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Statistics:Posted by yankeeschic — Sun Jun 01, 2025 6:33 am
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Statistics:Posted by yankeeschic — Fri May 23, 2025 9:05 am
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Beastmasters are the other "pet class" of the game. Could some of their mechanics improve the Summoning mechanics (or vice versa)?
Maybe codifying the way pets are handled game-wide would be helpful?
Statistics:Posted by Dougansf — Mon Jun 05, 2017 6:59 pm
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Mataxes wrote: ↑
I wanted to make a special point on this. I love Enchanting, but I can see where it creates some balance problems at a table and where some GMs would either prefer to minimize it or ignore it. If you're looking at ways to make Enchanting "harder" (my word) in order to increase scarcity of thread items or to reduce accessibility of Enchanting, please do it in a fun way.Sun Jun 04, 2017 12:22 am
We're looking at the costs of intentionally creating thread items for the ED4 Companion chapter on Enchanting, and these kinds of considerations come into play as well.I would say that you could easily cut out 90+% of civil for-profit thread item creation (and thereby greatly increasing scarcity) by increasing the personal investment part of the process. In previous editions, personal investment (crafting, harvest material, symbolic actions, etc) were a mechanical way to lower difficulty. By making these REQUIRED parts of the process, you remove the ability for someone to sit in a workshop and craft out thread items. So, instead of these things lowering difficulty, they provide points of "investment," and there's some system dictating how much "investment" is needed (maybe per rank, maybe with a Fibonacci sequence so high ranks require more investment than earlier ranks). Certain things should be worth more "investment" than others. Note that this also servers to create a more natural barrier to entry than an arbitrary difficulty number. Want to create a four rank item at Circle 4? It's possible, BUT since you'd only be accruing "investment" points at a very slow rate, it'd take you a long time - many months. Want to do the same thing at Circle 8? You can do much more impressive "investment" activities, so maybe you can knock it out in a few weeks. This also creates a neat mini-game - maybe certain things provide more "investment" when the rank reflects the thing (we're starting to lean into legendary crafting, but it's still a neat idea). Lastly, it also could support non-Enchanting people to get involved in Enchanting - the Enchanter just becomes the conduit for the final creation, but the adventurer who accrued all the "investment" is present through the process, maybe even performs a variety of the actions under the direction of the Enchanter.
Statistics:Posted by The Undying — Mon Jun 05, 2017 1:39 am
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While I'm more willing to do some extreme tweaks to a system to feel, my current ED GM is more of a "small nudges" kind of guy. We actually did the "failure by 5" thing, and I still managed to hit it both times.
It's definitely a table-to-table kind of thing - printed material matters much more to some than others.I agree, Knacks aren't an ideal way to "fix," but at least it's a published thing. I think the main thing is the resulting impression it leaves: Knacks kind of says "the original system is fine and these are custom things an Adept can bolt onto it," whereas optional/alternate rules say "we acknowledge there may be some problems with the original system, here would be a published recommended way to alter them if you're in that boat."
Again, appreciate the thoughts. One last parting perspective, though maybe this is something that you guys already consider:
I generally look at "time" as blocks rather than a continuum. For me, there's generally four blocks for action duration.
- Standard Action. Things that are extremely, totally doable in combat.
- ~1 minute. Things that could be pulled off in a long combat (especially if you're just holding ground for any variety of reasons) or can be done around the corner right before combat.
- ~5 minutes. Things that can't be done IN combat but could be pulled off with a make-shift barricade ("hold the door while I do this"). Also, things that require light planning.
- Anything more. Until you start getting into multiple hours, it's really just splitting hairs. Whether it takes 15 or 30 minutes, it's not getting done in a pinch, and everything grind to a halt while it's being done (unless you can do it on the move).
Statistics:Posted by The Undying — Mon Jun 05, 2017 1:07 am
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I will say that, while we don't have final details hammered out, there are some knacks coming in the Companion that address some of the issues that have been raised with regard to summoning. Knacks aren't the ideal way to "fix" earlier stuff, but I think it's not too much of a problem to establish that certain knacks are part of the default process.
(And, possibly, depending on how those end up, an alternate/revised summoning process might be developed for the magic book we have planned post-Questors.)
Off the top of my head, a couple of other options you might consider:
Reduce the ritual time to 10 minutes instead of 30. Tweaking the time involved means you still have to prepare in advance, but there's less sense of wasted time on a failure.
Have backlash only happen if the summon test fails by 5/10 or more, instead of a simple failure (this hearkens back to ED1 summoning, when backlash only happened on a Poor or worse result). Or, since damage from backlash is based on the damage from raw magic, have backlash trigger a warping test that determines whether damage is suffered or not. Both of these make failure less punitive.
Statistics:Posted by Mataxes — Sun Jun 04, 2017 11:11 pm
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Based on your earlier statement, it sounds like one reason for making summoning "harder" (my word) was to increase scarcity. So, in order to reduce its availability to the NPC universe, it was made harder for the player (and, IMHO, less fun). That's a problem in itself, but it's worthwhile to note that the changes for summoning doesn't really accomplish this goal. I noted earlier that summoning now is mostly fit for non-time-sensitive use; adventuring is almost always time sensitive, while civil use is almost always non-time-sensitive. All the change has done is reduce availability for adventuring while increase time of use civilly (but not really affecting scarcity civilly).
It looks like you're considering making Enchanting more scarce, too. Again, it's worthwhile to note that increasing time or cost really won't affect things in the NPC universe, but it has a huge affect on play (taking a month downtime can be stomached, but taking half a year or something can't be).
You point out the change to Forging, and I'd say this is a better example on how to fix areas of concern. If all that had happened was to make forging take three months instead of a week, it would basically mean it would never be available to players BUT the universe would still steadily fill with permanently forged weapons. Adding the renewal requirement while not changing the forging duration actually fixed the problem.
To affect the civil side negatively while not negatively affecting adventurers (which includes players), I see two prominent methods: increase per-use danger, or add a renewal element that is dangerous. Civil use tends to abhor danger in the middle of a city, and civil personnel usually cannot afford the time to perform a distant renewal exercise nor do they tend to be the type to want to risk their health for it. Per-use danger makes something too unpredictable, so it would not be my first choice; however, even making a very low odds of something truly horribly happening (e.g., opening a portal to the plane of that element) is likely enough to scare away any civil use, even if it's very rare. Separately, requiring summoners to do "dangerous thing" periodically, preferably that require non-trivial travel, is fun in itself AND hugely increases NPC universe scarcity.
Statistics:Posted by The Undying — Sun Jun 04, 2017 10:43 pm
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- I want to do interesting things. From an elements perspective, spirits can do a lot of great stuff that has zero impact on combat.
Personally, this interests me than summoning another damage dealer or tank. - I want to do unique things. The more that spirits feel like "an extra player controlled by the PC," the less interesting it is. Spirits should really be unique in their powers, copy-cat only where necessary.
- I want an interesting process. If a process is necessary, I want it to be interesting. The focus should really be on convincing an otherworldly being on how to interpret my goals and deciding how that lines up with the interests of that spirit and the element it represents.
- I want others to want me to summon. If time or effort is involved, there should be some way to do it so that everything doesn't stop until it's finished. I want my comrades to benefit in interesting ways, rather than just having another spirit tanking or throwing spells.
- I want a hail mary. When things are really dire, I want to be able to summon and have quick-turn results. When the chips are down, I want to have something that can turn the tide.
- I want to be flexible. If there is backlash risk, I'd like optional ways to minimize risk. Similarly, if I'm in a true pinch, I want to be fast, even at the cost of greater backlash risk.
- I'd be perfectly happy if using spirits for combat and spellcasting were more difficult if it meant that the other (and more interesting) things were less difficult. Lots of ways to do this, some that even fit in the current system.
- I'd prefer to ditch a rigid negotiation (especially the 'one power per success' thing). This helps bring the service and spirit to the front. It also helps emphasize the difference of the elements: spirits of one element could - and should - be more and less inclined to do different types of tasks.
- I'd prefer more uniqueness to spirit powers. Yeah, I understand that's more work. The best way to minimize the perception of a spirit overshadowing a player is to minimize the ability to directly compare the two.
- I'd prefer that the elemental type be more impactful. Right now, other than some stats and spell availability, they're mostly interchangeable. This can also be used as a checks-and-balances thing against power. For example, Aid/Enhance Summoner, or something like it, could either be restricted to use for spells/Talents of that element or could be more powerful when used in that way.
- I'd like the process to be faster and/or easier, especially if something is just for interest's sake. Doing a good favor for a town, like expediting crop growth, and then failing and crippling yourself isn't fun.
Statistics:Posted by The Undying — Sun Jun 04, 2017 10:31 am
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I'm going to briefly talk about what I see as the problem before getting at the more interesting and productive stuff, which were your last questions.
Right now, I think the core problem is the ritual duration (and summoning duration to a lesser extent). The entire adventuring party basically has to stop what they're doing for half an hour for a summoning - this heavy limits when it can be brought to bear. It also last for an hour, maybe two, so you can only be so proactive about it. This leaves you with a talent that has poor re-activity and limited pro-activity ... basically, while not being limited to the space, it's mostly useful when time isn't a factor. Other than that, I think it's just personal feelings - for thirty minutes, either the dangerous aspect of failure should be eliminated (e.g., backlash or unbound only on Rule of One) or success should be almost assured (but not guaranteed).
After that, there's just nothing fun about failing in the current system, especially given the time investment. Success definitely is, but right now, failure is not. It's 30 minutes gone for the party, followed likely by either another 30 minutes for attempt #2 or an hour's rest for a recovery. Failure elsewhere in the system is far more transitory (usually one Standard action) and less punishing (either no damage or both lower in raw numbers and in proportion to the Discipline).
Now, onto the interesting or productive stuff:
I can, of course, only speak for myself, but there are the points I see:Mataxes wrote: ↑Sun Jun 04, 2017 12:22 amSo... I don't know. I'm willing to discuss and revisit summoning, BUT... what do people want from it? How do we make it useful and fun without it overshadowing other areas, and reducing the fun of your fellow players? Are there mechanics we can develop that support that? Or will we have to shrug and leave it for the GM to handle?
Make failure interesting and reduce the chance of true failure. Plenty of ways to tackle this. Even if the summoning "fails," perhaps non-Catastrophic failure produces the desired spirit but with neutral attitude (non-hostile) and with zero guaranteed services. We've now got a soft failure that is interesting. Maybe it's as simple as inserting an additional Elemental Tongues / Spirit Talk test to convince the spirit to grant the service, or maybe the summoner has to make a meaningful offer to get that service. Here, we still have a path forward with 30 minutes lost, it's just a bit harder - but it's also interesting. Another thought I've been throwing around is progressively harder re-tries - if you roll under SR + (2x number of retries), you get backlash/unbound, but if not, you can retry with an additional difficulty of (2x number of retires). Again, this is an interesting soft failure - how important is it get that summon, how much are you willing to press your luck, and going against the odds for a third retry and pulling it off is memorable.
Focus spirit powers on interesting enhancements of the party. If the fear is a spirit out-performing other player characters, then help spirits fit more of a supporting niche that enables the players to shine directly. Buffs and debuffs, especially of varieties that players usually don't have access to at all (hard to "overshadow" something that doesn't exist).
Accept that, sometimes, spirits are better tools/performers than PCs. There will always be a risk that spirits will overshadow a player. Even if spirit powers never duplicate Discipline powers, there will be situations where a spirit power is a better fit for a situation than anything the player's bring to bear. This should be okay rather than feared, although safeguards should be placed against it. Right now, the current ritual duration and summoning duration make it, I feel, pretty hard to overshadow players just because of the time investment and access to the powers. Is the time - and the risk - worth having access to a better solution for the limited time you have it available? Combat-impact-wise, it's pretty easy for the GM to control the pacing enough that this doesn't work out.
Balance risk & reward. IMHO, a 30 minute ritual is a fair way to balance some of the resulting power, but the risk of failure is too high given the time investment. I'm not sure how much appetite there is to make the process more complex, but it could be made into a system fairly similar to the extra threads with spells, using 5 min per thread and one base thread (using "thread" here, but it's still Summoning Talent, and more optional threads than available via Spellcasting). Other things could be involved in order to alter the summoning to reduce risk, increase rewards, or something. Side note that part of this should also be ditching some of the "three chances to fail" stuff that made its way into ED4 (Summoning Test to summon, Negotiation Test to activate powers, Power Test to do the thing). Also, with regard to all the concern about a spirit over-performing, keep in mind that there is a native element of up-front risk to balance that reward: unless the underlying risk changes, this is one of the extremely few things in the system that can hurt you on failure, and it can hurt you far worse than any other thing that hurts you on failure ... that deserves something in return.
It's okay for summoning to be able to do something strong. This used to be the realm of Aid Summoner, which was too strong. Aid/Enhance Summoner are both pretty weak now. It should be okay for a summoner to be able to trade time and effort for a meaningful bump. There can (and should) be lots of interesting ways for a summon to empower a summoner that isn't overly strong.
Statistics:Posted by The Undying — Sun Jun 04, 2017 7:21 am
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That aside...
I can understand the frustration. It's seldom fun to feel like you aren't contributing. Especially when that contribution is what you feel to be your niche. What I'm about to go into here is not meant as a specific response, or fix to your recent issue, but just some musings on the general subject of summoning.
If summoning is too easy, especially if summoners can end up with multiple spirits on call, it can start to overshadow other characters. This can get especially abusive depending on the powers involved. If summoning is too easy, and too readily available, then it becomes a very broad, single-issue fix that an Elementalist or Nethermancer can apply to a wide array of problems, without needing the assistance of other player characters. Raise Summon, call upon even more powerful spirits to solve problems. One talent (more or less), a whole lot of applications and uses.
(This issue crops up with other attempts to balance magicians, where a small selection of talents provides a significant amount of utility. Raise Spellcasting, and your tools for solving multiple problems become more effective.)
The other consideration is beyond the affect on an individual game, but what it means for the broader setting. Journeyman Elementalists and Nethermancers aren't uncommon -- how would the ease or difficulty of the summoning process be reflected in Barsaive? If the summoning is easy, would spirits be more commonly used in places like the Kingdom of Throal or other large population centers (where summoners are likely to be in civic employ)? If so, why hasn't that been addressed in the past?
(These kinds of effects pop up in other places as well -- the original "permanent" Forge Blade effectively meant that common Throalic soldiers had fully forged weapons, which changes the face of warfare, and thread weapons start to come up short in comparison. We're looking at the costs of intentionally creating thread items for the ED4 Companion chapter on Enchanting, and these kinds of considerations come into play as well.)
So... I don't know. I'm willing to discuss and revisit summoning, BUT... what do people want from it? How do we make it useful and fun without it overshadowing other areas, and reducing the fun of your fellow players? Are there mechanics we can develop that support that? Or will we have to shrug and leave it for the GM to handle?
Statistics:Posted by Mataxes — Sun Jun 04, 2017 12:22 am
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Difficulty (roughly), and backlash, would've been the same in both ED4 and early editions. Lost time would not have been. The lost time is what was really the kick in the teeth - no opportunity to try again, and all my defensive spells were down because of the ritual length
Statistics:Posted by The Undying — Sat Jun 03, 2017 11:11 pm
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What was the magician's Summon step? What was the strength (and other relevant stats) of the spirit they were trying to summon?
What was it you were trying to accomplish, looking at it from not only the perspective of the current edition, but prior editions as well (since this sounds like something that's been tried or done in the past)?
Statistics:Posted by Mataxes — Sat Jun 03, 2017 8:04 pm
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Only solving solution can be a knack that can reduce a little bit threat from failing test during contact with raw astral energy. Maybe for 2-3-4-5 strain you can reduce astral corruption by 1 level?
Statistics:Posted by Dyrmagnos — Sat Jun 03, 2017 12:35 pm
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