Shattered Kingdoms

get wert and his bat to whack the [REDACTED] outta it, but make gate much higher success rate. Sounds like a LOT more interesting pk opportunity, one that involves risk.

I agree summon needs some serious limitations - but not the complete nerfing suggested here. SK has few ways for a smaller group to hurt a larger one. Summon is one of them, and it shouldn't be eliminated unless another one is being added.

What limitations? Well, the big problem with summon is that it's an incredibly low risk spell for the power it has. If it fails, there's no way to track down the caster. So let's consider:

1) Adapting some of voodoo's limitations: Target gets a glimpse of the caster's room. Caster can't summon/gate/teleport/recall for a few minutes after using the spell, due to the disturbance caused by the spell in the astral plane. The caster's own vulnerability to summon/gate increases for this period.

2) Creating a counter-spell "Astral Ward". Attempting to summon a warded character succeeds ... in summoning a hostile spirit protector likely to kill a mid-sized group. However, the concentration/mana cost for the ward is too high to cover several people. Trying to summon somone out of an army is still a reasonable tactic - but harrassing a single character becomes a risky proposition.

That astral ward thing sounds kind of cool. I'm not sure if it would solve the original problem though.

Add a chance a summon spell against a PC will backfire and throw you at the PC you intended to summon in the first place.

'spirit ward' sounds like a good priest/shaman version, and 'astral ward' sounds like a good sorcerer version for the same spells. Perhaps, however, 'astral ward' might target an entire group (airy water) while 'spirit ward' is targeted like sanctuary.

Make art not affect summon at all. Make auto summon work very well against summon, but not make it impossible.

First thing I'd like to note, is that while I do have summon, I've yet to 'summon/gank' anyone, regardless of the fact that it's tempting, and I'll admit to having tried it once or twice with no result.

Secondly, group summon is a horrible idea for several reasons, especially if you can summon people while flying (which I also haven't tried, but it would be funny if you could).

I'm all for gate being easier to cast, but as gate and summon most likely rely on the same targetting code and saves, I'd bet having auto summon on making you immune would make gate unusable in PK too.

If you really need summon to be nerfed, I'd say just make it harder to cast (higher mana required and longer time to cast) and switch it with gate (lowered ME cost and shorter casting time). OR, give classes with summon a way to create objects similar to a shaman's spirit dolls to be used with summon.

I didn't read all the responses so I might be suggesting something already suggested.

Changes to summon I would like to throw out for debate:

1. Summon name only works when name has greeted you.

2. Summon groupmember gives chance for other members of the group or the entire group to be summoned.

3. Summon breaks sanctuary but doesn't automatically cause you to start fighting.

4. Cannot summon while invis.

5a. Cannot summon ethereal while not ethereal.

5b. Cannot summon non-ethereal while ethereal.

6. Summon fails slightly more often while gate is substantially more successful.

I wouldn't mind seeing the whole package installed but portions of it wouldn't hurt either.

I just want to remind us all what was happening in the days that this counted for voodoo. Nobody greeted anyone, restricting the RP and aid towards newbies (I know cause I was one) to a great limit.

Summon's good. I haven't seen it used over 6-10 wilderness room distance or same-area distance effectively. If it can be effective past that distance, then your will save bites (what else is new?) or I've just been lucky and that should be fixed. With basic gear, you should not be summonable from really far away, that's just sadistic and annoying. If you think "Oh, but then I can't go into a city that might have enemies in it!" then you clearly need to re-evaluate your understanding of the words "walking right into it" and what the consequences of that are. If you are close to someone out to get you, guess what, you're in danger. Summon is just a more specialized tool. I like the idea of a more effective gate, however. The annoying aspect of summon comes with group combat reduces to hiding a mile away from each other summoning people with low will.

It doesn't matter if you are summoning from one end of Taslamar to another. Summon checks two things when it comes to distance. Are you in the same area or not.

But is all Taslamar considered the same area? Or is it divided in 2-3 areas.

And seriously, all of you who want summon to be wimped and *had* a respectable(not sick like 50) amount of willpower, why don't you post here the success rate of summon? 1/40 attempts? 1/50?

With my necro I had another GM max art necro try to summon me from the same room. And that was 1 year ago, after art was just implemented. Would you like to know the success rate? 5%.

D has stated no spell is ever gonna have immunity, and I agree with that. You get that 1/50 summon attempts? Bad luck, you had a critical miss when the summoner had a critical hit.

PS: For those that said summon to have a chance to take you to the target's location, I'd like to see 2 warriors and a healer, about to enter wastelands, trying to summon there XXX NPC only to have the healer dissapear.