My GM is about to start a new campaign (the last was non-shadowrun and lasted 4 years). We play most weeks for a few hours. I have played and GMed on and off for about 5 years since Shadowrun 1, and am looking forwards to playing it again.

The campaign we are to start begins in 2050, and will be fairly gritty to begin. We have 550 karma points for karmagen with attributes costing 5pts per level. We are playing people trying to get out of the Redmond barrens, without loosing our humanity. I am taken with the idea of playing a free possessing spirit, as I have been role-playing since 1983 and haven't played anything like it!

I have already browsed this forum a bit, and would appreciate the community's views on the character.

My thoughts on the free spirit are, compared to a mage that can summon and control spirits are:

* You can use your spirit powers all the time, Mages can use them whenever they want but there is monetary and sometimes physical cost to them
* You are much weaker at magic than a mage as mages can use mentor spirits, cyber/bioware, foci and can claim magical services from bound spirits. This translates into much higher die pools for mages (both drain and spellcasting), and critically mages can sustain spells without it trashing their die pools
* The Spirit powers at high force are very nice. The mage can use them too (summon and control a high force spirit), but will likely suffer high drain, and can only use them carefully.
* The spirit has immunity to normal weapons, the mage has to make do with armour, the spell armour, combat reflexes, increase attribute [reaction] and camouflage (I beleive that you cannot have more than 20die so I will stop listing nice spells sustained by foci)
* The mage has more initiative passes (increase reactions sustained by a foci or spirit is a very nice spell)
* Other Spirits are seriously dangerous to me: their attributes and skills are a lot higher

This lead to the following basis for character design:

* Maximise the number and effectiveness of spirit powers
* Get a number of low level skills, and rely on edge when it matters
* For spells, pick ones that maximise the uniqueness of the character
* Get as much dodge as possible (thats still not a lot) as immunity to normal weapons doesn't work against spirits, mages, physical-adepts

I like the idea of a lost loved one / amnesiac with flashbacks. This gives the GM lots of opportunities to provide plot hooks. It is of course insane to take flashbacks (whenever the GM wants he can disable me for D6 mins) but I think that this weakness makes the character more interesting, and I can buy the weakness off as the plot unfolds

My starting character looks like this:

Background

Former Rastafarian (inspired by character in Dark Angel "its all good") Ally Spirit who cared deeply for its mistress. Normally possesses the body of cougar called Felix. There was a fight, the ally spirit was badly damaged and was set free. I remember very little about this except for occasional flashbacks. For the last two years I have been working with a group based in the Redmond Barrens running the "CMOT" Kebab shop. There are four types of kebabs: Nutrisoy, Krill, Fungi and "Special meat of the day". I provide the special meat of the day (only guarantee is that it wasn't sentient). Rat on stick is one of our top end products, although we need to find big sticks, and its hell sticking a skewer through those armour plated rats.

Our team includes a dwarven physadept/hacker, and elven dog shaman and one other (still to be decided).

I have two main long terms goals: acquire status as a citizen with a SIN and everything, and find out what happened to my mistress.


Free Spirit
Martial arts/Manoeuvres
* Capoeira / Gymnastics dodge + 1
* Focus Will

Skills
* Spellcasting 4
* Unarmed Combat 3(claws 1)
* Perception 1(Visual)
* Assensing 1
* Astral combat 1 (Spirits)
* Outdoors group 1
* Stealth group 1
* Dodge (Ranged) 1
* Gymnastics 1

Negative Qualities
* Dayjob (The GM wants us all to take this)
* Dependent (easy)
* Lost Loved One
* Amnesia
* Flashbacks

Spirit Powers
* Concealment
* Realistic Form
* Animal Control
* Natural Weapon
* Movement or Confusion (haven't decided)
* Accident

Spirit Pact
* Friendship with the player group

Spells:
* Death touch
* Heal (me or someone I am possessing)
* Resist Pain (me or someone I am possessing)
* Mind Read (me or someone I am possessing...not for deep/dark secrets, just for surface thoughts)
* Alter memory (only someone I am possessing)
* Spirit Barrier
* Magic Fingers (so when I am possessing something without hands...)

Equipment
* Huh...equipment???

Contacts
None: I just couldn't squeeze them in. I expect to get them through play

I have a few unknown questions and assumptions about free spirits that I would appreciate feedback on. I would like to get answers to these issues before we hit them in play.
* Free spirits can provide the same services as bound spirits. Does this mean that I can buff the spell casting of our Elven Dog Shaman?
* If I possess a drone/vehicle what attributes can I buff?
* If I possess an already damaged and unconsious body:
** I am assuming that its damage track is kept separate to mine (I note that I can possess dead bodies)
** I am assuming that I take damage when it takes damage
* I assume that when I am possessing a body with a nervous system I am affected by the sideeffect of electric damage
* If the above assumption is true, When possessing a drone that shuts down because of electic damage, how should we deal with that (I assume that I would black out)
* Can I possess a bad guys weapon?, and if so can I stop it activating (unless he looks down the barrel to see whats wrong with it...)
* Can I turn off the realistic form power?
* When I possess a drone or animal how do I communicate with others? I have the friendship pact to communicate with the other players

I would appreciate feedback on my interpretation of spirits vs. mages, the build, and also on how to play and level the character.

Thanks for your reply!

Sadly free spirits are prohibited from using foci (Runner's Companion page 92 "Spirits may not bond foci"

I think this is for materialising spirits: possessing spirits need a vessel. Normally I will want to be in disguise, but I think it will be fun to occasionally start smoking: as an example possess a motor cycle and make it look like ghost rider's bike!

My main unknown though is how to handle damage. Let me give an example:

I am in a fight, and am down 2 body, 3 stun. I possess a vessel thats down 1 body, 2 stun.
During the fight that vessel takes 1 body and 1 stun
I leave the vessel and possess a second one thats down 4 body, 4 stun
How many body and stun am "I" down?

I am proposing that the way to deal with this is to have my personal body and stun, and that vessel's body as separate. Whenever the vessel looses body and stun, I loose them (so if I stay in the same vessel we are linked). However when I leave a vessel and enter a second, I don't think its body and stun matter. For example I can enter a dead body, which almost by definition has lost a lot of body, and I don't start with vast minus's on everything.

I don't think the RAW cover this (I hope I am wrong), so I am interested in other peoples thoughts.

About possession of inanimate objects: the sidebar on SM p 102 states you could increase a vehicle's Body, Armor, or Speed, since those are gross physical attributes. You're basically telekinetically manipulating the movement of the vehicle, so you don't have any access to its electronic abilities, and thus couldn't use, let alone buff, its Signal, Pilot, etc. As far as the Ghost Rider effect, the same sidebar says there's occasionally a similar effect to a shamanic mask, so as long as you keep it to a specific "theme" like smoking/glowing or a pair of illusory eyes or something. Maybe a color scheme.

You can't take Realistic Form as a posession spirit, IIRC. Mutable Form would modify your astral form, disguising you against assensing when you're not posessing a body.

The condition monitor thing I'm not sure about. Researching.

EDIT: I was wrong! Realistic Form means you appear unremarkable when joined with a vessel. And yeah, you can turn it on and off per RAW.

OK, from SM:



So given your example, you've taken 2P 3S damage, you possess an ally that's taken 1P 2S damage. While you're merged you take 1P 1S damage. So when you separate, you're at 3P 4S, the ally is at 2P 3S. You possess again (with a -4 wound penalty to your roll!) another vessel which is at 4P 4S. While you're merged you're assumed to be at 4P 4S, since that's the higher set of penalties, but if you take no further damage, you don't "take with you" that damage when you leave. So you have two CMs at a time, essentially, with both taking damage as one and the worse of the two determining penalties. Of course, since you're buffing the Body of each by your Force as you possess it, you increase survivability quite a bit, even if you're taking big penalties.

I suggest freeing up some points for a group contact of elven mages for using Friendship Pact on. Preferably ones that have a decent holding. This does two things: It does not penalize you for having some of your partymates leave/die, and it greatly increases your lifespan (for what that's worth).

EDIT: Also - it really depends on which interpretation of how to build a Free Spirit you're using to figure out how strong you'll be. It's also a good point of interest to note that while you cannot learn any skills from the Conjuring skillgroup, you can still learn Enchanting, Arcana, and Negotiations, thereby allowing you to use the Calling rules from Running Wild.

You have no positive qualities.

GET THE LUCKY QUALITY NAO.

Also Lightning Reflexes.

That is all.

Neraph's point about Calling initially strikes me as iffy for RAI (spirits calling spirits seems kind of silly) but if done right, it could be pretty interesting: a negotiation of (supposed) equals, one spirit entering into contract with another. The GM would definitely have to define calling, offering, and negotiating in somewhat different terms since it's between spirits rather than spirit and mortal, but mechanically I don't see why it couldn't work.

As for the interpretation of how to build a Free Spirit, I really hope you're making more than 400BP because otherwise you're either looking at a hideously expensive character, or a terribly broken one (if you're going by the IMO-incorrect way of setting all stats at Force for free) . However, wouldn't a Possession spirit not have its own Physical attributes, and only buy up the four Mental ones, like AIs? Maybe that would balance... Of course, how is your condition monitor determined?

EDIT: Again, I am wrong. Possession free spirits have Physical attributes which serve as the bonus added to their vessel's stats. Still, they wouldn't have to be very high to help, even all 1s and 2s improve the vessel, so that's somewhat cheaper than a Materialization spirit.

I appreciate the replys:

Firstly thanks for finding out how to deal with the damage: having a RAW answer is good.

Secondly, I realise that the stats and skills suck, but we are playing characters at about 300bp (550karma), so there aren't a lot of points left! Sadly we are not using the rules in which all attributes equal the force, instead we have to buy each attribute individually. I do think though after a couple of years of Karma we will all be a lot tougher!

I do like the idea of getting a group of mages as a contact. The friendship pact is nice as a communication hub for the players though: even though only I can talk to them, its not a bad hard to bug comms mechanism. Your point that I get (badly) burnt if they die is real, but I need a reason to hang around with those loosers...and them being my friendship pact members is very motivating.

The calling idea is very cool, and I will look into that. I don't have running wild yet, but DriveThruRpg is only a web page or two away, and its probably a good source book for lots of fun possession targets.

are all team members OK with having a free spirit magical threat as a "friend"?

Although we are starting the game, the GM has stated that we have worked as a team together for 2 years. Mostly we are running a kebab shop: but you know how it is in the Redmond Barrens; sometimes we need to do extra-curricular work.

Now one wonders where you get the food supplies when there's a spirit with posession in the mix...

<glitch> reading comprehension failure

<cackle> (IMG:style_emoticons/default/talker.gif)

Since when were free spirits magical threats?

EDIT: Or do you consider all Possession traditions magical threats?

So the kebab shop is "Cut-My-Own-Throat" (see Terry Prachett for the reference) speciality kebabs. Each day there is the "special of the day". The special is of course not from a sentient source (or so the adverts say).

How is a free spirit any more of a threat than the .03 essence away from being a cyberzombie street sam with homocidal tendencies and a penchant for ex-ex full auto shotgun runs?

Or LMG packing Flechette ammo.

Are you going to name your free spirit Dibbler?

Please do. C-M-O-T Specialty Kebabs, one Dibbler presiding over the register (or the grill, with enough ranks I hope) would greatly entertain me.

Mutable Form only affects the Materialized form. To disguise your astral form you would need Aura Masking.

/yes.

Also pbangarth, did you see what I said about Free Spirit Calling?

my Trid told me that!

I think Makki is just saying they're generally distrusted and feared, especially posession spirits, not that they are "Threat-only" like Inhabitation spirits.

Yes, I did. Seeing as I am playing a Free Spirit in my home game, I checked that out in Running Wild as soon as I read your post. There is some utility to it, but my 'spirit girl' has neither Arcana nor Enchanting at the moment, so this will have to wait either for those Skills or for a helpful contact in the future.

Trust me. You will want to have Lucky. You said you want to maximize the number and effectiveness of your spirit powers and rely on Edge where it matters skill-wise, did you not? Ok. Lucky is seriously a very good choice for that. Even if you have to get rid of most of your spells to free up enough BP/karma, it's still a better choice than those spells at such an early point in your spirit's life (cuz your drain attributes are probably gonna suck). Not only do you get an extra Edge, but you also get another point for spirit powers. And if you're so interested in having a high dodge rating, it'd be much more helpful to have Lightning Reflexes and be able to rely on an innately high Reaction (depending on what you're possessing).

EDIT: Spirit powers are the main advantage of free spirit characters anyway.