Summons progressively costing more

[bel]

Not sure if this has been proposed before. Couldn't find anything in archives. These are the issues I have with summons:
1) casting a spell twice is much more effective than casting it once, since most things can only hit one at a time.
2) summon cap is per spell, not overall: in other words, if you run against the imp summon cap, can create more mammals, or canine, or ice beasts or whatever.

Here are my suggestions, rather half-baked and not thought through:
a) For 1, make each subsequent summon cost progressively more MP.
b) Make the cap apply across summons rather than per spell. In other words, if you have 4 mammals, summoning an imp will cause the oldest mammal to time out. One can think of refinements and/or combine this with a).

[Sandman25]

I am not sure what problem you are trying to fix. Do you believe summoners never run out of MP and are always surrounded with allies?

[duvessa]

I am not sure what problem you are trying to fix. Do you believe summoners never run out of MP and are always surrounded with allies?

Yes.

[bel]

I am not sure what problem you are trying to fix. Do you believe summoners never run out of MP and are always surrounded with allies?

Well, one can always pretty much spam summon spells, yes. It makes the game a bit more monotonous. With my proposed changes, one can still summon a lot of stuff, it just is more expensive.

To clarify, I am not saying that one always surrounds oneself with summons. But it can make relatively harder fights much easier, because of the mechanics I talked about above.

[PleasingFungus]

Well, one can always pretty much spam summon spells, yes. It makes the game a bit more monotonous. With my proposed changes, one can still summon a lot of stuff, it just is more expensive.

To clarify, I am not saying that one always surrounds oneself with summons. But it can make relatively harder fights much easier, because of the mechanics I talked about above.

Do you believe that it should be possible for a 'pure summoner' to exist - a playstyle depending entirely or almost entirely on summons to kill enemies?

[bel]

Well, one can always pretty much spam summon spells, yes. It makes the game a bit more monotonous. With my proposed changes, one can still summon a lot of stuff, it just is more expensive.

To clarify, I am not saying that one always surrounds oneself with summons. But it can make relatively harder fights much easier, because of the mechanics I talked about above.

Do you believe that it should be possible for a 'pure summoner' to exist - a playstyle depending entirely or almost entirely on summons to kill enemies?

Yes. I played a DESu of Sif Muna as more or less pure summoner.

[crate]

The only real design problem with summons is that it's still possible to walk around with an out-of-battle army, imo. This is the largest problem with summoners and mostly always has been, and has never really been addressed. (Summons not attacking out-of-los makes it slightly less powerful to walk around with a permanent army, but it's still vastly superior to walk around with an army compared to walking around solo, so it didn't really change anything.)

1) I'd rather see summons just be weaker per-cast than to invent a special new mechanic that only affects one spell type for no real reason.
2) would not really be a problem either ... it's by design that the summon cap is per-spell instead of overall. The intention of the summon cap is entirely to make the player use more than one type of summon. Making the cap a total amount of summons would do exactly the opposite--you would very strongly prefer to only use the summon spell that is the most effective per-summon. You can argue about whether attempting to make the player use multiple different summon spells is a good idea, but that is the entirety of the reason the cap exists so you first have to convince the devs to reverse course here.

(The largest problem with the summon cap is probably that it doesn't actually do what it's designed to do with a lot of spells. Since bands count as one summon, even a cap of three on menagerie or four on shadow creatures doesn't, in practice, really do anything--you don't need more than 2 harpies and a lindwurm and a manticore to kill things, for instance. And XXX's cap of eight is surely a joke.)

[Sandman25]

I am not sure what problem you are trying to fix. Do you believe summoners never run out of MP and are always surrounded with allies?

Yes.

The answer surprised me. Does it mean your blaster mages don't run out of MP either? My experience is different, VSSu of Ash and MuSu of Chei ran out of MP in most fights and even MuSu of Sif Muna ran out of MP sometimes.

[bel]

The only real design problem with summons is that it's still possible to walk around with an out-of-battle army, imo. This is the largest problem with summoners and mostly always has been, and has never really been addressed. (Summons not attacking out-of-los makes it slightly less powerful to walk around with a permanent army, but it's still vastly superior to walk around with an army compared to walking around solo, so it didn't really change anything.)

1) I'd rather see summons just be weaker per-cast than to invent a special new mechanic that only affects one spell type for no real reason.
2) would not really be a problem either ... it's by design that the summon cap is per-spell instead of overall. The intention of the summon cap is entirely to make the player use more than one type of summon. Making the cap a total amount of summons would do exactly the opposite--you would very strongly prefer to only use the summon spell that is the most effective per-summon. You can argue about whether attempting to make the player use multiple different summon spells is a good idea, but that is the entirety of the reason the cap exists so you first have to convince the devs to reverse course here.

(The largest problem with the summon cap is probably that it doesn't actually do what it's designed to do with a lot of spells. Since bands count as one summon, even a cap of three on menagerie or four on shadow creatures doesn't, in practice, really do anything--you don't need more than 2 harpies and a lindwurm and a manticore to kill things, for instance. And XXX's cap of eight is surely a joke.)

About (1) there would not be "no real reason" for the new proposed progressive MP cost mechanic. I gave the reasons in the OP. Perhaps they are not important enough factors. I think they are.
About (2) Different summons have different MP costs, as well as different strengths. Like Ice beasts are good against cold-blooded creatures etc. It is sometimes the case that higher level summons are strictly better than lower-level summons, but then it is not uncommon to have higher level spells completely superseding lower level spells in other schools as well.

As to moving around with an army, do people do this? I usually, at the most, keep a hound with me (it seems to have quite a long timer), and create the rest only in battle. They time out decently fast.

[Sprucery]

I don't know if someone has at some point already proposed this, but summons could temporarily drain your maxMP. This way if you walk around with 3 ice beasts you have 12 less maxMP. When an ice beast dies, you get the 4 maxMP back (but not instantly the actual MP).

[Sandman25]

As to moving around with an army, do people do this?

Yes. My MuSu of Sif Muna always had 3 Ice Beasts and a hound.

[Sprucery]

Yes. My MuSu of Sif Muna always had 3 Ice Beasts and a hound.

Would having 15 less maxMP from theses summons have changed anything in your approach?

[Sandman25]

Yes. My MuSu of Sif Muna always had 3 Ice Beasts and a hound.

Would having 15 less maxMP from theses summons have changed anything in your approach?

No.

[Sprucery]

OK I guess that idea can be scratched then.