At least one of the in game books metions that a caster can get into trouble if they try to summon somthing stronger than they can control. What I would like is a system where that Apprentence can try to cast the Master Level Summoning Spell, but at the risk of having it not be under his control. The higher the conjuration skill, the stronger the summon that could be attempted safely.

Summoning should have your typical Sorcerer's Apprentice risks. But I don't like the idea of wizard duels or whatever over the control of the summon.
If I remember correctly, some book describes how the conjurer has to call AND dismiss a daedra, AND keep it in its control. Those are the three parts of conjuring something. If you can't keep it in your control, it will run wild and you won't be able to dismiss it. And if you can't manage to dismiss the creature, you will eventually face that very problem, because you can keep your concentration up only for some time, unless maybe you're a master at this.

Might also be my imagination, but in my opinion that is how it should work. In any case, in order to snatch a summon from you, another wizard would have to make you lose control over it first; however once it's set free, he can't simply "take over" the control that's still figuratively lying around somewhere. If anything, he'd have to use a Command spell.

So yeah, it shouldn't be possible to simply steal a summon from you. I could imagine that using Dispel spells on conjurers makes them lose their control over the summon (if the spell's strong enough), at which point the free daedra should be a third, unpredictable party in the quarrel, with their own goals. Using a Command spell then gives you control over them, but Command is not the same as conjuring something, so after the spell expires you still have to kill the daedra to send it back to Oblivion.

Well, there have certainly been a wide-ranging set of varying answers to this question. I am greatful for your input and I have learned a lot from this debate. Thanks a lot. :celebration:

Exactly my thoughts... :thumbsup:

That is a good point, I'm not sure if it does but i don't think so. I do believe it most certainly should.

What does the lore say about dominate creature effect on summoned beings? I know now when a friend of mine told me, that the connection between the caster and the summoned creature must stay, or the creature will get cast back injto oblivion. But dominate creature could work, leaving the connection with the caster intact but simply make it hostile towards him, killing him would ofcourse as usual cast it instantly back to oblivion. But what does the lore say about it?

An interesting poll. I can't say for sure what would fairly be a more efficient and fun system since I don't play Conjurers, so I'll leave that for others to discuss.

Still, it made by wonder: are people with low Conjuration skill able to summon higher level creatures? I'm sure they couldn't summon Daedra for instance with a low Conjuration skill using the actual spells, but perhaps they can use scrolls?

Which made me then wonder: perhaps if you have the magicka you could summon any creature you like, the question is if you have the Conjuring capacity to keep it bound to you. If you summon a high level creature at a low skill of Conjuration, perhaps it would rebel against you and attack?

Just a thought.

I think that if you're a lower level conjurer then yeah, there should be a chance of them becoming independent and turning against you (similar to the spell failure system in Morrowind)
The higher your conjuration skill, the more control you have over your summons

The second question reminded me of pokemon.

You: Daedroth I choose YOU!

Necromancer: I choose Scamp!

Dundun dadada DunDun dun dun datatada DUN! (Pokemon battle music)

Dispel, if casted on the summoner will banish his/her summons(Because summons are treated like magical effects on the summoner). Dispel is pretty great for a multitude of things.

As someone who loves spell failure, summons breaking your control would be great. It was way too easy to cast 3 summons and sit back as they kill everything for you. By the time any of them dies or runs out of time, you have more than enough magicka for another summon.

I'm thinking that if we have regenerative magicka, you should be able to cast summons (up to two slots total, use them for anything you like, includes human followers and horse and cart) that occupies the follower slot, at a constant magicka drain to keep them there. They can be banished with dispell, or if magicka is completely drained or stunted. High level summoned companions will obviously fight very well, but the cost is that they cannot carry any equipment. Max two normal summons, which are only spell cost for limited time. So a high level conjurer may get two summoned companions and two normal summons, but the trick is to balance magicka. He might get a couple of scamps and skeletons, but no way should he get four Daedras.

Perk tree could be a branching climb. You first learn bound items, then you choose more complex items or from the animal realm. Bound items expands into double time and permanently bound. Animal realm splits into Daedra realm and more animal time, which again goes into double time and permanent companions. Daedra realm expands into double time and companions. Means you only need 5 perks to get daedra companions, but cost is still so high you wouldn't be able to support them for long at this stage, or even cast the spells in the first place.

Depends on if you view it as a defensive skill. I always see it as a not-getting-hit skillset than a damaging one. So if you rely on it instead of armor or Alteration it would svck to have your pets try and eat you.

Its not like my shield is going to turn around and bite me... unless its infused with a Daedric soul... hm...

That simply means the daedra's corporeal existence on Nirn is bound to the caster's soul, not necessarily its behavior. A sufficiently powerful daedra could break free of the restraining enchantments binding his actions, and we've seen examples of that before. The daedra would effectively banish himself if he kills his summoner, but it's not like that matters from the summoner's perspective, now does it?

Right,I wouldn't argue the breaking of a caster's control over a summons only gaining control over another's summons.

If all that matters is that the daedra's connection to his summoner's soul is intact, there's no reason why a hostile mage couldn't snap those protective enchantments and take control of the daedra himself. Be a one time thing because of the whole daedra-tied-to-soul thing, but it could turn a fight.

Of course we already have this through the command spells. Just saying it would make sense for a powerful conjurer to mimic command spells against conjured beasts.

With perks, conjuration does need something a little extra. Maybe...

• Different types of conjuration: Natural, Daedric, and Undead/Necromancy with creatures and bound armor/weapons for each.
  
  
• Improved 'Bound Armor/Weapons spells': maybe preset summons of a dead hero's gear that you can summon up upon yourself.
  
  
• Summonable creatures that you 'transform' into and directly control.

it has happened to npc's before like in morrowind (usuallly had something to do with a scamp)
if your conjuration is low there should be a chance you could lose control of your summoned creature at a conjuration of 30 about a 25% chance of turning would be good though it could depend upon the creature your summoning for instance undead since they have no free will would likely be very stable whereas animals would be sort of in between but daedra would be fairly hard to control at low conjuration

I also ask these questions out of my own personal need for something more "gamey" as Todd Howard put it once. To not just sit there mashing buttons, or as in the case of Summoner, to sit back and watch your summoned creatures do all of your dirty work while you read the newspaper. Ok, I exxagerate, but still...

I just figured it would be cool to have some onscreen mechanic showing you the status of your control over said monster and as you began to lose power or confidence, or whatever, that the control percentage would begin to dip from 100% to less and less, with a new skill check taken every 5 seconds to see if you lose control of your summoned creature. Then you would have to click some button combo and if you failed to remember the sequence then you lose control of your creature, which essentially changes sides.

I figured if you had the creature tied to you and then it turned on you, you could just banish it, and what good would any of the control aspects BE if you could do that? So I imagined that the monster not only changed sides, but went under your enemy's control too... that way, it would actually be scary to "lose control" of your monster, knowing you could no longer control it, banish it, or do anything but try to destroy it once it switched.

But it seems like, after reading the majority of the posts, that all of these considerations are impossible in the TES system, for reasons of LORE and TES mechanics. So oh well. Would have been fun, in my mind, not to just sit there and wait for your summoned creatures to fight off everything, but to have to actually "MANAGE" them which is essentially what a Conjurer is in my mind mind. He's a manager, who calls his own workers, and then makes sure they do what they're told. But most workers don't .... so there's this "control" dynamic, and having to ... I don't know ... actually BEHAVE like a manager not just program a set of robots and then literally do nothing while they go slaughter the world for you.

I don't think its that's fun to just be a lazy conjurer, but I guess that's why I don't play them under the current system. Peace, homies.

You do realize that if you conjure something you do not have to "sit back and watch it fight". You can actively participate in the battle. Perhaps you should try that sometime.

no, sounds more tedious than fun...

No, no, no, this wasn't for ME ... this is about one of the Developers at BGS who said he prefered to play a Conjurer so he could just sit back and watch all his minions kill everything while he basically did nothing. It never occured to me that you could even play like that until I heard him say this, and then I was like "That sounds BORING" to me .... and I thought, gee, all these people playing Conjurers are playing this game like it's a fantasy-based Real-Time-Strategy game where they send minions in and then sit back and do nothing.

So I thought maybe there needed to be more risk, to keep the player on their toes more, instead of being so relaxed and bored.

So your sarcasm, while apt, wasn't directed at me, friend, you just insulted one of Bethesda's own developers. Way to go!

Nahh i love that sit back and watch your pokemon fight thing