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Old 08-17-2012, 08:52 AM   #56
Kromm
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Location: Montréal, Québec
Default Re: [DF] Summoned allies questions:

If you can summon an Ally with a Concentrate maneuver whenever you need it, as long as it hasn't died, then one minute is more than fair. It's basically a "conjure pet" spell that costs no FP, lasts as long as any other combat spell, and has a significant effect on battle. You're trading duration for the capacity to repeat attempts.

If you can summon an Ally once per adventure, as usual with an Ally, and it hangs around until dismissed, then that's fine, too. You're trading off reliability (the roll for it can fail, and if it does, you get nothing out of the advantage for one full dungeon crawl or whatever) and surprise (you can't spring "Oh, and there's a huge demon behind you!" on baddies in combat) for duration.

Just don't try to justify both. It's either a spell-like thing or a social advantage with a significant meta-game aspect to it ("once per adventure").

Quote:
Originally Posted by PseudoFenton View Post

Plus, its only a "technically the rules say this" answer
Just so, which is why I worded my answer the way I did (doing what I do for a living, I choose my qualifiers carefully!). In the last campaign I ran, Allies like this could be called on once per adventure, and if they were, they hung around all adventure. One big advantage of Summonable was that such Allies didn't have to be fed or sheltered on the way to/from interesting places, and could be conjured up right next to the Big Bad without having to trek all the way there, making Climbing rolls to go up the fortress walls, Stealth rolls to get inside, etc. The other was that if the Ally died, it was merely banished until next summoned, one adventure down the road. This interpretation suited the campaign quite well.
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