House Rules And Homebrew

[sinker]

Something just occurred to me in play the other day. Reactive shields. Allowing a wizard to use a rote block spell as a single defense without casting it in advance.

[Sanctaphrax]

First post edited. Now, for summoning:

Summoning Rules Summary:

The rules as written do not really allow players to summon minions. Summoning is basically just a thaumaturgical contacts roll. But some players want to play summoners and golem-crafters, so these rules were made for them. There have been several appraches to this, and this is only one of them.

Summoning and binding or conjuring and animating a creature is handled as a single ritual. The complexity of that ritual is as follows:

1. Start with a complexity of 0.
2. Add 2 to the complexity of the ritual for every 5 skill points possessed by the creature,
3. Add 1 to the complexity of the ritual for every point of refresh worth of powers or stunts possessed by the creature.
4. Add to the complexity based on the skill cap of the creature as described by the list below:

• Average: +1 complexity
• Fair: +2 complexity
• Good: +3 complexity
• Great: +5 complexity
• Superb: +8 complexity
• Fantastic: +11 complexity
• Epic: +14 complexity

5. The base duration of the ritual is one day. For every time increment that it is increased, add 1 to the complexity. For every time increment that it is decreased, subtract 1 from the complexity.
6. Select a behaviour pattern from the list below and multiply the complexity by the factor indicated.

• Uncontrolled (x0.5 complexity) - does what it pleases, which probably isn't what you want it to do.
• Disloyal (x0.75 complexity) - can be directed, but won't obey properly. Either looks for loopholes or simply lacks any intelligence at all. Requires micromanaging.
• Animal (x1 complexity) - can be directed, but unsuited for certain tasks; untrained and instinctual.
• Single Function Robot (x1 complexity) - does one thing only, without free will, initiative, or surprises.
• Robot (x1.25 complexity) - obeys commands, no free will or initiative, but no surprises either.
• Thug (x1.5 complexity) - can be directed, some free will, but requires attention to keep in line.
• Specialist/Lieutenant (x1.75 complexity) - free willed, relatively independent; can be given complex tasks or command others.
• Super Robot (x2 complexity) - obeys instinctively, can be commanded like a second player character.
• Battle Butler (x3 complexity) - perfect obedience, absolute loyalty, entirely independent, will act to help the summoner on its own initiative.

7. You may have a summoned creature come into existence with one or more aspects selected by the GM. For each such aspect, decrease the complexity by 2. You do not receive a Fate Point the first time each of these aspects is compelled.
8. If summoning multiple creatures of the same type with a single ritual, each additional creature costs less than the original. The second creature costs one half its normal complexity, the third through fifth cost one quarter, and the sixth onward cost one eighth. Round normally.

Please note that the above is intended as a guide only. Using it to the letter will give a massive advantage to people who know how to minmax. Feel free to adjust complexity costs based on the real value of a creature.

[BumblingBear]

How about my supernatural strength throwing rules?

[Belial666]

Would it be possible to set up an imprisoning circle, summon an uncontrolled creature in it and then mindrape it into doing your will?  Mechanically, using wardings or bindings for the prison, the summoning for the creature and then a psychomancy/ectomancy spell for the mindrape.

[Sanctaphrax]

Thank you, BumblingBear. I knew I was forgetting something,

And yes, Belial, that is possible. I like that kind of lateral thinking. Just remember that such a process can go wrong in many different ways. It's a lot less safe than the normal ritual.

[Belial666]

Interesting. BTW, I still want to do the Lord of Nightmares spell from DnD. The spell goes as follows;


1) You use your own body as a bridge to the plane of nightmares and madness.
2) You use that connection to summon an eldritch horror from that plane that replaces your mind and body instead of acting as a separate creature.
3) The eldritch horror is free to act as it pleases for a brief time; you don't control it and, as you don't exist for the spell's duration, you can't do anything else either.
4) When the spell duration runs out or the eldritch horror is defeated, you reappear. You don't suffer any ill effects that happened in your absence but the eldritch horror may have employed any items and/or resources of yours at hand and leaves you in the location it last was in and having to contend with the consequences of its actions.
5)
6) Profit!


How could that be modeled in your summoning system? Lord of Nightmares is a fun little spell and some wizards may feel that having an Eldritch Horror mutilate your enemies is good, despite the collateral damagge. Sometimes even due to the collateral damage itself.

[Sanctaphrax]

Summoning the Dream Larva is easy enough. However, the bit where it replaces you is not. I'd be inclined to treat it as a defect, since the downside of being replaced will usually outweigh the upside. Then take a bunch more defects to represent the havoc that the uncontrolled Dream Larva is going to wreck above and beyond the normal uncontrolled creature stuff.

Does that sound good?

[Sanctaphrax]

Other summoning system:

1. Start with a complexity of 0.
2. Add enough shifts to take out the creature through it's best stress track. Ignore toughness powers. Depending on the power of the creature and its significance to the plot, the maximum level of consequence that the summoner must overcome will vary. As a rule of thumb, a summoner must generally overcome the highest level of consequence that the creature he's summoning will take in his service.
3. Add 1 to the complexity of the ritual for every point of refresh worth of powers or stunts possessed by the creature.
4. Add complexity equal to the creature's skill cap.
5. The base duration of the ritual is one day. For every time increment that it is increased, add 1 to the complexity. For every time increment that it is decreased, subtract 1 from the complexity.
6. You may have a summoned creature come into existence with one or more positive aspects. For each such aspect, increase the complexity by 2. The creature may tag each such aspect once without spending a fate point.
7. You may have a summoned creature come into existence with one or more negative aspects. For each such aspect, decrease the complexity by 2. You do not receive a Fate Point the first time each of these aspects is compelled.
8. You may have a summoned creature come into existence with one or more positive qualities. For each such quality, increase the complexity by 9. These qualities have a constant positive effect on the behaviour or abilities of a creature. Everything positive about a creature that doesn't fit into one of the previous categories goes here.
9. You may have a summoned creature come into existence with one or more negative qualities. For each such quality, decrease the complexity by 9. These qualities have a constant negative effect on the behaviour or abilities of a creature. Everything negative about a creature that doesn't fit into one of the previous categories goes here.
10. If summoning multiple creatures of the same type with a single ritual, each additional creature costs less than the original. The second creature costs one half its normal complexity, the third through fifth cost one quarter, and the sixth onward cost one eighth. Round normally.

[citadel97501]

Sanctaphrax, perhaps it would be helpful to have an example summoning spell in place such as Binder casting a spell to summon his minions before the

(click to show/hide)

scene in the parking lot during Turn Coat.

I just think example of systems are useful to see if they work for establish things that happen during a game?

[Sanctaphrax]

Method 1:

Binder wants to create a horde of minions. He chooses Mouth-Handed Men as his minions. Mouth-Handed Men have 10 skill points, a skill cap of Good, and 2 points worth of powers. Binder just wants some uncomplicated violence done, so he chooses the Single-Function Robot behavious pattern.

That gives a complexity per minion of ((4 for skills) + (2 for powers) + (3 for skill cap)) x (1 for behaviour). That's 9. But Binder doesn't need these guys for long: just a few hours. That's two steps down the time chart from one day, so it reduces the complexity by 2 to 7. Binder sees no need to give his minions any potentially-problematic GM-selected aspects.

Binder could just summon his minions one by one with his base complexity. But he's not that patient.

So he decides to summon 10 in one go. That's 7 complexity for the first Mouth-Handed Man, 3.5 for the next 4, and 1.75 for the other 5.

That's a final complexity of 29.75, rounded up to 30. A lot, but doable for a pro like Binder.

EDIT: Corrected math.

[BumblingBear]

My hat's off to you for compiling all this stuff, btw.

[sinker]

Summoning the Dream Larva is easy enough. However, the bit where it replaces you is not. I'd be inclined to treat it as a defect, since the downside of being replaced will usually outweigh the upside. Then take a bunch more defects to represent the havoc that the uncontrolled Dream Larva is going to wreck above and beyond the normal uncontrolled creature stuff.

Also sounds like taking one's self out of a scene for some benefit. There are pre-existing rules for that though they'd need to be tweaked to fit the situation.

[devonapple]

I sent some comments by message, Sanctaphrax! Looks pretty good overall.

[Sanctaphrax]

@BumblingBear: Thanks. For some reason, I like to hear stuff like that from faceless people over the internet.

@sinker: Do you mean the part where you skip a scene for +1 thaumaturgy complexity? I'm not really how to tweak that for this situation.

@devonapple: Making the suggested changes now.

I'm not sure if the number of consequences that the summoner must overcome when using method 2 should determine the number of consequences that a summoned creature will take. It's a good idea, but it isn't what I had in mind. It was intended as a way for the GM to regulate the difficulty.

I'd love to explain how the persistent qualities referred to in steps 8 and 9 of method 2 work, but I don't really understand them either. That's more UmbraLux's thing than mine.

[devonapple]

I'm not sure if the number of consequences that the summoner must overcome when using method 2 should determine the number of consequences that a summoned creature will take. It's a good idea, but it isn't what I had in mind. It was intended as a way for the GM to regulate the difficulty.

Like I said, I know that was from one of the three methods, and it explicitly was intended to reflect how much "fight" a summoned creature had in it, by pre-determining the consequences it would take, but I also seem to recall it was just an option, and not an integral component. That definitely doesn't belong in Method 1, as the summoning modifiers there are a good determiner of how much "fight" the summoned creature brought to the table.