Replace summoning magic with evokables

[pubby]

This is kind of a strange and half-baked idea, but what if the summoning magic school was completely removed and replaced by evokable items? There would be no need to have a summon cap with evokations: they're already limited by per-item MP and inertness. Many of the existing spells can be moved to items and require a fairly high evoc for them to work.

[gofftc]

...summoning magic school was completely removed...

So, the player should not be able to use magic (MP) to summon something.
Your Summons should be evoked.

...kind of a strange and half-baked idea...

I'll bake the other half:
Everything other should stay the same.

So little changes don't really need any further explenation
Just remove it and scater the pieces all over the code,
mission accomplished, really, just cut X and do Y. But Z?

[One-Eyed Jack]

If the devs were willing to remove summoning magic they probably would have done it already

[mumra]

Some people claim we already did remove summoning magic

The idea of the recent nerfs was to initially get summoning to a state where it was at least vaguely balanced, and then start looking at individual spells to see what needs to be done to make the school actually fun and interesting.

Since I've been thinking a lot about both summoning and evokations lately, pubby's original proposal had actually already occurred to me. I don't know if it's really a good idea which is why I haven't brought it up yet, but we do admittedly have so many different sources of summons: Yred, Beogh, other gods, decks, misc items, rod of the swarm, mutations, necromancy _and_ summoning spells. The tough thing is figuring out how to have all these different forms of ally play and making them all distinct. Certainly the summoning school should be doing "its own thing" but nobody has a good idea what that is or how to make it sufficiently different. We discussed a lot on ##crawl-dev and there were a number of ideas which I'm in the process of writing up for the devwiki.

So I'm not dismissing the idea out of hand, but then evocations would need a lot of work to try to actually replace summoning. This would effectively make Artificer the new summoner; perhaps start them with box of beasts, sack of spiders, rod of the swarm (having sufficiently nerfed low-power rods), or a new rod with some of the low-power summons moved to it. Ok this could probably work but it doesn't look like the best idea.

One thing st_ suggested which is worth mentioning but would change things a lot, was only ever allowing 1 summon and having all the summoner spells mutually exclusive; so you have one permanent but strong ally at all times.

Still I think the idea of having a gang of magically summoned stuff around you is one of the concepts people expect from a summonings class. Having fewer but more powerful summons is definitely more interesting (in a game like Crawl) than a big bland army of cannon fodder. I think the cap is an inherently good idea that makes for better gameplay.

I also think there are quite a lot of summoning misc items now or at least ones that have summoning side effects, we could do with a few now with slightly different effects perhaps.

[TeshiAlair]

I know this is a combination of two ideas that get thrown around here with moderate regularity, one being a "beastmaster" class and the other being summons doing things beyond damage, but I wanted to throw in my two cents.

The core idea of a summoner is 1. Summon allies 2. ??? 3. Win game. The typical routes for step 2 are A. Summon a big thing to kill my enemies. B. Summon a lot of small things to overwhelm my enemies. C. Summon a lot of meatshields. D. Summon something that lets me do things better.

I think that A. is the most commonly brought up major summoning suggestion, while B is very core to Beogh and both B and C play a role in necromancers. D IIRC only shows up in one place in crawl, and not even in a summoning spell- Iskenderun's Battlesphere. I think D. type summoning spells are a niche that summoners could fit into nicely, and make summoning a school worth potentially branching into beyond meatshield generation.

Here are some (extremely rough) spell suggestions.

Level 1: Summon protean
Summons a small unformed mass that follows you around for a little while. Enemies will preferentially attack the protean instead of you, killing it in (PWR) hits. Only one can be summoned at a time. Uses up 1 MP while active.
Purpose- quick defense without being as spammable as small Mammals.

Level 2: Summon minor felid
Summons a small fast cat. This cat acts as a small wizardry bonus, and will try to avoid being killed by enemies. Small timer on recast as you wait for the cat's next life to take over. Only one can be summoned. Uses up 2 MP while active.
Purpose- Interesting interplay of cast fewer, but better spells.

Level 3: Summon hounds
Summons a small group of hounds. They try to stay behind you. If they get hit, or if you command them to attack, they will run to and attack a target, but cannot be called off. Only one pack may be summoned at a time. Uses up 1 MP per hound while active.
Purpose- Attack spell, retain "swarm the enemy" gameplay, but again, less spamming.

(Skipping ahead)
Level 6: Summon ugly thing
Summons an ugly thing that follows you and randomly mutates. It grants you the same buffs it has. Only one may be summoned, uses up 3 MP while active.

Just some rough ideas to illustrate the concept. Basically, envisioning summoners as being able to go down either a hybrid route, a "summon hordes" route, or a "use summons to back up other spells" route.

EDIT: I'm sorry, it is 1:30 AM where I'm from, I'm tired and I got so wrapped up in my idea that I didn't notice I had gone utterly off topic. Should I move this to a new thread/bump an old summoning thread?

[Bim]

I think summoning is a fun school, and I'd hate to see it go away just because evokables got better.

I really like your suggestion of 'utility' summons Teshi. At the moment they just work as meatshields which is the major complaint - I can imagine that with enough variety/useful utility like behaviour we could completely get rid of that aspect and have them more as supporting summons (with a few things that can still attack/do damage). This would make summoners behave more like a hybrid. A summon that can slow/paralyse/debuff an enemy from a distance would be a good example - you'd still have to kill it, but it could weaken it a lot.

[mumra]

quick defense without being as spammable as small Mammals.

Don't worry, spammals are no longer spammable, have you seen trunk? That's partly what this thread is referring to.

Just some rough ideas to illustrate the concept. Basically, envisioning summoners as being able to go down either a hybrid route, a "summon hordes" route, or a "use summons to back up other spells" route.

Summons that buff the player don't seem right to me. If these buffs were needed (they aren't) they're more like charms. A 1MP wizardry bonus is particularly problematic, every player would want this.

I'd rather if summoners want to branch out have them do so into other spell schools, like they can already. Summoning needs to be a clear route of its own, as well as a useful side-school that synergises well with conj, hexes, tmut, to give you a tactical edge but not break the game.

EDIT: I'm sorry, it is 1:30 AM where I'm from, I'm tired and I got so wrapped up in my idea that I didn't notice I had gone utterly off topic. Should I move this to a new thread/bump an old summoning thread?

Don't worry I think suggestions for summoning spells are still vaguely on-topic A mod can split if needed or maybe just rename the thread.

A summon that can slow/paralyse/debuff an enemy from a distance would be a good example - you'd still have to kill it, but it could weaken it a lot.

This is more the right direction I think. Spells / Summons that buff other summons are a direction that could be explored too.

[DracheReborn]

I'd rather if summoners want to branch out have them do so into other spell schools, like they can already. Summoning needs to be a clear route of its own, as well as a useful side-school that synergises well with conj, hexes, tmut, to give you a tactical edge but not break the game.

I think the problem with Conj and Hex is that so few of those are smite-targetted. Dancing around your allies to get a clear shot at the enemy is a pain. Casting buffs on allies would be great though. Heck, just casting Beastly Appendage on weak allies might be worthwhile.

A summon that can slow/paralyse/debuff an enemy from a distance would be a good example - you'd still have to kill it, but it could weaken it a lot.

This is more the right direction I think. Spells / Summons that buff other summons are a direction that could be explored too.

Giant eyes to paralyze, eyes of draining to drain MP of enemy spellcasters? Except enemy casters don't have MP.

[jejorda2]

There ought to be an eye-genus enemy called the blinker. It doesn't move, and it acts slowly (every 4 turns, maybe?) And all it can do is either blink itself or others. Summon blinker could be a fun spell, especially if things were rigged to blink enemies into spots where the most allies were in melee range/LOS, and to put you where the fewest things are a danger to you.

[TeshiAlair]

Ooh here's an idea- Summon Illumen

Summons a small glowing faerie that can see and reveal enemies past walls. However, doing so also alerts enemies to your presence.

i don't think this would overlap with Ash too much, since it is moderate-risk, has a different flavor, and is smaller range.