Dread Elemental Summoning

[Ken14]

Right, this is an idea that's been in my head for a while.

Now, I'm unaware how different  that Dread Elementals are combat-wise in comparison to regular elementals. But I do know that they look pretty badass. Kudos to the one that designed them.

Far as I know, the lore is that it's an corruption of an elemental summoning spell, and when done accidentally, the elemental is free-willed and tries to kill it's creator. That's fairly known.

But....What if it's done on -purpose-? Could a mage then bind it to service? It seems like a cool concept. And a solid incentive to actually take the feat Augment Elemental.

But I hear the nay-sayers : ' Oh, Ken, you want to give the wizards more tools to be overpowered'? Well, I shan't deny I would like them to have a cool new means to be awesome, sure.

However. Dread Elementals are still, y'know. Dread Elementals. No run of the mill mage (even an experienced one) could hope to pull that off successfully.

So, I'd say, you'd need to be -specialized- in Conjuration to actually have a chance.  And probably not all that sane, to be honest.

I'm not gonna eke out details just yet, because the answer to this suggestion may very well be a resolute No. Or a 'this needs to be done through Roleplay, not a restricted class feature', which is just as fair. Might make a Conjurer just to see if it could be done!

Still, though. You're locked out of Transmutation spells if you become a Conjurer. That's in itself a rather radically different way of playing a wizard, as buffing becomes difficult.

It seems like a fair trade-off if a specialist of conjuration could actually pull off controlling something that tends to go bananas when any other mage tries it.

But that's my suggestion. Thoughts?

[MAB77]

In respect to dread elementals. They are conjuring spells gone wrong. Instead of summoning a planar creature, a corrupted creature is created on the spot from the very fabric of the demiplane. Always free-willed with a tortured mind that can rest only once their creator is destroyed. The very idea of willfuĺly summoning and controlling a dread elemental runs contrary to the intent of its existence. That's a power I'd grant only to one that is far down the path of corruption and has failed numerous power checks.

[haifisch021]

From what I can find (according to the Denizens of Darkness pg. 48) Dread Elementals are just constructs (not the creature type) created by the Mists themselves. It is possible to summon a Dread Elemental intentionally, and according to the rulebook, a dread elemental summoned intentionally has the same chance of being free-willed as a normal elemental, so it shouldn't necessarily be a problem to summon them. However, the rulebook also says

(Dread Elementals) despise those who would control them, and if the opportunity arises to betray their masters, they take it.

which could be a bit tricky to properly play out with a DM present. I think that Dread Elementals are pretty neat though (they hate the fact that they are not in their natural state and act as viciously and violently as possible whenever forced to obey a command) and could make for some fun interactions. That said, I'm not sure how they could be implemented. Kudos for the idea though!

[haifisch021]

For sake of clarity, here's an excerpt from Denizens of Darkness** regarding specifically the summoning of dread elementals:

[MAB77]

Interesting. I did indeed miss that part. It's too bad we can't make summoning work like in PnP. An option could then be that a summoned dread elemental turns on his summoner faster than other summons.

[SardineTheAncestor]

We discussed before the idea of a rising concentration DC, where for Dread Elementals it could rise more quickly. This would allow "summoner" characters with a lot of Concentration to keep their summons around for longer but never indefinitely. Is that not possible at all? Can a summon never be taken away from a character and made hostile?

[MAB77]

There is a number of hard-coded issues that just prevent us to have summons that stay and turn hostile properly after control is broken. I also suspect that Beamdog would not have unlocking that very high on their list of priorities. We,d love to do it properly, but at this time it remains impossible.

[Ken14]

Shame we can't, yeah. It'd be neat to do, especially if we can increase the potency of summons. Increased risk versus increased usefulness, that sort of thing.


Just a thought, though: What about a variation on a Summon Spell at those levels you can summon elementals? Like:


Summon Dread Elemental / Summon Greater Dread Elemental / Summon Elder Dread Elemental

Basically : The same as a regular elemental summon spell, only it's always a dread elemental thats called forth, under the caster's control. However, there's a 20% chance you fail and call up a hostile dread elemental -one tier higher- then the spell level used.

Heck, could have an uncontrollable epic-level dread elemental for those mad enough to do so at tier 9 spellery.
 

Which actually gives me an idea for specializations in general, but I'll specify that in another post. 

[EO]

We discussed before the idea of a rising concentration DC, where for Dread Elementals it could rise more quickly. This would allow "summoner" characters with a lot of Concentration to keep their summons around for longer but never indefinitely. Is that not possible at all? Can a summon never be taken away from a character and made hostile?

This is technically feasible but comes with a whole lot of problems. First of all, players would just find ways to unsummon the creatures just before they lost control. Secondly what to do with good summons? They wouldn't just autoattack their summoner. Thirdly this could still be abused by leaving hostile monsters behind.

[SardineTheAncestor]

True, it is a can of worms. The solutions I'd suggest would be the simplest first, because that way iterative expansion can happen, but we get a look at a new layer of difficulty.

I'd say let people unsummon the creatures just before they lost control if they want to; rewarding people for paying attention and preventing a catastrophe seems like good gameplay to me.

Summons who wouldn't turn on their summoner could just drop from the party, so they can't be controlled anymore. After a set time, then they are unsummoned.

Hostile monsters left behind should be unsummoned after a set time too to prevent griefing. I also don't think they should be allowed to leave the area and simply disappear if they try.

[Ken14]

Hmm….Well, I'm not completely sure what's possible, but possible solutions:

First Problem (Unsummon just before unfeasible):

A) Couldn't the concentration check be invisible to players? Sure, you could -guess-, but you'd never know for sure.

B) Make the increase random. Like, you get 1 turn as-is, then every….5 rounds? A concentration check, with each next DC increasing with a 1d10. When in combat, anyway.

Second Problem : (Good Summons wouldn't attack their summoner):

I'm not sure why they -wouldn't- attack the caster. Being summoned into the Demiplane of Dread seems like one of these few things that would universally piss all planar beings off.

Or that we're actually summoning a good planar entity and not some sort of corrupted thing.

Still yeah any good-aligned summons could be made to just turn non-hostile, before despawning. Or just plain despawning. But the DM's should make note when that happens, I'm sure they'll see….potential…..in that. 

Third problem (Leaving hostile beasts behind):

A) Make it so that the summon is ONLY hostile to the caster.

B) For added cruelty ( because the Demiplane just loves that), make it so that the summon can always detect where the caster is, due to the conjuration link. You called it forth to defend you against it's will, YOU get to deal with it.

[SardineTheAncestor]

I like most of those solutions too, but I think the concentration roll should be visible. You would surely know when your control is weakening, and when it's getting risky enough that you have to make a decision. Decisions are important for good gameplay.

I like the idea that the summon is hostile only to the caster, but the issue is, casters are permanently hasted and invisible at a certain level. You'd need to give these summons innate quakesense and permanently haste them so they can keep up with the caster, and lock them out from attacking anyone else, or the caster will just kite them into a group of people and the griefing will commence. I prefer that anyone can be attacked, but it can't leave the area. Then, the situation is just like now, where no one can simply fish for dreads or wait for a regular elemental swarm to go hostile while they're in the outskirts, and "accidentally" lead it into a group of people. It's a PvP action that requires justification, it's very deliberate, something you can't do by mistake.

I think the control ticks should not continue out of combat, though. That would just rush people. Buffs ticking down in soon-to-be-nuclear PvP situations is a different kind of bait and switch that the community will never agree to prevent, even if buffs could be made permanent out of combat just like summons are now, but summons being permanent out of combat like they are right now is not something I'm comfortable with losing.

[Ken14]

Hmm…...Fair points.

I'd say a yellowtext that says 'Your control is weakening….' should be enough. But with a random increase to your DC, I'd say guessing wouldn't be too easy, yes. So either works, The DM's can decide on which method to employ, if they like the idea 

On a sidenote : how about the DC like this :
10+Spell Level+random increase (cumultative 1d10 for regular summons / cumultative 1d20 for purposefully summoned dread Elementals)
VS
(Modified) Concentration

As to prevent  griefing.....Well, that could work, if it can be done that it can't leave the area. Though, I'd also add a possible backlash effect for the caster:

Either :
You get stunned (no way to avoid it) for 1d10 (or 5?) rounds and the entity can see the caster.
Or
Any haste/invisibility is dispelled.

Does that sound fair?

As for the control ticks : bit of a miscommunication! I did mean that the control ticks should ONLY happen during combat.

[SardineTheAncestor]

The backlash might be a bit overkill. Summoners could use all the help they can get and this might end up getting them killed more often than not.

For the control ticks thing, that was just something I wanted to note in general, sorry. That was me creating a miscommunication if anything. The DC for those would probably benefit from just being spell level + a flat amount each tick, and the randomness could just be modified Concentration + D20 to oppose the loss of control, for simplicity's sake and to preserve that effect of not knowing. I had previously posted about having a feat reduce that flat amount per tick and I still think that would be great.

For example, let's say the roll is done each turn and it starts the DC at the spell level. With a +7 each turn, and a Concentration of 20, you'd be guaranteed the first two minutes, but very lucky to get past 4 minutes (4 minutes being 9+28 for Summon IX) -- but it's not impossible. Summoners who build and gear for concentration will see their summons last a bit longer, but there is a new risk. The feat could reduce that amount to +5, so by the time you make it to 5 minutes, your DC is 9+25, and 6 minutes is 9+30, so in other words the feat stands you give you the possibility of 2 extra minutes on your summon.

It might be better to have the roll performed twice per turn, or once per 5 rounds, with the DC being a little lower so it's less spiky with its increases, but if this system can be implemented, it sounds to me like the simplest possible way to do it without cutting out that thrill of not knowing when your summon's going to turn on you.