So I am trying to nail down a few rules before I run my game. One of them has to do with summoners and those who use the summoner abilities in combat.

It says you may do a summoning as a ritual (or a banishing, controling ect.) and then it gives a chart for bonuses and penalties you get for your roll based on how long your ritual is. You get some pretty serious penalties for doing a ritual in anything close to a combat speed.

My question is this: Do the bonuses for time taken only apply when using a ritual (the rules seem to imply this). In other words you can ignore that chart if you are not doing a ritual. If this is the case the why would anyone ever do a quick ritual. Or (as seems more likely to me) you use this time chart every time you try a summoning (or summoning-like) roll. If this is the case then a fist level summoner is not likley to use any of his summoning abilities in combat. If he doesn't already have his monster summoned and under his control when the fight starts, then he just isn't going to get to have his monster for the fight.

The rules do seem to imply that you can choose to use a ritual or not, and if you do a ritual then you use the chart, but that doesn't seem to make any sense to me.

Hrath,

The summoning rules are definitely the most... odd. I'll just describe what I've done in my own game (and it has seemed to work.)

I would suggest having your summoner start with a creature or two already bound to their service. Talk with the person(s) playing summoners to try and decide together what kind of creature(s) they have. It'll be up to you, the GM, to actually make the stats. But (in the case my own player), he had some concepts he wanted to explore and I just brought it to life.

As for the ritual aspect, it looks like a summoner is ALWAYS suppose to use a ritual. They just have to keep the monster under control, or bound to an object in order for them to be truly effective when the situation calls for the use of the creature. The "instant summon" only really works for the power summoners who are trying to bring about low level critters. My own PC Summoner started with 2 creatures, and a familiar (granted, he started level 3 as his old character died.) We disucssed the idea for the familiar, and what "types" of creatures he was interested in having already bound. When he wanted to summon more (after learning about them), he had to have some downtime in order to build himself a proper ritual to give him the attempt.

Hope this helped at least a little.

Summoning is not that comlicated lol. It really only involvdes 3 skill checks.

Skill 1, the summon roll. look at the ritual chart and apply the bouns that apply. (you are correct you are not supposed to quick summon. and in honesty you never need to if your a good summoner).

Skill 2, the control roll. look at the same chart for any bouns that apply, this part does not take any more time than any other skill test.

Skill 3, the bind roll. yadda yadda yadda, look at the chart etc. then the summoner binds to an object with an approirate presence to hold the creature.

level 1 summoners should start with a lv 1 or lv 0 creature to begin with already bound to an object of sufficant presence. If your going to be stubborn GM and not allow them to do this, then your just a ****. end of story. That is not however a free pass for the player to go and make some OP completly min maxed creature. Read the creature creation rules, as the GM you have the right to spend the physical and mental stats of a creature. That said, please keep it real. If your player is trying to summon a minitar. dont give it like int 8 and Str 4 just to spit him. dont feel afraid to give strong creatures 10 strength, or 10 intellegence or willpower if its a caster and makes sence to have the stats that high. Give it some essencials as well and then let the player spend the rest of the DP for powers they want there creature to have.

Keep in mind the whold purpous for summoning is to have fun creating your own unique summons and using them in combat. They are not supposed to be super strong and OP, and nor are they supposed to be weak pointless creatures that are gimped. But try to keep the creature logical. Dont just min max the **** out of it.

yeah, summoning is one of most complicated things, maybe not in rules, but to use for sure

first yes, you have to use "rituals" each time you want to summon a creature or an entity, of course it's not always light 100 candles in a circle and chant for hours, it can only be concentrate and send a magic call

but the bonuses on tables 62 and 63 work for every type of summoning, which, I must say, make the process very awkward as it would have been good to differenciate summoning an otherworldly creature and "invocating" a godlike power so that you can use one of their powers

main problem of course is doing it in combat, as you would have to prepare for 5 turns to do your incantation and summon anythin, of course you can get some bonuses, but most are just either quite impossible or plain stupid (possess an object or a part of a creature ...)

I use another way. As for secondary abilities, I use "books" that hive you advice or methods to be better. +5 to +15 can be found in specialised shops (of course +5 coud be 5 GP and +15 could be 50 GP), with each sort (light, darkness, fire ...) having a different book giving the bonus to all skills. Also, I think most summoned creatures don't have a name, for these, common, ones I give a + 50 bonus as it's just an animated element (of course no "knowing the name" bonus). Having some of the element (normal or magically created) can help too, and the intensities table p. 217 table 14 helps, as it hives you the "size" of the intensities, I give a bonus of +5 per intensity to the summoning of a creature of that element, but it is consumed as the creature appears.

You can bind a creature and use it when you want. Easy.

I also have a question about summoning. I have only ran Anima for onr short campaign and that was a while ago but I've been trying to refresh my knowledge of the rules. One of my players is a summoner and I allowed him to have a "natural" creature called Grendel (pg 305) as one of his bound creatures. If I understand the rules this time around I shouldn't have allowed that as it isn't a "spirit" or "between worlds." Can other people share what their criteria are for bound creatures? I think if I'm right the fix is easy enough. He and I can just build a Grendel-like creature that claims to be a Grendel and the player can either choose to believe or know the creature is lying and not care.

If i played a summoner in anima, id always make my own creature. Thats what the section in the rules in back is for. The only restriciton i would put on a lv1 summoner is stick to a lv 1 creature. pre-summoned and pre-bound.

But if you play a summoner, you are not allowed to make you own creature. The rules are pretty clear that the GM needs to make the creature, the player isn't even supposed to know the exact level.

Is this just a bad rule?

Do summoner PC's spend lots of between game time researching and casting rituals.

How does that work?

The rules say that the Pc does not make the creature, but thats half true. The Gm gets to set stats and essencial traits for the creature. the rest of it is up to the player if the GM trusts they will be responsible about it. It is supposed to be a combined creation process. The GM should not be allowed to make a stupid uninteristing creature to spite the summoner, and the summoner should not be allowed to create an OP creature. or something that just does not make sence. like an oger posessing 10 Int.

Also, the book also says its just a guide line, like every RPG book. Use the rules you like and trim the ones you find to get in the way of your groups gaming style. The creator of anima does not care how you use his product.