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Developer Perspective: Judgment Calls We'd Make On Spellcasting

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iago:
Oh! This reminds me. Someone on RPG.net asked about summoning guidelines. Here's the response I wrote. Thoughts on how much of it, and what, needs to go into the book?

At the moment [what you can summon is] purposefully open. Because Summoning is really about getting the attention of something that could eat your face for breakfast (and often wants to) and then trying to have a pleasant conversation with it.

In a lighter weight case -- like when Harry summons a loa to have a chat about some areas of research that Bob can't cover -- it's really just about going through the steps of ritual to gain access to information that isn't otherwise accessible. (Sort of like the outcome of a Contacts roll but with a contact that'd be impossible to reach normally.)

In a heavier case, it's about taming a whirlwind. The GM is going to be sketching something up quick to satisfy the particulars of your request, so she'll be the one tweaking the dials, working out how what you summoned fits into the categories of threats you could be facing (or if it's really just intended to turn out to be one of those lighter weight cases, info access).

The middle case is something like Chauncy, a research activity that COULD turn into a face-eating threat if you're not careful.

As we contemplated this we realized we'd be doing the source material a disservice to come up with strict, "for X power, you can construct demon Y". Because summoning is just about extending an invitation and seeing what shows up. Binding and all that is about dealing with whoever/whatever came knocking when you did.

Deadmanwalking:
I actually more or less got that impression from the book, actually. But a brief sidebar on there not being any hard rules because Summoning is an invitation, not a demon-making spell, might be worth including

iago:

--- Quote from: Deadmanwalking on April 13, 2010, 03:23:18 AM ---I actually more or less got that impression from the book, actually. But a brief sidebar on there not being any hard rules because Summoning is an invitation, not a demon-making spell, might be worth including

--- End quote ---

Billy,on YS273 now:

Harry, I didn’t put guidelines here for stats of summoned creatures. It seems to me that on the low end, summoning is just about using your spellcraft to make a really good Contacts roll.  Up from that, it’s about extending an invitation and seeing what comes knocking. And the thing that knocks could be all over the map in terms of power level.

vampmike:
from what i remember about the books, not having them to hand this sound dead on, apart from names.

it might be an idea to add unless you know its name, and of course how much protection that actually affords. from what i remember even though harry knew Chauncy's real name i got the feeling that this didnt protect him from the demon, it was the circle strength? the name just contacted the being he wanted to talk to.

The Codex:
Having an Idea for a smaller villian for a campaign, I would like him to be able to summon small swams of creatures, Bats, Rats etc, also to use them for Wards, imagine walking into a protected place breaking the ward and thousands of little bugs swarm the players, or rats, i like rats for villians)

Would you just use the summoning rules and some sort of mind magic to control there interllects? Ward for wards of course, its really if you would use the same summoning rules for creatures and a number of smaller creatures

Cheers

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