The paradox of Summon

[Moira Morley]

So I sit here, looking at my second character (set to roll out when I get gold ). Her main power is Summon. Now here's the problem. It's either too weak or too strong. Without Heroic the summons fall after one failed toughness save. With Heroic, you basically have one (or two or five!) extra people to bog down everything. So I ask you, what can I do?

[angrydurf]

Well unfortunately as a large PbP game we aren't able to give the personal attention to summon that normaly is needed in table top to keep summon reasonable. THus we are left witht he nessecity of our somewhat arbitrary summon house rules.

Might help to know what your main idea for this summoner is and how it might be workable in the format of this game.

Summon as a main power is a bit rough though as really the rules are designed around your summons being more about supporting your character rather than functioning as the primary force the character cna bring to bear.

[Nyrath]

It is also possible to have Summoning as the theme of a character without ever actually using the Summon power. Spirit Summoning in particular lends itself well as descriptor for various powers. Perception range Damage, Forcefield (possibly with Reflection and/or Affects Others), Healing and various movement powers can quite easily be used in this context.

[quotemyname]

Nyrath speaks truth. Don't bog down the system if you can construct what you want with more basic effects. How often are you really going to be using the esoteric things that summon could get you? Is it rare enough that you could just stunt for them (Having a few ranks of luck might help this out)

[angrydurf]

Yea what you actually want to be able to summon is the key. You can also create the summon as the character and the summoner as a minion if the summoned thing is the powerfull one.

[quotemyname]

On the contrary. Out of the box thinking is key. ;)

[Moira Morley]

The idea is that she has the back door of the multiverse at her command. She can open it and close it when she needs. She's sort of like a self-aware dimensional nexus. She'll only have 4 or 5 people she summons regularly (don't worry, i'm only picking templates as summons ). It takes a certain force of will to keep them in this dimension (explaining why she can't use continuous, might even knock it down to concentration).

[angrydurf]

Well I don't think you'll be able to manage a direct transfer of by the book templates into summons. firstly some of the book template characters break caps or other rules (or house rules) and secondly you are basically talking about summoning a character just as powerfull as you, conceptually that is not viable as their is a cost associated with flexability to be able to pull out exactly what you need at a given time (even if based on templates) is too much.

Ideas along these lines however woudl be to have your character "switch places/bodies" with the other people and spend the majority of your points on something like Shapeshift, to represent that switch.

Another option along the same lines would be to use the normal identity drawback and have your "super" form have the shapeshift power and a low end minion power representing the "actual" character. Thus you throw most of your power into bringing over the "summon" and are easily dispatched (that too can be a weakness or complication of some sort).

Regardless I feel that the best way to handle the issue is to use variable powers of one kind or another. This all assumes that you're only summoning one at a time. Summoning more than one at a time just isn't going to be workable at anything like equal PL.