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Posted by: weblife Apr 21 2008, 08:36 PM

Mkay, kicking around the Street Magic and looking into Ally spirits. Usually I'm thinking I'll never get the Karma needed for something as luxurious as that, but then again...

If I have an Ally Spirit inhabit me, and I have Channelling Meta Magic, would I use the spirits Exotic Ranged Attack or my own to fire its bolts of lightning?

Posted by: WeaverMount Apr 21 2008, 08:38 PM

I'd call that a character ending move.

Posted by: weblife Apr 21 2008, 09:06 PM

Only if it manifests as True Form...

Besides, if it was standing next to me in its own body, it could still fry you just fine.

...And I could be possessed by a temporary Fire Spirit giving me the same ability to fry you at the same time.

If the Ally is me, and I am the Ally, at least number of actions are limited to one of us acting at a time. The line is blurred though, since "we" can use any and all of our abilities, and any of our skills. - Major drawback is Dual Natured, but it gives other advantages.

So my question is, would you allow one parts skill to aid the other parts power? - Mmm.. Writing this I'm thinking up too many ways that would go broken very fast. Each power should use relevant skill from same person.

Anyhow, I will be using this thread to receive input from you all.

My vision is a quabbalistic witch type. High quality mechanical pets for possessions, magic symbols tattoed and burned into her body with the Ally spirits formula, and of course it is taken with the Familiar Ordeal and after Channelling is already taken.

I'd take the powers, Movement, Conceal, Guard, Accident, Influence and Elemental Attack for a classic pop-culture sorceress using charm, curses and blasting power. - Loosely inspired by reading too many comic books.

The spirit would be bringing physical stats, armor and Aid Sorcery to the table, as well as Assensing, Dodge and Unarmed Combat.

The character would focus on summoning and spellcasting.

A question though, the spirit when Inhabiting, would lose Astral Form, yes? - And how about the character, would you be able to leave for awhile and return later?

And the Initiative Passes, spirit brings 2P, base form using a spell could raise to 4P, but how about Adept Power, Increased Reflexes in a situation where I have Channelling? - I can use all my other skills and abilities, wouldn't this power remain active too? - Basically that question goes for all Adept powers.

Those two issues and the interpretation of them will likely decide whether I go Mystical Adept or Mage.

Posted by: Triggerz Apr 21 2008, 09:38 PM

Possession + Channeling can get really powerful really fast. As far as I can tell, the Ally would lose its ability to *manifest* on the physical plane if you give it the Possession power. However, I think it could un-possess the magician and roam the astral space like any other spirit whenever asked to, i.e. you don't need to walk around possessed 24/7. Page 105 of Street Magic says: "An ally inhabiting a vessel may not astrally project." That does not apply if your ally has Possession instead of Inhabitation. (I think the possibility of giving Possession to an Ally was added in the Street Magic errata. You might want to check the official site for that.)

As far as I can tell, yes, you could use Elemental Attack pretty much as often as you want. and if you have trained to control the power better than your Ally, I think you could use your own skill instead of the Ally's Exotic Ranged Attack.

In terms of Initiative Passes, I would rule that you don't add Increased Reflexes to the 2 IP of the Ally. Rather, you add Increased Reflexes to the basic 1 IP that the magician has and then compare the two. If you have Increased Reflexes 2, I think you should get 3 IPs, and not only 2, or 4.

As for other adept powers, I think you can use most normally. You might want to not lay the cheese too thick though, because some combos could end up game-breaking.

A quick note, just in case. [EDIT: Sorry, I hadn't read the last line of your previous post, it seems.] If you're an Adept or a Mystic Adept, you won't be able to astrally project (although your Ally could do some reckon work for you). If you are a Magician, you cannot take any Adept powers, but you could astrally project and leave your body to your Ally in the meantime. So your Ally could be on the physical plane, "driving" your body and kicking ass, while you are on the astral plane kicking ass.

Possession's awesome!

Posted by: Triggerz Apr 21 2008, 09:47 PM

I assume that possession-based traditions can only conjure Allies with Inhabitation or Possession (and not Materialization), but it's not entirely clear to me. The Street Magic errata does not seem to impose such a limitation, although page 34 of Street Magic seems to: "As such, all spirits conjured by magicians of a possession-based magical tradition replace the Materialization power in the spirits’ statistics with Possession." It could go either way based on which rule you give precedence to.

Posted by: Zak Apr 21 2008, 09:55 PM

The question here is, does this also apply for true form ally spirits. The way I read the book, it doesn't. (But then again, I'd prolly let the player in question decide)

Posted by: weblife Apr 21 2008, 10:05 PM

The way I read True Form is rather critically bad for the summoner if going for self-inhabitation. It basically means that the spirit wins completely, kills you and then gains Materialization in a form the looks like you, but is not, in any capacity.

You need either a hybrid merge or a flesh form to be "happy" and "not dead". With Channelling, either is fine, with no channelling you should go for flesh form as you will always be in the back seat giving requests that the spirit may or may not follow. IMO, bad idea.

Giving the Ally Possession instead of Inabitation might be a better idea if that is actually possible... Very flexible that one. Except, then the spirit can be kicked back to the metaplanes. If Inhabited it can only be "knocked out cold" but still in your body until you actually die.

Posted by: FrankTrollman Apr 21 2008, 10:08 PM

Channeling doesn't help if you get inhabited, you're dead either way.

-Frank

Posted by: weblife Apr 21 2008, 10:17 PM

This is what the book says, p. 95 of Street Magic: (Bold letters mine)

"...or destroyed (via Inhabitation)" OK, very bad, but then it says: —with two exceptions. A conjurer whose body is possessed by a spirit he summoned can retain some control by issuing mental commands to the spirit..." and then "Similarly, an initiate conjurer can use Channeling metamagic (p. 54) to exercise even more control when a spirit he summoned has possessed his body."

See how it says possessed with a small p, thus covering both Possession and Inhabitation.

I agree that it can go either way, but I'd like a better clarification since it specifically says that special rules apply to the summoner himself.

Posted by: Triggerz Apr 21 2008, 10:20 PM

Hmmm... I think you really should go for Possession rather than Inhabitation. Inhabitation is something you inflict on *others* rather than yourself. If you really wanna go for it though, you wouldn't be playing a witch inhabited by a spirit. You'd be playing a spirit inhabiting a witch. And as such, as Frank just pointed out, Channeling wouldn't do anything.

Posted by: Triggerz Apr 21 2008, 10:31 PM

Inhabitation destroys the mind of the vessel that is being inhabited. There is no mind of the vessel left to give orders to the spirit.

By the way, you might find something interesting if you look at page 4 of Street Magic.

Posted by: weblife Apr 21 2008, 10:48 PM

Aw shucks. Frank is one of the writers!

Hehe, alright but you could have been clearer in the description!

But I have found the SM errata with the Posession option. That is actually not too shabby either, since the character will not be dual-natured all the time and the Ally can back-door to the meta-planes when I go through barriers.

And I so like the idea of having an extra "soul" to keep my body safe if I need to go walk-about in the Astral.

Posted by: FrankTrollman Apr 22 2008, 06:42 AM

It says "possession" when it means "possession" and it says "inhabitation" when it means "inhabitation." When it talks about both of them together it talks about the "vessels" (the hosts that both possession and inhabitation use). The attempt is to always use the exact words to refer to the exact power being used. As far as I know, that was done.

In other games, there is a distinction made between capitalized game terms and lower case common English terms. Shadowrun's style guide limits that to just dice pool tests. We capitalize the dice pool being used not to distinguish it from Natural English terminology, but to help people find the appropriate die modifiers on their character sheets.

-Frank