ricegf/elven-fire — Issue #32: Cost Issues with One-Time-Use Summon Artifacts 
Author: ricegf
Created: 2012-02-05 21:26:06+00:00
State: open

While working on Tep, I realized a possible hole in the summoning rules with respect to gems, scrolls and potions.

The IIQ for Summon affects 2 things - the fatigue cost of summoning and (for called or cloned) sustaining the summoned creature, and the distance from the summoner that the creature appears. Since gems are self-powered, the former doesn't matter, and since the gem can be thrown, the latter isn't terribly important, either.

Thus, a Summon 1 and Summon 2 gem should cost exactly the same, and a Summon 5 gem only slightly more. This applies to a somewhat lesser extent to scrolls and ability potions (since distance is always from the summoner in those cases).

One possible solution to making IIQ more relevant to gems, scrolls and potions of Summoning would be to cap the IQ applied based on IIQ for those artifacts only. So, regardless of the character's IQ, using gem, scroll or potion of Summoning IIQ 1 would be at IQ 10 or the character's IQ, whichever was lower. For IIQ 2 use 12, for IIQ 3 use 15, for IIQ 4 use 21, and no limits on IIQ 5.

I'm open to other options as well, including simply declaring a special pricing method for one-time-use Summoning artifacts if you think that would be better.