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Old 01-31-2020, 07:14 PM   #31
Skarg
 
Join Date: May 2015
Default Re: Summon Scout Spell--No Birds?

I still think Steve thinks bats give inferior views to birds, and the reason is not wanting to make aerial recon an easy thing.
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Old 01-31-2020, 09:55 PM   #32
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Default Re: Summon Scout Spell--No Birds?

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I still think Steve thinks bats give inferior views to birds, and the reason is not wanting to make aerial recon an easy thing.
In a labyrinth a bat would be an excellent scout. In the open with predatory birds, not so much. And that's both from being in the open and not having great sight and the fact that most predatory birds find bats delicious.
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Old 01-31-2020, 10:03 PM   #33
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Default Re: Summon Scout Spell--No Birds?

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I understand that. But the spell is called "Summon Scout" not "Summon Small Mammal." I'm trying to understand why the specificity of mammals. Is there something about mammals that makes them more suitable scouts than other small critters? It isn't like small mammals are somehow less capable than the others; bats even offer aerial reconnaissance. The mammal restriction seems completely arbitrary to me.
It's not that big a deal. If it offends you that it only summons a small mammal to act as a scout by being able to perceive the world through the mammal's senses and not a bird, cetacean, reptile, cephalopod, crustacean, mollusk, arthropod, or fish change it in your game. It's not really that hard or important.
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Old 02-01-2020, 02:06 AM   #34
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Default Re: Summon Scout Spell--No Birds?

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Originally Posted by Shostak View Post
… the spell is called "Summon Scout" not "Summon Small Mammal." I'm trying to understand why the specificity of mammals. Is there something about mammals that makes them more suitable scouts than other small critters? … The mammal restriction seems completely arbitrary to me.
Well, it does mention that the Wizard has access to the Scout's senses, but may interpret them differently. Presumably this is because of basic differences in their respective brains and nervous systems, their modes of perception.

So perhaps the reasoning is that the Wizard is a mammal, therefore the summoned Scout must be one too. Perhaps non-mammalian brains are just too different, and incompatible for sensory linkage with a mammalian Wizard.

And if that's the case, perhaps a reptilian Wizard who uses the same spell can only summon small reptiles: geckos and iguanas and such.

Hmmm… What about salamanders? Are amphibians too different from reptiles? That might be worth another debate…
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Old 02-01-2020, 09:40 AM   #35
Skarg
 
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Default Re: Summon Scout Spell--No Birds?

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Originally Posted by FireHorse View Post
Well, it does mention that the Wizard has access to the Scout's senses, but may interpret them differently. Presumably this is because of basic differences in their respective brains and nervous systems, their modes of perception.

So perhaps the reasoning is that the Wizard is a mammal, therefore the summoned Scout must be one too. Perhaps non-mammalian brains are just too different, and incompatible for sensory linkage with a mammalian Wizard.

And if that's the case, perhaps a reptilian Wizard who uses the same spell can only summon small reptiles: geckos and iguanas and such.

Hmmm… What about salamanders? Are amphibians too different from reptiles? That might be worth another debate…
I like this way of thinking quite a bit.

In Kelly's TFT game we've been playing in recently, we've encountered some foreign reptile man wizards and they indeed have been summoning various types of reptiles to attack us.
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Old 02-01-2020, 09:47 AM   #36
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Default Re: Summon Scout Spell--No Birds?

When a Gargoyle Wizard casts Summon Myrmidon, what does he get?
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Old 02-01-2020, 09:55 AM   #37
Skarg
 
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Default Re: Summon Scout Spell--No Birds?

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When a Gargoyle Wizard casts Summon Myrmidon, what does he get?
Good question.

Maybe their equivalent to Summon Myrmidon is Summon Small Gargoyle, bringing one of those weakling Legacy ITL PC gargoyles instead of a proper ST 20 gargoyle like the full Summon Gargoyle spell. Or maybe it summons an even weaker gargoyle than the 32-point gargoyle, since even those are actually better than Myrmidons.


I think it's not that they learn the exact same spells and get different things.

It's that they have different spells available, and they (and/or the GM thinking about their wizards' history in his campaign setting) research different summon spells that they could use.

Maybe no one's ever researched any other spells for gargoyle wizards other than Summon Gargoyle, since gargoyles almost never exceed IQ 10.

Or maybe they have Summon Stone Beetle and possibly other stony creatures that are not in ITL.

Apparently higher-IQ spells can be researched to summon other types of creatures, explaining Summon Gargoyle and Summon Dragon for mammals... or maybe in some campaigns those would not be castable by mammals. Maybe there could be a Summon Myrmidon for gargoyle wizards, but it'd be at the same IQ level that Summon Gargoyle is for humans... so probably no one would ever research that, since gargoyles pretty much never get enough IQ to cast it.

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