The Twisted Summoner NPC class

 One of my previous posts, the one with the Summon Chaotic Minion spells, has prompted quite a bit of discussion on the Piazza forum, and I am now rethinking my previous approach. 

Originally my idea was for a new subclass of magic user, the Twisted Summoner, who would specialise in summoning and controlling chaotic monsters. But I changed this idea to simply the series of spells for summoning monsters of increasing power and hit dice as spell level increased. 

Folks on the forum have raised interesting and valid points, and so I am offering the original approach as an alternative: the Twisted Summoner NPC class. 

The Concept

Twisted summoners are the archetypal dungeon building evil wizards. Chaotic wizards are notorious for building underground lairs and filling them with a menagerie of horrible monsters that according to  normal rules of ecology should not be living so close to each other. From Halaster's Undermountain in the Forgotten Realms to Zagyg's Castle Greyhawk and Keraptis' White Plume Mountain in the Flanaess and the legendary Warlock of Firetop Mountain, the twisted summoner takes the idea of a dungeon-building wizard surrounded by monstrous minions and runs with it. 

Twisted Summoners are chaotic magic users who have offered their services to the powers of Chaos in return for dominion over monsters. An NPC magic user may make the bargain with either abstract forces of Chaos or with a specific chaotic entity such as an Immortal of the Sphere of Entropy, or a demon lord, or whatever fits the DM's campaign. This bargain can be made either at 1st level or higher, and this is the point when the magic user becomes a Twisted Summoner. The change is permanent and cannot be undone.  

Despite their chaotic alignment, some twisted summoners do team up and pool their resources. The usual selfishness, greed and untrustworthiness of their alignment is still there but is suppressed (or at least put on hold) while it is in the twisted summoners' own interests to join forces. This is particularly true at low levels where a 1st level summoner with 4 kobold minions may easily succumb to a novice adventuring party or even a patrol of orcs, but 3 x 1st level twisted summoners and 12 kobolds may fend off such enemies. 

The Rules

Twisted Summoners are like normal magic users in many ways - they have d4 hit points per level, make saving throws and attacks as magic users, and use equipment and magic items as magic users. They also draw on the same spell lists as normal magic users and can cast the same number of spells at each spell level per day.  

The major difference between twisted summoners and normal magic users is that twisted summoners can cast the various Summon Chaotic Minion spells and control the summoned creatures. Twisted summoners alone have a pool of effective hit dice they can use to control monsters - other magic users might be able to learn and cast the spell and bring forth the various chaotic creatures but they cannot control them. As first described in the spell description for all these spells a twisted summoner can control up to their level doubled. So a 3rd level twisted summoner can control up to 6 effective hit dice at any one time, such as 2 kobolds (1/2 hd each) + 3 orcs (1 hd each) + 1 gnoll (2 hd). A creature summoned by one of these spells counts towards this total until it is killed or dismissed. When dismissing a summoned minion from his control, the twisted summoner may choose to either send it back to the plane that it was summoned from, or else it stays on the material plane and it simply wanders off. Although released from magical control, it may still come to some arrangement with the summoner.

Twisted Summoner  Level	Hit Dice	Total Effective Hit Dice of controllable monsters	Best Summon Chaotic Minion spell
1	1d4	2	Summon Kobold Minion
2	2d4	4	Summon Kobold Minion
3	3d4	6	Summon Chaotic Minion I
4	4d4	8	Summon Chaotic Minion I
5	5d4	10	Summon Chaotic Minion II
6	6d4	12	Summon Chaotic Minion II
7	7d4	14	Summon Chaotic Minion III
8	8d4	16	Summon Chaotic Minion III
9	9d4	18	Summon Chaotic Minion IV
10	9d4+1	20	Summon Chaotic Minion IV
11	9d4+2	22	Summon Chaotic Minion V
12	9d4+3	24	Summon Chaotic Minion V
13	9d4+4	26	Summon Chaotic Minion V
14	9d4+5	28	Summon Chaotic Minion V
15	9d4+6	30	Summon Chaotic Minion VI
16	9d4+7	32	Summon Chaotic Minion VI
17	9d4+8	34	Summon Chaotic Minion VII
18	9d4+9	36	Summon Chaotic Minion VII
19	9d4+10	38	Summon Chaotic Minion VIII
20	9d4+11	40	Summon Chaotic Minion VIII

The Monsters

Optional increased variety of monsters, listed by effective HD:

Spell	Effective Hit Dice	Possible Monsters
Summon Kobold Minion	1/2	Kobold
Summon Chaotic Minion I	1	goblin hobgoblin orc
Summon Chaotic Minion II	2	gnoll chaotic lizardman chaotic stirge
Summon Chaotic Minion III	3	bugbear gremlin shadow troglodyte
Summon Chaotic Minion IV	4	harpy lycanthrope, wererat ogre chaotic carrion crawler chaotic rhagodessa
Summon Chaotic Minion IV	5	doppelganger gargoyle lycanthrope, werewolf thoul chaotic owlbear
Summon Chaotic Minion V	6	hellhound (4** HD) medusa minotaur chaotic rust monster
Summon Chaotic Minion V	7	manticore troll chaotic rust monster chaotic displacer beast
Summon Chaotic Minion VI	8	giant, hill wyvern chaotic basilisk
Summon Chaotic Minion VI	9	dragon, small black gorgon mujina chaotic fire salamander
Summon Chaotic Minion VII	10	dragon, small green manscorpion chaotic hydra, 9-headed
Summon Chaotic Minion VII	11	chimera devilswine efreeti giant, frost malfera
Summon Chaotic Minion VIII	12	dragon, small red giant, fire chaotic planar spider (10** HD)
Summon Chaotic Minion VIII	13	salamander, frost chaotic hydra, 12-head regenerating

This expanded list of monsters includes some from the Rules Compendium that are not in the Moldvay/Cook B/X rules, as well as chaotic versions of monsters that are normally neutral. As this is an NPC class, the DM can rule out or add monsters as seen fit. The list of monsters still excludes undead and natural animals (whether normal or giant). 

Kobolds are considered the workforce of a twisted summoner's lair, and are capable of mining, setting  traps, simple forms of craftsmanship and construction and gathering food and fuel. They are still cowardly and will fight only if desperate or directly ordered to do so by the twisted summoner.