Augment Summoning
Circles: ?, Summoning
Description: Very high upkeep. Any units created by magic by the wizard gain bonuses to their stats upon creation. If the spell is dispelled or canceled, the bonuses go away.
OK, I'm not sure about this one. Is it augmenting a summoned creature or summoning an augmentation? I can see it working either way, but both versions would need a better name.
Ideas?
You could call it "Aether Blessing" or "Umbral Blessing" since we're pulling these creatures through the aether or umbra between planes (whichever word you choose to call it). And it just seems like a normal unit enhancement spell. Just how big of a bonus are we talking here? All summoned units already have a mana upkeep to begin with. Will this spell give you enough of a bonus to justify paying more mana upkeep on top of all that?
Will it affect already summoned units, or just newly summoned ones ?
For upkeep cost, maybe it should depend on the summoned units, like be a small fixed amount + 25% of the upkeep cost of the summoned units ?
I'm going to attempt to remain unbiased...
This spell is similar to one of the alternatives for Ronaa's Yoke which I suggested.
Augment Summoning Ronaa's Yoke (version 2) very high upkeep moderate? upkeep affects all the caster's summoned creatures affects only the creatures summoned while Yoke is in effect augments all stats only augments HP summon spells cost 20% less augmentation is not permanent augmentation IS permanent
I think the author of Augment Summoning wanted to make summons really butch.
My idea with Ronaa's Yoke version 2 is that a magical Yoke is put in place making it easier to summon creatures and a side effect of the Yoke is they get a small/moderate HP boost while on this plane because the Yoke makes the binding process more efficient.
Speaking strictly to the concept... Augment Summoning is interesting. Summoned creatures would be way tougher. I like tougher.
Speaking about the implementation... Coding Augment Summoning would be difficult. The augmented creatures would need to be tracked so that when Augment Summoning gets Disjuncted or willingly dispelled the augmentations can be removed. And would Dispel be able to remove the augmentation one creature at a time?
Speaking to the gameplay aspect... Augment Summoning would certainly be a huge target for Disjunction. How long would the caster be able to keep it up? How useful would it wind up being?
If we want a high level spell which makes all your summoned creatures butch, then we should come up with a way to make Augment Summons more workable.
You may be asking what is my version 1 for Ronaa's Yoke...
- The caster's summoned units gain +X to all saving throws, +2X to Will saves.
- (The idea with version 1 is that the Yoke causes a stronger binding with the creatures making it harder for spells like Unbind to work.)
Since a name change was asked for, might I suggest Ronaa's Yoke. We can marry all 3 concepts.
- all summons are tougher
- stronger bind to the caster
- less mana cost to summon
Or we can pick and choose. I think one global augmentation spell is enough since there will be the Transcendent Summoning (Mastery) spell.
Or come to think of it, what will the Mastery spell do? The Element Masteries are easy, 25% more effective. Maybe what's being discussed here should be what Transcendent Summoning does.
(Then I need to think of something else the Yoke will do.)
OK, I think the easiest way to handle it would be to have it effect all summoned creatures. We're having to build mechanics to handle a number of different persistent spell effects either way, so that's not a lot of added overhead. If it's dispelled during battle it will be “off” until the end of the battle. If it's dispelled on the strategic map it's off until the controlling Sorcerer Lord's next turn. Obviously, if the spell is “Disjunctioned” that puts an end to it. As for it's actual effects I'm open to suggestions. A stat increase is a good one. An across the board +2 would give them better attacks, saves, hit points, armor class (in most cases), but wouldn't make them an unstoppable force.
Thoughts?
A +2 across the board sounds good to me, but I also think it should make Summons more resistant to any sort of Banish type spells.
The more I think about this the more I think that as a global enchantment this spell is what the Mastery spell should be.
How do we make 2 different, but stackable global enchantments for Summoning?
The Mastery spell should definitely be the more powerful of the 2.
It's hard to say how they'll work together until we decide how the Mastery spells are going to work. We really can't decide about that until the spell list is a little more fleshed out. For the moment I would say that this spell works and should be included in the tentative list
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