OK, I'm ready to bind a force 12 spirit., Now how do we kill it if it goes free? Options

[Ravor]

crizh it isn't but a ( Force 12 ) Spirit that doesn't simply kill it's summoner outright has plently of ways to get the offending mage to think about her team.

[Tarantula]

Except, why does the spirit give a damn? He isn't going to be the one being summoned. So why should he bother trying to stop it?

[Jaid]

I disagree Jaid, the stories of a ( Force 12 ) Spirit wiping out everyone who works with any mage foolish enough to try to summon it will help ensure that the next mage who tells his team that he is going to try to summon a ( Force 12 ) Godling gets enlighted to the dangers of doing so thanks to a Predator IV and the new hole in his head. And the Spirit is smart enough to realize it.

As for the mental link being broken when the spirit becomes uncontroled/free, hmm, perhaps, although that isn't the way I play it, RAW seems cloudy on the issue unless I've missed something.

right. because we all know that your average street samurai can tell the difference when the team mage starts babbling on about summoning and binding a powerful spirit, and can tell exactly how strong the spirit is going to be just by listening to what the magician says. i mean, really, what street samurai *doesn't* have magic background skills at rating 6 (or higher!) [/sarcasm]

the group evidently ditched the magician and told him he's on his own. going after the magician's associates is not going to make them want to kill the mage (given he's a powerful mage and an extremely useful person to have around), it's going to make them want to be at a place where they know they can ambush the spirit if it gets out of control. like, oh, i don't know, how about the place the spirit is summoned? it's not like magicians who are even capable of *trying* to bind force 12 spirits grow on trees and can be readily replaced you know. someone who actually expects to have some chance of binding a force 12 spirit? that's rare. you don't just put out an ad in the paper for that. this person is probably one of the top conjurers in the world. they are not replaceable. so given a choice between not getting involved (and apparently being hunted down for their non-involvement) or getting involved (and getting to be the ambusher instead of the ambushee) or killing their irreplaceable magician and permanently tarnishing their reputation in the shadows, which one do you think they're going to choose?

there are too many ways someone could act, unless you know them, how are you going to guess which one? the spirit doesn't know these people, it doesn't know the people who are associates of the next magician who might try to bind a force 12 spirit, it's not going to just assume that people will take a certain course of action when that isn't something that can even be known.

[crizh]

crizh it isn't but a ( Force 12 ) Spirit that doesn't simply kill it's summoner outright has plently of ways to get the offending mage to think about her team.

And?

So?

What?

I reiterate, mental link not Mind Probe.

It could torture the Mage, if it had the relevant skill, and force her to Telepathically reveal information.

Of course she could just speak and no mental link would be required.....

I'm not sure how many GM's allow Intimidation to affect PC's.

[Shiloh]

Well, this has devolved into arguing about something regarding which there is no data.

We do not know what the Spirit being summoned is.

We therefore do not know what its motivations might be.

We do not know what the relationship between the Runners and the Conjuror is.

So we can't really discuss what the extremely powerful, extremely clever being is going to want to do.

I can conceive of Spirits that would hunt down everyone the Mage cared for as revenge on the Mage, regardless of any self-preservation considerations. I don't know what the Conjuror is trying to summon, so I can't argue for it. But if the others in the team don't know either, they might assume the worst. She might have gone Toxic and be about to call up something that will wreak havoc in the metro area. How are they to know?

An uncontrolled Spirit might even leave the Mage alive: if Spirits *are* Mage-created manifestations of Astral "stuf" then this Spirit will cease to exist if its summoner dies and it returns to the Astral. There might be a strong need to continue existing. But I'd say the Mage was obviously suicidal, so perhaps that might not pertain.

[kzt]

A Spirit can go where its Summoner is but the Summoner must expend a service. Can't think why I'd do that, can you?

No, the "service" is to make it do something it doesn't want to do (and it's a game balance mechanic). It's perfectly capable of doing all the things that "require expending a service" at any time it feels like it. Being really, really angry and wanting to make an abstract painting using your brains as paint is a pretty good reason it might feel like it.

[The Jopp]

Whenever a spirit is becoming uncontrolled i would roll a dice because there is nothing that says that uncontrolled spirits becomes violent…

How do we know that the spirit doesn’t WANT to be summoned?
How do we know that the spirit dislike the mage regardless?
How do we know the spirit is violent to begin with?

I can see several instances where the very command to hurt someone might be anathema to a spirit but they have to follow order.

The spirit might just pat him on the head and say “To-De-Loo� and leave.

The WORST case scenario would more likely be if the mage have been abusive repeatedly towards spirit so that he has a reputation among them.

[WeaverMount]

Whenever a spirit is becoming uncontrolled i would roll a dice because there is nothing that says that uncontrolled spirits becomes violent…

By RAW

Most uncontrolled spirits will attack the
magician who attempted to bind it, attempting
to kill him. This is especially true of higher
force spirits

For referance here is the whole side bar

[ Spoiler ]

Most spirits resent attempts to bind them,
as it turns the relationship between magician
and spirit from a short-term contract between
equals (or near equals) to a forced servitude
for an extended period of time. (Some prospirit
groups even go so far as to claim that
binding a spirit is the equivalent to enslaving
a sentient being.) A bound spirit can be
forced to harm itself to further the magician’s
ends—something no living being willingly suffers.
Binding spirits, then, has a far higher
potential for things turning nasty than simple
summoning does—especially if the spirit becomes
uncontrolled.
Spirits go uncontrolled under two circumstances:
if the magician is knocked out from
Drain during the Binding Test, or if she rolls
a critical glitch on that test. An uncontrolled
spirit owes no services to the magician (the
connection between them is severed) and is
free to act as it wishes within the limits of
its power.
Most uncontrolled spirits will attack the
magician who attempted to bind it, attempting
to kill him. This is especially true of higher
force spirits, who take the binding attempt
as a personal insult. A spirit with a Force
less than half the magician’s Magic attribute
will simply fl ee, unless someone attempts
to prevent it from doing so. All other spirits
will attack the magician, hoping to kill him in
a moment of weakness and so prevent him
from attempting to bind them again. If the
magician is already dead (or dying of physical
wounds), an enraged spirit may even go
on a rampage, attacking the nearest living
beings—especially if they seem to be allies of
the magician.
An uncontrolled spirit may be successfully
brought back under control (but not bound)
with a Summoning Test.

[ Spoiler ]

[Tarantula]

So what I said was totally RAW. Go kill the mage, and possibly anything else alive in the area, but not hunt down the mages team and kill them, even though they were miles away and had nothing to do with it.

[Skip]

Yes ... but if the spirit goes free .... well if I were GMing something like that, I'd say that the spirit has a good chance of figuring out who help the mage and making them pay. Your game may be different, but a force 12 spirit is not something to be triffled with IMHO.

[Jaid]

so what you're saying is, you're in favor of arbitrarily killing off the rest of the team because one player decided to try and do something dangerous on his own? remind me to never play in a game you GM for.

[darthmord]

Heh, if I was summoning a Force 12 Spirit and going to Bind it, you had better believe I'm going to have my odds stacked so heavily in my favor that failure will basically only occur on a glitch/critical glitch.

But the spirits through the various editions have generally reserved their ire toward the foolish mages trying to summon them. The only time there would be collateral damage would be if the mage's friends tried to intervene.

But for some pointers on how to do this sort of stuff, read up on the Ally threads. One had gotten to the point where you could have a Force 24 or 32 Ally spirit.

[Skip]

so what you're saying is, you're in favor of arbitrarily killing off the rest of the team because one player decided to try and do something dangerous on his own? remind me to never play in a game you GM for.

No, I said the spirt would be mad at anyone that helped the mage when he tried to bind the spirit. So if you did a few runs with the guy, you'd probably be off the hook. If you helped him gather materials for the summoning, then took off, yeah, I think the spirit would hold you culpable. Mind you, the mage is geeked either way; the other people are targets only if the spirit goes free. If it returns to the metaplanes then the others are off the hook.

If this is one lone mage with a bad idea, have the GM tell him or her "No!" If they insist, let them kill themself, and let the other runners loudly disavow ever knowing the mage - that was an option I suggested after all.

[Jaid]

ah. so then you're saying that the spirit is in fact omniscient, and can instantly wrest from the very universe the names of all those who in some way participated in it's binding no matter how indirectly, or when they did it, or what part they played. yup, still don't want to play in a game where you're the GM. by your logic, people with the enchanting skill should be randomly assaulted by high force free spirits on a regular basis, just because they were in some way involved with the process that led to a mage attempting to bind that spirit.

[kzt]

It's twice as bright as a bright human, and at least 50% smarter more than the smartest human that has ever lived. Ever deal with someone who is always one step ahead of you? This would worse than that. It's really smart, really hard to kill and really powerful. It's not to be trifled with.

[Tarantula]

It's twice as bright as a bright human, and at least 50% smarter more than the smartest human that has ever lived. Ever deal with someone who is always one step ahead of you? This would worse than that. It's really smart, really hard to kill and really powerful. It's not to be trifled with.

Except, how is it supposed to know who enchanted the binding materials? Why would it go after the landlord who rented the warehouse space for him to use to summon it in? Would it go after the people who built the building too? What about the mage's parents, if they didn't have the mage as a kid, it wouldn't have tried to bind him. And so on.


The spirit does not know anything about our world when its summoned into it. It can probably some things out pretty quick, but how is it going to track who the mage bought the binding materials from? It can't use the computer, and has no idea how. So, it can a) torture the mage for info and hope its right. Or b) just kill the bastard and go on doing what he wants to do. I've yet to hear a good reason as to how and why a spirit could go after teamates etc.

[Ravor]

Simple, it did not want to be summoned and wants to make sure that the fates of anyone connected to the foolish mage are only spoken of in hushed whispers. Never said it was the most likely possiblity, but it is one that the rest of the team damn well should be considering when their mage starts talking about summoning Godlings.

[Tarantula]

Simple, it did not want to be summoned and wants to make sure that the fates of anyone connected to the foolish mage are only spoken of in hushed whispers. Never said it was the most likely possiblity, but it is one that the rest of the team damn well should be considering when their mage starts talking about summoning Godlings.

Anyone connected eh? So, yes, family, landlord, enchanter, shadowrunning team, fixers, contacts, and so on? And how again is it supposed to find all this out? It can't use a computer, and unless it has mind probe as a spell, I rather doubt the mage would tell it.

[Dumori]

It's twice as bright as a bright human, and at least 50% smarter more than the smartest human that has ever lived. Ever deal with someone who is always one step ahead of you? This would worse than that. It's really smart, really hard to kill and really powerful. It's not to be trifled with.

Really 50% smarter than the brightest human? raicelmax of 8 (exceptional attribute and gen-mod) then adept powers or cerible boosters and a augmented max of 12 so its as smart as a very smart human adept. The adpet only needs to by magic 2 (with the bio wear) as well. So if I made that runner I could know every thing on earth just by existing or thinking about it???

[Ravor]

Depends on how far the spiriit wanted to go, but yes, that is a possibility, although family, friends, and teammates should have the most to worry about.

As for how the spirit finds stuff out, probably the same way that a Great Dragon would figure these things out with the added bonus of being able to use the search power to track you down, either this Godling is an ancient being who has the wisdom of the ages or it is a living mana field created from the mage's own mind.

[Tarantula]

Depends on how far the spiriit wanted to go, but yes, that is a possibility, although family, friends, and teammates should have the most to worry about.

As for how the spirit finds stuff out, probably the same way that a Great Dragon would figure these things out with the added bonus of being able to use the search power to track you down, either this Godling is an ancient being who has the wisdom of the ages or it is a living mana field created from the mage's own mind.

Not all spirits have search.

Great dragons have contacts, and resources in this world. The spirit wouldn't. No access to computers, no minions or underlings who do what it says, hell, it doesn't even know what the matrix is. It doesn't have the wisdom of the ages, just a 12 rating in the attribute. It wouldn't know how to ask someone to find something, and if the mage didn't give up any names, what the hell would it have to go on?

Even with search, it needs to have seen the people before. So that won't work, considering it can't user a computer to pull up a picture of them. Again, HOW would it go about tracking all these people down, much less finding out who they are?

[Dumori]

If it just the stats then can I play that human computer in you games? You know his high stats mean he can just know things with out doing any leg work and such. Sorry but I just don't get how a force 12 spirit can magically know all it needs. Sure it can work things out but its no godling Harlequin is well over 60 magic he likely has stronger spirits than force 12. Great dragons don't just go "hum... some runner screwed me over who where they?" then suddenly know what they look like. They study thing at the place where they where screwed over then ask people how know more about stuff to tell them what things mean. Then put the pices together. Now how will a spirit do that quickly? Or with out ringing some bells. The runner will using there much better world knowledge hire a team of mages to cast mana static at it while a spotter/sniper has a gun readly to blow it to bits as soon as its weakened. Plus a rampaging spirit will get other people after it if it goes on to kill people slightly linked I will leave on hell of a trail. Likely it will get put down by Lonestar mages before it finds the runners. If not it will kill them and well then bigger powers will go after it after all that their job.

[Skip]

Not all spirits have search.

Great dragons have contacts, and resources in this world. The spirit wouldn't. No access to computers, no minions or underlings who do what it says, hell, it doesn't even know what the matrix is. It doesn't have the wisdom of the ages, just a 12 rating in the attribute. It wouldn't know how to ask someone to find something, and if the mage didn't give up any names, what the hell would it have to go on?

Even with search, it needs to have seen the people before. So that won't work, considering it can't user a computer to pull up a picture of them. Again, HOW would it go about tracking all these people down, much less finding out who they are?

As a free spirit, it would have the ability to interact with the world. Gather resources, find people and things, and hunt the people it holds responsible down slowly - just like a dragon or corp would. I'm not saying it happens every time. I'm not saying every spirit that breaks his binding becomes a free spirit. I am saying, as a GM, if my players want the big rewards, they need to be able to handle the risks. Besides, having a recuring bad guy with obtuse motives is such a great hook. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/devil.gif)

[Dumori]

True but killing the party cos one player was silly is not fair nor is it sensible that it would maigicly kill them in a week. sure over time it might hunt them down or it might find something else to do and whsi to thank its summomor of bringing it to the world.

Uncontrolled it would be violent but as a free spirit its out look could change.

[crizh]

True but killing the party cos one player was silly is not fair nor is it sensible that it would maigicly kill them in a week. sure over time it might hunt them down or it might find something else to do and whsi to thank its summomor of bringing it to the world.

Uncontrolled it would be violent but as a free spirit its out look could change.

[tongue in cheek]

Stop feeding the Troll, you've got work to do!

Back to GM'ing, mush, mush...

[/tongue in cheek]