So have a player who has made a Free Spirit character. The spirit is of the Vodoo tradition and therefore has posession rather than materilization. At 400BP the resulting character on average has lower stats than any of the other toons. Yes, he does have access to some interesting powers but with the new change to stat cost the Free Spirit player is really getting smacked. To counter this, the posession track is about the only way to get a playable toon at chargen as far as I can see. I like the spirit pack work around but as the ST I can't let him do that as it would unbalance the game way to much and the other players would soon mutiny, lol.

Exactly.

For posession, he should get the 30 BP Negative Quality "In Debt", giving him an extra 30,000 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) . With that, he should go buy himself a Plassteel Homunculus. That'll give him the staying power he needs until he can raise force a little more.

Also, (if you want to) tell him about the Magical Group Contact idea and suggest the Power Pact. That way he gets a few spells for entering into Pacts with his Voodoo group (helping him out a little bit in the versatility department).

Or hell, let him get a Troll 1/6 contact that he posesses.

It may not be limited by RAW, but common sense (and a desire for balance) has caused my group to house rule that you cannot create an Ally spirit whose magic rating is higher than your own.

If using karma gen, with initiation (assumed if you are allowing ally conjuration) you could still intiation 3 times and raise your magic to 9, then start with a force 9 spirit.

One of the characters in my game just create a initiate 2 magic 8 mage with a force 8 ally spirit. The spirit is very powerful, but I am just glad the player is spending less time with his Vampire Mystic Adept with force 6 possession spirits!

If he had read this thread, that Magic 8 ally spirit would have Inhabitation and it would have long since become him. Even with your houserule of Ally Spirit's Force, you could still get extremely powerful Ally Spirits.

For example, pay the karma for your guy to have Sorcery skillgroup 1, Ranged Weapon Skill of your choice 1, and a few other skills at 1. Get your Magic to 8, get a few spell formulae (with cash), and when you sit down for your Ally Spirit's Formula, pop the 5 karma/skill for all those r1 skills of yours to become r8 for the spirit, as well as the 5 karma/spell for the ally spirit to know the spells that are on your commlink. Then get it to inhabit you.

Inhabitation cannot be channeled, so the mage would no longer have control of himself. That means the player is basically retired, now controlled by an NPC spirit.

If you choose to play it that way. Otherwise, the person retains control of a now free spirit, based off of his old character. That is the entire point of this thread; go back and read my opening post.

For example; a hermetic mage goes through the process of creating an ally spirit to inhabit himself, and the spirit's form is actually his idealized self. He forces a Hybrid Merge, so the spirit retains fragments of his memories (but does not gain his knowledge skills). For all intents and purposes, that ally spirit (now a free spirit) has some of his memories, and his entire personality. The only reason you wouldn't allow this is because you don't want to.

No, I wouldn't allow it because no matter how you cut it, the Spirit is a NPC and is not the Mage in question, it's the same reason that I wouldn't allow a character burn his personity onto a BTL personafix and then play an army of "himself".

Ok, so you choose not to allow it. That doesn't mean that someone else won't allow it. This is an extremely clever idea, and I would allow it, so long as a hybrid or flesh form (especially a flesh form merge) is obtained.

It would definitely be a powergaming houserule.
Why not play a free spirit to begin with?

Edit: You could go for a 600BP build or more, since you're going for a high-powered game.

This is not meant for chargen, although you can pull it off if you use karmagen. And, if you read the actual OP, you'll see that the rules for making free spirits suck ***. Seriously, in order to get all the things a summoned spirit gets, you'd be a Force 2.5 character, but you would only have 2 Spirit Points worth of spirit powers, which is almost useless (compared to an actual spirit).

Yes, that is true. It's mostly because they tried to keep the resulting PCs somewhat balanced with other metatypes. If you want a higher-powered game, you have to change some things. Upping the BPs (throw in some Karma) to get to the wanted level seemed like the simplest way to go.

What you've done is allow the player to play an NPC that has been made without any BP (or Karma) limits - the Spirit. Removing the limits can be fun, though often players end up lacking any long-term goals.

Just make sure everyone around the table has their own über character to go with that Spirit and you're in for a (un)healthy amount of carnage (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Edit: Similarly, you could switch to playing Harlequin or a Dragon (IMG:style_emoticons/default/cyber.gif)

So tell me, would you allow someone to play an army of personafixed "clones" that was custom made for him?

Actually, no, the main point of the thread was an Ally Spirit, which costs a lot of karma. The one I'm currently testing cost me 109 karma, and that's not including the Initiation.

One at a time, and as long as they had the Escaped Clone positive quality.

Or; the player paid out the cash to get full body clones of himself and trained them. Seeing as how a new clone would still have the mentality of a child, they would either require Personafixes to function or a Stirrup Interface with a Pilot program with the Personality Interface (last option prolly works better).

But yes, if he figures out how to accomplish it in the rules, there is no reason that I should disallow it.

EDIT: Another way of saying that is this: it is a sign of a bad GM when you disallow something that is within the ruleset, simply because the GM feels threatened by a more clever player.

Why not? You can summon PER RAW a Spirit whose Force / Magic is up to 2x your Magic attribute.

I like your appeals to 'common sense' & 'a desire for balance'. Nice subtle slam against everyone who doesn't see it your way as lacking in such faculties.

You're last line seems a little like an invitation to a flamethrower war, and due to the Geneva Conventions considering humane warefare, I think you should weigh your comments a little more carefully.

That being said, I agree. The common sense part was a little insulting (and not really common sense at all; you of course can over-summon spirits, and Ally Spirits are simply a different type of spirit), but I do understand the 'desire for balance'.


EDIT: It should also be noted that an "out of the box" Insect Shaman can use this technique, albeit only using a normal summoned spirit, not an Ally. But, if the shaman summons, say, a Soldier or Nymph spirit, it actually works out fairly well.

Granted. But the Karma used for an Ally that you can't directly control (and that has other player limitations as well) is totally disproportional to building a like character from scratch, like you said yourself when you compared it to building a Free Spirit.

I'm just gonna say this once more as clearly as I can, and then drop it. Killing yourself by getting Inhabited and then playing the next entity in your body is not within the rules. In fact, it goes directly against RAW, which state "During merging, the vessel's original spirit is consumed and for all intents and purposes that character is essentially lost" (Street Magic p.100). I don't really see how this is open to interpretation.

You can still play it that way, of course, and if everyone around the table enjoys themselves after the rules change, I'm happy for you.

Please quote things in their entirety. I understand why you would not like to, as it directly disagrees with your views. You left out the important part:



Also, I refer you to Flesh Form merges:



Although a hybrid merge is the most desireable, as you can still use DNI.

The GM can, as always, change any rule as they wish. I didn't think it necessary to include that in my quote. I see it as a possibility for a story, not so much as an rules alternative, but I can see how that is open to interpretation. I'm still standing by what I said (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

As to the sidebar, I don't see how it's relevant. The resulting entity is the Spirit (or a new entity created in the merge, if you want to see it that way), which ate and digested the mage's memories.

If you create an Ally and have it Inhabit your worst enemy, the resulting merge would still be loyal to you, because it's the spirit and not the (now dead) enemy. It would only have the host's memory of hating you.

I'm not trying to be difficult. I hope this didn't come out too pushy (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Neraph so tell me, why have you choosen to disallow a character's clever plan of playing an army of "himself" via P-Fixs? I never said anything about using wimps either, just BTL Grade P-Fixes.

Tell me where I said I wouldn't allow it.


I said it's fine, and I gave some examples of how it would be accomplished. Now, if he just wanted people p-fixed to himself, he couldn't start with it, as there is no pricetag for people in the book. There is one for wimps, though. And as soon as he entered game, figured out a way to detain people, and equipped them with the proper gear, then yes, it would be possible and I would not disallow it.

That does not mean, however, that the 'Star might allow it. Or the people's families may put a 'run out on the p-fixer. Those are not angry GM taking it out in game for a character's cleverness. That is simply using a player's roleplay/in game actions to determine likeable outcomes and provide further gaming.

So tell me, which statement reflects your posistion, will you artifically enforce a "one at a time" rule or would you let the character control multiple P-Fixes at the same time?

Um, if you read the rest of my two posts, I actually do say how it is possible to play more than one person at a time. You seem to be only reading what you want to read.

EDIT: And in any event, the possibility of playing an army of p-fixed clones does not in any way prevent someone from using an Inhabitation Ally Spirit to Lich King himself.

No, in one post you said that you'd allow them to play one character at a time and in the other you left the possiblity of playing more than one character at a time I was asking which one you are prepared to stand by.


And the two situations are closely connected as they both involved allowing a player to control a NPC.

Neraph, I think Ravor is actually trying to guide you towards a sort of philosophical question; what is the player? Is it the character's mind, or the character's soul? Perhaps his assertion is that "if the player assumes the role of the character's mind, and the character inserts his mind into multiple bodies, the player should have control over each of those bodies." However, I suspect he's playing Devil's Advocate; perhaps the point he's REALLY trying to make is "it's ridiculous to think you could play more than one person using P-fix chips because, even if they all have the same mind, you [the player] are only playing as your one unique character. If that character's soul is obliterated, what have you got left? Sure a lenient GM could let you play as the spirit who took over your body, but then again, a lenient GM could let you play as Lofwyr and destroy Tokyo. Obliterating your own soul simply doesn't make any sense."

Now, Ravor, I apologize deeply if I misrepresented your point of view. I just thought I might understand where you were going with your comment.