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Dumpshock Forums _ Shadowrun _ How do you sneak past a spirit?

Posted by: ShadowDragon Jun 23 2006, 06:45 AM

For those of you who didn't read my last post, I'm a new GM to Shadowrun. I'm extending the On the Run module since my players screwed up securing the disk. My team is going to be sneaking into a corporate building to steal the disk back. They face opposition from a shaman (amoung others) who I want to use spirits to guard the building. The problem is that I've been looking through the rules and I can't find any way to sneak past a spirit who's watching the door. Is there any way for my players to infiltrate a building without fighting, when a spirit is on guard duty?

Posted by: Dv84good Jun 23 2006, 06:58 AM

I have heard you can infilitrate. Someone previously said they gain a bonus to their roll. If you search under infilitrate you should be able to find the post.

Also, I did on the run this last weekend and we were one stunball away from losing the disk. I the gm may have fudged the roll but being he increased the enemy it seems fair.

Posted by: ShadowDragon Jun 23 2006, 07:11 AM

But even infiltrate doesn't help you open a door unnoticed.

It just seems like a no brainer to put a watcher spirit on all entrences, set to report to the mage if it opens. How do you get past that? (assuming the windows can't open )

Posted by: Dv84good Jun 23 2006, 07:21 AM

maybe a decoy?

Posted by: Abbandon Jun 23 2006, 08:07 AM

Well if your team has made then you can ........of not they can hire an npc mage to help out...

Have the mage use either manipulation magic or illusion magic on the spirit. Killing it would notify the enemy mage.

There is a optical device for mages to look around corners and stuff and be able to cast spells in the gear section of sr4. You would porbably have to sneak the good mage close enough to do this.

Can a mage mask somebody elses aura?? I would mask the aura of the infiltrator and cast invis and silence on him and then summon a watcher spirit with the help of a mage.

Then the infiltrator and the watcher go through the door the spirit is gaurding at teh same time. Hopefully the spirit will be so focused on what he can see that he wont bother checking for other targets. The watcher spirit could just be used to harass the spirit and get slaughtered or make the spirit chase him which the enemy mage would probably tell him to stay at his post.

I'd be going for an all out assault though. Have the good mage try to summon a spirit of equal force and then just plow your way through and tell your spirit to kill the other one and the good mage can try to battle the evil mage while the runners get close enough to whack him

Whats the layout of the building. If the disk is near an outer wall i would just blow that baby up with shaped charges.

You could always gaurd the disk with something else and let the runners grab it only to have to fight the spirit and mage at someplace else. Or better yet i would make them try to do an intercept mission where the disk gets moved with a large convo and the runners have to intercept it and get the disk back.

Posted by: ShadowDragon Jun 23 2006, 09:34 AM

What I was planning on doing, was keeping the disk at a small, five story office building. It's going to be kept in a safe in a large, corner office on the third floor. The office building is going to have a ward around it, and the large office has another ward (along with wards around two other large offices on two other floors to serve as red herrings and in game practical reasons). The NPC shaman is going to have three spirits guarding the three entrences in the front, back, and roof, set to report to the shaman if the runners enter the building. There's also mundane serviellence cameras/mics and maglocks in logical places. The building is painted with signal blocking paint. In addition to the shaman there will be two sams, an adept, a hacker, and a rigger, though I may adjust this. The hacker and rigger will be in the security/server room on the third floor, and the rest will be in the office with the safe. The NPCs have pictures of the runners from a serviellence drone from when they took the disk from them.

The players are a hacker/rigger, mage, adept, sam, and face/sam. They will have the option to go during the day when wage-slaves are present but security is a little lighter, or at night. The man in charge will be flying into Seattle the next day to get the disk, which I'll tell the players to put some pressure on them to act.

Posted by: Samaels Ghost Jun 23 2006, 12:42 PM

Sneaking past a watcher spirit isn't that hard. It's really a misnomer since they only roll two dice for any of their skills ([force] skill rating + [force] attribute). Watchers are a sham. Even their search power can be used more efficiently by just about any Force 2 spirit. If you're worried about the Watchers being too hard then don't, just check out those stats of theirs. If you're using higher Force spirits (4 and up) then they might have trouble.

Posted by: Lilt Jun 23 2006, 12:50 PM

QUOTE (Samaels Ghost)

Some things don't require rolls, however. If a character was sitting watching a door and planning on doing something if it opened, would you require them to make a roll? If not, then why would you require a watcher to do so?

Posted by: Samaels Ghost Jun 23 2006, 12:53 PM

My point is that with a distraction and a good infiltration roll the watcher could easily be duped.

Or you could just go through the wall Watchers take things VERY literally.

Posted by: DireRadiant Jun 23 2006, 01:03 PM

As long as the players actually do something to deal with the watchers, just as they would for the cameras and door sensors, they have a chance. On some level something as simple as a distraction using a charisma based skill from the Influence group would work. The watcher is only going to have a couple of dice to resist whetever active effort the players use to distract it. Think of things you might do to distract a guard dog for example.

Posted by: Red Jun 23 2006, 01:10 PM

I don't have too much to add here, but I would like to remind everyone Watchers have an extremely limited lifespan. They live for 1 hour for every hit on the summoning test, and the summoner suffers drain equal to the duration of the summon (not based on resistance of the watcher). In order to maintain watchers on a given facility, arrangements have to be made personnel wise to make sure that a mage is constantly available and not suffering from perpetual migraines.

While one could maintain a perfect "door" watch in theory, when it comes to the actual practice of the matter I am sure there are windows of opportunity. Maybe the mage takes too long to carefully instruct his new watchers for the 30th time this week, and thus a door is left uncovered for five minutes. That sort of thing.

Given the stress involved, I'm sure the average wage of a watcher-mage is quite a bit higher than a ward maker. And ward makers already pull 100 nuyen an hour. Ward makers pay drain at the end of multi-hour sessions. Watcher conjurers must pay drain dozens of times per day in order to cover any reasonably sized area.

Extra thought - for those interested in the idea of spirits resenting abuse, is it possible that Watcher spirits might resent wage-mages that perpetually summon them to keep watch day and night over mundane, everyday doors? Maybe the watchers just stop caring after a while?

Just ideas. YMMV.

Posted by: TBRMInsanity Jun 23 2006, 01:22 PM

With spirits there are two problems that need to be overcome:
1. Not all PCs can see them so they won't know they are being watched
-> This is where the importance of a mage/shaman/... in the group comes in

2. If you banish the spirit the person who summoned it will know
-> This may buy you some time but in the end you run is going to be harder

I find if there is a spirit guarding a door I use watcher spirits to try distract it away long enough to get in. If the spirit won't budge though you have to be unorthodox and use a window, the roof, another door, or come through the front door disguised as someone who is allowed in.

Posted by: booklord Jun 23 2006, 01:54 PM

In the astral you can pass through physical, non-magical objects but you can't see through them.

Take off a wall panel.
make sure the wall panel blocks the view of your entire body.
Keep the wall panel between you and the spirit at all times.
Walk around the spirit.
Make willpower roll to resist laughing
Get the Disk.
Walk around the spirit.
Make willpower roll to resist mocking spirit
Leave Building.

Next Day:

Magician: I told you to stop anyone who came down this hall!
Spirit : But I didn't SEE anyone!

Remember 95% of cases, bound spirits won't lift a astral finger to do more than they are ordered to.

Posted by: James McMurray Jun 23 2006, 01:57 PM

Of course, assuming you know what those orders are isn't always a good idea. You could walk down the hall with a wall in your hands and find yourself getting nuked by the spirit's innate spell (electicity ball) because the orders were to destroy anything coming down the hall that isn't the summoner. the orders are "anything" because the summoner doesn't want drones to be able to stride past.

Posted by: Nim Jun 23 2006, 02:43 PM

QUOTE (Red)

Extra thought - for those interested in the idea of spirits resenting abuse, is it possible that Watcher spirits might resent wage-mages that perpetually summon them to keep watch day and night over mundane, everyday doors? Maybe the watchers just stop caring after a while?

Honestly, I don't really include Watchers in that idea. I'm not sure they're really bright enough to care (or remember).

Posted by: Kyoto Kid Jun 23 2006, 04:42 PM

QUOTE (Samaels Ghost)

My point is that with a distraction and a good infiltration roll the watcher could easily be duped.

Or you could just go through the wall

Watchers take things VERY literally.

...as my GM runs it....

PC Mage: "OK you watch the door so nobody comes in"

Watcher "Yeah Boss. Watch the door so nobody comes in. Sure Boss. Got it Boss"

Meanwhile NPC sec team, weapons at the ready have a Demo expert apply a bit of Thermite Core to breach the wall around the corner

Back at the door, the watcher is still faithfully doing his job.

Posted by: stevebugge Jun 23 2006, 04:53 PM

Another one piling on for the position of in SR4 wathers are dumb as posts camp.

Watchers really are pretty dumb, even if they are guarding something even a decent attempt at being sneaky (read anything that makes the watcher have to perform a perception check) is likely to work. Higher force spirits are more of a problem, but may be fooled in other ways. If you have a mage with you this opens up some more options, but even a clever team of mundanes (assuming they have some awareness of the spirit) should be able to get by the spirit.

Posted by: knasser Jun 23 2006, 05:33 PM

QUOTE (James McMurray)

True, but I run watchers as supremely literal and scatty. How about you go up to the watcher spirit and ask it what its orders are? If any PC had the gall to do that, they'd probably get a cheerful "Oh, I have to sound the alarm if anyone opens that door without saying 'Hippopotamus'."

I tend to think of them as the guards in the tower in Monty Python's "Holy Grail."

Posted by: ShadowDragon Jun 23 2006, 06:31 PM

Alright...I appriciate the replies but you guys are getting too hung up on watchers being dumb. If watchers are that dumb, the shaman wouldn't be stupid enough to use them in this situation. Lets say he uses regular spirits instead. How do you sneak past them?

Posted by: DireRadiant Jun 23 2006, 08:17 PM

A summoned spirit, that isn't a watcher, used to guard a door is just like having an extra security guard. So some of the creative tactics used against security guards would apply, except it might be tougher, or at least different. One major thing to look out for is if the summoner is in range, then there is the telepathic link to deal with. If the summoner is not in range, then the spirit is on remote service and the telepathic link isn't immediately available. While the summoner may notice they can have more summoned spirits, they might not necessarily know which one got disrupted or finished their service if they have several spirits out and about.

Posted by: ShadowDragon8685 Jun 23 2006, 08:54 PM

I got an idea for you.

How about you only guard SOME doors with Spirits...

Guard the others with drones. Like Steel Lynxes or Strato-9s.

Give the players a choice of a magical or a mundane entanglement.

And yeah, Watchers are so dumb they're comical. You could probably interrogate them on the Astral and they'd spill their stupid guts. Like Knasser said.

Posted by: ShadowDragon Jun 23 2006, 09:00 PM

QUOTE (DireRadiant)

But it's a security guard that can automatically see invisibility, warns the other security guards near instantly, can't be seen except by astral percieving mages, has immunity to mundane weapons, and can use magic.

The shaman who summons the spirit will be on active guard duty in the office.

Posted by: ShadowDragon Jun 23 2006, 09:04 PM

QUOTE (ShadowDragon8685)

Why would a corporation purposely weaken their defences? Especially when the corporation is half expecting the runners to give them trouble. I would feel like I was cheating the players if I made it that easy. All that my team's mage would have to do is cast improved invis to get past the drones.

Posted by: ShadowDragon8685 Jun 23 2006, 09:05 PM

And if he summoned something that has Immunity to Normal Weapons, he's probably going to have blood leaking from his ears unless he burned two Karma to do it. I don't love any fucker's money enough to burn my Karma doing his damn dirty work.

Posted by: ShadowDragon Jun 23 2006, 09:06 PM

QUOTE (ShadowDragon8685 @ Jun 23 2006, 04:05 PM)

And if summoned something that has Immunity to Normal Weapons, he's probably going to have blood leaking from his ears unless he burned two Karma to do it. I don't love any fucker's money enough to burn my Karma doing his damn dirty work.

Don't all spirits have immunity to normal weapons? Page 177 - unless I'm missing something...

Posted by: ShadowDragon8685 Jun 23 2006, 09:08 PM

Uuuuuuh, one of us needs to re-read the book. I was under the impression that only Force 8 and up did.

But I've been known to make retardedly stupid moves before, so I shall do so.

Posted by: ShadowDragon8685 Jun 23 2006, 09:14 PM

That's interesting. It says in the Conjuring part that all Spirits have Immunity to Normal Weapons, but none of their Powers list it.

Yet another case of contradicting rules. But I guess I'm wrong. I'll have my crow wilt salt and mustard, thank you.

Posted by: ShadowDragon Jun 23 2006, 09:26 PM

No worries, it's not the only confusing part in that book

Posted by: ShadowDragon8685 Jun 23 2006, 09:29 PM

Not that it matters. Unless the spirit is high force, all it's going to do is make the Sammie reach for his Panther AC. (You did hand out Panther ACs, right?)

I mean, wow, look at me. I am Force 2 Spirit of Water, hear me ROAR! I have hardened armor four! Ow! Ow ow! Stop shooting me with that Streetline Special! That hurts!

Posted by: Glorian Jun 24 2006, 01:07 AM

Immunity to Normal Weapons isn't listed as a separate power for spirits, because it's a part of the Materialization power. I believe it's been that way since SR2.

QUOTE (SR4 @ 289)

Materialization

Certain astral critters are capable of projecting themselves into the material world, thus allowing them to interact with physical beings. When materialized, critters may affect physical targets. Additionally, materialized critters gain Immunity to Normal Weapons.

Posted by: knasser Jun 24 2006, 09:26 AM

QUOTE (SR4 @ pg.177)

Physical spirits have the power of Immunity to
Normal Weapons (see p. 288), giving them Armor equal to twice
their Force against all attacks. This makes powerful spirits virtu-
ally immune to most physical attacks.

Ought to be under the critter entries too, though.

I kind of think that professional Shadowrunners ought to be able to find a way past spirits. Like ShadowDragon said, there's no way a corporate mage is going to be exhausting himself by summoning powerful spirits for guard duty on a routine basis. And wagemages are not the Magic 6 types you see as PCs. You'll see watchers or low-force spirits.

Issues with spirits that you don't get with mundane guards:
1. Astral Perception.
2. Immune to mundane attacks for purposes of guarding (they don't have to materialise to keep a watch)
3. Instant notification of spirit's demise.

Point 1, I'm not too concerned about. The GM needs some way of catching the astral mage sometimes. Same for invisibility.

Point 2. Definitely an issue for mundane-only parties. If you have a mage, then it's her chance to shine. If not, then you have to get creative. There are ways a mundane party can deal with this (see below), but the main problem is going to be knowing that there's a spirit there in the first place.

Point 3. Probably the hardest thing for Shadowrunning teams to work around as it nulls their ability to use the traditional kill the guard quick and put the body in the cupboard. Also, spirits are immune to many of the tactics that would incapacitate a spirit. Still, there are ways that you can disable a spirit without killing it.

Suggested tactics as follows:

(magic:)
Mental manipulation spells, e.g. Control Thoughts. This allows incapacitation of the spirit without alerting the summoner by destroying it. Short term only, but at least an option.

Mana Barriers. Again not a long term solution, though you could use a spirit to sustain it. It can keep a low-force spirit locked up nicely though.

(non-magic:)

The point of these is that spirits are not much different to certain mundane security mechanism such as motion detectors - they're something you just have to work around.

Unorthodox approach routes. If you know there are spirits guarding the doors, try parachute drops or gliders, clambering up the sewers or tunneling through walls with drills and electric monofilament chainsaws. Supplement with Hush spell if available.

Blitzkrieg. A perfectly valid approach to shadowrunning is to replace stealth with speed. Trip every alarm in the place if it means you can get in and out in under five minutes. Heck, if you have a hacker, then combine it with blocking outgoing alerts to delay those reinforcements.

Misdirection. Send a false alarm to the North side, and enter through the southside. If you know how your target's guard system works, then you can manipulate your opponents reactions to your advantage. Or trigger false alarms (and burn services too) - for example, a trapped bird or office pet gets somewhere it shouldn't and the spirit goes charging off to alert its master that something has gone through. The team charge through and get to the next zone whilst the mage and security detail come galloping up to find the bird etc. The bird will probably get manabolted, but neither the spirit nor the mage knows that anyone else passed through in the mean times. Split second timing, sure. But that's what shadowrunners are all about.

So basically, I think if a team is creative and willing to adapt their tactics, then a spirit guard isn't insurmountable. There's always plan B.

Posted by: ShadowDragon8685 Jun 24 2006, 12:37 PM

What mainly annoys me is that Spirits make a mage in the party a must-have. It's almost to the point where I wanna say "Wizard, Cleric, Rogue, and Meatshield", or in this case, "Mage, Shaman, Hacker, and Sammie". I mean, mundane characters can fill a lot of rolls. It's not too hard to get your Hacker some shooting skills (in fact it's probably vital to his survival) and even to tack on some low-powered Face skills after that.

But there's nothing a Mundane can do against a Spirit with an appropriately large Force. Even if they pulled out a similarly large vehicle - say, an IFV - a Hacker can shut it down, a Sammie can drop onto the turret and slice in, a heavy weapons guy can blow it up, and the Mage can get a spirit to manifest the Accident power inside the turret. Or, you know, blow it up.

But if there's a Force 6 spirit around, unless somebody has a sniper rifle on hand Halo-style, or else a Panther AC, you're boned. There's nothing anybody can do about it as it fries the team.

I mean, the same might be said about an in-house Technomancer leaving Sprites in the systems you needed to hack, right? Wrong. There's always the physical "Steal the actual hardware the data we want is on, and just give that to Mr. Johnson. Warn him about the Sprite if we're feeling generous."

Posted by: twilite Jun 24 2006, 01:55 PM

A Force 6 spirit is doable by mundanes. Thanks to Stick-n-Shock halving armor and giving a base 6s(e) damage code, weapons having AP, and your damage rating being modified by net successes, an Ares Predator loaded with Stick-n-Shock automatically affects any Spirit up to Force 7 (Need 1 net success, so Force 7 and -8 AP from halving armor and -1 means that you can get through the 14 armor). Add in Called Shot (the + damage type) and Burst modifiers (the attack summary defines modified DV only as base with net successes, but never mentions anywhere where the Called and Burst modifiers would go, so either they are added at the same time as net successes or they add to the base damage imho), and even ridiculous Spirits can be affected.

The big problem is not the armor- it's the armor combined with the ridiculous amounts of Edge they get. Edge equal to its Force means that it's tough to hit even 6-7 Force spirits. Once you get to 8+ Force spirits where you have to withhold dice in order to crank your DV, and Spirits will be almost impossible to hit, even using your own Edge. It's for those that you need Panther Cannons and such, although even those are not guaranteed- the Spirit with its Edge can still be rolling as many or more dice than you shooting to avoid the weapon completely. Then they can do it again for the damage check.

Posted by: Hasimir Jun 24 2006, 03:11 PM

QUOTE

What mainly annoys me is that Spirits make a mage in the party a must-have.

This is true...but you are forgetting something.
The same happens to a squad of runners without a Hacker!

How are "non-wired" players supposed to complete the mission to find and retrieve important paydata if they only have basic computer skills and an almost-average computer?
It's nearly IMPOSSIBLE for them to get past 'net security.

And how much trouble do they have to get into against a good security system without an expert hacker?

So...
Spirits CAN be "worked" by a group of mundanes...but with great problems.
The same applyes to purely electronical stuff...a Hacker expert becomes a total necessity.

Posted by: knasser Jun 24 2006, 05:05 PM

QUOTE (Hasimir)

The same applyes to purely electronical stuff...a Hacker expert becomes a total necessity.

That's not quite right. Leaving aside the possibility of non-specialised characters being much more able to hack in SR4, the real point is that unlike the hacker, the mage's role overlaps with the Samurai. At least, that is, it overlaps in favour of the mage.

A mage can do everything a samurai does - area effect, super-reflexes, sniping. Heck, in a lot of ways they're better at it than the samurai. When was the last time you adjusted the blast radius of a grenade on the fly? But a samurai can only do part of what a mage does. And they operate in the same arena and with the same objectives unlike the hacker. Spirits are just the best example of this problem.

Posted by: James McMurray Jun 24 2006, 05:25 PM

A GM putting an impossible to bypass magical threat against a completely mundane team is doing one of two things: railroading a mission failure or running the game poorly. The first might be forgivable if it makes for a good story. The second isn't.

In general fixers will tailor the hired team to the run whenever possible. If a job is known to require magical skills, he won't contact a team without an awakened member. If a run is going to require slicing past heavy net security he won't contact a team without a dedicated hacker.

Sometimes you find yourself needing to get past a threat your team can't handle. You've got a few choices. The biggest are:

1) Give up. Return any up front money you got and go have some beers

2) Charge in anyway, and possibly die.

3) Drop your pride and go hire some temporary help. There's usually nothing in the contract that says you can't farm out some tasks to someone you've hired. It'll cut into the bottom line, but some money is usually better than no money.

Posted by: Tarantula Jun 24 2006, 06:03 PM

Easiest way I can think of, assuming the spirit isn't obscenely high force. Have your mage put on some mage sight goggles. Slip the cable under the door, have mage mana barrier the spirit.

Posted by: James McMurray Jun 24 2006, 06:06 PM

Then the spirit returns to his metaplane and comes back to astral outside the mana barrier. Depending on his orders he might not do that, but you generally don't know the spirit's exact orders. It might be worth a shot, but could just alert the summoner when the spirit pops over there to tattle.

Posted by: underaneonhalo Jun 24 2006, 07:39 PM

Why not just have a couple of watchers patrolling the grounds? If that was the case the party might have a brief window to sneak past "watcher A" and bypass a maglock/alarm to gain entry before "watcher B" rounds the corner of the building.

If you want to keep the spirits stationary remember that your NPCs are only (meta)human. Maybe the shammy was out drinking last night and after summoning 3 watchers he really needs to lay down on the couch in a 2nd floor office offering your mage the perfect opportunity to stunbolt him with a pair of binoculars. Or maybe he's simply a smoker and goes outside to catch a cig with one of the guard every couple of hours. That's just my 2 cents though.

Also, hi everyone!

Posted by: James McMurray Jun 24 2006, 07:47 PM

Watchers are horrible at watching. Their 1 logic, 1 intuition, and lack of perception skill means that they are completely incapable of seeing anything even remotely sneaky. Think of the dumbest dog you've ever known. That's a watcher, but without the heightened senses.

Posted by: booklord Jun 24 2006, 08:13 PM

QUOTE

The big problem is not the armor- it's the armor combined with the ridiculous amounts of Edge they get. Edge equal to its Force means that it's tough to hit even 6-7 Force spirits. Once you get to 8+ Force spirits where you have to withhold dice in order to crank your DV, and Spirits will be almost impossible to hit, even using your own Edge. It's for those that you need Panther Cannons and such, although even those are not guaranteed- the Spirit with its Edge can still be rolling as many or more dice than you shooting to avoid the weapon completely. Then they can do it again for the damage check.

You'd love my houserule of spirits and edge. ( derived from my houserule on spirits and karma pools from SR3 )

Houserule
-------------------
Summoned spirits do not have edge but they do have access to their summoners edge pool. So if a spirit is being shot by a panther cannon the summoner may give it a point of his edge to help it survive. If a spirit is out on a remote task and its summoner isn't around to lend it a point of edge it's out of luck. ( literally )

This goes with the theory that summoned spirits just don't care. You can have a bound earth elemental manifest in front of a truck to prevent the folks inside from getting away and it will do it. It doesn't even care if it lives or dies. In order to use edge you've got to care about the outcome. Bound spirits simply don't.

QUOTE

I'd never allow that. First off going to the metaplane and returning is essentially a new task. Second the spirit would return to our world from the metaplane in the exact location which it left or to the location of its summoner. So the only way the spirit could do the metaplane skip past the mana barrier is if its summoner was standing on the other side.

Posted by: James McMurray Jun 24 2006, 10:24 PM

That's an interesting system. You could be even meaner and give the spirit free access to the summoner's edge.

I've got problems with metaplane interactivity as well, which hopefully will be answered in the magic book.

Posted by: booklord Jun 25 2006, 12:50 AM

QUOTE (James McMurray @ Jun 24 2006, 10:24 PM)

That's an interesting system. You could be even meaner and give the spirit free access to the summoner's edge.

It would, but it violates the spirit of the house rule.

The idea is that the spirit doesn't care if it is successful or not or if it is destroyed or not. It's the summoner who cares. And therefore it is the summoner who supplies the edge when it is important to him that the spirit is successful or that the spirit survives.

Besides I never have a house rule to be cruel. This houserule is more for game balance than anything else.

Posted by: James McMurray Jun 25 2006, 12:54 AM

It was a joke. I actually like the system. Our method of handling spirit edge is to have the GM decide if an when it gets spent. Spirits are NPCs, not PCs, so the players don't choose. Edge is a rule, not an in character concept, so spirits can't be ordered to spend it. Lots of folks disagree (and that's cool) but it works for us and doesn't require any house rules (something we prefer to avoid wheenver posible).

Posted by: hyzmarca Jun 25 2006, 01:21 AM

One way to make spirits less formidable is to bring back the Willpower attack. Sammie pulls out his Ronco Pocket Fisherman and rolls Willpowerx2 at CHA/2 base damage. The Spirit resists with Force or Forcex2.

Posted by: booklord Jun 25 2006, 03:09 AM

What's weird is that SR4 states

"It is very difficult for non-magical characters to attack and damage a physical spirit. Only the truly courageous, driven or mad have enough force of personality to allow their attacks to affect a spirit."

(which is basically cut and paste from SR3)

then does nothing to back up that statement and proceeds to give them immunity to normal attacks and leave it at that.

I'd almost venture to say that they cut out the personality assault rules out of space issues.

QUOTE

Something like this?

Attacker uses Willpower x 2
Defender uses ????? to avoid the hit ( probably reaction )
Attacker does (Charisma/2) damage
Defender resists damage using Force.

Posted by: ShadowDragon8685 Jun 25 2006, 03:27 AM

I, for one, must say that I like the idea of giving Spirits free access to the summoner's Edge, and make them care about their own survival.

"Okay. You send your Force 9 Air Elemental spirit up against that jet fighter. *rolls* The air elemental hits the Jet square-on the intake with a lightning bolt...
*rolls* and the jet goes down in flames. The guys on the ground fire a SAM at the Edge... It, uhh, has to resist naval-scale damage. It...
*evil grin.*
"It burns a point of your Edge to score a critical hit on it's soak test."

Posted by: Crusher Bob Jun 25 2006, 03:58 AM

SAMs in general shouldn't do naval scale damage, they typically have fragmentation warhead in the 10-50 kg range which are really not naval scale.

The SA-5/S-200 SAM which is the biggest I can think of delivers a 215kg frag/he warhead (or a nuke), but the missile itself weights in at a whopping 2800kg.

Typical warhead sizes:

Hand held Sam: 2-4 kg warhead (Stinger, SA-16, etc) (1-5 mile range)

Short Range SAM 3-8 kg warhead (SA-8, SA-13, etc) (3-10 mile range) requires vehicle mounting, each missle weights 30-70 kg.

Medium Range SAM 40-80 kg warhead (SA-6, SA-11, etc) vehicle mounting or fixed emplacements, each missile weighs 500-750 kg

Compared to the warhead on anti-shipping misiles which start at 100kg

Posted by: twilite Jun 25 2006, 04:05 AM

It has been pointed out to me that the burst modifiers to DV will not help against the spirits' armor b/c it is not included when comparing to armor by its own text. I'm sorry, totally missed that- makes it even harder to affect higher force spirits.

I think the rules on no Edge but potential borrowing from the summoner is very interesting. I'll mention it to our GM (although he'll probably just read about it on this forum )

Posted by: booklord Jun 25 2006, 04:55 AM

QUOTE

Here's something to think on

The burst damage modifier does not apply to armor comparisons. But the points added to DV from net hits on the shooting test does. And of course the target lowers the net hits by trying to avoid the attack using reaction.

So in an attack were the hardened armor value is only a few points higher than the weapons base DV you have a better chance of avoiding complete resistance by using a wide burst ( which lowers the spirits dodge dice and thus its ability to lower your net hits ) than with the narrow burst which raises the DV.

Things that make you go...... huh?

Posted by: hyzmarca Jun 25 2006, 05:33 AM

QUOTE (booklord)

QUOTE

Something like this?

Attacker uses Willpower x 2
Defender uses ????? to avoid the hit ( probably reaction )
Attacker does (Charisma/2) damage
Defender resists damage using Force.

That sounds good. With reach bonuses it gives an average sammie a decent chance of wounding a spirit unless its force is absurdly high.

Posted by: ShadowDragon Jun 25 2006, 06:16 AM

Getting some great replies guys, thanks.

Booklord I think I'm going to use that edge houserule.

What do you all think of a houserule so that spirits can't be summoned with overcast?

Posted by: James McMurray Jun 25 2006, 07:48 AM

That would be fine. Whatever house rules you go with, don't feel you're married to them for life after you decide. Give it a couple weeks and wee what happens. Maybe no oversummoning is too harsh, and 1.5 max is better. Or maybe oversummoning is fine if the character can't heal that damage magically.

Posted by: Eryk the Red Jun 25 2006, 05:18 PM

I came into this conversation way late, but I saw something in the earlier posts that seemed off. It was to the effect that "spirits can automatically see invisibility". I looked through the rest and didn't see anyone refute this. I figured I'd jump in. Spirits would only be unaffected by physical illusions (Improved Invisibilty). Vanilla Invisibility (a Mana spell) would trick them normally.

This is probably a moot point by now, but I figured I'd contribute anyway.

Posted by: ShadowDragon Jun 25 2006, 08:00 PM

QUOTE (Eryk the Red)

But not when they're on the astral plane I thought. Shouldn't that only work when they're materialized?

Posted by: Eryk the Red Jun 25 2006, 08:23 PM

No, because the Mana version of invisibility isn't a physical effect. It affects the minds of those perceiving the target. That would include astral spirits. If the spirit materialized, then the physical spells should affect them also.

Posted by: Samaels Ghost Jun 25 2006, 08:25 PM

Even if you are tricked by that Mana Illusion spells you can see the spell's aura on the astral plane. It's pretty obvious after you see that...

Posted by: Eryk the Red Jun 25 2006, 08:51 PM

Mana-based Invisibility tricks the mind such that it doesn't perceive the target visually. I always assumed that that would include spell auras in the astral as much as it includes clothing in the physical.

Posted by: Samaels Ghost Jun 25 2006, 09:09 PM

Pg. 201, Illusion spells

QUOTE

Though mana-based illusions can be created on the astral plane, their magical auras give them away as illusions to anyone who amkes a successful Assensing Test. Illusions cannot fool assensing to disguise or create auras.

I thought the same thing you did and I argued it for a while until I found this passage in the rulebook.

Posted by: Eryk the Red Jun 25 2006, 10:14 PM

So they still have to make an assensing test. Which means these illusions will still probably fool watchers, but not much else.

That kind of stinks, really.

(I'll probably still play it the way I've been arguing, because I like it that way and my players will probably agree, but it's good to know.)

Posted by: hyzmarca Jun 25 2006, 10:54 PM

More importantly, Invisibility only makes you invisibile to sight. It doesn't do anything against sound, touch, heat sensitive organs, or psychic powers. Astral Perception falls in the latter catagory. It isn't related to sight in any meaningful way.

Posted by: shadowbod Jun 26 2006, 03:36 PM

QUOTE (Eryk the Red)

So they still have to make an assensing test

Mana invisibility is kind of the odd one out here though... Although mana illusions can work on the astral plane, casting invis would mean an aura which would not be invisible. It wouldn't matter if you assensed that it was an illusion or not - the point is YOU CAN SEE IT - therefore, not invisible

Posted by: booklord Jun 26 2006, 06:22 PM

QUOTE

What do you all think of a houserule so that spirits can't be summoned with overcast?

The problem it's too easy to summon high force spirits.

Ernie, the summoning nuclear weapon, of the firebringer totem.
(magic 6, summoning 6, totem bonus, best conjuring foci he can afford)

On average a force 6 spirit will cause on average 4 DV in drain.
A force 9 spirit will cause will cause on average 6 DV in drain.
A force 12 spirit will cause on average 8 DV in drain.

High Magic, High Summoning, and some edge and you can make a starting character who can summon a fire spirit so powerful that it will slaughter 99% of any oppositon you might meet in SR4. ( including probably most non-great dragons )

I don't have a house rule for this yet. My players are SR3 veterans who look upon the idea of casting a spell or conjuring a spirit at a power level great enough to cause physical drain as something limited to burn-outs or desperate astral projectors or the insane. Even though the door to abuse is open, the psychological barriers remain.

Possible Houserule
----------------------------------
Probably the best method would be to change the summoning test from

(Summoning skill)+(Magic Attribute)+(foci)+(mentor bonus) vs (spirit force)
to
(Summoning skill)+(Magic Attribute)+(foci)+(mentor bonus) vs (spirit force)*2

and then change the drain test from

(Number of spirit successes) * 2 DV
to
(Number of spirit successes) DV

As a result if you summoned a spirit whose force equaled your magic attribute then you'd be doing good to get one or two services which to me sounds about right. You really shouldn't be able to summon things which are more powerful than you. On the plus side you wouldn't be blowing your brains out with drain either.

Posted by: James McMurray Jun 26 2006, 06:34 PM

QUOTE

High Magic, High Summoning, and some edge and you can make a starting character who can summon a fire spirit so powerful that it will slaughter 99% of any oppositon you might meet in SR4. ( including probably most non-great dragons )

Close, but not quite. If the party has a mage that summons monstrous spirits, they should be going on runs where monstrous spirits are necessary. Otherwise they're not being challenged. At least that's my opinion on how runs should work. Some folks like to have characters that are always on top, others like to have characters that are so overpowered by the opposition the at thoughts of actually entering combat is enough to force a save vs. death magic.

Our group does what yours does. Overcasting and oversummoning are things done in desperation. I know if I were able to cast spells and I could choose between being tired (stun damage) or having blood shoot out my ears (physical damage) things would have to be pretty desperate for me to do the latter. While OOC we may know that there are no long term effects of overcasting and that 4DV is the same penalties physical or stun, IC we know is that it hurts like hell.

Posted by: Demon_Bob Jun 27 2006, 02:12 AM

QUOTE (booklord)

On average a force 6 spirit will cause on average 4 DV in drain.
A force 9 spirit will cause will cause on average 6 DV in drain.
A force 12 spirit will cause on average 8 DV in drain.

True, however, it is possible for a force 12 spirit to cause a drain of 24.

Especially, if you play with a rule that spirits have an edge equal to their force.

In this case it becomes important for the Summoner to get on friendly terms with a small number of Spirits. Perhaps buying them with loyalty ratings. Or making them more friendly to him buy offering up Karma. The loyalty rating would be the chance that the Spirit wouldn't fight the Summoning with Karma, and allow the Summoner to "Drag" it across the dimensional barriers.

Posted by: booklord Jun 27 2006, 01:47 PM

QUOTE

True, however, it is possible for a force 12 spirit to cause a drain of 24.

Possible, but quite improbable.

QUOTE

Especially, if you play with a rule that spirits have an edge equal to their force.

I don't, but even if I did allowing the spirit to use edge to refuse summoning is a slippery slope. According to the book spirits hate binding more than summoning. But binding is done with the Force*2 resistance. But allowing spirits to use edge would make the task ridiculously hazardous. The player would need to use edge to compensate.

QUOTE

In this case it becomes important for the Summoner to get on friendly terms with a small number of Spirits. Perhaps buying them with loyalty ratings. Or making them more friendly to him buy offering up Karma. The loyalty rating would be the chance that the Spirit wouldn't fight the Summoning with Karma, and allow the Summoner to "Drag" it across the dimensional barriers.

A lot of players, especially those who play hermetic types, treat their spirits as mindless automatons. To them spirits only have personality that you give them. I wouldn't feel comfortable forcing a viewpoint.

Making players ( especially karma sinks like magician players ) pay karma or edge for something they didn't have to before is also highly impractical. The players would hate it. When making a house rule like that I try to "sell" it to the players generally as a game balance issue. This one would never fly.

Posted by: James McMurray Jun 27 2006, 02:03 PM

You're not enforcing a viewpoint, you're using the rules. If spirits were mindless automatons they wouldn't have willpower (the ability to resist outside influence) or charisma (the ability to cause outside influence). Even the lowly watchers have personalities.

There's nothing wrong with a character having to spend edge in order to bind or summon a high force spirit. The benefits he'll gain are much better than the benefits of that one point of edge lost.

Think of it this way: binding is slavery. Would the PCs spend edge in order to resist being enslaved? What about the other NPCs in the world. Spirits are just NPCs with powers and a weakness to summoning.

Posted by: booklord Jun 27 2006, 02:58 PM

QUOTE

Spirits resist summoning using willpower? You could also say that spirit resistance is simply the magician doing the heavy lifting when it comes to pulling them out of the metaplanes and the spirit doesn't care either way. It should also be mentioned that watcher personalities generally reflect an aspect of their summoner and in the two examples in Shadowrun literature and adventures of non-Ally summoned spirits going free so did the spirits. Different magicians see spirits differently.

QUOTE

There's nothing wrong with a character having to spend edge in order to bind or summon a high force spirit. The benefits he'll gain are much better than the benefits of that one point of edge lost.

Think of it this way: binding is slavery. Would the PCs spend edge in order to resist being enslaved? What about the other NPCs in the world. Spirits are just NPCs with powers and a weakness to summoning.

From a game mechanics point of view the player may view it as highly punitive. The player may see using edge to give him an advantage in binding a spirit, but he'll balk at it being a virtual requirement. Also for binding its impractical. An average magician would only have a 50-50 chance of binding a spirit equal to his magic attribute if he used edge as well and the drain catapults when spirits use edge to defend against binding.

Average Drain for binding
---------------------
Force 1 : 1 DV -> 2 DV
Force 2 : 3 DV -> 5 DV
Force 3 : 4 DV -> 7 DV
Force 4 : 5 DV -> 9 DV
Force 5 : 7 DV -> 12 DV
Force 6 : 8 DV -> 14 DV

Posted by: James McMurray Jun 27 2006, 03:06 PM

QUOTE

Spirits resist summoning using willpower?

Since their willpower = force, that's one way to view it.

QUOTE

You could also say that spirit resistance is simply the magician doing the heavy lifting when it comes to pulling them out of the metaplanes and the spirit doesn't care either way.

Then why do more successes grant more services? If the spirit didn't care either way the number of services would probably be set rather than flexible.

It's cool though. Obviously our opinions differ.

It's just that I see many people (not necessarily you) complain about how powerful spirits are. But those same people usually let the mage control the spirit as if it were a mindless slave, let the player determine when and if the spirit spends edge, and don't have the spirit do much about avoiding slavery.

Posted by: booklord Jun 27 2006, 03:32 PM

QUOTE

Then why do more successes grant more services? If the spirit didn't care either way the number of services would probably be set rather than flexible.

Because after the summoning or binding of the spirit the magician only has so much energy left to get services. While for a low-force spirit the magician didn't expend as much effort getting the spirit there so he has the energy to get more services.

QUOTE

Well, I house-ruled back in SR3 that summoned spirits don't have karma pools of their own. The house rule was ported to SR4 and karma pool became edge. As for letting players treat spirits like mindless slaves. I pretty much guilty. It's pretty much how hermetics did it in SR3. I'll let the magician player roll for the spirit ( after the summoning or binding ) and control it to a limited degree.

Posted by: Nim Jun 27 2006, 03:38 PM

QUOTE (James McMurray)

Actually, I'll take that one on.

In previous editions, SR was pretty explicit about different traditions seeing spirits differently - shamans generally thought of them as self-willied, but many hermetics considered elementals to be CREATED, rather than conjured, beings. MitS goes on for a little while in the fluff-text about how the jury's still out on who's right, and what the true nature of spirits actually is.

Someone with that particular hermetic point of view would argue that you're not calling an independent spirit from elsewhere and forcing your will on it - you're using your will to shape a spirit out of the material of the metaplanes and give it temporary consciousness. It's a construct, like an AI. And like an AI, it can sometimes surprise you, and can potentially even go rogue, but it's still a created thing. They might say that the variable number of services isn't because the spirit is 'fighting back', but rather is a measure of how good a job you did in constructing it. A more talented mage can fashion a more durable, more useful servant.

Still waiting to see what Street Magic will say about this, of course. In SR3, there were far clearer differences between nature spirirs and elementals, so there was more room for that difference of in-play opinion. Personally, I like the idea of spirits with an independent existence better, but some ambiguity and uncertainty in the worldview isn't a bad thing.

Posted by: James McMurray Jun 27 2006, 03:45 PM

Cool. Whatever works for your games is best in them.

Posted by: Nim Jun 27 2006, 03:48 PM

QUOTE (James McMurray)

Cool. Whatever works for your games is best in them.

The sad thing is that even though I like the idea of the characters in the world not knowing what the real answer is yet, I find it hard to resist making a decision as a GM