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Post by CRTaylor on Feb 17, 2014 4:52:40 GMT
I mentioned this on Facebook but its a problem I'm running into rebuilding my spellbook for 6th edition. Summoning (and other similar constructs, like follower) got more expensive in 6th edition without a corresponding increase in power.
What I mean is this. Say, Elvis Merlin the Vegas Wizard wants to fire his "Spray of dice" spell, and it does 5d6 normal damage for 25 points. It still does 5d6 in 6th edition for 25 points. But when he tries to summon his Neon Elemental, which used to cost 127 points in 5th edition, now it costs 190 points (so the cost to him has gone from 25 to 38 points) for the exact same creature.
Now, 13 points may not seem like much to you, but many (most?) spell systems use power frameworks and the way advantages work, its a pretty big change when you start adding in something like amicability. That's a real concern. The inflation on these builds is significant, but the power has not increased.
This is an inevitable artifact of the way the characteristics build changed, and its why now in 6th edition you get more base points to build a character on in the suggested guidelines.
I'm pondering letting disadvantages reduce the total cost of creatures for summons/vehicles/etc with strict GM oversight, just to offset this effect. The problem is when writing "officially licensed" hero products, that's not exactly Kosher, so it throws everything off.
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Post by Thia Halmades on Feb 17, 2014 22:58:49 GMT
I've never been a huge fan of Summon, so I apologize that I'm not familiar with it, but I grasp the core of your concern. You are correct, Sixth is more expensive, hence, more points. Costs as always are reduced by limitations and if you want to make it cheaper you might have to get creative. I hear the problem, but what is the ask? What are your core thoughts on mitigation?
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Post by CRTaylor on Feb 18, 2014 5:48:44 GMT
I'm concerned by the increase in cost; its causing structure issues for spells. A little weak summoning used to be cheap enough a little starting wizard could buy it, but now its gotten a bit more expensive. And yet the power hasn't changed; that causes problems for spell systems, especially those in power frameworks.
I was hoping someone had some tips or maybe word from the official FAQ I'd missed, or some line from an Advanced Player's Guide.
I'm leaning heavily toward subtracting disads from the total cost for a summon before the reduction but then it makes troubles for writing things for official licensing.
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Post by Chris Goodwin on Feb 18, 2014 22:57:39 GMT
I know Fantasy Hero gives GMs huge amounts of leeway in creating magic systems, like for instance there's one magic system in which characters pay 1/3 of the real point cost for spells, and another in which spells are treated like weapons (you'd buy Spell Familiarity with categories, and spells have an INT Minimum). I wonder how much leeway you can take in a licensed product.
If I were you I'd almost try to get it through and see what happens. You can call it part of your magic system. If you can't then I'd just live with it and call it a limitation of the new system. Anyone converting characters gets the grandfather clause; you should be able to do everything after the conversion you could before, and if that costs more points you get those points for free.
(Remember FH1e? Monsters, or anything defined as a monster -- including humanoid, demi-human, and human NPCs, if encountered as monsters -- were built from base stats of 0, and 0 Running, making monsters cost 137 points more than their actual power levels. That counted for things like Summon and Shapeshift, which in FH1e was something like Multiform in that you had to shift your points around. That was... kind of silly, and none of the other heroic level standalone games did that.)
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Post by CRTaylor on Feb 18, 2014 23:49:53 GMT
I do remember that, it was an interesting system. I used it for robots a while, presuming they started with nothing, but yeah its odd.
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Post by CRTaylor on Mar 24, 2014 16:23:30 GMT
I decided to go with subtracting the complications from the total before dividing by 5, as a method of offsetting the increased cost of building characters in 6th edition. Its a bit uneven but it works pretty well and it has a bonus of making undead which are grossly over priced for their power level to begin with (because of automaton powers) a bit more reasonable in price, because they have severe complications.
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kravenkor
Double Digit Master
"We're making a better world; all of them. Better worlds."
Posts: 92 
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Post by kravenkor on Mar 31, 2014 21:51:40 GMT
I would just do it as a limitation on the summon / follower power; "has X complications" and call it about -1/4 per 10% of total points in complications. If you have a 150 point summon with 25 points of complications, that makes it about 20% for a -1/2 limitation.
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Post by CRTaylor on Mar 31, 2014 23:33:26 GMT
That doesn't help with the active cost, which are very important for power frameworks, for instance.
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kravenkor
Double Digit Master
"We're making a better world; all of them. Better worlds."
Posts: 92
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Post by kravenkor on Apr 1, 2014 2:33:08 GMT
True; apologies.
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Post by CRTaylor on Apr 30, 2014 3:25:00 GMT
The more I think about it, the more I think the doubling effect should be a modifier, not a flat 5 point adder. Summoning +1 dragon shouldn't cost the same as summoning +1 sheep. A +1/4 modifier for each doubling would make multiple summons of very powerful things quite expensive but very minor things quite cheap as the should be. If you summon 86 squirrels it might be amusing, but its not the same as 4 ogres. That 25 point monster with a +1/4 advantage to double its summoning numbers means it becomes 6 active points instead of 10, but that 250 point creature becomes 62 instead of 55. That seems more the way it should be; cost based on utility and power.
The reason this comes up is that I came up with a "gather herd" spell which summons a farmer's herd (or any group of like, specific creatures) and its ridiculously expensive to summon a bunch of cows. The reason for that cost is that x32 cows is +25 points active cost and that gets awful. But x32 cows with the proposed system would be +1 1/4 and that brings the cost down almost half total.
Oh, while I'm thinking about it, I would propose a second level of "specific being" advantage. Anything not combat significant such as, say, a cow, is a +1/2 advantage to summon instead of +1. Yeah, its powerful to summon exactly the person you want (say, The Hulk or General Eisenhower) but not so significant to summon Flossie the cow.
*Incidentally, I went with a megascale indirect teleport instead of summon. That will be quite a shock to Flossie and her friends, but it is considerably cheaper for the effect.
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