Then you get to see the monsters approaching before it goes dark again.

Exactly. It's a lot of fun when you get woken up from camping and it's pitch black and pouring rain and you try to spot as many of the creatures that woke you as possible in the split-second flash of light. That'll get your blood going.

I'd like to make a couple of suggestions to the tier three divination spell Summon Beast. I don't think summoned creatures should award experience or drop anything when killed. I also think summoned creatures should disappear in a puff of magickal energy after a fixed amount of turns.

I definitely agree with your first two. Not sure about the third but probably. One issue I see is that I think BW just calls up the existing creature from the library but I believe sets their status to Charmed so they'll defend you. In order for them not to give XP, he may need to create a separate set of summoned creatures to call forth.

Separate summoned creatures = I agree. Always wondered why using a third tier spell summoned rats. Trying to come up with "original" creatures might be very hard.

Also an idea with the game editor: waterfall "tiles". They would simply be normal tiles but animated and isometricified like the cliff tiles. Currently it is only possible to make waterfalls not visible to the player with the unofficial tools.

I think your suggestions make sense, but I'm not sure they're necessary. I think Summon Beast is a somewhat weak third tier spell as it stands. Why make it weaker than it already is?

Sure, you can farm summoned creatures for food and/or money, but you can also do that with create food. You can farm them for XP, but you could also just camp, and XP farming is kind of pointless in this game anyway.

I think by creating six distinct summonable creatures, one for each casting level, you'd actually be able to get some creatures that are effective allies in a fight. They might even open up other possibilities. To me, that would be the way to fix the spell. Make them 6 distinct creatures with increasing power levels and some different abilities (so at times you might want to summon one of the lesser beasts than the biggest one you can get), but they provide 0 XP when killed and don't drop anything.

I dunno - I don't necessarily see anything wrong with summoning a wolf, killing it, and taking its pelt.

I see something wrong in creating LIVING matter from nothing and selling it to a vendor. Not only would it be mildly ridiculous, it would also become a money-making machine in the style of Create Food.

What would you do to make it stronger?


I think the Create Food spell also needs to be looked at.

I would say the summoned creatures could stand to be a step or two stronger. Say, drop Catacomb Rat and Crimson Dragonel from the low end and add something like Snow Wolf, Devilmander, Cursed Undead, Skeleton Archer, etc.

I'd probably need to play test a game where I focus on the spell to really get a feel for how it should be balanced. I just know it's more effective to sling Divine Hammers and Ice Lances than summon wolves.



Maybe. I think the food farming thing isn't really in the spirit of the game, but it's not game-breaking either. If people really want to go out of their way to grind, even if you don't need to, I don't have a problem with that.

If you were to "fix" the spell, though, I think there's an easy solution: have it create items with 0 gold value.

It's like people don't even read the list at the head of this thread...

While "food farming" doesn't "break" the game, I definitely think that it breaks the spirit of the game. So I'd like to see both Create Food and Draw Water 'nerfed' as described in the list at the start of this thread, and in other postings by me over the last year or so.

As for the Summon Beast spell, I had never given it much thought, but I basically agree with JL's suggestions upthread - I'll probably add them to the Wishlist (when I ever get around to updating the list again, which may be about a month from now... ).

You'll excuse me if I don't remember things that were posted here more than a year ago.



Sure, but who cares? How would "fixing" either of these things make the game more fun for you? Making the spell better has the potential to make more builds effective, which makes the game more fun. Making it worse just seems pointless.

Locking this topic. We have our "master list of updates" set in stone at this point. No further begging or bribery (well, maybe a big bribe) will convince us to add any more features to Book III.

At the end of our summer crunch session, I will post our work log and everybody can see what made it in, and what didn't.