Hey you guys I have some more questions. This time it is about magic summoning.

I've been having trouble understanding how summoning works. Do you have to accumulate magic to perform summoning or do you do something else and just pay the cost from your reserve at the time of summoning? Also do gestureless and unspoken casting affect summoning?

When is the best time to perform a summoning? Is it in battle or before hand? What about for the arcana?

How do rituals work exactly? Do you apply the penalty for all summoning abilities or do you have to do separate rituals for each one? If the latter how are you supposed to keep the creature there while the summoner is doing their ritual?

Do you have to control a being before you can bind it? After a successful binding is the creature still under your control when you let him about but now set him free?

All right now for the nick knack. I've ask about limits with attack and defense but does it also apply to initiative? I have a player with extremely good luck and keeps rolling into the 400 and 500 range for initiative so I was wondering if it had a limit? Cause with initiative that high she always surprises the enemy.

Also does magic projection have a limit as well?

Krylancelo said:

O.K. lets see.

1) You do not have to accumulate Zeon to use Summoning skill, it is taken strait out of your Zeon pool. This means Gestureless and Unspoken casting do not affect summoning because you do not accumulate.
2) Before battle. Summoning skills take a long time, and having summons before battle is much better than during, in most cases anyway. The Arcana are designed to be used in battle, except a few specific ones. For example, The Fool should be used before battle so you don't take a -100 to casting Arcana in one turn.
3) I am not an expert on this, but I believe that you can use the same ritual to Summon/Control/Bind. It applies the bonus until the end of the round, and you can do all of them in the same round.
4) According to RAW you do not have to Control a creature before you bind it. When you take it out of the bound item, if it was controlled before being bond, it is still controlled.
5) Initiative is a physical action, therefore I believe it is limited without Inhumanity or Zen. Therefore, you can only get a 319 without Inhumanity and a 439 without Zen.
6) Because Magic and Psychic Projection are not physical they are not subject to the 319/439 maximum roll. They do have the limit of the max DP you can put into them is 1/2 your allotted for that Primary (Supernatural or Psychic), but not for the rolls.

Side Note: The limit may be 280/320 without Inhumanity/Zen, I do not know for sure if it is 319/439 or 280/320.

Hello. Let's see if I can help with this.

"I've been having trouble understanding how summoning works. Do you have to accumulate magic to perform summoning or do you do something else and just pay the cost from your reserve at the time of summoning? Also do gestureless and unspoken casting affect summoning?"

Going off memory to summon you don't need to accumulate zeons. There are 4 areas involved with summoning

1) Summong (actually calling a creature from another plane/place/location to you)

2) Control: Force a creature to obey your command

3) Bind: Trap a creature in a way (think pokeballs)

4) Banish: Dismiss or exorcise creatures

So as player you invest DP into the different areas you want to specialize in (you don't need to invest in all 4 paths, I've seen some good summoners specialize in different areas (will cover at the bottom). When you want to perform one of the actions the GM looks on page 176 at the DC's. For example suppose you encounter a level 4 spirit and you want to banish it. The DC for that is 180. Now after rolling the dice (say you got 150 total) the GM looks on page 180 to see what happened. In this case the banishment failed and I lost twice the zeon it costs to attempt the banishment (normally costs 20 so would have lost 40 zeon).

"When is the best time to perform a summoning? Is it in battle or before hand? What about for the arcana?"

Generally as a summoner you always want to be prepared. The more time you spend in a ritual the better your bonus. So going on the previous example if I just walked in an saw the ghost and attempted to banish it right away I would have taken a -100 on my check. Now I could try to do a ritual in the middle of combat (and hope my party can protect me as I complete the ritual) or try to start it outside of combat. So pretty much it is always better to try and start it outside of combat where you won't be so rushed.

"How do rituals work exactly? Do you apply the penalty for all summoning abilities or do you have to do separate rituals for each one? If the latter how are you supposed to keep the creature there while the summoner is doing their ritual?"

To the best of my knowledge this isn't actually covered. I personally rule that a ritual gives it's bonus to each summoning check you make, but they have to be within a few turns timeframe (can't do a ritual a day before and try to do the control check the next day after everyone has rested for example). The bigger problem is the rituals don't mention how big of an area they cover :S (say you know the spirit I keep using it haunting a house, how close do you have to be to do a ritual to banish it?). How do keep a creature nearby the ritual though is a challenge for the players to figure out.

"Do you have to control a being before you can bind it? After a successful binding is the creature still under your control when you let him about but now set him free?"

Nada. You can do a wide range of summoners. You can plan an exorcist that only knows how to banish stuff. A pokemon trainer type summoners only controls and binds creatures. I played a Templar or Tol Rauko once that specialized in binding. In battle once the creature was weakened he would attempt to paint a picture of it (his way of doing a ritual) and bind the creature into the painting to send back to Tol Rauko. Once you control a creature it is under your control until it breaks free (can try once every hour or you give it a command against it's nature). If you bind and control a creature it is controlled until the binding breaks. Keep in mind depending on the creature it will probably react badly to your commands or try to deliberatly misinterpurate your commands (example kill them all might include your party as well as an enemies nearby).

"All right now for the nick knack. I've ask about limits with attack and defense but does it also apply to initiative? I have a player with extremely good luck and keeps rolling into the 400 and 500 range for initiative so I was wondering if it had a limit? Cause with initiative that high she always surprises the enemy."

What level character is getting initiative that high?

"Also does magic projection have a limit as well?"

Depending on your class type. Remember you can only spend 50-60% of your DP on your supernatural abilities.

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?efid=85&efcid=3&efidt=483190

really good thread on summoner

Thanks for clarifying. That link really helped with understanding summoning rules. In answer to your question my player is level 1 but she has insanely good luck which is why she rolls so high. I thought her dice were loaded but I gave them a try and they are normal dice.