With the Geneforge 1 remake being on sale and me thinking of playing it, I've started thinking about one of the major mechanics of that game, which is what I'm calling long-term summons.

First of all, some terminology:
* By "Summon", I'm referring to how they're typically implemented in WRPGs. You cast a spell (or perform a certain task), and you have a new ally, who may or may not be under your direct control (the implementation varies by game).
* A "long-term summon" is one that doesn't go away with time. It may be possible to dismiss such characters, and their death might be permanent (though generally nothing prevents you from just recasting the spell to summon a replacement), but otherwise you can keep them as long as you want.

Examples of games with long-term summons:
* Bard's Tale series, especially classic 2 and 3 where you can save them at the Adventurers Guild along with your other party members
* Wizardry 4 (though they go away as soon as you touch a pentagram, and you can only summon at a pentagram)
* Geneforge series (Shaping is really just summoning with a different name) (note that, except in the remake of 1, they can level up, though I don't like the way that was implemented)
* Elminage Gothic has an ability that lets you turn a summon into a regular party member, though at that point the character no longer acts as a monster and is reduced to level 1. (Even then, a non-permanent summon still won't leave as long as it doesn't die and you don't leave the dungeon.)

So, thoughts on this mechanic? (And any other interesting games that use it?)

RP wise? I prefer having my little follower with me at all times instead of just always summoning at the start of a battle. I think to balance it it's fine to have certain ingredients / rituals needed to summon (EverQuest did that with the Magician class, who needed gems to summon elementals).

Otherwise though I can see it being a bit tough to balance. You need to still keep martial classes strong while not having the pet feel too weak. Usually that's done by just making it a damage sponge with little attack value, or giving it some CC (Pillars of Eternity series kind of did this with the Ranger class). That can leave the summon feeling a bit boring unless you're careful though.

Warlocks in World of Warcraft. The demon they summon stays with them unitl they die, or until they summon a different demon. Imps are free summons, but other demons need a soul shard to be summoned. Warlocks are very dependent on the demons, so it makes sense for them to be long-term.

(Mechanically, the hunters pets works the same way as a warlocks demon, but they are not called summons. Hunter pets are also more personal than a demon summon)

In Sacrifice all your units are basically long-term summons, because that's how unit "creation" works, through spellcasting. You will, of course, lose them once a mission completes, but there's no XP system tied to units, so no real loss. Summon again on a new map, rinse and repeat.

Both Bard's Tale (2 and 3 specifically) and Wizardry Summoner try to balance this by having summons take up a party slot. So, if you want to summon that wolf, it's going to take up a slot that could have gone to another regular party member. (Note that Wizardry Summoner has worse balance issues; you get too little XP, while meanwhile the game gives you tons of gold you have no use for.)

Bard's Tale 1 and Elminage Gothic both have a special slot reserved for a summoned party member, so the summon doesn't compete for other character slots.

In Geneforge, anyone can learn to summon, but some classes need fewer skill points to upgrade their summons than others. So, your melee Guardian could still have a Fyora for ranged fire damage backup (and area damage, at least in Mutagen); you just won't have the power or quantity that a Shaper could more easily get.

If the summon is sufficiently long-term, then there's no distinction between "summoner" and a pet class ("beast tamer"/"ranger"/etc) or sometimes a shapeshifting class ("druid"/"lycanthrope"/etc). This can be OK, if there's not meant to be a distinction. But there usually is.

One way to keep the distinction, in the ARPG Grim Dawn:
* long-term (often permanent until killed, then you have to re-summon) pets scale with their own set of "pet bonuses".
* short-term (often invulnerable for their duration) summons scale with the player's own bonuses. (They're often much stronger, but have short durations, longer cool-downs, or harder-to-control methods to get them to appear.)

There should be a distinction, like one is 'domesticated' and the other is astral ?

One thing with long-term summons is that, if one dies or you dismiss it (in Geneforge, the term used is "absorb" rather than "dismiss"), you can opt to summon something else in its place.

To put it another way, pet classes get their pets through passive abilities, while long-term summoners get their pets through active abilities.

Another thing is that short-term summons often are only usable during combat, so you need to weigh the cost of a turn when deciding whether to summon. While this can make sense as a trade-off, it hurts them in games with short normal encounters.

Riffing on my previous where I mentioned "shapeshifter": I'm OK when summons are effectively the game's "shapeshifter character", replacing the character who did the summoning entirely (or even the whole party) for its duration, which may be indefinite or based on some resource.

So long as the game doesn't have some other "shapeshifter" type that this summon would be infringing on.

This violates the "summon" definition in the first post though and I've only seen it in JRPG.

I've seen it in Romancing SaGa, which is the sort of game that might not quite be a typical JRPG. In particular, while the combat system is most similar to a JRPG (although with more than 4 party members), the game's structure is definitely not what you'd expect from the genre; you're expected to do side quests until the endgame opens up, and the game is not linear.

Incidentally, one game that has both transformations and persistent summons is Centauri Alliance. It's an interesting game, though it unfortunately suffers from bugs (including one case where the bug is so bad that I don't even know what the intended behavior was), a slow and clunky interface, and the fact that it was only released for platforms that were becoming obsolete (no IBM PC release, for example). Shame, as that game did have some interesting mechanics. (For example, if you use a persistent summon, your PSI (the game's MP counterpart) won't regenerate as long as the summon exists.)

I've played The Bard's Tale (2004) and I surely prefer this gameplay mechanic of my summons to keep on living until killed or I dispel them (instead of being on a timer), even though they take up a companion slot. This way I'm not anxious about time passing and to have to summon them just moments before a battle starts. I had them at the ready everywhere I was going!

Summons could also be considered from Horizon dawn zero, taking control of one effectively makes it yours, or at least isn't hostile towards you

The problem of summoning determines cost, of either to summon, how long it's summoned, or a block locked off as 'used' of your total resources, on top of if it has to be healed or not. Unsummoning and resummoning especially in say Skyrim is far more effective than trying to heal.

But since they don't get smarter over time, or having them near you won't generally affect people's opinions of you, i'd prefer longer/permenant summons over temporary ones.

You'd also have the sheer opposite with ToME, where the summoner may summon a monster for say 4 combat rounds, and trying to keep enough enemies out there to handle the combat before they get to you can be quite annoying.

Though i'd almost prefer a game where a summon had it's own preferences and conversations, sorta like having a large cast of a main characters, but swapping out depending on the situation, but with them talking in terms of the summoner being not only in charge, but giving them treats for their work, or as a pet-based mindset.