Summoning spells

Summon Beserkers has been integral to keeping my group’s mage involved with the game play, especially at the lower levels. I haven’t found that it unbalanced the game. The beserkers are also convenient ablative armor for the party.

 

This is getting a little off-topic, but I really like how the way arcane magic works in this system replicates the roles wizards tend to have in fantasy novels.

In many of the fantasy stories that were the inspiration for most fantasy tabletop RPGs, a common pattern is for a wizard to show up, effortlessly solve some specific problem faced by the heroes, then to fade into the background or leave the story entirely while the heroes continue on with their adventure.

ACKS makes spells incrdibly powerful (in that they often completely solve an obstacle in one shot), but also limits both how many spells a wizard can know and how many they can cast per day - meaning that a common pattern is for a wizard PC to step up, effortlessly solve a problem faced by the party, then to go back to the rear of the party while the rest of the adventurers continue on with their adventure.

GMJoe, that's a wonderful way to explain the role of mages. I can't claim it was intentional, though it does work like that.