I did a search and saw this sort of touched on the class suggestion thread, a summoner class, but that sounds more like a specialization. I havnt seen or heard of any spells that summon things, or any kind of conjuration. This seems like something the three current classes could all touch on a little bit, and i know how popular Necromancers and other summoner types tend to be in games. So are their any 'summoning' cards as of yet, or any plans to add them ?
I haven't heard of any yet, but I know the Blu Manchu team is still full of suprises. Still, it might be tricky to implement summoning in a deck construction game like card hunter--would the summon come with its own mini-deck? How would the summon's hand be displayed then? Instead would the summon just have 2 action options (some sort of attack & a move)? Having extra characters to help the PCs seems like a pretty powerful ability, akin to getting a 4th (or 5th or 6th!) turn to play something on top of the 3 PCs turns. Still, I do like summons and animal companions in my fantasy games--although sometimes a major draw for me are their balance-upsetting abilities...
It's possible summons could just be things like "Summon wall" (blocks movement) or "Summon fire mote" (damages creatures adjacent each turn). They don't need to take actions or be overly complicated. Unless that was the original point...? But I think it would be tricky to balance that way.
I would imagine a summon being a simple minion that only had a few cards on its hand, and once it used those it would poof.
I think conjuration would be handled exactly this way too--summon acid cloud, summon wall, etc. Bringing in a semi-independent creature into battle seems to run the risk of turning game balance on its ear. If a three wizard party summons three minions, you've effectively doubled your draw and playing turns. But then again, maybe the game is meant to give you this kind of power.
We can summon puppies? Sweet! Hope they come with the "Bite ankles" action. "Lick face" may not be terribly useful in a combat situation, except perhaps as a distraction.
I don't think there are any summoned units right now, though I vaguely recall Rudolpho tweeted something about Summon Wall and similar conjurations. I think there is room in the game design to put them under AI control in a third player slot. (Since they have to open the turn structure beyond 1-2-1-2 for co-op.) The bot player wouldn't necessarily be "smart" or even "friendly" -- imagine a Dust Dervish that randomly attacks any three adjacent units and can only be summoned at range one. It falls on the human player not only to have summoning cards, but also position control cards to use the summons to full advantage; you don't just pull 18 goblins from your deck and swarm the opponent. That's something that can go either way. You could add summoning powers to existing classes so that Warriors pursue beast mastery, Priests call upon celestials or netherspawn, Mages command elementals. Or you could have a new Summoner class that can do all of those things depending on the needs of the party. (Or you could have an expansion that delivers both.) Ideally, you could prototype them and test which works better. But for a forum discussion, imagination will have to do. I would predict that a dedicated class has two advantages: first, by creating a new class with new item slots, the devs can control the number/strength of summon cards you may equip without co-opting some existing equipment type. Second, it answers the question about what is unique in a new class. I picture a Summoner with 2 summoning skill slots and the remainder mixed between Warrior and Mage standard slots, but the new abilities make this character more than a crossover. You can choose different roles by equipping different summons: will you take fiery imps for raw damage, call up a wolf pack to screen your archer, or maybe pray for the intercession of a healing angel?
I agree that the game's framework would seem to support summoning, and given the "two steps forward, one step back" nature of benefits & drawbacks, your Dust Dervish hypothetical seems to be spot on within the design space of CH. Still, its merely the raw power that extra draw and extra turns poses in a card game that I think makes summoning a design risk to my current understanding of the game. To bring up an MtG example, summoning in CH could end up being like Ancestral Recall and Time Walk combined--extra draw and extra player actions in one bundle (even if AI controlled). Not to mention an extra meat shield to help control the battlefield and soak up damage. To balance this, summons would need to have some major drawbacks: fickle AI control, weak abilities, turn limits, maybe some sort of "blood magic" harming the caster. And if these go too far summoning might be nerfed into oblivion. Yet despite all this, I would be keenly interested in seeing this sort of magic play out, because even our dream summoning seems really fun. Given how important game balance appears to CH, it seems to me that the ability to summon or a dedicated summoning class would need some serious vetting--vetting I'm of course more than willing to do.
I can't imagine something like a astral body spell for wizards that let them place a square from where they can get LoS would be too broken more like a typical D&D wizard spell but everyone has different opinions.
A Bear, I do agree that summons work well withing the framework of the game. I am a bit confused about what you said about extra playing turns for the summons. From what I seen in the demo from PAX, each side gets a turn to play a card from one of it characters. Having more characters per side did add to the number of turns they had, it did add to how many cards they would draw. That would be where the balancing issue would come into play. Being able to add to your card draw would be a big advantage. There are card-drawing abilities I have seen that would do much the same thing, but those are one and done. If persistent, a summon would add to your card draw each turn it is active. That is if they are allowed to draw cards...... You could always have non-persistent summons that go away at the end of the round. Another option is they are active al long as they still have cards, but do not get any draws except maybe a default move card. Once they are out of abilities they leave combat. I would think they could get 3-5 cards depending on the power and role of the summon. The payoff would be you would have a large amount of extra damage/utility for that round. The disadvantage would be your opponent would have a change to kill or counter the summon before you would have a chance to do anything with it. If implemented well I think summons could be very balanced and may not even need a new class to support the mechanic. Obviously much vetting would be needed before implementing such an idea, but it is very interesting indeed.
Guh--this solution makes so much sense I can't fathom why it didn't come to mind the moment I started to think about summons. Giving the summons a small card set they come into play with (I'd probably say 1-5, so some might go away at the end of one round and stronger guys might stick around) would solve almost all of my invented concerns about sustained extra actions and draw.
My plan is that any summons gets its card attached. Since most (all?) attachments have a duration measured in rounds, that's an easy way to get a time limit. As a bonus, any abilities you might have that remove attachments would also work as "banish" spell -- you don't need a special set of cards that would be otherwise useless. I think testing would have to be done to figure out a summon's hand size/draw rate (not large, I know that already). But if it already has a time limit, I say just let it sit there passing when it runs out of cards. Sure, it takes up space on the board but at that point it's not any more overpowered than a wall. The effect A Bear calls being a "meat shield" is the most important to get right, an individual summon can always be nerfed. The gameplay should take into account that the summon is both attack and defense for the summoner. It would be elegant to adjust the power differential before battle even begins, on the character screen. Lower the HP to account for the potential HP of summons. Reduce or remove some other capabilities since the summons will be doing work for the character. You can do this with slot allocation and with Talent cost -- if summon cards are expensive to equip, then you can't carry other nice things. I totally agree that summoning may not need a new class. I'm just not sure which item slot(s) the cards would fit into, is all. I personally think it might be easier to balance with a new class. ------- IF there is a new class, then: Studying the PAX trailer at Build Your Deck (0:06) and Grow Your Power (1:16) shows the three current item dolls. Weapons (12 cards) -- a variety (edged?) for warriors; "holy"/blunt for priests; staffs for mages Clothes (9 cards) -- armor, boots, shield; mages have boots and a robe, and I think may have another arcane item rather than a third defense Specialty (9 cards) -- third weapon and a helmet for warriors; priest items; arcane items Skills (6 cards) -- one slot each for race and class So one proposal for a Summoner could be One warrior weapon, one staff Boots, helmet, and "light" armor. I'm not sure light armor exists yet. (also appropriate for Rogues ) Two unique summoning item slots and a standard arcane item slot Racial skill, and a martial skill from the existing warrior pool This build splits the difference between warrior and mage with cards from the "offensive" side of its progenitors (weapon+skill, staff+arcane) and mixes some armor with low base HP. So the Summoner can move close to the front line to get the summons in position, and has some abilities when calling a summon won't work, but is weak at pure melee or pure magic. There's also relatively few summoning cards (max 6, maybe fewer depending on individual suites) as a soft restriction on the number of summons one character can call at once.
