[Fun modding tip]: How to summon SEVERAL beings in one summoning spell

[Lord Garfield]

Heya, I am here to tell you about a REALLY awesome trick that allows you to modify a spell to summon several npcs/creatures at once.

 

First: Make the NPC.

Create your NPC or creature as youre suppoused to.

 

Then: Making it summonable.

Open up the Magic Effects window in the gameplay tab, then pick a being you wish to replace.

Replace it with the one you made by clicking on Assoc. Item and then scroll down to your NPC/Creature.

 

After that: Making several of them.

Now this is the fun part, create a spell that has NO MAGICKA COST NOR SKILL REQUIREMENTS with a long duration that summons the being you just made.

Then go to the being you made, I.E: The NPC/Creature, and add the spell to the spell list.

 

There, now once you summon your follower and it enters battle, it will summon itself once, and the being it just summoned will summon itself in an infinite loop.

Once the first one dies, the others disapears too.

 

 

Thats it, I hope this trick comes to use.

 

-------------------------------------------------------

- Nice touch.

Lord Garfield.

[grmblf]

hey man that's a cool trick, I'll try it out. Thanks for the tip. As I assume you've tested it I ask you, does it comes to a moment when everything is laggy or does the engine maintain some level of performance due to the time it takes them to cast the spell and summon themselves? I'm just wondering about summoning a mage with a magic flute that could summon A LOT of infectious rats that call another rats and so on... yeah, that'd be awesome!

[Lord Garfield]

hey man thats a cool trick, Ill try it out. Thanks for the tip. As I assume youve tested it I ask you, does it comes to a moment when everything is laggy or does the engine maintain some level of performance due to the time it takes them to cast the spell and summon themselves? Im just wondering about summoning a mage with a magic flute that could summon A LOT of infectious rats that call another rats and so on... yeah, thatd be awesome!

 

Youd have to make the rat summon another rat and so on. But Im not sure if that requires you to give the rat a new combat style to cast spells.

 

And it does keep a good level of preformance, unless you make an overpowered NPC thats basicly unkillable. In wich case the spell could last for ages and summon so many npcs so that your graphics card gets overloaded >_<.

 

 

I myself made Black Hooded figures (Hoods biped the head too, so they looked like those ghost-horse-we-want-ring-people from Lord of the Rings), worked perfectly.

[Vagrant0]

Two points...

 

First off, this effectively ruins that whole magic effect. If you have any NPCs which use that summon (like how all summon spells are used somewhere, especially if you have any overhaul mods), you will often end up having to deal with a hostile group of endless summons. Even if they're weak, they will perpetuate faster than you can kill them. As it is an NPC controlling it, the NPC would likely just cast it again even if you should be able to find the first summon to kill it. As most summoning NPCs tend to summon and run, such an effect would mean disaster.

 

Secondly, as this spell causes one summon to summon another, to summon another, to summon another, and so on, as the OP hinted, it has the potential to play havok with your framerate. Additionally, after about the 8th or 9th summon, you will likely experience significant lack of AI reaction, which can further complicate the whole part of summons being summoned so long as they aren't killed; due to how a slower reaction time means slower attack rate of what it is you're fighting, which translates to more summons being summoned. The fact that summons are named according to their owner could even prove problematic.

 

 

Something like this is not suggested. For one, you don't even need to make a new magic effect. You could give a summoned lich a summon skeleton spell, and have the same sort of behavior, except far more controlled and less likely to cause major issues with conflicts, npc usage, and the processing demands of all those spawns.

 

Furthermore, since scripted summon spells aren't particularly hard, are easier to control and limit, and have been covered by many tutorials, the usage of an existing spell effect or even summoned creature is entirely unnecessary. Meaning that the better way to things is to have a single scripted spell effect which summons multiple spawns with a single cast, with all spawns belonging to the player. This way, the spell does not have the potential to go out of control, and is only usable by the player, or an NPC which is designed to use that spell. If you're still wanting to have some multi-level spawn trees, you can always give those summons standard summon spells, or setup a second tier of summons which could be used.

 

Although it shows interesting behavior, something like this would not be suggested for the average player or modder. It's fun, but can easily create problems.

[JCP768]

first: I already heard about this from bg here

 

Secondly: I admit it would be an interesting mechanic for a boss character. "You have to dodge the ever increasing summons and find the original in order to kill them all."... Other than that? Nah...

[Lord Garfield]

Ive experimented with it and it works perfectly due to that they tend to stop spawning after five or six spawns. I do not know if it is jealousy or something, but it works better than you give it credit for. So quit grilling me when I try to contribute.

 

 

...And secondly: Even if it may be found someplace else, I discovered this on my own, and it was not here, so...

[Vagrant0]

Ive experimented with it and it works perfectly due to that they tend to stop spawning after five or six spawns. I do not know if it is jealousy or something, but it works better than you give it credit for. So quit grilling me when I try to contribute.

 

 

...And secondly: Even if it may be found someplace else, I discovered this on my own, and it was not here, so...

It's nice that you want to contribute, but you should really consider all the implications of any tips or ideas you give out that are aimed toward novice modders. If there are safer ways of achieving something, that safer way is usually best. Just because it works fine for you does not mean that it will work as well for others. As you gain experience modding, I hope that you will atleast attempt to think of how things might work for others before suggesting them as a normal course of action. This behavior isn't particularly documented simply because it can get out of hand rather quickly, and doesn't achieve anything which cannot be done through more reliable means. I'm not trying to grill you or discourage you, I am just trying to explain why this particular case is not something that should be advised toward other modders as a means of creating this sort of effect, and why it matters.

[Lord Garfield]

Fine, next time Ill add a \"Seems to work fine, but use with caution\".