CardSummonsCore adds a significant amount of new mechanics to CGC. Similar to how the Core Engine has its own vocabulary including Card Actions and Zones which refer to specific things, Card Summons has several more which are detailed below. Each one will have a detailed breakdown, but here is a quick reference.

The Field is a special Zone with unique properties. It has a unique appearance, and all Cards that move to it will be arranged in a grid. It has a finite number of Cards that it can fit, determined by the Grid Width and Grid Height parameters.

Additionally, both the Player and the Enemy Troop have their own Field Zone. This means that Enemies have access to Field Cards, even while they don't normally have access to Cards in any other capacity.

All Card Actions that reference a zoneName parameter can use the Field as a value, with a few exceptions which are listed below:

Any skill that uses the following Card Action:

  Move this to Field

Will move the Card to the Party Field if used by an Actor, and will create a Card for the Troop Field if used by an Enemy. This means that it will behave normally for an Actor, but will be reinterpreted as the “Add X to Field” Card Action when used by an Enemy. This is a means of ensuring that the same Field Cards and Creature Cards can be used for Actors and Enemies.

When using Selection Card Actions, there are new Actions you should use to select from the Field.

  Select X from unitName Field
  Select X Type typeName from unitName Field

With normal Selection Actions, it is assumed the player is selecting from their own Zones, or the Zones of their targets. Since the Field has different properties, it is required that you specify which Unit's Field you are selecting from.

Below is a breakdown of possible unitName values:

Ex:

  Select 2 Type Spell from Ally Field

This would make the player select 2 Cards from their own Field with the Card Type “Spell.”

Field Skills are Skills which a Card can execute while on the field. Yes, you are attaching skills to a skill. This means that you can select that card and open a menu of skills to execute.

Any skill executed this way will use the stats of the owner of that card for damage formulas. Similarly, any resources those skills cost will be paid by the owner.

Field Skills can be set through the following notetag structure:

 <Field Skills>
 skill x
 skill x limit y per turn
 skill x limit y per battle
 </Field Skills>

Replace 'x' with a Skill ID. (Optional) replace 'y' with the amount of times a skill can be used within a turn/battle.

If a card is removed from the Field and then placed again, its per-battle skills are refreshed.

The <Field Skills> notetag should be placed inside the Skills database for a Field Card and inside the Enemies database for a Creature.

In base CGC, cards in the hand have access to Card Passives which force actions at the start or end of a turn. Here you can do the same thing for the field.

A card can have effects that trigger at the start or end of a turn if they are on the Field, using the following notetag structure:

  <Card Passives>
  Start of Turn Field: Skill x
  End of Turn Field: Skill x
  </Card Passives>

Replace 'x' with a Skill ID.

This should go inside the Skills database regardless of whether this is for a Field Card or a Creature Card, as it belongs to the card itself.

Creatures are a special Battler which are added to the Field. Creatures inherit behavior from Enemies and are made from the Enemies database, but can exist on either Field.

Because Creatures inherit from Enemies, they have access to all of the stats that Enemies have. Barring any incompatibility, they also benefit from any other plugins that augment Enemies.

Creatures can execute Field Skills on the Player's turn and Action Patterns at the end of the turn.

While a Field Card's Field Skills will use the Actor/Enemy's stats for damage calculation, a Creature's Field Skills will use the Creature's own stats, as the Creature will be the one considered executing the skill. However, any Card Actions executed will still be technically executed by the summoner.

The Enemy AI will not make use of Field Skills, and will instead use Action Patterns to determine what skills a Creature will use. The Troop Field's Creatures are using RPG Maker's Enemy AI system to determine actions, and thus can be affected by plugins that change that behavior.

Action Patterns are RPG Maker's means of determining Enemy AI, found in the Enemies database, and Creatures inherit this behavior.

Creatures will automatically attack at the end of the turn its Action Patterns. Creatures move after their respective summoners in the turn order. Both Party Field and Troop Field Creatures will use these Action Patterns unless the Ignore Action Patterns For Player passive is in use, as detailed in the following section.

Creatures have passive notetags which use the following syntax inside the Enemies Database:

  <Creature Passives>
  passive
  passive
  </Creature Passives>

The Creature Passives include:

  First turn attack: true/false

This will override the default behavior for whether or not Creatures have access to their skills on the same turn they are summoned. Set the default behavior through Plugin Parameters.

  Ignore Action Patterns for Player

This will prevent a Player-side Creature from auto-attacking using Action Patterns. This is useful when you want the same Creature to be used by the party and by the enemy troop - the player's options inside Field Skills and the enemies' options inside Action Patterns.

Inside a card, you can set it to summon a Creature when it moves to the Field through the following Skill Notetag:

  <Field Creature ID: x>

Replace 'x' with an Enemy ID.

When a card summons a Creature by moving to the field, the card is made invisible, but is still present underneath the Creature. When a Creature's HP reaches 0, its card is moved to the discard. Likewise, if a card is moved off of the field, its Creature dies.

An animation can be played on the Creature when it is summoned by using the following Skill Notetag:

  <Summon Animation ID: x>

Replace 'x' with an Animation ID.

The specific placement of a Creature within the Field is relative to what RPG Maker considers its “center point,” which is its center bottom in MV and its actual center in MZ. You can offset the location it will spawn in its place in the field using the following Enemy Notetags:

  <grid offset X: x>
  <grid offset Y: x>

Replace 'x' with a number, positive or negative.

Creatures are made up of Enemies, and as such have all of the stat parameters that enemies have. In most games, the relevant stats need to be made visible.

Using the Stats to Display param, you can specify which stats will appear on the Creature, their coordinates relative to the center of the Enemy Sprite, and whether they display on a Card with a <Field creature ID> notetag.

You can also specify if the stat will show on all creatures. If you set the Show on All Creatures? to false, the stat will not appear on any Creature or Card by default.

You can override default display behavior by using the following notetags:

 <Show Stat x>
 <Hide Stat x>

Replace 'x' with the stat/param associated with the Stat Display.

Stat Displays also have a list of Text Color Conditions, which determine what color the text will be that displays the stat. This allows you to use a system where a number changes color when it lowers.

Each item in the list contains a color and a condition.

• The color should be a hex value, though some color names are also accepted.
• The condition is code which evaluates to true or false.

The Stat Display will use the color of the first condition that returns true in the list.

Base RPG Maker allows you to select the Scope of a skill, which determines who can be targeted for it. The addition of Creatures complicates this, and so you should work both with RPG Maker's Scope menu and the system below in tandem to get the scope you want.

By default, all skills can target both Battlers and Creatures, and you can modify this with the following notetags:

  <Card Summons Scope>
  Battler
  </Card Summons Scope>

  <Card Summons Scope>
  Creature
  </Card Summons Scope>

In addition, scope can be made to include Battlers or individual Creatures when certain conditions are met, like so:

  <Card Summons Scope>
  if [expression]
  Creature
  </Card Summons Scope>

These if expressions are similar to the If Action in the Core Engine. They evaluate a code expression.

However, in this condition the user has access to the variable “target”, which represents any given Creature or Battler, and can be used to evaluate if that specific target is valid for the scope.

For example:

  <Card Summons Scope>
  Battler
  if target.hp >= target.mhp
  Creature
  </Card Summons Scope>

In the above example, a skill could target the opponent Battler, and any Creature whose HP is greater than or equal to their Max HP - any Creature who hasn't taken damage.

Creatures that cannot be targeted will be greyed out during selection.

Another example:

  <Card Summons Scope>
  if target.friendsUnit().fieldCreatures().count == 0
  Battler
  if user.mp < user.mmp
  Creature
  </Card Summons Scope>

The above example could target the opponent Battler only if there are no Creatures on their side of the field. It also can only target Creatures if the user's MP is not full. If neither condition is met there are no valid targets.

The Enemy Status Window behaves like the Actor Status Window from Party UI A, except that it showcases the Enemy in charge of a given battle. As such it reuses the values given to the parameters for the Actor Status Window.

However, Enemies do not have Face images like Actors do. For this reason, you have a few options for how to display the appearance of the Enemy within the window within the Display Enemy Mode parameter:

In the Enemies database, you can adjust the position of the Enemy sprite within the Enemy Status Window using the following notetags:

  <Status Window Offset X: x>
  <Status Window Offset Y: x>

Replace 'x' with a number, positive or negative.

In Mugshot mode, this will determine what section of the Enemy Sprite is cropped within the corner of the window. In Full Image mode, this will determine the placement of the Enemy Sprite within the window.

Card Summons has a Debug feature which may be useful for lining up parameters.

If the user hits F11 in battle during a playtest, some debug visuals will appear that show each side's field grid based on the user's parameters, as well as the “center” of Cards and Creatures.

This can help the user set their parameters to match up with the images they're using to represent the field.

**v1.0.0**
- Released plugin