But your projection will be limited to a number of hours equal to your Magic rating.

Well, just fly there. Binding a F18 spirit isn't something you do on the spur of the moment.

But yes, per the rules it is beside the point because once you start the binding the spirit is in suspended animation or some other crap and does not disappear at sunrise/sunset. I dislike the rule for 2 reasons. I don't need F12+ spirits to be any easier to summon and 2 I kind of like the idea of AAA megacorps having north/southpole magical summoning labs for when they need to bring down the magical pain.

Woops, forgot about that. Just board a plane that flies synchronous with the earth's rotation then.

I think I'd rule that the spirit nukes your sorry ass and explains his actions with "It's sundown somewhere, baby."

Don't summon anything bigger than your head.

The funny part is that I'm actually pretty lenient about magic with my players. They can make up pretty much whatever tradition they want and I'll roll with it, for example. But I'm just not buying that a spirit's going to stick around longer because you're chasing the horizon.

You are right, the plane is a bit of rules-lawyering, but physically being in a place where the sun doesn't rise/set should work.

I am ashamed to say that this is exactly the sort of rules-lawyering that a friend and I used to bother Paul Hume with over the embryonic internet (i.e. Genie bbs) shortly after the SR1 Grimoire came out. I was very young, but it's still embarrassing to think back on. Mr. Hume was gracious enough to reply to our atrocious abuse of his magic rules in a gently diplomatic way that made us realize that we were being asshats. I look back on that exchange of messages as a turning point in my maturation as a gamer.

I realize that the OP stated clearly that this was merely a thought experiment, but given the direction of the subsequent conversation, I thought my anecdote could turn out to be germane.

Edit: I still have my original copy of the Grimoire that Mr. Hume signed at GenCon. It said, "Magic! It's better than a sharp athame in the eye." After he signed it, I had to go look up what an athame was.

I just kinda hand wave things as "roughly 12 hours," to be honest. For one thing, I think the sunset-sunrise thing doesn't necessarily make all that much sense for some traditions and regions. I guess I just don't see how people from the arctic circle hit the jackpot in terms of services as some kind of cosmic compensation for not being able to get a decent tan some parts of the year. I would think that at some point the spirits would have struck a better deal than that.

I don't know how applicable it is anymore, but in Target:Wastelands it talks about summoning spirits above the arctic circle, and that if the time and location is right to get the midnight sun, that spirits will stay around until the sun actually sets.

Coming back to OP, did some more crunching/munchkin-ing...

To have a 50/50 chance to summon a GF spirit you need double the number DP than force of Spirit you wish to summon. So, for a GF F18 spirit a 30 DP in summoning and binding gives you less than 50/50 chance, but still do-able in a few attempts. Based on the OP here is what I could do to get a 30 DP in both skills (munchkin alert):

Magic 9 + Skill 6 = 15DP

(Magic Compound, forgot the name) +2
Geomancy to someone on your team with Astral Hazing: +4 (I am making the assumption that the aspected count gives the summoner a DP bump, and does not affect the spirit, this could be debated)
Power Focus: +5 (Maybe a spirit focus instead? Would that help with drain?)
Spirit Mentor: +2
Skill Specializations: +2

30 DP for summoning/binding.

Are there any cheaper ways to bump the Summoning/Binding DPs I am overlooking?

Now what is the minimum drain DP I could get away with to summon a GF 18 spirit...

(Yes, this is over the top)

Let's also assume an edge pool of 6. He uses Edge and gains +6D6 to the summoning roll and the most important: EXPLODING DICE.

He should also use edge for drain with edge and gain exploding dice.

Since it is a F18 and a veritable force of nature in itself I would suggest using the entire edge pool for rerolls and bonus dice.

Quickie Pixie Summoner
Attributes:
Bod 1, Agil 3, Rea 4, Str 1, Cha 7, Int 4, Log 3, Will 7, Ess 6, Init 8, Pass 1, Edge 4, Magic 6
Skills:
Assensing 2, Counterspelling 3, Dodge 1 (Ranged), Infiltration 1 (Urban,) Perception 1 (Hearing,) Spellcasting 4, Summoning 6 (Man,) Binding 4 (Man.)
Positive Qualities:
Magician, Mentor Spirit (Dog or something with Spirits of Man,) Restricted Gear (Power Focus.)
Negative Qualities:
Addiction (Mild,) Allergy (Uncommon, Moderate,) Weak Immune System, Sensitive System.
Gear:
Power Focus Rating 4, Sustaining Focus Rating 3. Binding materials for force 9 spirit, 50thousandish in other gear.

Summoning Spirit of Man:
6skill+6magic+4power+2spec+2mentor = 20 dice (average 6 hits, 10 after spending edge for rerolls)

Binding SoM:
4skill+6magic+4power+2spec+2mentor = 18 dice (average 6 hits, 10 after spending edge for rerolls)

Drain:
Base = 7cha+7will = 14 (average 4 hits, 6 with rerolls.)
After you summon and bind a force 7+ spirit of man that casts Improve Attribute (Cha and Will) = 7cha+4to6+7will+4to6 = 22-24 (24 is max racial stats which gives 8 average hits, 13 with rerolls.)

When Summoning and Binding always cast Shapechange to gain +6 to body, sustain with focus. First summon will cast and sustain Improved drain attributes to aid in surviving the Binding test. Spend edge at all four steps if necessary (1 summon, 2 drain, 3 bind, 4 drain.) You only need 1 net hit on the Binding test, so you really only need to make sure you get good net hits on the Summoning test so take your time to get a good one. Possession tradition is helpful here since you can have the summoned spirit possess you for an added Body boost.

When looking at max force ratings, if you are doing this in downtime, you’ll generally be looking for scenarios where you can stage down the damage to 1 less than your physical condition monitor. It won’t matter if you take a lot of damage since you’re just looking at either success or death. So with the Shapechanged Pixie, max damage after all is said and done needs to be less than 11 since it’ll have 12 physical in whatever form it takes. If you play the averages then you can stage down 13 damage. So generally 12 hits from the spirit and you can live. Again, playing averages that means summoning a force 36 spirit, or binding a force 18. Just remember neither side will always be hitting those averages so you can still reduce yourself to a tiny, cute smear on the wall. And of course you can't summon anything more than double your magic.

Not reaaally. It's sort of.. ever play nWoD? Me either, but I flipped through the books. Think rank 3. Certainly enough to ruin the day of anyone and everything it crosses paths with, spirit stats are crazy.

Satan's waiting until the mana level gets high enough before he rocks up in his GT Firebird and starts taking names, anyway.

Burning Edge is a wonderous thing when breaking the game with conjury.

As noted, you can only Burn Edge when you are capable of carrying out the action - it makes no mention of requiring you being capable of successfully achieving the result, only that you have "hope" of doing so. Combined with the previous section of the sentence, it is (mostly) clearly refering to anything you are capable of within the rules of the game.

For example, you cannot Burn Edge for a Critical Success firing a gun beyond it's maximum range. You cannot Burn Edge for a Critical Success jumping higher than the maximum distance allowed by your Agility.

You can, however, Burn Edge for a Critical Success on any opposed test (as long as you can default on it, or have at least 1 rank, or is not linked to a skill). You can also Burn Edge to successfully (Critically) resist any ammount of damage from a single source - including Drain.


In conclusion, I can create a 400 BP character, ~10 Karma past character generation, who can successfully summon and bind a Force 30 Great Form spirit. I advise you read the rules on Nosferatu.

~30 Karma past character generation, it is a Blood spirit. And it is quite possible that Burning Edge on Drain will not be necessary (kill 6-8 people as part of the binding with Sacrificing; if I remember correctly, the trick is figuring out how to do so yourself with melee in a single Complex Action - hint: it can be done).

AFAIK Blood Spirits can only be conjured by the Twisted. Those powers are generally not available for PCs.

Again not for PCs. But with a number of unconscious or otherwise surprised victims, you could split your melee DP a couple of times. Or are you thinking about something else?

Achieving and successfully achieving are the same thing. It's a tautology.
If you achieve something, it was successful.

If you need 5 hits to achieve an action you don't have any hope to succeed unless you have at least 5 dice.

In a binary problem this is correct, but spirit summoning and drain resistance aren't such situations. There are many possibilities and degrees of success. The F18 spirit can achieve between zero and 18 hits (without Edge), so the summoner would need between one and 19 hits to successfully summon the spirit. So would he need a dice pool of 1 because of the off-chance that the spirit won't roll a single hit to be able to burn Edge for a critical success or would he need a dice pool of 19, because it is possible that the spirit will get 18 hits? Same goes for the drain resistance. Does the summoner need a dice pool large enough to completely soak the possible damage or only the actual damage, or is it enough to have a dicepool that can possibly generate enough hits to keeop him from dying, again possible or actual damage?

On success test this is quite straight-forward, but not so on resisted rolls.

You're right about that.

You could always roll the Spirit dice first and then decide if the mage has a chance at success and thus allow burning Edge.
Makes it risky enough in case the Spirit has a decent dice day.

Aren't you still limited to 2x Magic in terms of Maximum Force of the spirit?

Yes, you are.

Even if you say that, on an absurdly awesome roll by the force 18 spirit like 36 successes and it is a great form so you are soaking over 100 boxes. Is that impossible?? Nope if I were to use edge I could theoretically get over 100 exploding 6's. So when I burn edge isn't it withing the realm of possible?

Technically PCs can learn blood magic. I sure as hell wouldn't allow it, but it is not restricted from PCs.

Only if that is within the scope of the campaign and in the GM's intention:

Well yes. The difference is in previous editions it just wasn't allowed, but hey if you want to house rule things go for it. In this edition it is allowed, but like everything the GM has to let it in. They just strongly advise for a GM not to let it in. So, it is technically allowed, but I sure as hell wont let it in as a GM.