The Summoning Circle

[Aaron]

Alright guys, Hoverdog has been working on the summoning circle and has filled it out quite a bit. You can find the current spell list here:

Summoning Circle

It looks great and the lineup offers a lot of variety. However, I think we need some non-direct-summoning spells to flesh the list out. A list of “summoning support” spells, if you will. Now, we've got room for some Life/Summoning spells (as well as maybe some Death, Fire, etc), but Earth is basically filled.

In my opinion we need to come up with spells that bolster or limit summoned creatures in some way. We need to fit them into elemental circle and tier combinations that have room. Still, that's down to sorting.

So, does anyone have any non-summoning summoning spell suggestions?

[Lintking]

Rally: Life/Summoning, Tactical: Gathers all of your units around a chosen spot. (Would be restricted to your `area', like on-field Summonings were in MoM, but could still be used to cross a lot of the distance quickly if you're facing a lot of archers or whatnot. Could also be used to instantly surround a powerful enemy unit. We have Flanking, don't we?)

Teleportation: Air/Summoning, Unit Enchantment (Tactical or Strategic) - allows the Unit to teleport freely around the battlefield. Can also move its full Movement on the Strategic board without crossing the intervening space. (Which makes no difference for most Units with a Movement of 1, but with 2 or more Movement points, it effectively removes terrain penalties, and might make it possible to skip over small bodies of water, etc. On a Hero whose Movement has been boosted up, it could be really interesting.)

Elemental Shift: [Element]/Summoning, Strategic: Moves a Unit to the corresponding Elemental Plane. If the Planes have survival concerns (like, you have to be able to Fly in the Plane of Air, or Fire burns, or what have you), the spell grants whatever is needed for that (so Air Shift takes a Unit to the Plane of Air, and grants it Flying for as long as the spell is maintained. Water Shift takes them to the Plane of Water and gives them Waterbreathing. Etc.)

...Or however we want to do them, but teleportation and plane-shifting definitely feel like Summoning, with the Circles we have. It should have a short `track' of them.

Clone: Life/Summoning, Tactical or Strategic: Creates an exact duplicate of a Normal Unit. (So if a Unit has taken damage, the Clone will be, too.) Cast Tactically, the Clone will disappear at the end of battle; cast Strategically, it's just like building one in a city.

Environmental Aura: Death/Summoning, Unit Enchantment: Grants a Summoned Unit a damaging aura related to the Element it's connected to. The Aura does automatic `first-strike' damage to any Unit that attacks or is attacked by the enchanted Unit.

Tether: Life/Summoning, Unit Enchantment: Makes a Summoned Unit more resistant to any kind of un-summoning effect; the Summoner's equivalent to Spell Lock.

[Endless Rain]

Aaron, surely you meant Summoning circle, not Summing circle. I have to leave soon, so I'll just make one spell suggestion.(Teleportation is considered summoning right? It doesn't fit into other circles and you are essentially summoning something from somewhere else on the map.)

Teleport City (Air/Summoning 8): You teleport a city and all units garrisoned in it to a new location. It costs 50 mana per square moved. You can also plane shift the city for 1000 mana. You can target other players cities, but it costs double the mana.

[Hoverdog]

Teleport City (Air/Summoning 8): You teleport a city and all units garrisoned in it to a new location. It costs 50 mana per square moved. You can also plane shift the city for 1000 mana. You can target other players cities, but it costs double the mana.

This won't work this way because of how spell targeting works (you choose target after you spend mana). The idea is good though, I'd just make it really high tier (7-8) so the mana cost is large, and give enemy cities a save check.

[Happerry]

Well, there is the Sever the Bond spell..

Resurrection could also be a summoning spell, and a Recall spell that summons units back to your summoning circle could easily fit as a buffed up version of the Arcane Word of Recall (Or whatever it got renamed to).

Meanwhile, Abundant Ammunition is an easily stolen pathfinder conjuration spell that gives units unlimited ammo by refilling quivers every round. Glitterdust would be a higher level spell, but it's ability to blind enemies and reveal invisible units would be potentially useful and it is an actual conjuration spell.

Dimension Door is a nice tactical spell, able to freely relocate your units across the map, for a more mobile focused view on summoning. And in a defensive view, Wall of Stone/Iron is actually a conjuration spell, so..

Looking back at Pathfinder's spell list, Hostile Juxtaposition's ability to swap positions between one of your units and one of there's sounds like a fun way to drop a barbarian into the middle of their ranged line up.

And for really high level application, Teleportation Circle sounds like an enchantment that lets units teleport between any equipped city/location to me, and that could be very useful. But so would a Gate's spell ability to open up a permanent connection between two planes.

[Hoverdog]

Teleportation spells are really cool stuff, but it's tied with air, and unfortunately we hardly have any higher tier air/summoning slots left.
Maybe it'll be easier if I just write down what slots are left:
Life: one 1st, two 2nd, one 3rd, 6th, 8th
Death: one 3rd
Fire: two 1st
Water: one 1st, two 2nd, one 5th & 8th
Air: one 1st

so, as you can see, it's all about Life and Water, with the rest only having a few, mostly low-level, gaps. Of course, we could fit one more spell where we normally shouldn't have, but that would mean cutting a different slot.

[alghero]

Hi Overdog, sorry but from Wiki I have a different count of missing spells / tiers:
Air: one 1st (I have Summon Harpies and Air Elemental as tier 2).
Death: one 2nd (I have only Raise Mummies), one 3rd (Cloud of Flies is missing from the Summoning and the Death Page).
Fire: two 1st (I agree)
Life: one 1st, two 2nd, one 3rd, 6th, 8th (I have Summon Unicorns for 4th).
Water: one 1st, one 2nd (Summon Nagas), one 4th, 5th, 8th (for 6th I have Summon Marid). Also for Water I have two 3rd tier: Summon Water Elemental and Slime Wave. As I noted in another post Summon Slime is Earth tier 1, so we could move Summon Slime to Water tier 1 and downgrade Slime Wave to tier 2. This will free a place for Earth tier 1.

For Life, from the proposed list there was this spell:
Name: Guardian Force
Circles: Life, Summoning
Description: The wizard summons a powerful benevolent being on the battlefield, which shields his units from magical effects. While the Guardian is on the battlefield, all friendly units receive a +2 to saving throws. Units in the Guardian's AoE receive the benefits of his aura. The Guardian's aura acts as a shield, with a chance of dispelling incoming spell effects. (This means if a Fireball is cast that would encompass units in the Guardian's aura, only the spell effect inside the aura is canceled. Units outside the aura would still have to save for half.) The aura works like Counter Magic, blocking even spells that have no saving throw.

A teleport could be Life instead of Air?
Hostile Justaxposition looks a good candidate for Life...

[Hoverdog]

Air: one 1st (I have Summon Harpies and Air Elemental as tier 2).
Life: one 1st, two 2nd, one 3rd, 6th, 8th (I have Summon Unicorns for 4th).
Water: one 1st, one 2nd (Summon Nagas), one 4th, 5th, 8th (for 6th I have Summon Marid).

You're obviously right. That was a real brain fart on my part.

Death: one 2nd (I have only Raise Mummies), one 3rd (Cloud of Flies is missing from the Summoning and the Death Page).

We've demoted CoF from Tier4 to Tier2.

Also for Water I have two 3rd tier: Summon Water Elemental and Slime Wave. As I noted in another post Summon Slime is Earth tier 1, so we could move Summon Slime to Water tier 1 and downgrade Slime Wave to tier 2. This will free a place for Earth tier 1.

Slime Wave will be Earth/Biomancy. We want Earth to be all-summons.

[ampoliros]

OK, searching for Summoning references in the Spell suggestions... (references that are not summon spells)
I am including Tactical only summoning suggestions as well.

First one - the wiki doesn't mention the Warriors of Doom spell at all. This one had a lot of support.
Another missing actual summon, Floating Island.

Raise Earth was briefly mentioned for Summoning. My lean is no.
Resurgence
Following the Pattern
Unbind
Compel
Oblivion Mote
Sandstorm
Endless Ice
Great Unsummoning
Crystal Spire
Call to the Deep
Resurrection
Word of Recall - the more effective less expensive version of Recall Hero (because it is not Arcane)
Ronaa's Yoke
Web
Deadly Illusions and all the summons listed in that thread
Augment Summoning
Ancestor Spirits

[Happerry]

I'm gonna vote for Oblivion Mote to fill up that third circle death spell slot, Hostile Justaxposition for the sixth level life slot, and Abundant Ammunition for the first tier air slot. Also Call to the Deep as the 8th Tier Water spell, and perhaps Endless Ice as the other second tier one? Or that could fill the Tier 4 one if it spreads faster and is more slippery. Lastly Ronaa's Yoke could be the tier three life spell.