[crossfire] Spell path balance - Summoning

[Alex Schultz]

Mark Wedel wrote:
> Andrew Fuchs wrote:
>   
>> Can't think of anything other than giving it temporary immunity to
>> being damaged (burnt up, icecubed, etc) or making the weapon come back
>> to the player after the spell's effect ends
>>     
>
>   I don't think the temporary immunity would really help out.
>
>   From what I've seen is what happens is that the weapon is fine as long as the 
> spell is going on.  But when the spell ends, the object on the ground is now hit 
> by some attacktype the destroyes it.
>
>   So any addition of immunities would have to last beyond the length of the 
> spell, and that gets tricky, as if the player picks it up and wields it, they 
> shouldn't really get those immunities.
>   
Well, to make an object immune to being damaged on the ground, there are
ways other than resists. In particular material tricks could allow it,
and wouldn't have the drawback of giving the player the immunity. 
However there is still another issue to deal with, which is  it still
wouldn't be good to make it permanent. A solution to that would be:
-allowing forces to give material traits to their parents
and
-making subtypes of forces that can do things like disappear when the
container of the force is picked up or moved.
That could allow the weapon to be immune to destruction until picked up.
>   Having the object return to the player when the spell ends or is destroyed is 
> probably the best/safest thing.  It'd be a little odd to explain why.
>   
Despite what I said about though, I would personally favor just
returning the object when the weapon is no longer animated, due to
simplicity.

Alex Schultz