...I found an article I wrote up for Digital Hero (It had not been approved, so I figured it would have to be re-written). Well for one reason or another I never heard back about it, so I thought I would present it to you all
Summons under the Magnifying glass
The power Summons is one of the most useful, and underappreciated powers in the system. Part of the problem is that people overlook it, thinking it should be the domain of wizards and Super-Mages, while technological based heroes have no use for it. This article will look at a few uses for this wonderful power, offer some advice on when to and not to use it, and close with a few house rules that might be useful.
So what does summons do? Put simply it allows the player to bring into play another character sheet that the player does not have direct control over. Note that nothing says this character has to be human, or even a playable character, it could for instance be a vehicle, a computer or an automation, this is an important point to consider.
A technological based character actually might get more use out of it that a more mystical character. Here is an example, a character with multiple suits of armor buys it as Multiform x8, then he also buys Summon x8 on each of his forms, the summons represents computer controlled versions of his other suits coming to his assistance
Summons is a great way to make missiles or sub vehicles for a vehicle. It can represent smaller crafts, such as shuttlecrafts or fighters, Weapon systems, or probes. Most of these should be bought on charges. When designing support vehicles the Recoverable form of charges should be used (recovered by the support ship docking), if you wish for some more detail you can have the maximum number summoned refer to how many ships can be launched at a given time. Furthermore you can use the x2/+5 equipment rule to create additional hangers or missile bays on the ship. When designing ships this way it may be appropriate to use the Expanded Class advantage at the +¼ level, to represent different types of ships or missiles. It may be appropriate to take a limitation to represent that the ships can not change until appropriate times.
EX.
The Flagship of the Confederacy, the UCS Thunderbolt is equipped with eight hanger bays, (1 aft, 3 port, 3 starboard, and 1 stern), each hanger bay can hold 12 ships of various makes, but launch only 4 at a time. The power would be bought as follows:
Shuttle Bays: Summon 4 250 point vehicles, 12 charges, recoverable (+¼) Expanded Class: Small Ships (+¼); Only vehicles in Hanger Bays (-¼), Amicable (+1) 150 Active points, 120 Real Points
When used for a missile all you need to do is create a vehicle that has high movement, a limited computer to control it. Often a Move Through will do for a missile, but a exploding HKA to go along with it can be devastating. By using the Expanded class you can device a number of unique missiles, such as a hunter killer that has various sensors, to a maximum yield that trades in fancy sensors for explosive powers. Your missile will also need a way to lock in on a target, radar being the norm, a radio or mind link power can also be helpful to send a kill command, or to order it to change targets.
Summons is also a way to make Energy attacks that continue to “track” a target , while similar to a missile attack above, there are a couple of important differences, first is scale, normally the blast should have some DCV bonuses to represent how hard it is to hit, further more a Damage Shield is all but required.
Other ways you can use this power is to create Energy Duplicates for your energy projector, Robotic aids for your gadgetteer, or with the right limitations it can represent your heroes fan club coming to help him when he needs it.
Summons also has some special modifiers that we will now take a closer look at. First is the Expanded class, at the +¼ level this advantage is great for representing having a wide variety of things you can summon, from robots your character has invented to support crafts. This is probably the most useful level, as it lends itself to a majority of the F/X’s. At the +½ level this power starts to become more mystical in nature, allowing for the summoning of any animal species or of any certain type of being.
Specific Being: A stop sign IN a stop sign power…think this might be able to be abused? Having said that, this is a advantage I had a hard time coming to grips with, when should it and should it not be used? It made no sense to me that a gadgeteer had to pay more for only having one robot he could summon, instead of having ten sitting at home waiting on the call. Finally I realized that this advantage should only be used when there is some intrinsic value to being able to summon a specific being. If you can summon any house cat (so you can summon Shadow, a normal house cat), this is probably not advantageous so should not be required, but if you can summon someone who will have specific knowledge, or special abilities, then this advantage is appropriate (such as a specific politician).
Amicable: A advantage normally used for the more mystical versions of the power, up to the +1, in which many of the alternative forms I have suggested should have.
Weak Willed: similar to Amicable, more often used for the more mystical nature, I recommend requiring this for any form of Animals summons
So when should we use this power and when should we not? Well first don’t try to reinvent the wheel, if all you want is a missile that will shoot forward and hit a target and go BOOM, use a RKA or EB (probably with Explosion). If you want a swarm of bees that you keep in your belt to attack someone, that is most likely a Continuous/Uncontrolled attack. Summons is very powerful, as such it can be abused, make sure the F/X truly justifies its use.
Now we come to the use of Duplication, one of the hardest parts of using summons is determining if it is a summons or a duplication. The single cleanest definition is what happens when the other goes away, if it recombines with the character and they share damage then it is a duplication, if the disappearance of the other does not affect the main character then it should be bought as a summons.
Now for some House rules, be warned that any thing that follows is not official, and should be tested for your campaign before establishing as the norm.
1) If the character has won the ego contest, or if the creature is Amicable, then the Player controls the summoned creature. This saves on the GM, the GM does however have to keep an eye out for abuse, and does have the right to veto anything the player does.
2) Dispelling, a dispel can only stop the summons in the phase End is spent. Depending on the F/X involved a dispel can affect the bond between controller and summoned however. For example if a wizard dispels the bond between a enemy wizard and a demon he has summoned, the demon might go from being amicable to being hostile to the enemy wizard pretty quick.
3) The Summons power can be used to send back anything summoned, all limitations on the power are enforced, as is End requirements (IE a spell with Gestures and Incantations would require gestures and Incantations)
Happy gaming.
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