(TFT) Re: New Item: Maintain Summoning

["Dave Seagraves" <dave.s@sbcglobal.net>]

   Very interesting comments about this enchantment.  (Controversy!
Yay!  Praise to Enok!)  Most or all of you consider the item too
powerful, but consider this . . .

   What about the enchantment that Maintain Summoning (MS) is based
on: Maintain Illusion (MI)?  For only $3000 a pop (doubled after every
multiple of five) I can have up to 25 gargoyles or whatever (total
cost for 25 gargoyles maintained: $930,000).  This does the same as MS
but does not allow them to go more than 5MH away from the wizard (a
moderate handicap) or manipulate inanimate objects (a trivial
handicap).
   Because the illusion is already there, the risk of foes
disbelieving your illusion is almost non-existent -- even a powerful
wizard or scholar doesn't usually even consider attempting to
disbelieve unless he saw the creature appear himself, or unless the
illusion is something really unlikely under the wearer's control (like
a giant octopi armed with three bastard swords).  I consider this the
main advantage of Maintain Illusion.  This is only a slight handicap
compared to MS.
   Given all of the above, I set the cost of MS at twice that of MI,
which at the time seemed reasonable.

   Also consider what you can maintain with MS: Any 1-hex creature.
To get anything larger you'd have to create a more powerful version of
the enchantment as per /Advanced Wizard/, p. 29, Note B.  So to
maintain a giant would cost $9000, a 7-hex dragon $21,000.  Sounds
reasonable.
   Another limitation: You're stuck with summoning whatever you have
the summon spell for.  No such thing as Summon Giant Octopi.
   And is $6000 really that cheap?  That's a lot of money to stick on
your gargoyle (or whatever).  For the cost of a Spell Shield or Detect
Enemies item you probably wouldn't want that gargoyle out of your
sight.

   Then again there are some other problems:
   Any 1-hex creature, eh?  Okay, I'll whip up a lesser demon!  I'll
have all my friends around with weapons ready, to kill it if I blow my
DX roll, which makes the danger almost trivial.  If it's friendly,
we're effectively friends forever!  (Then again almost the same
problem exists with MI.)
   Allowing the creature to wear the enchanted item that's keeping it
handy could be viewed as a violation of the Rule of Five, which is a
slightly bad thing.  Now I can have 25 enchantments on me plus my
flying monkey horde of unlimited size!  Time to (a) rob a bank, then
(b) conquer Oz.

   Idea: Summoning gems create a creature to serve 6 turns.  If the
cost of these is multiplied by 10 (i.e. no ST cost) then the creature
would hang around until it was killed or sent away.  (This is canon --
no rule change necessary.  For $5000 you too can have a pet wolf.
Whoopie.)
   The same idea could be used for MS.  Take the costs of the
Bear/Gargoyle, Giant/Small Dragon, and 7-hex Dragon gems, multiply
each by 10, divide each by the number of hexes, then take these
quotients and average them.  The cost comes to just under $7000 (per
hex of creature), so let's just use $7000.  (This sounds good
considering the bodyguard you could hire or slave you could buy for
this much money.  For example, a Mercenary Recruit-type could be hired
for 74 /weeks/ of (uninterrupted) duty, which I'll bet is far longer
than most campaigns last.)

   Changes to submitted enchantment: First of all, a summoned demon
will always be trying to break free of its control, and the demon
community would simply /loathe/ such an enchantment.  So once the
wizard successfully gets a demon maintained, there is a 1-in-6 chance
per /minute/ that the demon breaks control and attacks the wizard!
(Similar to the 1-in-6 chance of an illusionary demon causing a real
hostile demon to appear.)  This makes maintaining a demon not worth
keeping around casually for long periods of time.  ("Oh yes, you must
get yourself a demon, Yzor.  The kids just /love/ my Beelzebub, and he
keeps the house /really/ clean!").  (Make this change for MI as well.)
   Secondly, don't allow the summoned creature to wear the item.  This
preserves the Rule of Five and keeps the creature within 5MH of the
wizard if he wants to keep him maintained (which will therefore keep
most creatures to a Myrmidon or Wolf (i.e. "dog") in civilized
places -- you can't just walk through the city with your dragon
tagging along, no matter how well-behaved!).  A wizard will probably
have other magic items; this and the cost will probably limit his
maintained creatures to no more then five at a time, most likely just
one or two.  This change also limits using the creature to do your
spying at long distances -- be a man and do it yourself.
   (Presumably whoever holds the item controls the creature, which
brings up interesting possibilities.  In the middle of the fight one
of the PC's grabs the Evil Wizard's necklace and suddenly the Evil
Wizard's "pet" dragon is now his friend!)


Cas writes . . .

>Dave, does the summoned critter disappear after 12 turns or
>stay indefinitely (pretty powerful if the latter!). Also,
>what about critters (like dragons) which require 2ST/turn
>to keep'em around?

   Like Maintain Illusion, the critter sticks around indefinitely.
   Instead of ST cost, hex size is the limiting factor, just like
Maintain Illusion.


>Also, may I post it on the webpage (with a credit of course)?

   Yes of course, but let me tweak the enchantment first (using my
notes above) and get past all the thought-testing going on here before
you post it.  Need to change the construction numbers too.  I'd do it
all now but it's late and I've been slaving all day over a hot
computer.

Capt. Dave Seagraves   dave.s@sbcglobal.net   1 (512) 835-1776
Combat Physician, 506th PIR, 101st Airborne Division, TMHS
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