The Summoner Open Playtest Starts Here
Added 2025-08-22 19:13:43 +0000 UTCMy power is yours, and yours, mine. I summon thee!
High Summoner Willy here. Now that Draw Steel's been out for a few weeks now, we're ready to spin up an open playtest for the 10th heroic classβThe Summoner.
We've been tinkering and polishing this class for a hhhhot minute and it's nearly ready to come forth. But The Summoner features plenty more than ten levels, four subclasses, and over fifty minions at your command... non non non that's not enough for us! You can enlist a summoner retainer, or butt heads with a summoner rival across multiple levels of adventure, too. You also get access to eleven new treasures and four titles, even if you can't hide behind 400 skeletons!
Now the summoner class itself may be tricky to wrap your head around if this is your first time playing Draw Steel. It's probably tricky if this is your tenth time playing Draw Steel! The summoner is a master class that changes a lot of the rules standard heroes play by, and it assumes you know those rules before it starts breaking them. We recommend you check out the Delian Tomb and playing one of the core classes before diving into this playtest.
You'll find the PDF attached to the post below. You'll find the playtest survey linked here!
https://forms.gle/KyrsHHgrMM4SMqka7
If you want to give us feedback, please fill out the survey by Monday, September 8th at 8AM Eastern US. Need people to play with and try out stuff from the packet? Head over to the MCDM Discord server and swing by the ds_lfg channelβwe've got a really cool community on Discord if you haven't heard about it!
And thank you for checking out The Summoner playtest! The ritual is nearly complete π€
Comments
Its very very VERY fun to gm for though, it needs some balance tweaks damage can get very very high currently. Compared to other classes at level
Cowbob1200
2025-08-24 04:12:47 +0000 UTCItβs really fun for one of my players, and a lot of the others want to play one too. The Summoner is starting to deal about half the damage in 4-player sessions though, which I didnβt expect. The reduced Summoner range should help with that a bit, I think.
Hunter Brown
2025-08-23 18:24:03 +0000 UTCHehehehe, I've got two players at my table already fighting over who gets to try this first. Is there anything we should be especially aware of as a director for a summoner? Or any testing data you think directors might be more inclined to notice than the players?
RoombaGladiator
2025-08-23 01:01:23 +0000 UTCOOOOO!!! Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!!! π
Ladd Guillory
2025-08-22 21:05:15 +0000 UTCIt's a cool class that I for sure want to play, but I'm mostly excited for Ash (she got her fairies!).
Hive_Indicator
2025-08-22 20:55:29 +0000 UTCWould it go against Draw Steel design for each of the portfolios to be arranged as their own "chapters"? Say, all Demon Portfolio options sequentially, then Elemental, Fey, Undead. I think you can only summon your own Portfolio and not crossover abilities, the way that abilities are blended in other classes?
NatTwenny
2025-08-22 20:54:49 +0000 UTCDid a summoner rival off the initial release for my group, really interested to see how the official version compares
James White
2025-08-22 20:24:08 +0000 UTCDelightful, I'll try and wrangle some of my players to test this!
Daniel Friedman
2025-08-22 20:07:07 +0000 UTCI literally wake up wishing for the summoner. I'm so ready. Thank you for making this and for how hard you've all worked!!
The Dread Pirate Mittens
2025-08-22 20:05:00 +0000 UTCThis is amazing, I can't wait to dive in! While it'll be awhile before any of my players look at making a new character, all of the other bits are such a pleasant surprise and the rival summoner is exactly what I need for the campaign we're running.
Alan Millard
2025-08-22 19:38:05 +0000 UTCNeat, directly during game night XD
Karmagator
2025-08-22 19:37:33 +0000 UTCJust in time for my weekend playtest!
Jong Hoon LEE
2025-08-22 19:20:46 +0000 UTCWell this certainly made a crappy week better
Nick Enquist
2025-08-22 19:20:21 +0000 UTC
