Summon 1 big or several small

[Killer Shrike]

This isnt a rules question per se, but more of a rumination.

Working with Summon making a number of spells, and the 1 big problem Im running into is there doesnt seem to be a way to do 1 big creature or several small creatures all in the same spell/power construct. Similarly, theres no reason to ever Summon a creature with less than the Max points per creature, so for example if you wanted to summon 3 Lions and 2 Tigers or some such (with Expanded Group) theres no reason not to have them all be X points where X is the limit of the Summon.

What might be interesting is if there was an adder or advantage that allowed the points available to the Summon to act as a Pool of points instead. So, frex if you had Summon Demon with 500 total points available you could summon 1 500 point Demon or 5 100 point Demons, or 1 250 point Demon and 5 50 point Demons or whatever.

Such an advantage/adder would interact w/ other advantages of course, so if you didnt have Expanded Effect it would be more limited than if you did, if you have Amicable on the Summon then all the creatures are Amicable, etc etc etc.

Just food for thought :)

[Steve Long]

This definitely isn't on topic for the Questions board, so I've moved it.

[Blue]

Only reason I could think (and mind you this is without refering to any rule book, so it's likely I'm a little off), would be if you have "Requires Skill Roll". I would *think* the active points you are using at the time would be less on a smaller summon, and therefore you would have less of a skill roll penalty. Therefore, it would be easier to summon fewer or smaller creatures.

[JmOz]

Actualy he is right. the best way to do what he is talking about would be a VPP or MP that has multiple summons in it, however do to the nature of summons (+5=x2) it would be cheaper to just have the max points and a xX in many cases...

[dugfromthearth]

yeah, doesn't a multipower cover this exact issue?

[Killer Shrike]

Problem is, the Spell System in effect (http://www.killershrike.com/FantasyHERO/GreyHEROContent/Magic.htm) uses a VPP -- thus, no Multipower tricks allowed (Framework within a Framework being illegal).

But really, if you think about it, Summon would IMO be a lot easier to work with if you could get a pool of points to effectively buy creatures with when you use Summon rather than an inflexible X creatures at Y points.

IMO of course, YMMV

[Greatwyrm]

If you want to just make one overall summoning spell, I don't think you'd need to do all that much to it to vary the number and types of creatures summoned.

As JmOz pointed out, you're already losing efficiency. For 400 points you could get two 200 point creatures, doing what you propose. By the book you could use 400 points to get two 395 point creatures. That's already a pretty big hit. If you think it still needs more of a limitation, how about Variable Special Effect ? +1/4, IIRC, and you get Variable Summoning Effect.

As far as Blue's concerns about the RSR, I'd put a +0 limitation of RSR based on max effect on the spell. I'd have to think a spell that can summon just about anything would be pretty difficult to master and use. Modifying a spell powerful enough to summon a dragon so that you get a herd of squirrels instead probably isn't all that easy.

All together, I'd be careful about what classes of creatures are summoned. No using demon summons to get a zillion wolves or skeletons.

[Killer Shrike]

Originally posted by Greatwyrm
If you want to just make one overall summoning spell, I don't think you'd need to do all that much to it to vary the number and types of creatures summoned.

As JmOz pointed out, you're already losing efficiency. For 400 points you could get two 200 point creatures, doing what you propose. By the book you could use 400 points to get two 395 point creatures. That's already a pretty big hit. If you think it still needs more of a limitation, how about Variable Special Effect ? +1/4, IIRC, and you get Variable Summoning Effect.
What I mean is something like this:

Lets say you can Summon 100 point creatures and you can summon x8 of them.

What Im suggesting is some Advantage or Adder whereby you could instead scale the points you have in Summon. In other words, you spent 5 points per doubling and this advantage or adder would allow you to recoup those 5 points per doubling on the fly to recalaim 25 summon points per doubling. In the example case then it would break down like this

8 100 or 4 125 or 2 150 or 1 175 Creature


Im thinking a +1/4 Advantage or a +10 Adder or something along those lines should cover it.

<hr>
As a completely different (but combinable) situation for variation among the point levels of the creatures summoned, Im talking about a different advantage/adder that allows you to shift points around within the number of creatures you can summon. Using the example 8x 100 above:

Lets say you can Summon 8 100 point creatures, but some of the creatures are more powerful than others. Theres no mechanical benefit to summoning say 4 100 point critters and 4 50 point critters -- you might as well summon 8 100 point critters every time.

What if you could instead take say 1 of the creature allocations you have and pay 25 points of it (which works out to 5 Real points) to double the number of creatures at a max point equal to the remainder of that creature slot.

For example, you take 1 of your 8 100 point creature slots. You have 100 points to work with; if you subtract 25 points from this you can have 2 75 point creatures from that slot. If you take 50 points from it you can have 4 50 point creatures from that slot, and if you take 75 points from it you can have 8 25 point creatures.

Lets say you want to summon 6 Biguns and 4 Middluns. With 8 100 point slots you can get 6 100 point Biguns and 4 75 point Middluns.

Im thinking a +1/4 Advantage or a +10 point Adder would probably work here too.

[Greatwyrm]

Okay, now I see a little more of where you're going.

Given that you get more modifications with more summon points, I'd go with a scaling +1/4 rather than a flat adder, for either one.

I'd probably also charge separately for the "more smaller creatures" advantage and the "mixed mob" advantage. A total of +1/2 for both.

[Killer Shrike]

Originally posted by Greatwyrm
Okay, now I see a little more of where you're going.

Given that you get more modifications with more summon points, I'd go with a scaling +1/4 rather than a flat adder, for either one. Id tend towards the Advantage as well, but on the other hand if its an Adder other Advantages like Amicable have a bigger impact on the cost. The Advantage is probably better overall however.


Originally posted by Greatwyrm
I'd probably also charge separately for the "more smaller creatures" advantage and the "mixed mob" advantage. A total of +1/2 for both. Thats the intention -- two different Modifiers usable separately or together

[dugfromthearth]

Oh, wait I remember my brilliant idea.

a group of rabbits isn't 8 rabbits

it is one rabbit with X8 duplication - can't recombine.

it is therefore one creature. That happens to have duplicates of itself.

[Killer Shrike]

Originally posted by dugfromthearth
Oh, wait I remember my brilliant idea.

a group of rabbits isn't 8 rabbits

it is one rabbit with X8 duplication - can't recombine.

it is therefore one creature. That happens to have duplicates of itself.

How do the points work out on that? (Dont have book handy)

[Killer Shrike]

Originally posted by dugfromthearth
Oh, wait I remember my brilliant idea.

a group of rabbits isn't 8 rabbits

it is one rabbit with X8 duplication - can't recombine.

it is therefore one creature. That happens to have duplicates of itself. Dug?

[dugfromthearth]

sorry, by the time I had my book I didn't see this thread.

I will have to check at home.

[dugfromthearth]

okay duplication is 1 per 5pts, then 2x duplicates for +5pts

So suppose we want 50pt creatures.

50pts 1 creature
60pts 2 creatures
65pts 4 creatures
70pts 8 creatures
75pts 16 creatures
80pts 32 creatures

or conversely for 60 pts you can get (in paren is real cost)

1 60 pt creature (60)
2 50 pt creatures (60)
4 45 pt creatures (59)
8 40 pt creatures (58)
16 35 pt creatures (57)
32 30 pt creatures (56)
128 25 pt creatures (60)

summon has the exact same point cost. 1 per 5pts, 2x creatures for +5pts. However you aren't paying full cost for the first one.

So buy 60pts of summoning with the +1/2 advantage animal class, but only 1 creature. Cost 90pts

Then summon a 60 pt creature, or 128 25pt rabbits (which would probably be very tough rabbits).

This seems acceptable. After all the cost to summon 128 rabbits would be 40, since you don't pay full price for the first creature.

[Egyptoid]

old thread, I know. but how does this question get answered nowadays in 6th Edition?

If I have the points laying around to summon 8 x 100 pt Creatures,

can I summon hordes of 10 point ones ?

is there an advantage like that anymore? Var. Summon FX?

[Killer Shrike]

old thread, I know. but how does this question get answered nowadays in 6th Edition?

If I have the points laying around to summon 8 x 100 pt Creatures,

can I summon hordes of 10 point ones ?

is there an advantage like that anymore? Var. Summon FX?

There never was an Advantage or anything official, this was just one of my so-called "bright ideas".

[Sean Waters]

How about a partially limited power with the 'top' part of the summon and the extra creatures adders suibject to 'Lockout'?

Summon 200 point creature, expanded group (very limited - specific demon types) 50 points

PLUS

x16 creatures summoned (20 points) with each 5 point block (x2) built with 'lockout' on 5 points of the summon power.

So you could summon 1x200 points, 2x175 points, 4x150 points, 8x125 points or 16x100 point demons.

The build would look like this:

20 points summon (100 point creature) (expanded class +1/4): 25 points

+20 point summon (+100 point creature) (expanded class +1/4) (LOCKOUT on extra creatures adder -1/2): 17 points

+20 point adders (x16 creatures) (expanded class +1/4) (LOCKOUT on part of summon power -1/2): 17 points

Total: 59 points

This compares to 40 points for a single 200 point demon or 16x100 point demons: what really ups the price is having to buy 'expanded class of summoned demon' to account for all the different types. If you persuaded the GM they were all the same type - just built on the same base with more points(like using 'Summon' at less than full effect) - and so you do not need 'expanded class' then the cost goes down to 46 points. I think that is book legal too, which is a bonus, and avoids frameworks :)

[Nevelon]

How about a partially limited power with the 'top' part of the summon and the extra creatures adders suibject to 'Lockout'?

Summon 200 point creature, expanded group (very limited - specific demon types) 50 points

PLUS

x16 creatures summoned (20 points) with each 5 point block (x2) built with 'lockout' on 5 points of the summon power.

So you could summon 1x200 points, 2x175 points, 4x150 points, 8x125 points or 16x100 point demons.

The build would look like this:

20 points summon (100 point creature) (expanded class +1/4): 25 points

+20 point summon (+100 point creature) (expanded class +1/4) (LOCKOUT on extra creatures adder -1/2): 17 points

+20 point adders (x16 creatures) (expanded class +1/4) (LOCKOUT on part of summon power -1/2): 17 points

Total: 59 points

This compares to 40 points for a single 200 point demon or 16x100 point demons: what really ups the price is having to buy 'expanded class of summoned demon' to account for all the different types. If you persuaded the GM they were all the same type - just built on the same base with more points(like using 'Summon' at less than full effect) - and so you do not need 'expanded class' then the cost goes down to 46 points. I think that is book legal too, which is a bonus, and avoids frameworks :)

(I don't have 6th, or my 5th book handy, so this is just random musing)
Could you also use an aid with the adds adder advantage (possibly with standard affect)? You could use the points to boost the size of the summons OR add x2 multiples. Barring triggers or odd builds it would take longer to cast, but a phase or 2 to tweak your summons is not unreasonable (YMMV depending on your magic system)

[Sean Waters]

(I don't have 6th, or my 5th book handy, so this is just random musing)
Could you also use an aid with the adds adder advantage (possibly with standard affect)? You could use the points to boost the size of the summons OR add x2 multiples. Barring triggers or odd builds it would take longer to cast, but a phase or 2 to tweak your summons is not unreasonable (YMMV depending on your magic system)


Not a bad idea at all - that would mean you could do a quick summon of a single weak creature, or, with more time, you could summon more powerful - or more numerous - creatures. Carry on musing!