One little mousey at level one summon vermin would definately be a more helpful ally if it exploded into a poison cloud. Although you'd have to be careful because you could be poisoned too.
Now if the summon vermin spell summoned a rediculous amount of mice...say 10 per level...that would be nice. They wouldn't even have to be poisonous, cause the sheer number of them would overwealm the enemy.
With summon skeleton, I think that you can summon up to 5 according to how many points you have invested in the skill.
The topic of the benefits and weaknesses of pickpoceting is interesting, in my mind the reputation system is related to it.
If you've invested precious points into pickpocketing it aught to definately net you some valuable stuff. Like, the helmet off of the guy's head, or the ..ah, the charmed personal items of npcs.
Perhaps random people carry gigantic 10000 + sums of money, or npcs randomly (and rarely) have some uber-rare item. Good gifts would encourage the use the skill. Especially since if your charachter gets caught and goes to jail, or if someone simply sees you you loose so much reputation!
Someone mentioned a more dynamic reputation system with specific actual reputations like 'street rat' or 'sewer dweller' or 'meteor man' ..
based on player patters, behavior, and what the npcs see of it.
Its fun to build a specific identiy in a game, i'd say thats the funnest part of D&D styled rpgs..
Another topic for another thread i guesss but i'd be interested to hear other's ideas for what specific reputations there could be, instead of the 'thermometer' system in divinity right now.
