SUMMON (MINION)

Effect: General

Action: Standard

Range: Touch

Duration: Sustained

Cost: 2 points per rank

Optional: Fatigue

You can call upon another creature—a minion (see page 63)—to aid you. This creature is created as an independent character with (rank × 15) character points. Summoned minions are subject to the normal power level limits, and cannot have minions themselves.

You can summon your minion to you automatically as a standard action; it appears in the nearest open space beside you. You always have the same minion unless you apply power modifiers allowing you to summon different minions. Your minion automatically has a helpful attitude and does its best to aid you and obey your commands (see page 175 for descriptions of NPC attitudes).

Unconscious and dead minions disappear. Defeated minions recover normally except they recover from death as if they were disabled. You cannot summon a defeated minion until it has completely recovered. Your summoned minions also vanish if your power is turned off, countered, or nullified.

POWER FEATS

• Progression: Each time you apply this feat, move your total number of minions one step up the Time and Value Progression Table (2, 5, 10, etc.). You can still only summon one minion per standard action.

• Mental Link: You have a mental link with your minions, allowing you to communicate with them over any distance.

• Sacrifice: When you are hit with an effect requiring a saving throw, you can spend a Conviction to shift it to one of your minions instead. The minion must be within range of the attack and a viable target of the effect. Needless to say, this is not a particularly characteric feat. The Gamemaster may wish to restrict it to villains or non-player characters (in which case a character earns a Conviction when a villain uses this feat to avoid an effect by sacrificing a minion).

EXTRAS

• Fanatical (+1): Your summoned minions have a fanatical attitude and devotion to you (see page 175).

• Heroic (+1): Your minions are not subject to the minion rules (see page 163), but treated like normal non-player characters.

• Horde (+1): You can summon up to your maximum number of minions with one standard action. You must have the Progression power feat to take this extra.

• Type (+10+2): Minions are normally identical in terms of traits. It’s a +1 modifier to summon minions of a general type (elementals, birds, fish, etc.), +2 to summon minions of a broad type (animals, demons, humanoids, etc.).

FLAWS

• Attitude (–1): Your summoned minions are less than cooperative. For a –1 modifier, they are indifferent. They are unfriendly for a –2 modifier, and hostile for a –3 modifier.

UNDER THE HOOD: SUMMON

Summon is a useful power; it doesn’t cost much to summon up a horde of minions, giving you a lot of effective actions per round! Gamemasters may wish to limit large numbers of minions (summoned or otherwise) to villains and non-player characters. Player character minions are subject to the campaign’s power level limits (see Power Level, page 24). There are also practical matters limiting just how much minions can do at any one time. First, directing your minions to do something is a move action. If you want to issue different commands to different groups of minions, then it’s one move action per command. So it’s easier to tell all of your minions “attack!” than it is to issue complex commands to each one in the midst of combat. Second, Gamemasters may wish to have groups of minions use aid actions rather than rolling their actions separately.

For example, instead of rolling eight attacks for eight different minions, the GM has seven minions aid the eighth, giving that minion a +14 bonus from their aid actions. This makes groups of minions more effective and efficient overall. GMs should keep in mind the limits on the number of opponents that can gang up on a character at once (see page 161). Also, Gamemasters should keep in mind that lower power level minions have limits. For example, while a group of eight minions may easily be able to hit an opponent (especially if they use teamwork to give themselves one attack roll with a +14 bonus), they may not be able to hurt their target quite so easily. In particular, Gamemasters may wish to limit the use of the Heroic extra. Treating minions as normal characters can greatly slow down combat, since it becomes that much harder to take them out of a fight.