Sunday, April 26, 2015

The Sorcerer - A Demon Summoner class for AD&D



At Gary Con VII last month, I ran a Stormbringer 1st edition game. I hadn't played Stormbringer in more than 20 years (except for a one-evening playtest before the convention). It was enjoyable to play it again, but playing Stormbringer reminded me why AD&D is my game of choice. I'm not a fan of Stormbringer's attack-then-parry-then-roll-armor mechanic. I'm not a fan of how long it took to make pre-generated Stormbringer characters.

But I like the idea of demon-summoning sorcerers as the primary source of magic in the game world. (No clerics!) I like the idea of bargaining with demons and elemental lords for favors. I like the idea of binding fiery elementals or angry demons into your longsword, then cutting down your enemies. And I like the idea that you might get betrayed by the demon you just made a pact with.

... so I made THE SORCERER. It's a class for use with AD&D that summons elementals & demons and tries to force them into servitude. It's a 24 page digest-size pdf, and includes the Sorcerer class description, guidelines for summoning & binding, stats for minor elementals, details on the six demon types (Destruction, Suffering, Creation, Insanity, Ideas, and Shifting), random demon generation guidelines, and some brief suggested house rules to make AD&D feel a little more like the Michael Moorcock inspirational material. THE SORCERER should also work just fine with Swords & Wizardry, B/X D&D, Original D&D, or any of the other usual suspects.

Ian Baggley illustrated the cover beautifully. Right now it has no interior art. I'll commission interior art later; the rectangles in the pdf are artwork placeholders. But first I need to playtest it.

If you run this, I'd love to hear your feedback!

3 comments:

  1. I'm gonna be testing this soon but I'm trying to see if anyone else has tested it yet.

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  2. I'm gonna be testing this soon but I'm trying to see if anyone else has tested it yet.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I tested it a few weeks ago, in a party with some of the more specialized AD&D classes (a paladin and a druid) using one of the Gabor Lux modules (The House of Rogat Demazien). The sorcerer was 3rd level, and could summon earth and water elementals; he started with five bound elementals, and overall it was _really_ powerful. Not saying _too_ powerful, necessarily, but really powerful. Even with just 30 rounds of service total, those elementals were combat powerhouses, on top of the other things they were able to do.

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