Here's a copy of the unfinished product if you want to see it in a coherent form: https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/Bkl_QkcnV
Summoner
The classic Final Fantasy Summoner job is one of my favorites in the series. The idea behind conjuring entities that are far beyond us, and making them do our bidding for a short time, has always been so enthralling. Their attacks are cinematic, often changing the environment, and the cost for their help steep, but worth it.
I have to admit that I've never been satisfied with the FFXIV representation of the Summoner job. Not only are Egis laughably lackluster, but the direction towards Summoners channeling Bahamut is something that clashes with the job's identity, in my opinion. I always saw Summoners as those who would call and command their summons, not channel or "become" them. As such, My take on the Summoner takes the best parts from it's counterpart, while hearkening to the classic iteration of the job.
In my research for this subclass, I looked to see how official resources handled summoners. The Conjuration Wizard focuses more on teleportation than it does summoning; a pity, since it looks like they've stripped Wizards of their summoning prowess from previous editions and gave it to Cleric and Druid. That's when I decided to make Wizard the base class for Summoner, because it would add something interesting to the class; the other option was Warlock, and maybe I'll do Warlock-Summoner in the future, which would focus on the Dreadwyrm Trance aspect of the job. Sorcerer would have made sense if Summoners were like in previous iterations, where you have to come from a family of Summoners to be one; in FFXIV's case, however, this is not the case.
Besides Conjurer Wizard, the other clear summoning subclass is Circle of the Shepherd Druid. I looked at their features and came up with Resilient Summons, Enkindle, and Focused Conjuration; Most of them are altered versions of other features.
Next, I focused on making sure that Summoners felt like they were always progressing on abilities that were summoning related, and I looked at their spell list for this. Their first level spells had Find Familiar, so I made a Carbuncle stat block that they can summon with this spell ( I didn't think it was necessary to make Topaz / Ruby / Emerald versions of the Carbuncle. Maybe another time. ). Because Find Familiar is a conjuration spell, it benefits from Resilient Summon's temporary hit points, helping your Carbuncle familiar become a fighting ally at lower levels. I made the Sustain spell for summoners that want to stand back and support their minions.
For the 2nd level spell slots, wizards don't get any good summoning spells. Clerics on the other hand, have a very cool spell called Spiritual Weapon; it summons a spectral weapon that they can use during their bonus actions. Very straightforward. Inspired by this spell, I made the Summon Egi spell, which works essentially just like Spiritual Weapon. I may not be a fan of Egis, but I do think they're a great stepping stone to summoning the actual primals.
For the 3rd level spell slots, I grabbed Spirit Guardians from the Cleric spell list. This spell can be easily flavored to conjure whatever Primal the Summoner wants to conjure that they don't normally have access to.
For the 4th level spell slots, I yoinked Conjure Minor Elementals from the Druid spell list. It already summons elementals, so all I had to do was make stat blocks for Demi-Primals, since it didn't seem quite like it was time to allow the summoning for actual Primals. I only made Demi versions of Ifrit, Garuda, and Titan, but I'd like to make Demi versions of other primals, but in lower CRs so that they can be used when conjuring multiple allies is preferred.
For the 5th level spell slots, I thought that Conjure Elemental was the perfect summoning spell to base the subclass around. Like Conjure Minor Elementals, it already summons elementals, so repurposing currently existing elementals into Ifrit, Titan and Garuda was easy. In the future, I'd like to make new summons for CRs 6, 7, 8, and 9; This way, Summoners will always have something new to add to their repertoire every time they gain a new spell level.
Conjure Elementals, however, has two big limitations. The first one is that they need an area of fire, air, earth, etc. for the spell to work. For this, I made a magic item that could be used to overcome this limitation easily: The Primal Element Crystal. The other "limitation" is that if the Summoner loses concentration, they also lose control of their summon. I like the idea behind this, because it makes Summoners be respectful and careful of their summoning procedures, but I understand how this could become a bit cumbersome. The Focused Conjuration feature certainly helps, but it doesn't stop the Summoner from losing concentration if they, for example, went unconscious. For this purpose, I made a limited version of Dominate Monster called Aetherpact, which only works for creatures you summoned, which gives Summoners another chance at seizing control from their summoned monsters.
For the 14th level feature, Swift Summons, I thought it would be cool if Summoners could use their more powerful summoning spells during battle. I took a page from the Evoker Wizard's Overchannel feature, and allowed Summoners to use this ability multiple times per day, at the cost of gaining exhaustion. I might change it to deal damage instead, if exhaustion isn't enough of a penalty.
Even though I think most of the subclass's features are solid, there is still a lot of work that can be done. More Primals and Demi-Primals can be made. Summoning the Warring Triad, Phoenix or even Bahamut is possible with the framework made in this subclass, the only thing that's necessary is stat blocks for each. I could also make variant rulings in case DMs want to use the Primal stat blocks for actual primal boss battles. It's all very exciting.
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