Friday, 15th November 2013, 20:32 by dpeg
galehar: Thanks for all the splitting! It's really helpful.
A desperate attempt to inject content: it is worth discussing if and how summoning could be interesting. I am convinced it can be done, although we have learned some ways which don't work very well. What's sometimes/occasionally/often/etc. not fun is: seeing a potential summoner summon a nasty monster, bail out in some form wait it out, and repeat. However, I wouldn't even dismiss this kind of summoning out of hand: if you are using a resource to bail out, then the summoning was not pointless (before I get the "no fun!!" responses: that basically depends on how often it occurs, in my opinion). Also, if the monster mechanic means that you're approach the monster in a different way, then that's something.
Two "newer" kinds of summoning in Crawl that I found to be interesting: ballistomycetes -- if unattended for too long, they turn up their level sufficiently enough to matter; curse toes -- by summoning monsters on you their summons always matter.
Some other ideas that I toyed with:
- summoners could be monsters that grew in strength every time they meet you (i.e. you flee, and they become harder)
- a summoned monster that can use stairs even if non-adjacent
- a summoner such that every summoning takes a toll (Int, say); you get it back from killing the summoner