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EnderChant
2008-06-23, 07:06 PM
Ladies and gentlemen of GitP, I present to you two new spells for examination. I plan to offer them to the casters in my next game, and would greatly appreciate some input on them before I turn players loose with them in their spellbooks. Could be disastrous.
And so, without further circumlocution:

Chant's Summoning
Conjuration [calling]
Level: Cleric 1, Druid 1, Sor/Wiz 1
Components: V, S, F
Casting Time: 10 minutes
Range: 10 feet
Effect: one called creature
Duration: instantaneous
Saving Throw: Will negates
Spell resistance: yes

A now common spell originally composed by Emmanuel Chant, the summons conjures a creature or spirit to serve the magician.
To cast this spell, the first thing that must be done is draw a circle. It need not be complicated - a chalk circle will suffice. The next step for the user is to name the kind of creature to be summoned, which then appears in the center of the drawn circle. After the creature is summoned, the magician has an opportunity to impress the called creature with his or her magic, represented by a check of 1d20 + level of slot used (see below) against a DC of 10+(summoned creature's hit dice)
If this check succeeds, the summoned creature is at the disposal of the magician for an amount of days equal to the caster level of the magician, or until dismissed. The summoned creature will be freed of the summoning magic at midnight of the last day of service.
Should the check fail, the creature will either depart immediately or seek retribution, depending on the nature of the creature summoned.
Before the creature leaves, however, it will collect the cost for it's services. The most common cost is a portion of the magician's magic - a common rule most magicians use is to pay in magic equal to the power of the creature, that is to say, one spell slot exactly equal to the HD of the extraplanar servant. The caster can not use that slot (or slots) for the day after it is given. Afterwards, it returns normally.
Other methods of payment exist, for example, giving gems, magic items, or service as payment.
Arcane Focus: a piece of chalk, charcoal, or some other writing implement.

Heighten: a magician has the option of heightening this spell, as the metamagic feat to increase it's effective level.


_________

De Carabas' Vivere
Necromancy
Level: Sor/Wiz 6
Components: V, S, F
Casting Time: one day
Range: 0 feet
Effect: Stores life of subject
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: no

This spell stores the life of the caster (or any willing subject) in an item. If the individual is slain, he or she can be resurrected by means of this item. However, since the life of the individual is bound up within it, they can not be restored by any other spells or effects -- even a Wish is incapable of raising the character.
To cast this spell, the subject (which may be the caster) must spend a day reciting, chanting and singing the necessary spells. Additionally, an object must be present to hold the life of the subject. The object must be a breakable one, see below.
When a character dies, he or she may be brought back from the dead by placing the item on his or her chest and breaking it. The life within the item is returned to the deceased body, and the character comes back with one less hit die as if he or she had be raised by the Raise Dead spell.
The body of the character must be present and in an incorrupt state, the spell will not animate any character other than the original target (that is to say, you can not put a character's life into a dead ogre). Any physical ability scored reduced to zero is raised to one, mental ability scores become what they were when the character's life was stored. Mundane diseases and poisons are cured, and major wounds are closed. The subject returns to life with one hit point and is exhausted (if the strength and dexterity penalties exceed the strength and dexterity of the target, treat them as if they were sufficient to reduce the ability score to one).
Breaking the container either while the character is still alive or not in the manner specified above makes it as though the spell had never been cast.

Arcane Focus: the item to store the life of the target. Some suggestions include (but are not limited to) a hollow egg shell or glass sphere, a wooden spool of thread or silver sewing needle, or a piece of pottery.

Special: if you can spot the reference for this spell, I owe you a point of awesome.

Lord_Gareth
2008-06-23, 07:43 PM
The second one is from Neverwhere ^_^

I like them both, but I'm notoriously bad at balancing magic.

EnderChant
2008-06-23, 07:59 PM
Eh, that's okay. And yes, de Carabas' Vivere is shamelessly lifted from Neverwhere. Have an awesome.

vegetalss4
2008-06-24, 01:42 PM
the second spell have a rage of 0 ft what do you mean by that?
also it should only work on willing targets. else you could just cast it on an enemy and then kill them and keep the item in order to keep them from coming back to life. also breaking is to vauge, who is it that has to be able to break it? the wizard with 1 in str or the hulking hurler with 60?(just to take an extreme exsample=

DracoDei
2008-06-24, 02:37 PM
The first one is hidiously over-powered compared to Planar Binding, Lesser and/or Planar Ally, Lesser. It is basically some of the most abusable aspects of Gate in a 1st level spell slot.

EnderChant
2008-06-24, 03:23 PM
This spell stores the life of the caster (or any willing subject) in an item.

It's already set for a willing target. The range of 0 feet I took from the spell Clone (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/clone.htm) since they have a similar purpose. In all honesty, I don't know what they mean when they say Clone as a range of zero feet :smalltongue:
I'm assuming that something small like an eggshell or something would simply require a standard action to break. Personally, I wouldn't even bother giving it a DC for a strength check. If a character says "I break this item" I would assume success under reasonable circumstances (i.e. they have a strength greater than one, they're not moving, being attacked, etc.) automatically.
If the item created for this spell is something more sturdy than an eggshell, I would treat it like any other attempt to sunder an object.

DracoDei: Good catch, then. Is it overpowered because of concept or execution?
EDIT: I'm not sure how much this matters, but the target of the summons is not confined by the spell while the caster tries to use it. I don't think that's too clear in the description of the effect.

DracoDei
2008-06-24, 10:22 PM
More the execution than the design... put a HD cap on it that scales with caster level, and look around for "boiler plate" you need to put on it... it is more dangerous than even the Planar Binding spells, but there are still a lot of loop-holes you have to close...

EnderChant
2008-06-25, 01:55 PM
Okay. Makes sense. The balancing factor I had in mind was if you were to get over ambitious with this spell, you could end up very much screwed, since the called creature isn't compelled to follow orders nor is it even trapped in the circle drawn.
Any recomendations to maintain that flavor, or is it in desperate need of strictures?