon Ifrit to drop a flaming boulder on my opponents. He's bigger than a human, so this has to be Grand Summoning. I roll a Hard Summoning skill check and let's say I succeed. So, now, is he just going to throw a fireball every round as long as I maintain the spell, at no cost to me? That doesn't seem fair to the black mage that has to pay for the privilege every round. When I improve my Summoning skill, I can summon him more reliably, but his attacks don't change, so I'm not really getting any additional mileage out of my skill ranks -- just spending less time sitting in the corner trying to succeed at summoning.

My sense is that this ultimately leads to a character that's no fun until they succeed at the spell, then their reward is to sit out the rest of the fight while their pokemon does the fighting.

Attack Calling would definitely just be the Attack Spell, with the Blast quality added and anything else that makes sense.

Any Calling that targets your fellow party members would be the use of Barrier, Augment and Heal, all with the Additional Target effect added.

True Summoning is a bit more difficult, since there isn’t a single controlling player you can’t simply remove all the pc’s and replace them with a single giant summon. Given the fact that true summoning isn’t something that’s used every round it could be best represented by a Heroic Ability. An important element of Heroic Abilities is that they should shine the spotlight on a single character for that time. This gives a reason for the active player to take over the scene briefly.

I was going to make exact same suggestion as @Richardbuxton . The currently existing magic actions already cover what you first described. The special effect is just the player summoning a monster to do it for a brief moment.

Look, I'm not having trouble figuring out how to produce any given spell via Summoning. The trouble is that there are summons who cover just about every type of spell, which as the book discusses, would make the summoner increasingly unbalanced as they acquired summons capable of more actions than any other caster.

Well, Utility is probably out since anything a summoner would do that's not Conjure would be too hefty to qualify, and Dispel still belongs only to Black Magic (Arcana), so I guess I really only need to knock out one type of action to make this comparable in scope to Divine.

Attack is a must, of course. Augment would really hurt to cut because while that's nobody's primary function, it's a really good, flavorful secondary action for many summons. Same goes for Curse. Barrier is a specialty of only a few, but it's absolutely got to be there for the sake of Carbuncle at the very least. Conjure is, of course, a given, and Heal is the primary function of several summons.

Any thoughts on clever ways around this? Or am I just going to have to suck it up and cut Curse?

Anyway, I like the idea of making true summoning a Heroic Ability (or, since this is Final Fantasy, a Limit Break.) I'll pencil that in unless someone has a good idea for using true summoning as the player's round-to-round gameplay. I want to note that in the video games, the caster's level and stats do affect the power of their summons, so there could be some latitude there for adding variables to a summon's stat block. (i.e. ranks equal to the caster's Summoning skill plus or minus one, Wound Threshold equals some value plus successes, etc.) I'm describing it as being able to create a stronger temporary body to contain the summon's power.

I'm don't know a lot about the FF universe, but just to know, there are different kind of magic in the FF universe, like arcana/divine/primal in D&D/Genesys?

These summons, they have any kind of down sides? Consequences? Something that limit the power in some way? Time? Energy?

A similar question to Bellyon, can every single Summoner have the ability to summon every single “Calling” or does each have a limited list? If so then you could control what each gets through various means

Could you limit the number of spells by requiring a player to choose 3 for their character at the start and that’s all they get?

Or each spell uses a specific characteristic with the Summoner skill; eg Attack is any, Augment is Cunning, Barrier is Intellect, Conjure is Presence, Curse is Cunning, Dispel is Intellect, Heal is Willpower. In this way a character can try anything, but they are only good at a couple.

Alternatively could you gate the available options with talents? eg they start with all the basic spells, but they can only use the additional effects of one (of the players choice). Then a Ranked Talent (starting at t2 or t3 probably) allows you to get the additional effects of one more spell per rank.

If you want to summon them for multiple turns to affect the encounter, I would make summons a portion of the Conjure with the grand summon effect, with the summon having its own stat block as a rival or nemesis NPC. They would be generally allied to the summoner (but not always, which can cause some fun), and last only as long as the summoner can sustain them, but the GM would control what they do (with input from the summoner). If that's too powerful, you could increase strain cost to actually cast the spell; apply a 1-2 strain per turn tax on the summoner for every round the summon remains in existence; or simply make them only remain until the end summoner's next turn.

7 hours ago, Bellyon said:

I'm don't know a lot about the FF universe, but just to know, there are different kind of magic in the FF universe, like arcana/divine/primal in D&D/Genesys?

These summons, they have any kind of down sides? Consequences? Something that limit the power in some way? Time? Energy?

Final Fantasy has Black Magic, which is largely similar to Arcane, White Magic, which is Divine, Blue Magic, which means copying monsters' moves, and Summoning. There are a lot of technically magical classes in the games who specialize in particular effects, but for the purposes of this theme I'm lumping them all into Blue Magic.

The downsides of summoning are generally that 1) it's expensive in terms of MP, though you more or less get what you pay for, and 2) you have to acquire the summon, which is generally linked to your progress in the game. The exact method of acquisition varies by game, but for our purposes, I'm saying the character has to "make a deal" with the creature, whether that means defeating it in combat, doing a quest for it, or just finding it in the first place and being pure of heart.

7 hours ago, Richardbuxton said:

A similar question to Bellyon, can every single Summoner have the ability to summon every single “Calling” or does each have a limited list? If so then you could control what each gets through various means

Could you limit the number of spells by requiring a player to choose 3 for their character at the start and that’s all they get?

No, not really. There IS kind of a pokemon angle to the class -- gaining rare and powerful summons is a big deal for them. They generally start with one weak summon like Fat Chocobo or Carbuncle.

7 hours ago, Richardbuxton said:

Or each spell uses a specific characteristic with the Summoner skill; eg Attack is any, Augment is Cunning, Barrier is Intellect, Conjure is Presence, Curse is Cunning, Dispel is Intellect, Heal is Willpower. In this way a character can try anything, but they are only good at a couple.

Hmmm. I'll think about this.

7 hours ago, Richardbuxton said:

Alternatively could you gate the available options with talents? eg they start with all the basic spells, but they can only use the additional effects of one (of the players choice). Then a Ranked Talent (starting at t2 or t3 probably) allows you to get the additional effects of one more spell per rank.

That doesn't solve the problem, it just delays it. Limiting the added effects might be something to look at, though I'm not too sanguine about it since those are often where players can get the most creative.

46 minutes ago, Swordbreaker said:

If you want to summon them for multiple turns to affect the encounter, I would make summons a portion of the Conjure with the grand summon effect, with the summon having its own stat block as a rival or nemesis NPC. They would be generally allied to the summoner (but not always, which can cause some fun), and last only as long as the summoner can sustain them, but the GM would control what they do (with input from the summoner). If that's too powerful, you could increase strain cost to actually cast the spell; apply a 1-2 strain per turn tax on the summoner for every round the summon remains in existence; or simply make them only remain until the end summoner's next turn.

I'm going to categorically reject the idea of taking control out of the player's hands. This is the core of their character, and if their character has to sustain the spell, they're not going to have a lot of input in the encounter other than what their big awesome summon does and the rolls they make for it. I'm already giving the GM a veto on the summon's behavior -- i.e. Ifrit wants to fight, and he's really not going to stop and protect people -- but the player should be ultimately be in command within those strictures.

The creatures could be made in a similar way to Runes too. Essentially every one of them is a specific spell tied up in an item that’s gained through gameplay. So you could create a bunch of creatures that are represented like equipment. To use a creature requires you to “call” it using a manoeuvre, as if you upholstered the weapon. You can only have one creature called at a time, so to swap requires two manoeuvres (possibility for a talent there to reduce it to one).

An individual creature would then allow a single spell to be cast, perhaps with the Additional Target effect added for free, or Blast. It could also have a unique special ability that’s activated just like a Rune.

In this way a character could eventually have enough creatures to cast all the spells, but they can only cast a single spell at any one time.

21 minutes ago, TheLonelySandPerson said:

I'm going to categorically reject the idea of taking control out of the player's hands. This is the core of their character, and if their character has to sustain the spell, they're not going to have a lot of input in the encounter other than what their big awesome summon does and the rolls they make for it. I'm already giving the GM a veto on the summon's behavior -- i.e. Ifrit wants to fight, and he's really not going to stop and protect people -- but the player should be ultimately be in command within those strictures.

I mean, it's not a given that it takes control out of the player's hand. It more or less does exactly what you describe: the summoner indicates what the summon does, and the GM can rule if that's acceptable or not.

First, while the Conjure spell does talk about the creature not being controlled by the caster, there is the "Summon Ally" effect that does allow the caster to give it orders. Second, Genesys' spells are written to be flexible and generalized for a wide range of games, not just Final Fantasy; I don't think there's a group out there that hasn't tweaked the spells in some way, so tossing out the caveat about summoned creatures not following commands won't break the game, cause the book to catch fire, or the cause FFGBI to break your door down and arrest you. Making a few tweaks to the spell description would totally work fine.

Look at it from a lore aspect as well. Most summons in the series, even the ones that are glorified attack spells, are individual beings who lend their power to the character who summons them. In FFX, when you could first directly control summons, Yuna is not shown barking orders or possessing her summons, but asking for their help (notable with Yojimbo, who only responded to being paid money and has an AI based around how much he got); player characters in Genesys are Yuna, not the player behind the controls. In FF14, one character trains to summon a Carbuncle and can't control it at all, so depending on the game, it's not an assured thing that summone

So, assuming the summons take the form of an NPC, that doesn't mean the summoner just stands there like a coat rack. They still can spend maneuvers to direct their summon, as the book already lays out; they still can be attacked by enemies (presuming defeated summoner = dispelled summon), and thus may have to act to defend themselves; they can cast other spells or take other actions in the encounter (presumably, this is something most summoners like Rydia and Yuna would be able to do, and is something that can be done in FF14 at least). You could even introduce a bevy of talents that give the character's multiple options during the course of an encounter, such as one that allows the summoner to transfer their strain over to their summon or similar.

For the single attack/function, I see these as more just thematic flavor to spells and not need of any special rules. You just may want to create a list of the visuals for specific effects to help jog memory when casting. You could put in gates for learning the specific ones or needing materia to cast as a component but beyond that nothing much.

These Summons, they can die in combat?

Create these summons as creatures, like nemesis. It's easy to create the powers and attacks as a monster. It's not a problem to create an ability to a creture that looks like a power from a specific magic domain, i.e. a creature created by Arcane magic conjuring something of protection or healing. Could be not the usual, but let's assume a Summon should be a powerful creature.

I'd crate the spell like a summoning as well, but demanding something like a heavy amount of Strain to cast (which could be reduced or divided by who help to cast the summon) AND a story point.

14 hours ago, Swordbreaker said:

So, assuming the summons take the form of an NPC, that doesn't mean the summoner just stands there like a coat rack. They still can spend maneuvers to direct their summon, as the book already lays out; they still can be attacked by enemies (presuming defeated summoner = dispelled summon), and thus may have to act to defend themselves; they can cast other spells or take other actions in the encounter (presumably, this is something most summoners like Rydia and Yuna would be able to do, and is something that can be done in FF14 at least). You could even introduce a bevy of talents that give the character's multiple options during the course of an encounter, such as one that allows the summoner to transfer their strain over to their summon or similar.

Well, I didn't think they did, per se, but one maneuver to sustain the spell and one to call the shots doesn't leave them much to do other than hold coats. At any rate, I'm setting true summoning aside as a limit break, so it doesn't need to be sustained and only vaguely balanced. (And, to be fair, Yuna really does just kinda stand there.)

11 hours ago, Doomgrin75 said:

For the single attack/function, I see these as more just thematic flavor to spells and not need of any special rules. You just may want to create a list of the visuals for specific effects to help jog memory when casting. You could put in gates for learning the specific ones or needing materia to cast as a component but beyond that nothing much.

Oh, of course! If only I'd discussed that and presented the issues with it in my first post!

Okay, sorry for the sarcasm, but I've been pondering this for a couple weeks already and all the easy solutions have issues. I didn't just run with that concept due to the difficulty in limiting the available effects when there's a dozen summons to be gathered and that's just the basic ones that appear in multiple games. (I'm fully anticipating GMs adding their own favorites to the list.)

28 minutes ago, Bellyon said:

These Summons, they can die in combat?

Create these summons as creatures, like nemesis. It's easy to create the powers and attacks as a monster. It's not a problem to create an ability to a creture that looks like a power from a specific magic domain, i.e. a creature created by Arcane magic conjuring something of protection or healing. Could be not the usual, but let's assume a Summon should be a powerful creature.

I'd crate the spell like a summoning as well, but demanding something like a heavy amount of Strain to cast (which could be reduced or divided by who help to cast the summon) AND a story point.

"Die" may be a strong word, but they can exceed their wound threshold and unsummon, yes. Nemeses would be far too strong for an already strong concept, though. They're weak-to-strong rivals for certain.

Compared to, say, a druid summoning animals, the skills available to FF summons are extremely broad. I'm shying away from this concept mostly because it seems like it again turns the summoner into a multitool who always has a summon on tap that can do almost anything at least as well as anyone else on the team. This is why I'm eager to shuffle true summoning off into a limit break -- even if it outshines another player, it's only once per session.

What did you think of the idea of the summoners creatures being treated like magic implements? Where the implement provides the spell action, so without a called animal the Summoner has no spell they can cast.

2 minutes ago, Richardbuxton said:

What did you think of the idea of the summoners creatures being treated like magic implements? Where the implement provides the spell action, so without a called animal the Summoner has no spell they can cast.

I think it leaves the same question as the original version -- what keeps the summoner from becoming supermage once they collect a summon for each spell type?

1 minute ago, TheLonelySandPerson said:

I think it leaves the same question as the original version -- what keeps the summoner from becoming supermage once they collect a summon for each spell type?

What limits exist in the game? What stops a FF character from becoming all powerful with all the creatures?

Im going to guess that swapping between creatures isn’t free, or instant. If it takes 2 manoeuvres or even an action to swap between creatures then there’s significant limits on what a player can achieve.

What about the number of creatures in their stable, is that limited too?

Just now, Richardbuxton said:

What limits exist in the game? What stops a FF character from becoming all powerful with all the creatures?

Im going to guess that swapping between creatures isn’t free, or instant. If it takes 2 manoeuvres or even an action to swap between creatures then there’s significant limits on what a player can achieve.

What about the number of creatures in their stable, is that limited too?

That's a good way to reframe the question. How can I limit an experienced summoner's narrative capabilities without making the summons feel excessively limited? (i.e. "Why can't I ask Titan to hold up the roof?")

The early games provide that limitation by dint of each summon being a fixed spell with fixed effects, which are mostly limited to damage and a few specified status effects.

The later games do it by giving you the choice of having a summon on the field OR your party, but not both, and the summon has 3-4 specified moves it can perform.

FFXIV turns the summoner into a pet class with overall output comparable to the other classes, so I'm prepared to more or less ignore it. Don't get me wrong, it's a good class, but the feel is very different.

Sorry, sent that a little prematurely.

As for your other questions: Taking a couple maneuvers to turn into a different kind of mage isn't exactly a limitation. It still means they can do all the things the other characters can, they just need to take a turn off to switch over.

The number of creatures is limited only by which summons are available in the game. In the later games, each summon can also only "belong" to one character, for what that's worth.

What I’m imagining is that the most basic Attack creature simply provides the Attack Spell for use.

A more powerful Attack creature could add the Blast effect for free, and +2 Damage.

An even more powerful creature could add 1 Range and the Burn effect with +2 Damage.

Then a really powerful creature may add 1 Range, Empowered, then your choice of Blast, Ice or Impact, with +4 Damage.

So why CAN'T I ask Titan to hold up the roof?

You can, it sounds like a narrative use of the creature. I’m not suggesting that they are inanimate objects, just that the mechanical effects can be best emulated by the Magic Implement. You could even give each creature a simple minion stat line for just such occasions.

So Titan May look something like:

Titan

4/2/1/1/2/1. Wounds: 8, Soak: 5.

Titan provides access to the Attack spell for the Summoner. All Attack Spell actions made while Titan is active may use Titans Brawn instead of the characters own Characteristic when building the dice pool. Additionally the Summoner adds the Impact and Range effect for no increase in difficulty, and +2 is added to the Damage of successful Attack Spell actions.

I think you may also be underestimating the limitations of spending 2 manoeuvres to change spells. it requires 2 Strain if you also want to use an action, and would end any spell being maintained by concentration. Additionally you can’t move, so you will be adding the Range additional effect more often, resulting in higher difficulties which is more failures or Threat.