Scroll of Summoning: data, questions and possible reform

[DuxOrbis]

I've been lurking and haven't seen too many threads with much input on the scroll of summoning. I'd really like to know how many scrolls of summoning someone would see in an average game and the length of that game (early, mid, 3-15 rune, endgame and post-endgame). I've yet to dig into the code to find generation numbers, but that's my next step before a patch I've been considering.
The other thing I'd like to know is, does anybody like scrolls of summoning?

Finally I wanted to spitball some ideas about making the role of permanent summoned allies more defined and in line with the rest of the game. It came to my attention recently that a new card, The Mercenary, became a source of permanent friendly allies in 0.11 that wasn't a god exclusive, other than the scroll of summoning. I thought the card effect was instantly more interesting than SoS because it adds an element of risk vs. reward. As I understand it if you choose NOT to pony up the gold (does this increase based on the merc?) to hire on the mercenary the card will summon them anyway, with an empty coin purse and a belly full of hate for the player. Even more than that it's weighted towards power, so those with high evocations are more likely to take a shot at decks with mercenary in it, which are among the more common decks in the dungeon. ie. changes, defense and war, if they have the gold and power/escape options to risk it of course.

So the SoS begins to seem a little lame by comparison, especially considering the possible mercenaries. In my experience the one fairly weak abomination demands micromanagement that the current UI does not afford the player in order to keep it alive and kicking in melee with you. Seems a waste for the unique nature of it's summoning a permanent ally. I would really like to see SoS fill the role that wands of create monster have in POWDER. In POWDER they could be cursed, neutral or holy, depending on which gave the monster it created a 1%/5%/20% chance of being tame pets, with cursed giving 20% chance of creating angry monsters that are hostile regardless of if they would normally be. I'd like SoS to be reliable only some of the time, creating a permanent, random, durable summon of a list of possible monsters, with a chance of it being hostile. This would give a new element of danger to the scroll ID game, but also a reward with random variation. That seems to fit the design philosophy of crawl with the addition of The Mercenary while still letting them occupy two distinct item classes with the same role. After all we have 2 potions that heal, god healing of many types and regeneration. Why not 2 fairly rare, risky sources of permanent allies?

I think it would be agonizingly Fun to choose whether to burn up those 2 scrolls of summoning in my inventory, getting a pet rat with the first and a hostile dragon with the second. Or vice versa, getting an amazing one in a thousand scroll chance of that pet dragon being mine and then get lucky with a hostile rat. If we really want to make players sweat, make the monster selection totally random (restricting some monsters of course) and giving it up to a 50% chance of a hostile. Xom is highly amused.

[onton]

So you like players getting to Lair 8 or whatever deadend one can possibly find, reading a TP scroll and then summoning some kind of guy? If it's a hostile rat, kill it, if it's a frindly rat - don't care, if it is a hostile brimstone fiend TP away and never come back and if the brimstone fiend is friendly go and wit the 3-5 runes game automatically. Doesn't sound great to me.
However, I'd like to find some more SoS before they get completely useless. They are rare and getting a small abomination after the early game is not good or disappointing - it's completely ignorable, which is bad. However, getting a small abomination on D2 can help the player to survive for some time. So I suggest either to scale the abomination power according to the player level but never make it too strong to be more than a little help. And yes, make the scrolls happen more often.

[XuaXua]

Was it ever changed (or not) for these to merge with the Unholy Resurrection spell creatures?

[DuxOrbis]

With twisted ressurection to get small and large abominations, it seems like a glaring redundancy at the very least.

I can see your point onton, but it seems irrelevant since there is a delay of 3-6 turns (trusting the wiki for lack of better options) between starting a teleport and the teleport taking effect.It would be overpowered in the case of teleports being reliable, however the same could be said of The Mercenary card for it's range of mercs, though to a lesser extent. The scummability exists either way. But give the monster that was summoned the first turn before the next action and before teleportations go into effect and you have scumming mitigation! If that sequence is possible of course. Though I'm pretty sure the prospect of getting one shot KO'd is not an appealing design decision, even for the sake of balance, at least OOD floor timers give you a fighting chance...sometimes.

I would argue for what I said in my first post though, the caveat about balance I addressed with limiting the range of possible summons, or possibly making it 3 tiered like enchant scrolls for power (less desirable), or even dependent on the deepest floor the player has reached plus branch floors or XL, this number could then, with some tuning, determine a HD that corresponds to a monster list from which to summon (one that has been selected carefully to remove monsters that would trivialize too much of the game, if such a thing was possible with an ally from that leveled list), roll for hostility, summon!

Personally I like the idea of getting a level appropriate monster (that I can choose to feed popcorn to for that good old fashioned optional pet metagame, Beoghites might approve, questionable ally micromanagement aside), with common minor variation, and small wild variation for extremely rare events like you just described. After all you can find amazing crazy items and OOD monsters anywhere, the difference is discretion in implementation that provides you with tactical combat choices. You DID choose to risk being killed by that Brimstone Fiend, if your teleport kicks in late or it gets the first turn, however it plays out it is a risk factor you better count on killing you for underestimating, and saving you when all hope is lost, and everything in between. For completeness this also needs corresponding interest from Xom.

[DuxOrbis]

Was it ever changed (or not) for these to merge with the Unholy Resurrection spell creatures?

I haven't tested this in any version, worth a wizmode trial, and it is/was Twisted Resurrection unless the name got a changed recently.

I've just now recieved my first permanent Kenku mercenary named Kemeh. We'll see how permanent allies play out in 0.11

Perhaps scrolls of summoning could instead mimic the effect of any of the summon spells in the game. You get temporary butterflies, imps (either Call Imp or Demonic Horde with a low chance), hounds, ice beasts, scorpions, ugly things and the like, dragons, eldritch tentacles. It would certainly let melee users see what they're missing from the summoning schools.