Summon Magic Item

[Aversill]

How?  How do you build a power where you summon magic items out of thin air?  Transform?  And if Transform, how do you figure out how many active points you can summon (get out of thin air)?  Do you need skills to make that happen?  I feel like the answer to this is the spell summon, but clearly that has nothing to do with summoning things and not monsters.  Any ideas?

[bigbywolfe]

Can you be disarmed?  If you are disarmed can you simply re-summon the item?  If you can always summon any item in your repertoire than "summoning" the item is just SFX for being able to use that particular Power.

If you define how you see "summon[ing] magic items out of thin air" working in normal language we can tell you how to build it.

[Aversill]

The power I'm trying to emulate is Drawmij's Instant Summons from 1st edition AD and D.

 

Disarmed? Not understanding the point of that question.  Bigbywolf, you are writing as if summon will work on inanimate objects like swords, I saw that it would work on vehicles and things that are built as characters, essentially, but I didn't see anything about summoning things that were pretty much single line powers.  Did I miss that part?  Transform talks about making magic items out of thin air but gives no indication as to how to do it except that it requires a skill (and presumably a skill roll).

 

I say, bring to my hand Excalibur.  Excalibur comes to my hand?  It doesn't have to be my sword and I don't have to have seen it before or anything like that. 

 

Maybe, I'm overthinking this.  Power pool, define power, the sword showing up is just the special effect, but given that the spell can summon Anything to your hand, it doesn't seem like special effects will handle it except for power pools that approach cosmic.

[BhelliomRahl]

This seems like an especially powerful ability.  If you can summon anything that comes to mind, I would consider using a Variable Power Pool.  This would allow you to create any items you wanted.

[NuSoardGraphite]

You can use the Summon power to summon a "creature" built on th Artificial Intelligence rules.  Then build the Item using the Artificial Intelligence rules, and the powers of the item that the summoner can use should be built with the Usable by Others advantage.  Just make sure you build the Summon with the "slavishly loyal" advantage or the item you summon might refuse to work with you!

[Lucius]

 

Okay, I went and looked it up online.

Apparently, no, you can't for example summon Excalibur - unless you have Excalibur in your possession already. You have to complete most of the incantation with the item you intend to summon and a valuable gem. The gem is inscribed magically with the name you have given the item. At some later point you crush the gem, speak the last word of the incantation (probably the item's name, actually) and it comes to you - as long as it is NOT at that moment in the possession of any other being.

 

Maybe a Naked Trigger?

 

Teleportation, Usable as Attack?

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palinromedary drinks Drawmij's Instant Coffee

[bigbywolfe]

How?  How do you build a power where you summon magic items out of thin air?  Transform?  And if Transform, how do you figure out how many active points you can summon (get out of thin air)?  Do you need skills to make that happen?  I feel like the answer to this is the spell summon, but clearly that has nothing to do with summoning things and not monsters.  Any ideas?

 

 

Can you be disarmed?  If you are disarmed can you simply re-summon the item?  If you can always summon any item in your repertoire than "summoning" the item is just SFX for being able to use that particular Power.

 

If you define how you see "summon[ing] magic items out of thin air" working in normal language we can tell you how to build it.

 

 

The power I'm trying to emulate is Drawmij's Instant Summons from 1st edition AD and D.

 

Disarmed? Not understanding the point of that question.  Bigbywolf, you are writing as if summon will work on inanimate objects like swords, I saw that it would work on vehicles and things that are built as characters, essentially, but I didn't see anything about summoning things that were pretty much single line powers.  Did I miss that part?  Transform talks about making magic items out of thin air but gives no indication as to how to do it except that it requires a skill (and presumably a skill roll).

 

I say, bring to my hand Excalibur.  Excalibur comes to my hand?  It doesn't have to be my sword and I don't have to have seen it before or anything like that. 

 

Maybe, I'm overthinking this.  Power pool, define power, the sword showing up is just the special effect, but given that the spell can summon Anything to your hand, it doesn't seem like special effects will handle it except for power pools that approach cosmic.

 

You said summon a magic item.  Most people can be disarmed of the items they are holding.  If they can't be Disarmed or can instantly re-summon the item to their hand than it generally isn't a Foci in Hero System and you may not have to build a power to summon it at all, you just have the Power with the SFX of "I summoned item X".   I'm not really sure why that would confuse you.  I asked you to explain how you saw the power working.  I don't know why that request would confuse you.

 

Also, I never mentioned the Hero System Summon Power, I mentioned "summoning" only in the context that you used the word yourself so why are you acting like I'm talking about Summoning an item with the Summon Power when it was never mentioned?

 

 

 

Maybe, I'm overthinking this.  Power pool, define power, the sword showing up is just the special effect, but given that the spell can summon Anything to your hand, it doesn't seem like special effects will handle it except for power pools that approach cosmic.

You are not overthinking anything.  Of course being able to summon literally anything you can possibly think of would be a VPP.  What else could it possibly be?  

[IndianaJoe3]

The spell doesn't summon any thing. It summons one particular thing, designated when the spell is cast. You're effectively buying off the Focus Limitation on that object. Or, more accurately, replacing it with a different Focus (the gem).

 

Drawmij's Instant Summons:  Remove Focus Limitation from any power of up to 60 AP, Delayed Effect (+1/4), Reduced Endurance (0 END; +1/2) (52 Active Points); OAF Expendable (Difficult to obtain new Focus; -1 1/4), Incantations (-1/4) (21 real points)

[bigbywolfe]

And that's why I asked what the spell was supposed to do.  He said it could summon "Anything" to your hand.  He didn't say "any one item chosen when you make the spell".  There's a pretty big difference.

[NuSoardGraphite]

Extra dimensional movement, useable on others, only to store and remove items from extradimensional storage.

[Christopher]

This is the spell as written in D&D 3.5:

http://dndtools.eu/spells/players-handbook-v35--6/drawmijs-instant-summons--2389/

And this is how the required Arkane Mark is wirtten:

http://dndtools.eu/spells/players-handbook-v35--6/arcane-mark--2898/

 

It has a weight limit of 10 lb (or about 4.5 KG) and a size limit of 1.8 meters.

A Longsword per Wikipedia weights 1.1 too 1.8 KG and as a lengh of up to 130 cm, so it would fall into the limits.

 

Drawmij's Instant Summons:  Remove Focus Limitation from any power of up to 60 AP, Delayed Effect (+1/4), Reduced Endurance (0 END; +1/2) (52 Active Points); OAF Expendable (Difficult to obtain new Focus; -1 1/4), Incantations (-1/4) (21 real points)

The thing is that buying off Limitations (as per APG I) must be done for one Specific Power. There are no rules for "buying of limitations of a group of related powers". You asumed stuff about the Magic System with Delayed Effect and 0 END.

But still gave me this idea:

Drawmij's Instant Summons: Remove up to -1 worth of Focus Limitation from any power of up to 60 AP, 30 Base Points; 30 Active Points; OAF (Difficult to obtain new Focus; -1 1/4), Item must be marked with Arcane Mark (-1/4), Size and Weight Limit (-1/4).

Note: Not certain of the Arkane Mark and Weight/Size limit are really only worth -1/4 here. Also magic weapons tend to have a lot more AP then just 60.

 

And that's why I asked what the spell was supposed to do.  He said it could summon "Anything" to your hand.  He didn't say "any one item chosen when you make the spell".  There's a pretty big difference.

He forgot to clearly mention it in his first post, but his second post clarified that he wanted to replicate a D&D Spell and wich spell.

He is a new member and communication mishaps tend to happen.

[bigbywolfe]

Which is why I asked for clarification...

[Aversill]

It feels like all the spell is really doing is replacing a lost focus.

 

Double Millennial Master, you seem to have a pretty good solution, but assuming that you're 'giving' extra dimensional movement to the object, wouldn't you first have to target the object to get the object to jump to you?  Even if you gave it a trigger, say "when I say 'Shazam,'" the object would still have to "hear" the triggering word?  Is that right?

 

I'm hoping to make a complete translation of the first edition AD&D spells but I'm starting to think that some spells just aren't going to translate very well.

[Christopher]

It feels like all the spell is really doing is replacing a lost focus.

 

Double Millennial Master, you seem to have a pretty good solution, but assuming that you're 'giving' extra dimensional movement to the object, wouldn't you first have to target the object to get the object to jump to you?  Even if you gave it a trigger, say "when I say 'Shazam,'" the object would still have to "hear" the triggering word?  Is that right?

It is not replacing a Lost Focus. It is temporarily removing that you had a Limitation (especially the part where it could be lost/disarmed) on it in the first place.

EDM is not that good an idea actually, as the item stays in the same Dimension. Teleport might be a better approach.

 

The other thing is that you aren't really placing the spell on the item beforehand. You only place a Arcane Mark on it wich is really just a Illusion to Sight and/or Magic Senses.

 

I'm hoping to make a complete translation of the first edition AD&D spells but I'm starting to think that some spells just aren't going to translate very well.

D&D is odd to translate. Because what people see as it's biggest strenghts are also it's worst limitations/mistakes.

I see some ways to do it, but it ties into how Arcane Mark is written up/works.

 

Let's tackle one Prolem at a time and just solve the "Telport something from beyond your Sight range to you". Champions 6E has a writeup for a Superhero Space Base similar to the Justice League one, inlcuding a Teleporter Multipower:

72  Team Teleporter: Multipower, 217-point reserve all OAF Immobile (-2)

3f  1) Teleport Away From Base: Teleportation 10m, x16 Increased Mass, MegaScale (1m = 100,000 km; +2¼); OAF Immobile (-2)

7f  2) Teleport To Base: Teleportation 10m, x16 Increased Mass, MegaScale (1m = 100,000 km; +2¼), Usable As Attack (+1¼), Ranged (+½), MegaRange (1m =

100,000 km; +2¼); OAF Immobile (-2)

 

12  Teleporter Synchronizer: Detect Precise Location To Teleport To/From (Radio Group), Discriminatory, Analyze, MegaRange (1m = 100,000 km; +2¼); OAF Immobile (-2), Costs Endurance (-½)

 

 

A tracking bug in the same book is written up like the Light or Megaphone variants of Illusion:

"Homing Tracer: Images to Radio Group, +4 to PER Rolls, Area Of Effect (64m radius; +1¼), Usable As Attack (allows character to “stick” the Image to a target; +1¼), Range Based On STR (+¼), 1 Continuing Recoverable Charge lasting 1 Week (stops functioning if it gets wet or experiences severe radio interference; +1) (57 Active

Points);

IAF (-½), Set Effect (detectable signal; -1), Image Only Perceivable On Special Radio Frequencies (-0). Total cost: 23 points."

 

 

So either your writeup of your instant Summon needs a Global Range Detect (for your Arcane Marks) or the Arcane Mark works like a Global Range Tracking Bug targetting a small Detect that is part of the Summoning Spell.

[Lucius]

I can't help thinking that this "arcane mark" is somehow like a Floating Location....

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary chews on that

[Markdoc]

It's just a special effect to indicate the object that you have tagged.

 

cheers, Mark

[Christopher]

It's just a special effect to indicate the object that you have tagged.

 

cheers, Mark

Not, it is not.

 

Arcane Mark is a 1st Level Spell.

The summon is a 5th Level Spell.

You can place a Mark on level 1, then rereive the item after you leveled up enough to learn the Summon. Without even having to look at the item in between.

Also you can tag infinitely many items with the Arcana Mark, something trigger cannot deal with.

[Markdoc]

You're making the mistake of treating the description literally. Yes, Arcane mark is a spell. But it has nothing to do with Instant summons, apart from the fact that it is mentioned in the fluff text. That's a pretty good definition of a special effect.

 

Here's the spell description: First, you must place your arcane mark on the item. Then you cast this spell, which magically and invisibly inscribes the name of the item on a sapphire worth at least 1,000 gp. Thereafter, you can summon the item by speaking a special word (set by you when the spell is cast) and crushing the gem. The item appears instantly in your hand. Only you can use the gem in this way.

 

Now I know what arcane mark does. Yeah, you can arcane mark lots of things. For the purposes of this spell that is utterly irrelevant: you can't summon them. (You've misunderstood here: you can't summon any item you have previously arcane marked: only the one the you marked when you cast instant summons). So you have to put an arcane mark on the item you do summon ... and that's also utterly irrelevant, since you have to have access to the item in the first place. You could replace the words "arcane mark" with the words "fluffy kitten" and it would change absolutely nothing in the way the spell functions or the way it is used in-game. Really? Special effect. It does nothing.

 

The Instant Summons spell does one thing, and one thing only: it lets you prepare an item so that you can later summon it to your hand. You need to be able to speak (incantations) and have a diamond (expensive, IAF, consumed with use). You also need access to the item ahead of time, so I guess we're looking at trigger. What you get is access to an item. In a superhero game, I'd agree, it seems like it allows you to dispense with the focus advantage on a power you already have. In a fantasy game where you may not pay points for equipment, that's a little trickier. I'd be inclined to use Teleport, 1 fixed location (caster's hand: locations can be living creatures), Usable as attack, with a 1 turn prep time (which is the ritual with arcane mark and the gem). You'd also want megascale (+2) to cover the whole planet, and  transdimensional (+1), plus the limitations Only to a fixed location (-1), only a single marked item of x dimensions (-1) and Not if in the possession of another creature (-1/2).

 

You could, if you really wanted, add "Caster must know arcane mark" but that's such a trivial limitation that I would not give any points for it.

 

As built, that has the bug that the spell does not work if you are closer than 1 km to your object: you could add normal teleport of up to 1 km to the spell, but it's getting pretty expensive as is.

 

cheers, Mark

[bigbywolfe]

Megascale can be scaled down to under 1k.

[Markdoc]

Megascale can be scaled down to under 1k.

 

Yeah, I thought about that - but if you drop the minimum, you pay more to get the range you need. I haven't run the numbers, but maybe that would be the cheaper way to do it.

 

cheers, Mark

[Christopher]

You're making the mistake of treating the description literally. Yes, Arcane mark is a spell. But it has nothing to do with Instant summons, apart from the fact that it is mentioned in the fluff text. That's a pretty good definition of a special effect.

 

Here's the spell description: First, you must place your arcane mark on the item. Then you cast this spell, which magically and invisibly inscribes the name of the item on a sapphire worth at least 1,000 gp. Thereafter, you can summon the item by speaking a special word (set by you when the spell is cast) and crushing the gem. The item appears instantly in your hand. Only you can use the gem in this way.

Are you certain it cannot also be read like this:

"First, you must place your arcane mark on the item. [insert several weeks of adventrues wich bring you from Level 1 whatever you need to cast 7th Level Spells and bring several thousand miles between you and the item with the Arcane mark] Then you cast this spell, which magically and invisibly inscribes the name of the item on a sapphire worth at least 1,000 gp. Thereafter, you can summon the item by speaking a special word (set by you when the spell is cast) and crushing the gem. The item appears instantly in your hand. Only you can use the gem in this way."

 

I think it can be read like this.

On the other hand the exact wording of Arcane Mark includes: "Arcane mark must be cast on an object prior to casting Drawmij's instant summons on the same object" wich implies your interpreation is closer.

 

You do have a point that it seems more like the spell is cast on the inscribed Gemstone and sticks to it similar to Delayed Effect/Trigger. Trigger does have an option that allwos setting the Trigger more then once "if the trigger has Charges". Expendable Foci in Heroic games work similar enough to Charges that it could be allowable to cast this Trigger more then once.

[Aversill]

I lose my sword (my focus).  I cast the spell.  I get my sword back.  Spell done.

 

I replace my focus.  That's what the spell does.  Everything else is special effect.

 

Reading through the rules on Focus, there do not seem to be obvious rules about replacing them.  Because of this, it's very difficult to say what rule would make it easier.

[Aversill]

I think the problem with this spell is that it requires an intense working around of the rules to achieve the effect needed, and that the effect really isn't that interesting.  I have since given up on the Instant Summons spell because I think producing it is just Hero-Games-Rules-Practice.  But if it's just an exercise, there are a few answers:

 

The first is that you buy Int, usable on others (possibly as an attack) and you give Intelligence to the object.  Once it has intellegince, you can use mind scan on it (with the Machines Class of Minds) and you can target it with whatever teleport/interdimensional what-have-you you'd like.  It's a ridiculous work-around, but there it is.

 

Alternatively, you could just work through a killing Attack/Summon/Mind Link to destroy the object that you Arcane Mark, summon its robotic duplicate (augmented by the teleport/dimensional travel for it to use in order to come back)/ and then mind link to the object so that when you complete whatever limitations you apply, it will perform its one solitary command of returning back to you.  If, at that point, you think the thing should revert back to normal, you kill it again, and then use transform to pull a new non-robotic one out of thin air (you'd need weaponsmith and probably a pretty high skill related to making magic items).

 

Both answers are ridiculously costly and impractical given that all you want to do is to get your trusty magic sword back from the Abyss.  How much should that cost really?

 

Has anyone ever built Thor (the comic book hero)?  I'm pretty sure he can do this with his hammer.

[Markdoc]

Are you certain it cannot also be read like this:

"First, you must place your arcane mark on the item. [insert several weeks of adventrues wich bring you from Level 1 whatever you need to cast 7th Level Spells and bring several thousand miles between you and the item with the Arcane mark] Then you cast this spell, which magically and invisibly inscribes the name of the item on a sapphire worth at least 1,000 gp. Thereafter, you can summon the item by speaking a special word (set by you when the spell is cast) and crushing the gem. The item appears instantly in your hand. Only you can use the gem in this way."

 

No, I don't think it can be read that way - the use of arcane mark is included in the spell description as a requirement. They could easily have written that you could only summon items that have your arcane mark, or summon any item that had your arcane mark: instead they described the use of the arcane mark together with requirement that you have a gem which then takes up the name of "the item", not "an item". Everything in the way it is written implies that this is a ritual which sets up one item for summoning.

 

And as you note, the 3.5 verson of the same spell was quite explicit about it.

 

cheers, Mark

[bigbywolfe]

You misunderstand. It doesn't effect the cost. As of 6E megascale no longer has the idiotic minimal distance requirement. If you build a power with megascale 1m=1km (or 1,000km) the user can have the megascale be anything from 1m=1m to 1m=whatever the max distance of the Advantage.