Lephys

I guess Obsidian finally got a Mac. I was going to ask how well the team was getting along while only having 1 Mac to share between the lot of them. . You beat me to the punch(line). Avatar appropriateness: BOLSTERED! I just want to say thanks to all the new teamlings (that's clearly an official industry word, u_u), for jumping aboard and helping create this splendid, splendid game! And, as always, thanks to the non-new teaminites for keeping up the fantasticful work (and for hiring the new teamlings, so that they can offer their collective ring powers toward the summoning of Captain Plan-ject: Eternity)! Also: 8D! I mean, I'm pretty excited about every single bold-headered segment of the update, but I didn't want to quote the whole thing. So, I made myself pick just one thing to which to respond with an enormous excited face. I want desperately to watch the video, but cannot access youtube from work. -___- I metaphorically offer a fresh, ice-cold water bottle of support that the team can grab from my outstretched hand as they run past on their collective marathon to project completion. Go go go! ^_^

Insisting that the current number of companions is "too low" is quite silly. That's like saying "there should be like 7 more classes in the game, and they should all just be less unique and have fewer skills." Equally un-based. If a class isn't substantial enough to bring something different to the table, why even have it as an option? If your options are diluted tot he point of having hardly any significant difference, then why insist on the choices in the first place? What good is an additional choice if it detracts from the existing choices? The only circumstance in which that's better is if you just so happen to hate all the existing choices, but you love the new one. What are the odds that, if they include 20 companions instead of 9, you're going to find an ENTIRE team of companions out of that 20 that you love AND don't wish had been injected with as much quality as if the game only had those 5 people? In other words, everyone keeps saying "of course quality's important!", but then pretending that there's no absolute effect from spreading your resources out between 15 or 20 characters rather than 9. When you find the characters you DO like, you want them to still be as quality as possible, ideally. So, I just don't get the seeming contradiction. Is anyone going to say "Yay! I sure am glad I got these 5 people who react to only about 10% of the narrative, as opposed to being restricted to only 9 choices that react and intertwine with about 85% of the whole game!"?

I'm not really sure. That bit was more of a tentative idea. I was just thinking that, without some means of controlling your ability to summon them, you end up with the "they're just free, extra allies." And, the whole domination/direct-control thing doesn't seem to fit, since that doesn't seem very much like a Druid. "I love nature so much, I FORCE SENTIENT CREATURES WITHIN IT TO DO MY BIDDING! MUAHAHAHA!" Ehh, I would assume that the death of your Druid would probably affect those wolf friends' desire to continue the fight. Or, as was mentioned, if you're fighting (for example's sake) a Balrog, and you're all "Yes! Go, wolves! ATTACK THAT BALROG, HEAD-ON!". I would think that, at the very least, they would be quite hesitant to do so. They might TRY to fight the Balrog, but, maybe this is more an issue of AI? Maybe they just sort of keep their distance, and/or kind of think "are you crazy?", and if they don't get a valid target (or you don't somehow disable the Balrog's ability to smite them in half with ease the second they get near), they leave early? Hmmm... yeah, I guess now I'm thinking it might be more of an issue of AI; of how effective your called allies are, rather than whether or not they come or how long they stay, etc. Maybe their morale is most heavily tied to their own well-being? If one gets badly sworded in the haunch, it's probably not going to go "BUT I NEED TO FIGHT TO THE DEATH FOR SOME REASON!", I suppose. Unless it's avenging something. I mean, it's basically just doing your Druid a favor. It doesn't have some personal life-debt to your specific Druid. Again, that would be more of an actual animal companion than the calling of amiable allies from nature. So, to be honest, I don't really know how to handle that. But, from a broad perspective, maybe it should simply be the fact that you can't directly control them? Maybe you have some degree of direct control (issue targets, tell them when to do certain things or which behavior to use, etc.) so long as nothing (morale?) overrides this? In this type of summon, and in most, really, I DO advocate the "number of charges"-type limitation rather than the duration one. There's too much wasted time, if you ask me, in having wolves that are all "Hey, man... I know I said we'd help, but, it's been like a minute. Yeah, yeah, I know most of that was spent chasing this sniper down who was fleeing from combat, and I JUST caught up to him, but... it's time for us to go, 8D!" I think it makes more sense to actually quantify the number of attacks/abilities they can use (still abstracted, obviously), or how much damage they can take before they decide to limp away (not so abstracted). In regard to how to handle summoning, this seems like it makes it feel much more a part of your offensive capabilities, rather than just some temporary aid. Like arrows in a quiver. You don't just lose the remaining arrows if you don't fire them all in 3 minutes, yet you still have a limitation on how many total arrows you have with which to fill the quiver (kind of like re-summoning allies). Of course, there could still be a time limit, but it could be significantly longer rather than being the sole limiting factor. You know, "20 attacks OR 10 minutes, whichever comes first," so you can't just prance around with wolf allies all the time while they don't really do anything (again sort of wandering into companion territory rather than simply friendly called aid). @ Osvir: As long as the summoned creature is actually one and the same, every time you summon it (progression/development aside), I think naming it could be a very nice touch. Changing the name of the spell/ability according to your name can't be any harder than plugging your character's name into all the dialogues in the game.

I think it's a simple matter of realizing that you're obviously going to have limitations while also realizing that believing you can guess the exact coordinates of the border between the realms of Can and Can't is folly.

Mr T. pities the -fu...

... BEHOLD!!! http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/64003-armour-weapon-designs-a-plea-part-iv/ (There should be a chain of links to the previous 3 threads in that succession.)

I think this is as specific as the official info gets at the moment: But, it at least sounds like the Druid's forms, at least, will be much more unique than simple animal copies, and won't drop your caster abilities for your SpiritShift form abilities. So, pseudo-shape-shifting will coexist with your abilities, rather than being mutually exclusive, at least. As for the unanswered questions that remain, I guess we'll have to wait and see, . They already seem to have a leg up on a lot of other implementations, though. Also, good idea, Greydragon. Expanding the ability's affects beyond combat would set it apart from the typical implementations pretty quickly.

It'd be interesting, I think, if some form of shape-changing actually resulted in hybrid abilities that were the sort of splicing of your character's existing abilities and those of the animal. In other words, instead of "I'm a wolf now, so I can claw you," you might have something like Burning Hands merged with a claw attack. Maybe the wolf-form gets Flame Maul or something. That way, you're not just a wolf, but you're also not just a caster who happens to be shaped like a wolf for the time being, and happens to get a few benefits (usually HP/armor/speed/damage/attack-type) from that form. Instead of ability-for-ability conversions, it could even be tied to some subset of abilities, like a specialization or magic school. Divination? Your Wolf Form gets Divination Wolf Abilities. Destruction? Your Wolf Form gets Destruction Wolf Abilities. *shrug*. Those could even be further altered/customized via the progression of the Wolf Form ability, modifying feats, etc. I think if a Wizard or Mage (or any class, really), can simply get a single ability or spell that's something like ShapeChange, you should probably just get the benefits of that animal's physical form, and maybe retain your ability to cast some of your spells. But, if the ability to shapechange is a core component of a class, I'm a fan of the "something entirely new/unique" hybridization. Can't wait for more specifics of the Druids' Spiritshift, since it sounds like they're taking the hybridization approach, to some degree at least.

It might have something to do with the fact that the ability is more in tune with assuming the spirit of the given animal (since you don't actually assume their entire physical form) and gaining some of its aspects and abilities? *shrug* Plus, you know, it kind of sets it apart from mere transformation magic. "Hi, I'm a druid." "Oh, hello, I'm a Mage. What do you do?" "Well, because I'm so attuned to nature, I can shapeshift into a bear." "Oh? That sounds a lot like my spell, called 'Shapeshift,' which allows me to also turn into a bear." "Yeah, but mine's totally different, because nature." "Hmmm... still sounds suspiciously like the same thing to m-" "*Bears the Mage to death*... What do YOU know?! u_u"

Maybe the Elemental Plane of Fire is ill-named, and should be called the Elemental Plane of Combustible Gases? Nah, it was just an interesting thought, of how a witty person might use fire to combat living fire, in a given situation. As I said, I don't at all recommend that they try to implement that scenario into P:E. At least, not in unscripted, open-combat form. That would require an oxygen/breathability tracking system for every space in which combat could take place and flames could occur. Pretty much only suited for PnP games, really. As for the plasma, I was not aware of that. You learn something new every day, ^_^

For what it's worth, I believe the effects of the Grimoire "Slam" ability were revealed to stem from the bursting release of power from within the grimoire, and not from the force of the swing. Much like a touch spell. Shocking Grasp doesn't do so much lightning damage because you poke the person REALLY hard in the face. The touch is there to deliver the magical effect. IIRC the plan was for there to be a cooldown on each spell level (NOT on each spell), similar to the Recharge Magic variant from Unearthed Arcana, with the cooldown decreasing as you went up in level. Then at some point they dumped this system and replaced it with a standard spells/day system, for some reason. I may be wrong (and I could try to find the dev quotes on this), but last I recall hearing, they did indeed drop the clock-ticky cooldowns, but still retained the levels of cast-a-bility, as it were. I'm pretty sure your lowest tier of abilities will be unlimited-use, while the next will be per-encounter, followed by per-day. So, if you get fireball at, say, Level 2, then progress to Level 5, it may go from per-day to per-encounter, since it's a much simpler spell relative to your level/capabilities with magic at that point. If you get to level 10, it might even become unlimited use. Different spells could still shift in different ways (everything won't necessarily be "if you get 3 levels above this, drop it down a tier"), for balance's sake. And, regarding the Vancian "ammo" aspect, I believe that, instead of the D&D method (for Wizards, at least) of having access to only the specific spells you've prepared, according to the number you may prepare for the day, I believe you essentially have access to a finite number of spells from a given set (as dictated by your grimoire?). In other words, if you've got 10 LvL-5 spells in your grimoire (to use D&D spell levels as an example, since I have no idea exactly how P:E will treat them), and you can cast 6 LvL-5 spells per day, then you can cast ANY of the 10 spells at any time, until you've cast 6 of them (6 of the same spell, or 6 different ones, or any combo there-in), at which point you've exhausted your LvL-5 spell ammo for the day. And, possibly, you can switch grimoires in combat much like Fighters would switch weapons, to change your access to specific spells. So, you might cast 3 spells from your Healing Grimoire, then switch to your Smitey Flames grimoire and cast 3 different, offensive spells, at which point you'd've used up your 6 LvL-5 spells. I could be mistaken... and some of it's still up in the air. Especially the grimoire switching. I'm less sure of exactly how that works.

I think the other potential problem with something like immunity to magic weapons (or non-magic damage/weapons) is how broad that is. In a game in which you could feasibly have a party of non-mages, and no magic weapons, you're essentially at a brick wall. It's approaching the level of restriction at which a foe is susceptible to only a single type of attack. "You can only damage this thing with backstabs. I hope you have a Rogue, MUAHAHAHA!" Obviously that's more extreme, but it illustrates the extent of such restrictions, methinks. I think immunities (even when used sparingly) work best when they're against more specific forms of damage, rather than entire types. Even then, I still hold that it would be quite interesting if, say, a fire elemental was immune to fire damage, but that it could still be damaged/affected by something like a fireball (which explodes). You simply wouldn't be able to BURN the fire elemental, since you can't burn fire. Thus, if you have a party filled with fire mages, you're going to take a hit in effectiveness, versus a fight with a typical group of non-fire-immune foes, but forcefully throwing exploding magical balls (even of fire) still counts for something. What would be REALLY interesting (but admittedly hardly suited to a game like P:E -- probably only really suited for like a PnP campaign) would be if you could start so many fires in a smallish room with a flame/fire elemental inside, then flee the room and seal it off. Even though you aren't actually damaging the elemental, directly, with fire, your extreme amount of flames could burn all the oxygen in the room faster than it could seep in under doors, etc, and extinguish the fire elemental (or at least weaken it, if it's simply made out of molten/burning substance rather than being comprised entirely of flame). Anywho... simply put, I think it's best when you remove specific functions of tools from the equation, rather than entire tools (much less sets of tools). For the most part. It's fine to occasionally restrict a bit further, but I still think it should always keep in mind each classes'/roles ability to provide SOME effectiveness, even if it isn't via damage. Of course, in regard to non-magic immunity, I think P:E's lore rather supports the notion that everyone would have SOME means of combatting a foe, even if their physical weapons were extremely diminished in effectiveness, or even useless, what with its soul powers/magic.

I can only vouch for the part after the comma. I try really hard, though.

True enough. But, unless you're not planning on ever having improved skills or capabilities at all, the same effect can be achieved without a separate increase to HP or toughness. So, yes, the general concept of increased toughness/endurance can't be tied to level, if there aren't any levels, but there are still ways of representing it. Legend of Zelda: You don't level (except for that one game, that I know of), but you find Heart Pieces and magically gain health/toughness. This type of approach could even work pretty well with the soul lore in P:E, just for whatever that's worth. At the very least, this is actually more believable than a leveling system that says "You just talked your way through this quest SO WELL that you somehow gained an additional stab's worth of life force, via sheer force of experience! 8D" Again, I'm not specifically saying it's preposterous or stupid to simply increase hitpoints, or that we shouldn't use a leveling system. Obviously an increase in HP versus the unchanged damage value of a foe = increased toughness, really. But, it is mildly silly, only because hitpoints represent a rating of your health/well-being, which shouldn't really expand in capacity. Whereas, something's ability to affect that well-being is quite reasonably variable. It only really becomes blatantly apparent, though, when the increase is too much. When a difference of 3 or 4 levels allows you to strip off all your armor and fight, bare-fisted, against 5 goblins, simply because they only do 3 damage and you now have 100 hitpoints, is a bit silly. Some people are tougher than others, true. But no one naturally becomes THAT resilient to damage. The same thing could be accomplished with the adjustment of the goblins' ability to damage you effectively, not because your skin resists sharpened metal, but because you're so skilled at combat that most of it is second-nature. It's a bit like a master swordsman being able to take on a few sword-wielding novices with only a solid oak branch. He doesn't not-die because he has somehow gained the ability to be sliced 17 times and laughing about it, but rather because he's so effective at melee combat that, even with an unsharpened, highly-ineffective weapon, he can easily prevent the novices from damaging him. I'm all for stretching realism into verisimilitude, for the sake of the fantasy and the nature of the video game, but things can only be stretched so far before they tear. That, and the fact that all of the effects of increasing HP can easily be achieved with other existing mechanics. So, there's almost no reason not to at least consider the possibility of doing things without bloating HP pools. Again, not the end of the world if they didn't do it, but it would certainly be interesting to see it explored.

You beat me to replying to JFSOCC's post, heh. I'll go a tad farther, though, and propose that you get to PICK a cultural specialization (or none), very similar to D&D Wizards picking a magic school specialization, or going universal. You'd still have cultural factors that could not be swapped, but maybe you happened to train with another culture's equipment style. That seems a lot more like a preference thing. Like a modern Westerner preferring to study eastern swordplay, etc. Just a supplementary idea/possibility. I'm not at all trying to supplant your ideas, Jarmo. The getting hold of a significantly superior saber example is spot on, whether or not the cultural equipment affinity is fixed or selective.

It's like... fictional-world-creation forensics. 8D!

I never said the number should be 10. I'm only pointing out the lack of necessity in increasing HP pools to progress or differentiate between entity durabilities. Obviously, everyone could have 1 hitpoint, and deal like .034 damage at a time. The reason that would be a terrible idea is that such numbers are extremely unintuitive. Almost the same thing happens when you go too high. "I've got 73,456 HP?! And that thing just did 2,972 damage?! Hang on a second..." In regard to sheer amount of damage needed to kill one or the other (i.e. they're both just standing there, like training dummies, without armor, and you're going to fight them), one would think that needing to kill the child 6 times over just to kill the Barbarian would be pretty accurate, perhaps even generous. Obviously, in reality, a single dagger strike would most likely kill them both. But, I personally think the HP difference isn't too much of an exaggeration, given that we're playing a video game, and so much is abstracted. Still, the Barbarian doesn't really ever need to attain 100 hitpoints, up from his 30. The MAIN reason the Barbarian is so hard to kill lies in the difficulty of properly striking him in a damaging fashion, and his tendency to be wearing some manner of armor and/or using his weapons and/or shield to prevent you from doing so whilst he promptly smites you to death. Throw in soul magic/powers, and you've got quite a range, from nooblet to Master Of Not Dying To Your Silly Attacks. All without needing to use increased HP numbers to generate betterment. You could, indeed. I mentioned the use of a sort of "natural armor." Which, to an extent actually exists. Martial artists can block devastating amounts of force with their muscles (and some would say chi/some other form of energy) that would shatter a normal person's entire ribcage. While this doesn't work as well with blades and the like, it would still apply to an extent. Especially so in an abstractly exaggerated game mechanics environment. But, I would ask... why would there need to be a choice to specifically not improve your "natural armor"? Does he specialize in offense SO WELL that he never beneficially develops his endurance or ability to cope with injuries? To put it another way, you could just as easily ask the same thing about the hitpoint system. "What happens if I focus 100% on offense and never gain any hitpoints? Will I maintain the same amount of hitpoints as a small city child?" You see? Not really anything mandating that offensive specialization and the development of some kind of passive toughness or the increase of an injury threshold be mutually exclusive. For the record, I'm not arguing against a leveling mechanic. Even without that, though, I don't see how you wouldn't improve your toughness, shy of never ever taking damage. In which case, why are you worried about how much damage you're capable of handling at that point? But, I'm not even really arguing specifically against hitpoint inflation. 99.99999% of games have used that, and it's fine. It's not like it's an invalid way to handle the same ideas (the math could potentially be the exact same, either way you do it). I'm simply pointing out that hitpoint inflation is completely unnecessary, and that it'd be quite interesting to see such a game as P:E actually use an alternative method. That's all.

^ One reason I'm very fond of full-immunities being used quite sparingly. I think effect immunities work better more commonly. i.e. "This thing can't be ignited for burn damage, even though your fireball still hurts it," or "this thing can't be slowed by cold, because of it's very nature," or "this thing can't bleed," etc. Instead of "I HAVE A RESTRAINING ORDER ON METAL! MUAHAHAHA!" Another thing that might even be interesting is if, say, a fireball (so easily pluckable as an example, ) did full damage and full effect, but using it against a particular foe caused it to molt flaming blobs of itself around in an area, which could harm you. So, it wouldn't be so much "what do we use that will hurt this thing?", but rather, "how do we kill this thing and not burn alive while doing it?". Or, maybe if you use crushing damage against some big stone golem, you can smash its limbs off with critical hits. But, the debris from its broken limb falls to the ground, only to animate itself as a lesser golem thing. If your party's better suited to taking on one single enemy and dealing with his attacks, maybe it's more prudent to forego the extra damage from majorly crushing attacks so you don't have to face multiple opponents. *shrug*

You still get increased numbers, though (attack, defense, skill, equipment values, ability damage/effectiveness modifiers, etc.). ^_^ Maybe even the occasional health up. Maybe to represent becoming so rugged as to "shrug off" a bit of damage? Of course, that could also just as easily be thrown in as a small, natural armor boost. 8P

Yup yup. Well, and if they controlled their finiteness with price. So, if they made them cheaper, you ended up with "Wait... I'm limited to 5 spells per day? WHAT ABOUT THIS 64-PACK OF SCROLLS OF MAGIC MISSILE I JUST GOT FOR TREE-FIDDY?!" . So then, what's the point in even having a "spells per day" limit? They're kind of in a tough spot, in typical D&D implementation.

"Normal D&D resistances" is part of it. I'm just vying for a system that demands adaptation more so than one that just takes away your capabilities. "This thing can only be hurt by yellow-colored pebbles! Everyone get out your slings and paint! SLINGS AND PAINT, people!" Hehe. I'd rather see a boss/tough foe who's tough by demanding cleverer use of your resources, rather than eliminating all your options. If they want to reduce your ability to do damage to some boss, they could just boost its armor or HP. No need to say "SUCK IT, FIRE MAGE! YOU ARE MEANINGLESS HERE!" I'd like to see a boss that requires that your Rogue employ tactics you wouldn't normally have him employ, because there's usually a much better way of taking on your challenges. Not make your Rogue quantifiably less useful as an entire character. Tactical immunity/resistance, as it were.

Well, when you think about it, the only importance of the values of HP and damage is theirrelationship to one another. I mean, if you start out with 10 HP, and deal 1 damage per hit, and enemies have 5HP (so it takes 5 hits to kill them), then you progress and level up, and gain 10 HP and 1 damage per hit, then you're at 20HP and 2 DMG. Well, if the enemies you meet are now tougher, and they have 10HP, then they STILL take 5 hits. Nothing has actually changed, except that you get a nice psychological feeling from reading the increased numbers. So, the only real important difference is, as I said, the relationship between your ability to damage something, and its HP. There are plenty of other factors at play that can be used to dynamically shift this effectiveness. Look at P:E's miss-graze-hit-crit system. Imagine you're level X, and you have 100HP, and you do 10dmg, and an enemy has 80HP and does 10 damage. You're evenly matched in terms of attack-vs-defense, so you've got, what... 5%-45%-45%-5%, respectively? So, you level up, and you don't gain any health, but your attack and defense increase. Well, now, with the same exact HP value, you face the same enemy again. Only, this time, you've got 0%-35%-55%-10% on your to-hit chance, while the enemy (because of your increased defenseive capabilities) has shifted in the opposite direction with his chances, to 10%-55%-35%-0%. You can no longer miss him, and he can no longer crit you. You have a much greater chance of dealing no less than 10 damage to him, and he has a much greater chance of dealing less than 10 damage to you. If that example were the case, you'd feel plenty more powerful against that foe after you leveled up and improved, than before. All without any HP boost needed. Why? Because his ability to damage your existing HP diminished, and your ability to damage HIS increased. Your HP became more effective, and his became less effective. This is before we even introduce things like armor, and abilities that deal extra damage/ignore armor/deal different types of damage, etc. The tougher enemies become the ones who possess more ways in which to effectively deal damage to you, not the ones who require you to have more and more HP to defeat them. When you get hit hard, in any game, do you say "Oh man, I know how bad that hit was, 'cause it did (enter number here) damage!", or is your first thought something more like "Dear lord! That took off nearly half my health! That guy can probably kill me in just a couple of hits!"? If all you had was a health bar, and no numbers whatsoever, you'd still know which enemies were tougher, and which were weaker, based on how much of that bar they took off when they hit you, and how capable they were of hitting you.

Well, here was my thinking on the matter: If you're not actually magically transporting and dominating something (you're calling allies who help you because they've agreed to, and not because you literally bend their will), then it's more like you're just calling out to wolves (as per our examples) in the area. Because wolves will help you. Not because a specific group of wolves has made a pact with you and follows you around throughout the entire game. And it maybe does take something out of you to actually call on the aid of wolves (some kind of mental message you can get to them, via your whole connection with nature as a Druid or some other character who might be able to call upon nature's allies), so you can only call on wolves so many times, etc. (Much like Vancian spell ammo). But, I was thinking that things like their duration and effectiveness could vary, depending on some abstraction of the conditions discouraging them to fight for you, pitted against their innate desire to fight for you. Kind of like... if your friend is trapped in a building, and a fire's started, you might run in there at risk to yourself. But, if the entire building is literally collapsing in a giant flaming mass, you probably won't go just leap into a literal burning pile of rubble and start trying to dig your friend out at the cost of all your flesh melting off. That, and I imagine that wolves who are simply helping you because they like you are still going to get to a point at which they're all "Umm, you're really cool and all, but we REALLY need to go back to our den and tend our wounds." In other words, they don't owe you their lives. They just owe you SOME risk. So, yeah... morale maybe isn't the simplest thing ever, but I think it could be abstracted pretty well. I dunno, though. There are plenty of other things to be worked out with that. It was only a preliminary idea for a mechanic. There would be a need for SOME kind of factor there, since you're simply calling aid and not forcibly controlling the aid, and there's no reason, therefore, to demand some detriment to the caller's capabilities like there is with created/sustained/dominated minions. So, if not morale, then something. Otherwise, we're back to the "either they're kept really weak and lame to make up for the fact that they're free additional forces, or they're stupidly powerful free additional forces" dilemma. Of course, you could still have the whole tradeoff going beteween the effectiveness of ally-summoning and the effectiveness of all your non-ally-summoning capabilities. Maybe if you take feats and/or boost things to make it so that eight wolves come when you call, you rely much more heavily upon your ability to call wolves. Whereas, if you're far more reliant on your own active abilities and skills, then perhaps you'd only be at the point with summoning that 2 wolves come when you call wolves. *shrug* That could work, on its own, possibly. But, I think the idea of quite literally summoning specific creatures treads too closely tothe idea of an animal companion and/or kind of stomps all over the lore (if that animal is going so far out of its way to always be nearby as you trek around the world, why must it be summoned to battle in the first place? Why isn't it simply accompanying you?).

Please don't think I was trying to shoot down the entire idea. Really, the only problem I see with any implementation of that means of control is if it didn't really operate on a "the first one's free" system. Because, if there's always a small chance it's just going to turn on you, then the more powerful the summon, the worse the effects of that chance become. Imagine if you had a grenade, but you didn't know how long the fuse was. It could be 10 seconds, or it could be .003 seconds. Would you use that grenade? The risk is directly proportionate to the explosive power of the grenade. Plus, if you were a grenadier, you'd be disinclined to fulfill your own role. "I better just do other stuff, and MAYBE if I feel like tossing the dice, I'll use grenades." Now, imagine that, instead of a grenade, you have a nuke. But you can't target it. You activate it, and it's going to fly up in the air, then choose a target. Odds are pretty good it's going to target the foe, at a nice safe distance. But, there's a 15% chance it's going to come straight back to you and detonate. That's going to pretty much be a last-resort weapon, at that point. So, yes, maybe you can summon more numerous weaker things, or less numerous stronger things, sort of quantified to the same amount of summon. Like 3 imps that each have 5 HP and deal 3 damage, or a single wolf that has 15 HP and deals 9 damage, for example. (Not that the numbers need to be perfectly even, but it helped express the idea.) If you can only summon one imp safely, and trying to summon 2 or 3 starts getting risky (in whether or not they're even going to be of ANY benefit), then imagine how disinclined you are to try to summon a wolf that's the same risk as all three imps at once. So, what I'm thinking is, if you get to summon a wolf (relatively powerful thing), OR three imps, both of those take you to your maximum of guaranteed control. Then, maybe you have the OPTION of trying to summon another wolf, or another imp. Another imp might have a 2% chance to break control, while the wolf would be somewhere around 10%. Almost like the further you overflow your control-ometer, the higher the chance goes, with the control being proportionate to the power of the creature. I just feel like, if you're a summoner, and you can't rely on your summons, that would be a lot like a Fighter being incapable of relying on his weapon/arms. Imagine, you use a shortsword, and you're okay. But you want to use a greatsword? Alright. It's simply that much more powerful than the shortsword, but there's a 15% chance, with each swing, that you'll simply attack yourself with it. And the only problem I have even with the scenario in which you can summon a single strong thing, guaranteed, then start running into risk percentages of additional summons is that, you're still simply rolling the dice on the entire effect of your core ability. If you succeed, via sheer luck, you could produce 3 wolves without losing control, and just mow down everything in your path. I'd honestly much rather see a definite percentage increase on a diminished effect. Like, if you're allowed to attempt summoning more things, then the more things you summon, the slower/less-effective they become. Summon 1 big baddy? Maybe he's got 5 charges of an ability, and full potency. Summon a 2nd one? He's half the HP/strength of the first, and only has 2 charges of that ability. Summon a third one? He may be almost ineffective. But each would still take up equal amounts of control, in so far as the equation determines how effective each summon is, versus the amount of summoned entity you've already got out. *shrug* I mean, you strain yourself with anything, and you suffer some detriment for it. You don't just convert it into a coin toss. I'm playing BG:EE right now, and Neera the Wild Mage functions like that. She has potent abilities, but they're coin tosses. And what happens? I only use them when I pretty much have no other choice. 'Cause, otherwise, I'm simply jeopardizing my success. "This battle's going swimmingly so far. Let's toss the dice, and see if Neera helps out, or if we all burn alive! 8D". Granted, she can cast normal spells, too, and that's what I use her for. But any mage can do that. So, the thing that makes her a wild mage also makes her a last resort, rather than something I actually get the benefit of on a regular basis, thrown into the class/role mix.

I can't help but envision some armor made from the linked together shells of a thousand snails when I read this.