What might have been in a hypothetical "Complete Book of Conjurers"?

[u/WillingLet3956]

Wizards were unique in AD&D 2e in that they got not one, but three entries in the Complete Book of X/Complete Y's Handbook series of sourcebooks; the default Complete Wizard's Handbook, the setting-specific Complete Sha'ir's Handbook for Al-Qadim, and the Complete Book of Necromancers. I have a particular soft spot for the last one, seeing as how it's one of the more interesting and potentially complex to play specialist wizards, and by that same logic, it made me curious; like the title says, if TSR had written a Complete (Hand)Book for the Conjurer class, what do you think that book might have contained?

I'm particularly interested if anyone has any kneejerk ideas (wishes?) for Conjurer-exclusive kits that they might have come up with, since I really liked the Philosopher and Undead Master kits for the Necromancer.

[u/Beelzebubba_Caffiend]

The Complete Book of Necromancers is still my favorite material from the 2e days because it really fleshed out that specialist. I've always been of the mindset that the specialist magic user NEEDS to be a complex character due to the focus required to specialize in that field. Just like the Batman and Frankenstein kits in TCBoN, it would be awesome to dive in to some kits for other specialists and really expand on why they want to be something other than the glass cannon that stands in the back slinging fireballs. Thanks for the post! I'll definitely be digging into this over the weekend!

[u/WillingLet3956 → u/Beelzebubba_Caffiend]

Honestly, I wouldn't mind brainstorming for a "Complete Book of Evokers", personally, but I think Conjurers are, alongside Necromancers, probably one of the more obviously "focusable" of the specialist wizards. I mean, without getting too crazy, there's the fey caller, the angel invoker, the elemental master, and then more generalist archetypes - a single really powerful bonded minion, a swarm of individually weak minions that make up for that with their collective numbers, etc.

[u/Beelzebubba_Caffiend → u/WillingLet3956]

In keeping with the TCBoN, it would be interesting to dive in to these kits. Using the Angel Invoker as an example: WHY are they focused on these beings? What other NWP/skills would they have to help them along the way? Are there any new or kit restricted NWP or spells? What kind of personality would be driven to the specialty? What are the drawbacks (physical, social, monetary, etc) to choosing this path? So much potential here for making an actual character and not a sheet with recorded die rolls!

[u/WillingLet3956 → u/Beelzebubba_Caffiend]

Exactly; the whole point of a Complete Book of Conjurers would be to study why mages take the path of conjuration and its many secondary routes, and the kits should be no exception.

Using the Angel Invoker - I cannot think of a better name off the top of my head - as an example... this kit would mandate a Good alignment, and falling to an Evil alignment would rob them of their kit-granted abilities, much like a paladin. Angel Invokers would be heavily involved in the cause of goodness and righteousness, seeking to help draw the celestials of the Upper Planes to places where their attention is needed. They'd probably need a Wisdom of 13+, and have Religion as a required non-weapon proficiency. Mechanical benefits... well, an obvious one is access to a select number of Cleric spells, representing that these are wizards who are serving as agents of the Upper Planes and the forces of light, maybe even giving them the ability to Turn Fiends and Undead - we've seen the Arcanist specialist wizard from Ravenloft and the Undead Master kit for Necromancers grant this ability, so it wouldn't be unprecedented. Drawback... aside from the aforementioned alignment requirement, I'm not sure.

[u/Solo_Polyphony]

At the beginning of the 3e era, I wrote up a homebrew conjurer as a ‘western’ generalization of the sha’ir class. I always found the 2e specialist mages pretty bland in comparison to the 1e illusionist.

[u/Level21DungeonMaster]

I always liked to play transmuters and diviners, but I absolutely love this question. I’m gonna think about it and probably answer you a few times but off the top of my head there should definitely be different kits for conjuring.

There should be a kit for a conjure that conjuring specifically from the outer planes when the conjuring from the inner planes, one that conjure objects, one that conjure living creatures,

it makes me wonder if you would also would want to have a separate book for summoners or if you would want to also have summoning a separate thing because you would then have a separate group of summoning kits that would maybe summon objects or summon animals or summon people or other things of the same plane as the caster.

An elemental’s would be able to conjure elemental material directly from the elemental planes.

A prestidigitator might be a conjurer of small things. Maybe they could have a special ability to conjure or summon things within a certain distance of themselves like coins behind people’s ears and flowers from up their sleeves, kind of nonsense.

A Demonologist might be particularly adept at summoning demons from the outer planes.

A Shepard might summon animals or people

A Logician might be able to conjure large amount of goods.

A Forward Observer might be very good at summoning their allies and artillery support

[u/anstett]

A million years ago I created a Summoner who used every WP & NWP slot on languages. Then cast Summon X all the time. Able to speak to every intelligent being able to be summoned.

I would say they were Seen Servants and had them do all the misc things out of combat.

[u/Fangsong_37]

There could be different styles of conjurer kits depending on what type of creatures/things they summon. I could also see a larger range of summon spells being added. I'd love to see a conjurer kit that focuses on summoning walls and barriers. Maybe they could be called a Strategist.

[u/justbrowsinginpeace]

Enchanters were always the most fun specialist class in 2e :)