Summoning magic

KEY
1.) General overview and pros/cons
2.) In-depth stat description
3.) mediums
4.) Summoning overview
5.) Individual summons

Pure summoners are significantly weaker than any other type of character and rely heavily on their summons. They are hard to incorporate into other classes and require very high stat investments. In return you are able to summon phantoms that vary from ones who are similar to summoning a friendly NPC phantom, to those who are more like a miniature boss who fights by your side.

PROS
Can summon phantoms that act as a completely separate entity to assist you
All phantoms are very powerful

CONS
Without summons, the player itself is significantly weaker than others at the same level
Summons take very long to cast
Powerful summons leaves your character vulnerable
Summons require a very high stat investment



The stat required for summoners would be known as Spirit, or SPI. SPI's one and only use is to meet the minimum requirements to use certain summons. It doesn't scale with any weapons, it doesn't grant more special resistances than any other stat, and it doesn't make your summons stronger. This makes it so that without summons, every point invested into SPI is essentially a wasted point. Pure summoners who spent 50 points on SPI would be as strong as people 50 levels below them if for some reason they weren't fighting with summons. The reason behind this is to balance the fact that summoners have skills that are essentially a whole second person or second life by making their real bodies physically weaker.

To be honest I'm still thinking of what the medium for summoners would be. I'm thinking they'll be called "Charms" and be un-upgradeable miscellaneous items like a bead necklace wrapped around your hand, a fan, or anything else you can imagine a gypsy or superstitious old person use to cast a spell. Some types of charms would be better used with some types of summons. For example, the fang charm would go better with all animal-type phantoms.

Stat bonuses you can get with certain charms are:
Faster cast times
Longer summoning durations
A field that protects the summoner when a summon is active
More health for the summon
More attack for the summon
A force-like explosion around the character when he starts a summon
Etc.

There are three types of summoning: dependent, independent, and full-control summoning. Only one independent summon can be active at once. An independent summon CAN be active while you use a dependent summon OR a full-control summon. All summons will have a trail of light or energy that connects them to the summoner and will indicate which direction the summoner is in cases of the summon wandering far away from the summoner. Although summoners can be attacked while a summon is active, they cannot be backstabbed.

Independent summoning
Attunement slots: 1
SPI requirements: 15-35
Cast time: 10 seconds
Number of casts: 1-2
Limits: summons have both health bars and a certain time limit and will disappear when either runs out. The health ranges from 500-3000 HP. the time limit is 3-5 minutes. You can also cancel a summon by "summoning" the same phantom
Behavior: summons will follow you like friendly-NPC phantoms. Depending on the summon, their behavior would differ. For example: how far it wanders from you, it's aggro range and level, etc.
Summoner status: maintains full control of your character.

Dependent summoning
Attunement slots: 1-2
SPI requirements: 30-45
Cast time: 1 second
Number of casts: 3-8
Limits: duration time is 5-20 seconds. Hold the button down to continue using the spell, releasing the button will end the spell immediately.
Behavior: dependent summons are more similar to AoE spells like firestorm rather than friendly NPC phantoms. Their AoE is roughly 10-30 feet around the summoner and cannot go beyond that area.
Summoner status: the summoner is in a defenseless state where they can only walk while they "concentrate" on their summon

Full-control summon
Attunement slots: 2-3
SPI requirements: 40-60
Cast time: 5 seconds
Number of casts: 1-3
Limits: The average time-limit is 30-120 seconds. health ranges from 1000-2000. The summon also disappears when the summoner is staggered heavily enough. The summon cannot be cancelled b the summoner by normal means; it has to die first.
Behavior: When summoned, the player takes direct control of the summon.
Summoner status: while the summon is active, the players real body is immobile in a kneeling position while he is fully enraptured in the summon until they are attacked or the summon ends.



Independent Summons




Dependent Summons



Full-Control Summons

Charms list
Bead charm - Standard Charm
Mysterious Fang charm - Increases attack power and duration time of all animal summons
Knight's Plume charm - Increases Health and duration time of all knight summons
Sacred fan charm - A Force-like explosion emanates from the user every 2-seconds while the summoner has a dependent or full-control summon active.

Rings

XXX Ring - Creates a forcefield around the user that reduces damage received by 50% while a dependent or full-control summon is active.

What would you summon though?

I can imagine low-level summons are things like dogs, or rats, while higher up things could be something like a Golden Crystal Golem or a Giant Skeleton.

And then there could be covenant summons.

For example, if you reach X rank in Chaos Servant, you get a basic fire summon like the fire dogs from Blighttown, while reaching a higher rank lets you summon something like a fire statue from Izalith or maybe a minature Chaos Eater.

For the Forest Hunters, you could get tree-men or cats.

The Way of White could use a really good summon, give it a tiny reason to join that covenant.

And by weaker than standard characters, how weak are we talking?

Like, slightly below standard stats, or is being alone like using a Broken Straight Sword hilt.

I didn't think of wha exactly you'd summon but they won't necessarily be other enemies from the game. Ill give specific examples when I finish section 5 tomorrow.

And being a summoner and not using summons would basically be like getting your faith to 50 or 60 and then never using any miracles or weapons that scale with faith. Huge disadvantage

Him. This could be extremely interesting, though hard to implement without it being either massively overpowered or underpowered. Not too sure how much it would work in Dark Souls, as it is a game where two weak enemies may be a bigger threat then one strong one, which would be a summoner and his summon. Also I could think of builds that multi classed quality and this, and had maybe a summon that gave the summoner a buff? Interesting is definitely the word for this, as I hardly see games where summoning is implemented in a good way.

I love the summoner idea, and have thought about it many times. I think the biggest danger would be that, in a PVP setting, there is nothing stopping your opponent from simply targeting the summoner instead of the summon. It is rather easy to dodge the majority of attacks in the souls series, so it would probably be easy to just avoid a summon and target the summoner, especially with backstabs. Now, this could possibly be negated if, when summoning a powerful summon, your character actually disappeared, or there was some variety of force field.. or any reason to deter the opponent from simply attacking the summoner. With an independent summon, I do not think this would be nearly as big a deal, especially if your character wasn't necessarily as nerfed as what your suggesting, or at least made use of elemental weps... Something like this teamed up with spells like boosted undead rapport could be great. In terms of WHAT you summon, I can see animated armor sets, small beasts.... I would be REALLY disappointed if the summons were just enemies from the game and that was it. Individual and interesting summons would be a must!

tofucactaur wrote:I love the summoner idea, and have thought about it many times. I think the biggest danger would be that, in a PVP setting, there is nothing stopping your opponent from simply targeting the summoner instead of the summon. It is rather easy to dodge the majority of attacks in the souls series, so it would probably be easy to just avoid a summon and target the summoner, especially with backstabs. Now, this could possibly be negated if, when summoning a powerful summon, your character actually disappeared, or there was some variety of force field.. or any reason to deter the opponent from simply attacking the summoner. With an independent summon, I do not think this would be nearly as big a deal, especially if your character wasn't necessarily as nerfed as what your suggesting, or at least made use of elemental weps... Something like this teamed up with spells like boosted undead rapport could be great. In terms of WHAT you summon, I can see animated armor sets, small beasts.... I would be REALLY disappointed if the summons were just enemies from the game and that was it. Individual and interesting summons would be a must!

The biggest danger to using summons is the fact that your real character is still vulnerable. That's why there's a few different types. One type of summon that acts as an NPC, one type of summon that is a fast acting AoE spell around the user, and one that is a powerful second character. Each of them have their advantages and disadvantages.

As for what you summon, yea I was thinking the same thing. Suits of armor, phantom animals, and things that aren't in the game like a giant pair of arms that swing around you.

SirArchmage wrote:Him. This could be extremely interesting, though hard to implement without it being either massively overpowered or underpowered. Not too sure how much it would work in Dark Souls, as it is a game where two weak enemies may be a bigger threat then one strong one, which would be a summoner and his summon. Also I could think of builds that multi classed quality and this, and had maybe a summon that gave the summoner a buff? Interesting is definitely the word for this, as I hardly see games where summoning is implemented in a good way.

Feel free to come up with some ideas for summons and help me out~

Why not just keep your idea's, and make a game yourself with them? Inbetween you and I, I'm certain we're bright enough.

Just remember, game studio's have no room for an idea man, everyone has idea's, you'd need to learn some coding too.

Now there's an idea Rynn

The problem is, while this isn't a bad idea, having it's own discipline magic such as this in a game like Dark Souls can make me really feel like playing necromancer on Diablo 2. (for those who never played that game or class, the hardest difficulty pretty much became easy mode after i obtain some decent skill and equipment)

I really like the idea though, since in most rpg i usually play characters/builds that allow have as much henchman as possible. But i think rather then having all of the summoning skillset to be a whole anther magic discipline perhaps we could be fit into the original Dark Souls magic trio. (like the ability to summon a fire golem for pyro, some kind of crystal golem for magic, and some kind of a lightning statue for faith/miracle)And with each of these summoning, a precious resource is used (like humanity, summoning charms of sort could work too) This way the game doesn't move away from too much of the core game elements the game is know(dodging, rolling, backstabbing) But still let me summon dynamically powered/controlled creature. 

Just a thought..

@drdrack

You know...I'd settle for that I suppose.  But I still think my system wouldn't be very hard to balance.

Because of the high stat investments to use summons, at lower levels the summons would be weak and only usable for support.  You'd have to help them for them to help you.  And at higher levels you've spent so many stats on SPI that your character would be a weakling compared to others.